Volume 109, Issue 17

The SpectatHER The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 109 No. 17

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Matt Melucci/ The Spectator

stuyspec.com

THE PIONEERS

The Original 13 / Photo Courtesy of the Indicator

ALICE de RIVERA

DR. EVELYN HORN

KATHY PARKS

By TALIA KAHAN

By AHMED HUSSEIN

By CLARA SHAPIRO

Alice de Rivera made headlines in the spring of 1969 for spearheading a case against Stuyvesant High School. At that time, Stuyvesant was all-boys and did not admit girls, even if they scored above the cut-off on the SHSAT. De Rivera sued the Board of Education (BOE) on the basis that the maintenance of a public all-boys school was not in compliance with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

But before this all occurred, de Rivera attended John Jay High School. Her experience there was unusual: the teachers went on strike for a large portion of the school year (consequently, students were not in attendance for weeks at a time), and once they returned from their strike, the schedule had to be changed to make sure that all the material would be taught on time.

She initiated the case during the fall of her freshman year at John Jay, and it was not resolved until the spring of that same year. In some senses, de Rivera was disappointed with the result of the trial because the BOE voluntarily repealed Stuyvesant’s sex restriction. This prevented the case from creating an important precedent. Unfortunately, de Rivera was never able to attend Stuyvesant because her family moved to upstate New York at the start of her sophomore year.

Today, de Rivera is a practicing doctor at a free clinic in Lewiston, Maine. She finds this work very meaningful because she is able to form relationships with each of her patients.

Fifty years ago, Dr. Evelyn Horn (’72) was faced with a dilemma. She had just been accepted to the Bronx High School of Science but also had the opportunity to go to a bigger and better school: Stuyvesant. Dr. Horn decided to challenge herself by entering Stuyvesant as a sophomore in the fall of 1969.

As one of the 13 female students, Dr. Horn struggled at first with teachers who “were used to only having guys in their classes [and walked] around in a T-shirt and shorts, cracking lewd jokes,” she recalled. Nonetheless, Dr. Horn eventually adjusted to Stuyvesant when she discovered her passion for math.

Interestingly, she found that most of the spectacular math teachers were women, all of whom were role models for her.

What really struck her, though, was the level of achievement her peers attained in her English classes, and she realized that “these students were also spectacular non-math students as well,” she said.

“This is something I have noticed with current students, and this phenomenon seems to have been ingrained in the Stuyvesant community for decades.”

Despite Stuyvesant’s reputation for being cut-throat, Dr. Horn received constant support from her peers. She advised, “Work hard and make sure you still find the things you love to do”—and challenge the precedent that society has set for girls. Indeed, one of the most important lessons Stuyvesant taught her is perseverance. She learned not to let male-dominated fields intimidate her.

She is a cardiologist now (a field largely dominated by men), and after going to a school with just 13 girls for a year, she was not afraid to challenge the status quo again.

It was 1969, the year of Woodstock and Apollo 13, when Kathy Parks (’72) first came to Stuyvesant along with 12 other New York City girls.

“We knew we were smart girls and deserved to go there,” Parks recounted. But in a school then saturated with sexism, many found the idea of a girl deserving to go to a school like Stuyvesant laughable. “Many teachers, especially the older men, made it clear they didn’t think that girls belonged at Stuyvesant. For instance, one of my biology teachers said, referring to the groin area, ‘Your body is sensitive to hot and cold. If you put hot water on your body and then cold water, you can see the difference. Except for women. You, Ms. Parks, won’t be able to do that experiment,’” Parks recalled. “I was the only girl in that class. That was one of my most humiliating moments.”

This teacher was not the only person resentful that Stuyvesant’s all-male glory days had come to a close. Parks recounts packs of boys crowding at windows to hoot and ogle at a nearby female. “I would see boys hoisting themselves up to look through these little rectangular windows in the staircases and hallways. They’d look through and they’d say, ‘Oh look, there goes one of them,’” Parks said.

Growing up a “tomboy” in Stuy Town, Parks had been conditioned from a young age to ignore these gender-based slights. “It never bothered me to be the only girl among boys, or only woman among men,” she said. “The first time I experienced that was when I was seven years old. I used to play baseball in a park, at the diamond right nearby. My older brother went to Little League. I was a pretty good baseball player, too, so I thought I would go to play Little League with my brother. But when I got there, they said, ‘Little girls don’t play Little League.’ I said, ‘I don’t understand why not. I’m a better ball player than my brother!’ In the end, I got to go and watch, but I couldn’t hide my resentment. Still, I made sure I was always there.”

Parks’s rebellion against the gender stereotypes of the athletic world continued during her years at Stuyvesant. “The football coach— he made it clear he didn’t think girls belonged at Stuyvesant. So I used to go to football games just to watch him squirm,” Parks recalled, chuckling.

But not every teacher at Stuyvesant was a staunch defender of sexism. Fifty years later, Parks can still rattle off a list of her most beloved teachers: “I adored Mr. Kane, my biology teacher, and my English teacher, Mr. Frank McCourt. His brother, Malachy, used to come into the class quite a bit. He was a radio talk show personality. Then there was Mr. [Sterling] Jensen—he was the drama teacher. And Mrs. Mertz, our homeroom teacher,” she said.

These teachers supported Parks and her friends up to the day Parks remembers feeling the proudest: graduation day. “I felt like we had exerted our rights as women to show that we were every bit as capable as the men,” she said. “We had to be better and smarter than all the boys, because it’s still a man’s world. It’s true for women back in 1969, and it’s true for women in 2019.”

But Parks stands as a testament to women’s ability to thrive in an environment set against them. “Be so good that you figuratively kick their butts at everything,” she said. “Do the best you can and don’t let anyone intimidate you.”

July 1848 The first women’s rights convention organized by women is held in New York.

December 1869 Wyoming gives women the right to vote and hold office.

DR. PAULA MARCUS

By BRIAN ZHANG

During her time at Stuyvesant, Dr. Paula Marcus (’72) described herself as being a radical activist in a time of immense political change. She argued against the Vietnam War and was an active participant of the women’s movement in New York City—a series of campaigns that demanded reform on women’s social rights - even managing to discover a group of peers at Stuyvesant that supported similar ambitions. Unfortunately, as a conservative institution, Stuyvesant did not approve of such political activity coming from a female student; Dr. Marcus received her fair share of “‘[You] must not do this’” and “meetings at the principal’s office,” she said.

But it was more of the subtle comments that “made her feel very out of place at times,” she described. For instance, she still vividly recalls the moment that her math teacher asked her—the only girl in the class—to straighten his desk because in his eyes, such tasks would train her to be an adequate housewife in the future. Dr. Marcus, though extremely upset, chose not to cause a scene by arguing; instead, she took a more indirect approach to advocate for her beliefs, such as disproving stereotypes that girls should have little say in the education system by having the Board of Education accept an academic curriculum that she had helped to design.

Following graduation, Dr. Marcus continued to focus on her political pursuits at Antioch University and ultimately became an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Montefiore Medical Center. “Just have fun,” she advised. “You all work very hard, but remember to de-stress. Sometimes, due to the challenges that we face, we forget all that life has to offer us.”

1872 Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first female presidential candidate in the United States, nominated by the National Radical Reformers.

1890 Wisconsin becomes the first state in the U.S. to allow women the right to vote.

1903 Marie Curie becomes the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

The SpectatHER Celebrating 50 Years SUZANNE ROSE SHAPIRO

THE PIONEERS (cont’d.)

RUTH HABER

By TALIA KAHAN

By JACQUELINE THOM

Susanne Rose Shapiro (’73) entered Stuyvesant in the fall of 1969. A majority of Stuyvesant students then were Jewish, many of them coming from yeshivas.

As a result, Hebrew was offered as a language course. This was convenient for Shapiro, since as a child she attended weekly Hebrew school sessions.

Interestingly enough, when Shapirot’s father was a student, DeWitt Clinton High School was Stuyvesant’s biggest rival. Her father had attended DeWitt Clinton, so when Shapiro’s brother decided to go to Stuyvesant due to its convenient location and high academic caliber, a friendly family rivalry was brewing.

In the spring of 1968, Stuyvesant had admitted the first class of girls to enter in the fall of 1969.

Among the 13 women, 10 were rising sophomores and only three, Shapiro included, were rising freshmen. “I felt a little umbrage in the idea that just because I happened to be born a female, things were not available to me. That seemed kind of weird. I understood that if I didn’t pass the test or something like that—I totally got that part. But I didn’t understand why my gender would interfere with my ability to do things,” she said.

Shapiro faced a variety of responses to being a girl at Stuyvesant. Some of her male classmates made fun of her for being flatchested and not dressing in a stereotypically feminine manner. But she was vindicated by the fact that those classmates did not do very well academically and were no longer in her classes. Shapiro also felt teachers’ attitudes toward her.

“I felt a little bit like if you didn’t do well, it was because girls were stupid, and if you did do well, it was because they were favoring you,” she explained. Many more girls came to Stuyvesant at the beginning of her sophomore year, which relieved her of the pressure of being one of three girls in a class of more than 800 students.

Despite these negative experiences, Shapiro was extremely successful at Stuyvesant. She was the first girl to ever win a National Merit Scholarship, became one of the first female Editorin-Chief (EIC) of The Spectator, and was involved in the StudentFaculty Show, the predecessor of SING!. “In other schools, there are ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups,’ and you get to Stuyvesant, and you’re never in the out. No matter how weird or strange someone is, there is probably somebody weirder or stranger than that person,” Shapiro described. She felt very at-home and accepted within her extracurriculars, especially in The Spectator. “I could always go down to The Spectator office and eat my lunch there, and there would be a whole crowd of people. I think that sense of belonging—that sense of camaraderie—was really important to me,” she said.

After graduating from Stuyvesant, Shapiro has had four different careers; she has worked in cable television, film, politics (the City Council), and fundraising. This wide range of careers has taught her that “you can’t have tunnel vision like, ‘I need to get into an Ivy League school and become a lawyer or a doctor,’” she said. “You don’t know what’s coming. The whole digital revolution—no one could have predicted that when I was in school. You need to have an education that gives you the most flexibility rather than worrying about where you get into.”

“Oh look, there’s one,” male students sometimes said when they saw one of only a handful of female students at Stuyvesant in 1969. Ruth Haber (’72) was part of that 13-person handful. She enthusiastically accepted the Department of Education’s invitation to join the then all-male student body at Stuyvesant as a rising sophomore and, 50 years later, reflects fondly on her pioneering experience there.

Surprisingly enough, Haber did not come across any boys who found issue with her or the other girls’ enrollment. Instead, it was the older male faculty who often looked down on them. “The principal was absolutely mortified,” Haber recalled with a chuckle. While supporters of gender integration in the specialized high schools argued that it would enhance education as a whole, critics claimed that the co-ed system would “bring down the quality of the school.”

Despite such claims, the courses offered in Stuyvesant at the time didn’t change to accommodate the girls when they entered. The girls did not have physical education for a year (no one really wanted it, anyway) and Haber was the only girl in her Spanish and biology classes for a semester, and what was expected of her as a student was the same as that expected of her male classmates. The biggest issue? The only girls’ bathroom available, which was hastily converted from a boys’ restroom, was on the top floor.

Many of the original 13 have moved on to become enormously successful. Haber had not considered law as a career option during her time in high school and was not interested in pursuing STEM. It was only during college that Haber decided to seek a law degree at Hofstra University School of Law, graduating only seven years after her time at Stuyvesant.

Coincidentally, the same year that Haber entered Stuyvesant (1969), numerous groundbreaking events took place. Besides the Alice de Rivera case that launched Stuyvesant’s gender integration, Apollo 13 was launched, the infamous Woodstock Festival took place in upstate New York, and the Stonewall Inn riots devastated Greenwich Village.

The latter events did not directly impact Haber, but having grown up in a time of drastic social change, it is no wonder that Haber is as passionate about female empowerment as she is. Prior to the late 1960s and 1970s there were very few movements that sought to highlight the plight of women. Many were still very much invested in being “the perfect housewife.” But this expectation only further pushed Haber to embrace the opportunity to advocate for her gender.

Law, like many other fields, is extremely competitive and harsh. Haber, a successful lawyer with a tremendous amount of experience behind her, credits the ambitious nature of Stuyvesant for teaching her to adapt to challenging situations. This was especially applicable to the beginning of her career as a lawyer, a time when female attorneys did not have as much of a voice as they do now.

Drawing inspiration from her progressive law school, where nearly half the students were female, and contrastingly, the gender divide Haber saw in the activities of those around her, Haber has been using her experience as both a lawyer in the court system and a lawyer in private practice to push for growth in gender equality, especially in the workplace.

As for her thoughts on how far society has come in addressing gender inequalities since her time at Stuyvesant, Haber unhesitatingly responded, “Society has progressed, but unfortunately, not enough. Hopefully we’ll be given even more opportunities to have women’s voices heard and to empower them.”

April 1917 Jeanette Rankin of Montana becomes the first Congresswoman.

LAREN LYNN

By SUNAN TAJWAR Laren Lynn (’73) grew up with a talent and passion for dancing and attended the American Ballet Academy from a young age and throughout high school. The geographical convenience of the academy to Stuyvesant pushed her to attend. Upon enrollment and through her first year of classes as a sophomore, Lynn says she “never really thought twice about having so few women in [her] class, having two older brothers at the school.”

In addition to dance, Lynn found a passion in math and science. She continues to do summer research in the fields of biology and zoology, her college major.

Her favorite teacher at Stuyvesant High School was author Frank McCourt, her senior English and homeroom teacher. In a way, McCourt made his students “feel like people,” Lynn said.

During her time at Stuyvesant, Lynn recalls that she was called out for not representing her gender well by wearing pants, and how it was at times hard to be the only girl in some of her classes with a shy personality. “It was intimidating at first, but it prepared me for the future and pushed me to levels of strength I never thought I could achieve,” she said. She admits that she had had her fair share of long nights of homework and studying like students do today.

Among the wide variety of opportunities Stuyvesant presented her with, such as drafting and woodworking, Lynn’s most gratifying moment at Stuyvesant was graduation. “By my senior year, realizing that I had gotten through it was gratifying,” Lynn said. “Mr. McCourt’s class was especially helpful in realizing that gratification and acted as a window to realizing a level of maturity to understand what we had achieved.” Lynn also appreciated the fact that going to Stuyvesant allowed her and others to feel like they were a part of history. “It was a pretty tumultuous time with the women’s movement and the Vietnam War. Women’s roles were changing. There was a challenge to authority and the status quo to what you grew up expecting,” she explained.

Fifty years later, Lynn still believes that her time at Stuyvesant has constantly affected her work and craft. “Stuyvesant certainly showed me how to work and solve problems. It made me stronger in terms of being able to persevere. It also informed me about the ways I teach dance [at the University of Maine],” she elaborated.

“I try to tune into the person like some of the teachers [who] I had [did]. [...] If I am able to touch certain students, I am grateful for being able to open their world up, as Stuy did for me. It distinctly affected how I work, approach deadlines, and get things done.”

EVE BERMAN

By MADDY ANDERSEN “At Stuyvesant, I learned that I could be right, and everyone else could be wrong, which is a powerful lesson to learn,” Eve Berman (’72) said. Berman became one of the first 13 women who gender-integrated Stuyvesant in 1969. Her experience gave her the tools to later work in computer science and software engineering, a maledominated field, for over 30 years.

Like many others, Berman decided to attend Stuyvesant because it was closer to her home in Jackson Heights, Queens. She lived near Evelyn Horn (’72), and the pair decided to go to Stuyvesant together. They were both unaware of how few girls would be attending with them. “I assumed there would be several hundred. [...] Evelyn Horn, who lived on the next block from me, chose to go to Stuyvesant because otherwise she was going to go to private school,” Berman explained. “She asked me, ‘We can go to Stuyvesant. Do you want to come?’ and her mother told my mother to write a note [to the city, requesting my transfer from Bronx Science to Stuyvesant]. That’s all we knew.”

Berman initially felt isolated at Stuyvesant. She often felt like she would go through the motions of her day without making any real connections with her classmates.

“We had the sense that we had all been sort of sized up. One felt like an object, rather than a person. You would walk down the halls and hear, ‘I saw one,’” Berman noted.

While her classmates seemed to know who she was, Berman could not reciprocate.

Ironically, the temporary closure of Stuyvesant due to student strikes in 1970 helped Berman connect to her community. “There was this big student strike in May of 1970. At Kent State University in Ohio, there were four college students who were shot by the National Guard because of protesting the Vietnam War. After that, the whole school shut down. The front doors of Stuyvesant were actually chained shut by some of the more revolutionary students,” Berman recalled. “We all thought we were super intellectual and sort of head of everything by protesting. During that time, I somehow got to meet all of these people and was hanging out with everybody.

After that, I felt more integrated into the school.”

Still the prejudiced undertones of Stuyvesant’s environment were clear. They influenced the way that she saw other women. “They thought that women weren’t open, and there was this feeling women were sexually repressed and stuck-up. When I got to college, I realized that women weren’t actually anything like that,” Berman discussed.

“It wasn’t an intellectual understanding, but it shaped the kind of person I became.”

After graduating from college, Berman went into computer science, obtaining a job at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). “Often, I did have to compete with a lot of men,” she said. “I’ve led groups that were composed of men or mostly men.” While working on the technical side of IBM, Berman noticed a disparity between the number of men and women in executive positions. “At IBM, there is a two-tier promotion strategy where you can go up on the technical side or you can go up on the management side. On the management side, there are a lot of women. On the technical side, once you get past the first couple of levels, there are very, very few women,” she said.

Berman found that the same prejudices against women she had seen at Stuyvesant were also present at IBM. However, with the experience she gained from being a part of the first 13 women, Berman was prepared to overcome these obstacles. “I was very comfortable. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t as good as them or I had to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I felt like I could be myself, and I had a part of myself that I could revert back to,” Berman explained. “However, there was the same kind of internalized discrimination against me. A women had to be technically really, really good to be considered as good as a guy.”

Berman’s main advice based on her experiences at both Stuyvesant and IBM is to be confident, even if you are the only woman in the room. “We learned to be more tentative about things. I would write, ‘I think blah blah blah might be the right answer,’ because it felt presumptuous to be too direct. Now, when I write something for some sort of business or for any kind of purpose, I write it and then I go back. I take away all of the words that sound self-effacing,” Berman said. “You write it out once, and then you look at it again, and you take out the ‘I think’s, you take out the ‘maybe’s, you take out the ‘in my opinion’s, you take out all that stuff. Then you just say it.

Because a guy would just say it.”

ABBY SHECK

By ERIN LEE

Abby Sheck (’73) was one of the first female students to walk the halls of Stuyvesant High School, and her contributions, though not clear to her at the time, have allowed Stuyvesant to remain open to both men and women to this day. When she and the other 12 women enrolled at Stuyvesant first stepped foot on the campus in the fall of 1969, nothing would ever be the same.

Stuyvesant’s reputation for promoting ambition and strong academics was true even 50 years ago. “The competition was fierce,” Sheck recalled. “Some of the young men were so geared toward success. I remember there was one young man who was brought to tears because I think he got a 98 or a 97.”

But unlike her peers and successors, Sheck simply wanted to enjoy her educational experience. “I didn’t have that fire in the belly that I needed to be number one, two, three,” Sheck said. “I was happy to do well.” However, this particular mindset may have allowed her to thoroughly enjoy her Stuyvesant experience and look back on it fondly to this day.

Sheck did not view her attendance at Stuyvesant as very significant, despite that she and the other 12 women were changing the status quo for the high school. “Back then, we kind of just thought [of] ourselves as one of the students,” Sheck said. “I don’t think it was anything super special unless we had a teacher who wanted to make it so.”

“We were a determined bunch,” she added. “We were just a group of young women put together by circumstances if you will. We were there as an educational opportunity rather than any kind of, ‘Hey, we’re doing something fabulous or breaking ground.’” Despite these women’s significance today, their time at Stuyvesant was focused solely around academics. According to Sheck, “the most gratifying moment was getting my diploma,” she said.

Sheck holds a genuine love for Stuyvesant: she still goes to Stuyvesant reunions, like the 50 years ceremony, to meet with familiar faces again. “I just remember it as a wonderful experience,” she said. “For me, it was a fabulous experience academically. I had some wonderful teachers [and] met some wonderful people who I’m in touch with to this day.”

August 1919 The 19th Amendment is ratified, giving women the right to vote.

April 1969 Kathrine Switzer becomes the first woman to run a marathon.

September 1969 The first girls are admitted to Stuyvesant High School.

June 1972 Title IX of the Education Amendments is signed into law by President Nixon.

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

FEATURES

HUMOR

Hotspot for Love

Of Memes and Colors

Hotspot for Love: Features writer Clara Shapiro discusses the varying dynamics of teenage relationships in “Stuyvesant Smoochers: Romantic Relationships at School.”

The Humor Department reviews this year’s eventful Spirit Week in “The Spirit Week Report.”

see page 9

Volume 109 No. 17

see page

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

stuyspec.com

Stuyvesant Celebrates 50 Years of Co-Education

Th Sp

Tiffany Yu / The Spectator

Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

New ARISTA Executive Council Inducted

21

By NEIL SARKAR, MAX KOSTER, ANDY CHEN and ZOE ZAKRZEWSKA ARISTA’s Executive Council (EC) for the 2019-2020 year, officially inducted on May 29, is comprised of juniors President Mina Ivkovic, Vice President of Events and Services Jeremy Lee, Vice President of Operations Caroline Magoc, and Vice President of Web Development Hilary Zen. ARISTA is Stuyvesant’s honor society, and plays an active role in supporting Stuyvesant’s community.

Members participate in running inschool events, such as parent teacher conferences, and volunteer throughout New York City. They also tutor fellow students in all subjects through a variety of services, including but not limited to one-on-one tutoring, AIS, and online essay editing. ARISTA’s tutoring services provide valuable help to students who are struggling in classes or want to review material before a test.

Each vice president leads a committee that works on specific tasks related to a different aspect of ARISTA. The Events Committee is in charge of finding and directing community service events across the city, as well as events at Stuyvesant, such as the open houses or parent teacher conferences. The Operations Committee, replacing the Tutoring Committee in the 2018-2019 year as many of the functions of the Tutoring Committee became obsolete, manages the peer tutoring system as well as the logistics behind

ARISTA. Due to these responsibilities, an important role of the Operations Committee is to assist the Web Development Committee. The Web Development Committee updates and manages the website, which is integral to every aspect of ARISTA, from the setup of peer tutoring, essay editing, and volunteering at events, to the application process for prospective members. Each committee works closely with the president and other committees to ensure that ARISTA runs smoothly.

ARISTA has demonstrated more independence by recently breaking off from the National Honor Society (NHS) and not renewing its charter on StuyActivities, thus causing the institution to lose its vote on the SU Cabinet and its national title. Ultimately, ARISTA’s decision not to renew their membership with NHS was not because of philosophical differences between the two organizations, but more so related to the fact that NHS’s rules and guidelines were impractical in a large school such as Stuyvesant.

“We [ARISTA] decided it would be better to be our own organization because we would have more freedom and autonomy over how we run,” outgoing senior and former President Julia Arancio said regarding the split. For example, the NHS constitution details that chapters are expected to hold meetings with all members once a month, which past ECs found difficult to maintain considering the over-200 ARISTA members. As an independent organization, ARISTA can tailor itself to

the unique needs of Stuyvesant.

ARISTA’s new independence from NHS also allows the new EC to continue the system of credit requirements on a semester basis.

Many members had difficulty fulfilling event requirements during the second trimester because of the holidays during that time of year, which resulted in fewer school days.

Arancio, who implemented this system from the first trimester of 20182019, believes that this modification has made fulfilling requirements for ARISTA members easier and less stressful.

Overall, the board’s trajectory for this upcoming school year is focused around opening up more opportunities for members of ARISTA and supporting the changes implemented by the current Executive Committee following ARISTA’s split from NHS. An initiative that the EC plans to begin is the expansion on ARISTA’s current partnerships to other organizations. ARISTA has long-term relationships with programs such as MoMath and SummerStage, and the council hopes to establish more of these such connections with a greater variety of different institutions.

However, there seems to be a significant amount of issues regarding communication between ARISTA’s committees and their volunteers. Among these includes a problem regarding the unfair giving of strikes. “I remember one time [...] continued on page 4

By STEPHY CHEN, EVELYN MA and CHLOE TERESTCHENKO Fifty years ago, in January 1969, 13-year-old Alice de Rivera sued the New York State Board of Education (BOE) over the gender restriction that barred female students from attending Stuyvesant High School.

At the time, de Rivera was a freshman at John Jay High School in Brooklyn. A particularly bright student who excelled in both math and science, de Rivera felt that the education she received at John Jay was inadequate compared to what she could receive at a specialized public high school, such as Stuyvesant. De Rivera was joined by Mia Rublowsky, a sophomore at John Jay, in her fight against gender discrimination in the education system.

De Rivera’s request to take Stuyvesant’s entrance exam was denied, and as a result, she filed a lawsuit against the BOE. The BOE repealed Stuyvesant’s gender restriction in May 1968. Despite winning the lawsuit, de Rivera was unable to attend Stuyvesant as her family moved to upstate New York that same year. However, her actions paved the way for future female students to attend the specialized institution: in 1969, 13 girls enrolled at Stuyvesant and made the class of 1972 the first graduating class to include female students.

To commemorate this point in its history, Stuyvesant celebrated its 50th year anniversary of co-education on May 10. The event featured

alumni from Stuyvesant’s first female graduating class: Eve Berman (’72), Laren Herman Lynn (’72), Evelyn Horn (’72), Abby Scheck (’72), and Suzanne Rose Shapiro (’73).

The event began with a speech from Michael Hartig (’78) and a video montage, which included pictures of the first women during their time at Stuyvesant and moments from the reunion event of the graduating class of ’72. Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer Suri then introduced the panelists and welcomed the attendees. Afterward, seniors and co-presidents of the Stuyvesant Feminist Society (StuyFem) Allie Lennard and Leah Rosenthal gave a brief speech about the first women of Stuyvesant, de Rivera, current women of Stuyvesant, and members of StuyFem. Then, Lennard and Rosenthal led a discussion with the panel of women, asking them questions about their experiences at Stuyvesant. After a question and answer session between the audience and the women, Principal Eric Contreras made a speech thanking the women for sharing their experiences.

The idea of commemorating the 50th anniversary of the court decision was proposed to Lennard and Rosenthal by Director of Family Engagement Dina Ingram. They collaborated through many e-mails and meetings to bring the event to life. They were supported by Hartig and Hal Diamond, who contacted continued on page 4

Courtesy of Hana Kim

Congratulations to juniors Christy Guan and Hana Kim for winning First Place in the 2019 National History Day Competition!

Page 4

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

News New ARISTA Executive Council Inducted

continued from page 3 I signed up for AIS but the teacher was absent, and I e-mailed ARISTA, and ARISTA said that they’ll still give me a strike unless the teacher emails them and tells them that they were absent, but the teacher didn’t know how to use a computer, and I couldn’t convey that to them,” a senior and ARISTA member said in an anonymous interview.

The distribution of credits and attendance for various ARISTA events is another subject that has been causing some complications within the honor society. The EC stressed the importance of earning credits ahead of time in order to not be behind by the end of the designated semester. The rush of members fulfilling credit requirements

continued from page 3

has been more difficult to manage as most events are capped at a certain number of volunteers. As a result, there have not been enough events available near the end of the semester for all ARISTA members to fulfill their credit requirements for events.

“I mean, this trend with kids not going at the beginning of the year and waiting until the very last minute to get credits in isn’t something that’s exclusive to last year or this year, and it’s happened, and it’s going to continue happening, so we’re trying to have a body that’s more engaged with its community,” Ivkovic said.

However, there is concern among ARISTA members that the apparent difficulty of fulfilling event requirements is not solely the fault of the volunteers. “I feel that a lot of the time they [the Events Com-

mittee] have to end up lowering the event credit requirement because of the fact that there just [aren’t] enough events,” senior and Operations Committee member Nten Nyiam said. “And there’s no way for every single ARISTA member to have a fair chance of meeting the credit requirement based on the number of events.”

Additionally, ARISTA has faced issues with its website this year, specifically the waitlist for events and the optimization of the website for phones, some of which are still present. “I remember when I came in as a sophomore, [...] the website worked on phones, but it doesn’t work on phones now, and I think that’s been a big issue for over a year or so,” Nyiam said. “You might want to check the ARISTA website to see

when you have an event or AIS, or just something general, maybe during school or before school. And the most convenient way to do that would be through a phone. So by having to go on a computer [...], especially for people who don’t have frees, it’s kind of a big convenience block.”

The Executive Council hopes to address the apparent lack of events by encouraging members to participate in more events during the beginning of each semester, as well as forming more long-term relationships with organizations like soup kitchens. “The lack of event credits is caused by a lot of complacency on the part of the volunteers themselves, and I think that we should encourage them to [...] partake in more events at the beginning of the year

or the beginning of the semester so that they can get their event requirements done earlier, and also encourage them to diversify the events that they’re going to,” Lee said. “A lot of the time you have soup kitchens that don’t have full volunteer lists.”

Generally, the council emphasized that a successful experience with the organization is best achieved by finding a balance between responsibility and personal gratification when it comes to the community service every member participates in. “I know that a lot of people have problems with ARISTA, but it’s a two-way street, and if you put the work in, and we put some work in too, I think it could be a really good experience,” Ivkovic said.

Stuyvesant Celebrates 50 Years of Co-Education

the first women and de Rivera.

“During the open house, we say that Stuyvesant started out as an all-boys school. But we gloss over it and we don’t talk a lot about the important women who pioneered that trail for our current students. The idea came into my head when I was reading a New Yorker article by Laurie Gwen Shapiro, a Stuy alum. I thought it would be an interesting idea to share the experience and share that history to our students,” Ingram said.

“So I reached out to StuyFem, Hal Diamond, and Michael Hartig. Hal Diamond and Michael Hartig [were] still in touch with all the women, and they helped us contact them. From that, it all just started building from there.”

The event was held in hopes of educating the student body about Stuyvesant’s history, especially its history concerning gender inequality.

“It’s important for individuals to rec-

NEWSBEAT Assistant Principal of World Languages Francesca McAuliffe, Biology teacher Marianne Prabhu, and English teacher Heather Huhn ran in the 2019 Popular Brooklyn Half Marathon.

Freshman Katie Collins and sophomores Matthew Bark and Tony Jia won the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York Essay Contest.

Sophomore Ethan Shenker won the Police Athletic League’s Police Commissioner for a Day Essay Contest.

Stuyvesant MAPS Team presented their work at the NYC MAPS/ SMART Team Conference hosted

by Stuyvesant. Juniors Lauren Pehlivanian, Sherry Chen, and Elizabeth Doss co-founded the team.

Junior George Dong won first place for a Jewish Heritage essay contest on the topic of “constructive conflict.” Freshman Clara Shapiro was also honored at the event.

Senior Milan Haiman, junior Kimmy Sun, and freshman Rishabh Das were invited to attend the Mathematical Olympiad Program, an intensive problem-solving camp held at Carnegie Mellon University.

Freshmen Ruoxin Cai, Mumtahana Islam, Khujista Umama, and Susan Zheng, sophomores Anna Frid and Jason Xiong, and senior Mayumi Garung completed the 2019 Stuy Reads Challenge.

Junior Baird Johnson was awarded a full scholarship to attend the Telluride Association Summer Program at Cornell University this summer.

ognize their roots and the roots of the institutions they attend, and celebrate growth,” Lennard said. Many, including Lennard, were unaware of Stuyvesant’s history of sexual segregation.

“Students at Stuyvesant have very unique opportunities here. You have opportunities that you can’t get at other schools. Having a school that has history since 1904, hundreds of alumni provide aid to students and the school opens tons of opportunities and privileges to our students.

Getting to know that rich history and keeping the connection between our alumni is incredibly important,” Ingram said.

While it is important to honor the changes that have been made in support of equal education, it is also necessary to realize that gender inequality is still a pressing issue today. “About 49 percent of the [Stuyvesant] student body consists of women and the other 51 percent men. Though this discrepancy may

seem trivial, its persistence over the past several years most certainly says something about how young women versus young men are being raised, especially considering that Stuy is seen as a STEM school and that women enter these fields at much lower rates and continue to be discouraged from entering these fields, both explicitly and implicitly,” Lennard said in an e-mail interview.

Though the first women of Stuyvesant attended the institution half a century ago, Lennard felt she was still able to connect with some of their experiences. “During the panel discussion, [Lynn] told us that she was chastised by a teacher because her pants were not feminine enough, and I told her about how I have a friend at Stuy who was told something awfully similar. The three of us had a really nice discussion about how [though] Lynn’s experience was 50 years ago, the same kind of sexism is prominent today, and thus things have not changed nearly

enough and as much as we like to think,” Lennard said.

Many students who attended the event felt that the message was insightful and found it to be encouraging. “It was very inspiring to be able to see the first class of women [who] graduated Stuyvesant,” sophomore Julianne Yotov said. “It was also very informative because sometimes we forget how 50 years ago, things were so different. This event was important to celebrate how far we have come and show that we should continue to work on diminishing stereotypes.”

Along with the event, StuyFem hosted a Post-it booth on the second floor, where people were able to write the names of women whom they wanted to honor. The notes were posted on a “wall of recognition” by the second-floor elevators.

“We hoped [the Post-it booth] would get people more motivated to come downstairs to see the panel. Also, it’s encouraging to walk by the wall,

especially because some teachers’ names were on there, and it feels nice to be recognized. […] It’s nice to give some gratitude because people have really shaped our lives in ways we don’t realize,” junior and member of StuyFem Luola Kostas said.

Beyond relating to issues of gender, the commemoration of Stuyvesant’s 50th anniversary of coeducation taught attendees important lessons relevant to the discussion of racial issues in our society today.

In light of the recent controversy of the persistence of racial disparities in several specialized high schools, Lennard expressed hopes that this event will encourage students to work to make a difference in their community. “With the issue of the lack of racial diversity at Stuy on the front burner, it is important to show that change is possible,” Lennard said.

“We need modern Alice de Riveras to help reconstruct the current system, so our hope is that this event has inspired students.”

Pandemonium for Japandemonium

By STEPHY CHEN, MADELYN MAO, KAREN ZHANG and LUCY BAO

Stuyvesant hosted its annual Japandemonium, an event held exclusively for students in the Japanese department, on Saturday, May 25, in the cafeteria. It served as an opportunity for students to bond over Japanese culture through team-based games such as “japardy,” also known as Japanese jeopardy, tug of war, relay races, and an anpan race, a game that involves jumping to bite a sweet roll filled with red bean paste.

Members of the Japanese department were split into groups of eight people, each consisting of students from all grade levels. This year’s theme, meat, contributed to team names such as “chicken” and “beef.”

The event was coordinated by Japanese teacher Chie Helinski, who had been organizing the event for four months. Preparation for this event started in February to determine costs, invitations, food, and the date. In April, students from the honor society and additional volunteers contributed by helping decide on which events and games should be included.

There were several changes made to Japandemonium this year. This year’s event was the first time Japan-

demonium held a game of tug of war. This replaced the choreography students often found too labor intensive to do. Inspired by a competition seen on a Korean show, Helsinki also implemented a new game called “silent scream.”

Sophomore Bwohan Wang described the game as similar to the whisper challenge. “Everyone had headphones, and they were playing so you couldn’t hear anything. Sensei, our teacher, would give one of the students a four-syllable word to say, and you would just say it to the next person so on and so forth until you reached the last person. If you got it right, you got points, and if not, you didn’t get points,” he said.

For attendees, the annual anpan race was especially memorable.

“There was the anpan race where you jump and have to bite a bun which is hung up on a string that someone is holding. You have to be the first to jump and be the first to grab it. There [were] a bunch of events like that, and teams had to determine a winner and loser. My team was actually the loser, so we had to eat wasabi that was the size of a rice ball,” sophomore Dario Cipani said.

Helinski initially created Japandemonium to allow all students in the Japanese department to participate in cultural games. “In the past, we did

Japan Bowl, which is a competition, but I can only take from each level [...] a group of three students, so it’s for the top students. And honor society is also for those students who have the grades, and I wanted to do something for the entire student body [that] is taking the Japanese program regardless of the grades,” Helinski said.

“They equally enjoy the program and the culture. [...] I stopped doing Japan Bowl and switched over to Japandemonium, which is more inclusive.”

Students believe that Japandemonium has great significance for a variety of reasons. “The Japanese department is pretty small compared to the other departments and this event really allowed for us to bond more. Having such a small department, it was really important for all the students [and] the coordinators to support the department by attending the event. This event also provided a great opportunity for many students to learn and immerse themselves in Japanese culture through the games and the food,” sophomore Josslyn Kim said.

However, they also see improvements to be made. “Some of the events were a bit haphazard. They weren’t really organized [...] well as there were too many students participating. But in general, it was pretty organized and I think they [the Japanese depart-

ment] did a good job,” Wang said.

According to Kim, more food could have been provided to stu dents considering that the event was eight hours long.

Despite these issues, many participants of Japandemonium felt that they had a great experience bonding over Japanese culture and agreed that other language departments should create their own respective versions of Japandemonium. Though this endeavor would require a lot of time and effort, as seen in the Japanese department, students believe that such an event would render a lot of positive memories for its participants.

In the future, Helinski wishes to find a way to successfully incorporate alumni who return to help with Japandemonium. “I want them to be still a part of the program, but they cannot overpower the kids who are in the program so there’s a balance. I never had 16 kids coming to volunteer. In the past, it was five or six,” Helinski said.

“Overall, Japandemonium is an event for students to have fun without worrying about grades. It’s really a cultural experience. I want them to understand Japanese culture, but also I want them to meet other students who take the language,” Helinski said.

Stuyvesant Hosts Third Songwriter’s Hall of Fame

By SAAD GHAFFOULI and LINA KHAMZE

Stuyvesant held its third Songwriter’s Hall of Fame on May 6. High school students from around New York City were able to listen to the advice and experiences of professionals in the music industry. Students also learned about music production, songwriting, and the music industry as a whole. Additionally, students were able to perform for musicians and receive feedback.

The event was planned with the goal of offering students the chance to experience something outside their normal educational routine. “I believe that songwriting empowers students to express themselves in ways that

are outside of the academic area that Stuyvesant would normally encourage and foster,” said music teacher Harold Stephan, who organized the event.

This master session included younger local musicians in an attempt to connect with students. “With this event, we were trying to get younger, highly expressive artists who were doing their work at a high artistic level [and] who are close to the age of high school students because we thought there would be a better connection.

And I think it was definitely successful,” Stephan said. He also noted that the shift led to a “significantly higher [turnout] than the prior event,” he said.

Students’ feedback was positive,

with many citing the event as a great opportunity to explore the music business. “It was great to get advice from people who understand the industry and to get instant feedback on our work,” freshman Andrea Khoury said.

Freshman Benjamin Hamel agreed. “It was inspiring to hear from so many people who had to overcome countless hurdles to make it in the industry,” he said.

Students also expressed an interest in expanding the event for the next session. “It would be great if we could have more people perform [and if there were] more artists on the panel,” freshman Alina Dufenyuk said.

In addition, Stephan hopes to

host more workshops centered around the supportive roles in the music industry. “There’s everything from attorneys to booking agents to other more technical jobs. [There are] tons of jobs in the entertainment space, and part of what I would like to do is open those opportunities up to students as much as possible,” he said.

Overall, the event was regarded as a success by both students and staff.

“The goal of this event was to focus on the creative part of [music]—to focus on self-expression—and it was about being able to empower students to express themselves at a high artistic level,” Stephan said. “I think we succeeded in doing so.”

The Spectator â—? June 26, 2019

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Page 7

News BSL and ASPIRA Host Cinco de Mayo Celebration

By CATHERINE DELL’OLIO and JAMES LEE

Stuyvesant’s ASPIRA and Black Students League (BSL) hosted a Cinco de Mayo celebration after school on May 10 to celebrate the holiday and Hispanic culture.

The event featured presentations of Hispanic culture through dance, poetry, film, and song.

The event started with remarks by senior and ASPIRA president Yajaira Rodriguez and senior and BSL president William Lohier, both of whom emphasized the importance of Cinco de Mayo in promoting Hispanic heritage in the U.S. “ASPIRA and BSL [weren’t] able to observe Hispanic Heritage Month back in October, so we wanted to host an event that would celebrate some aspect of Latinx pride. Cinco de Mayo was the first holiday that came to mind,” Rodriguez said in an e-mail interview.

“Having discovered such a rich history behind the holiday most people associate with margaritas, we knew it was important to host a Cinco de Mayo celebration that reminded people of why we have the holiday in the first place.”

ASPIRA and BSL then showed a video presentation which explained the history of Cinco de Mayo. Commemorating the Mexican army’s victory against French forces during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867), the holiday is not considered a major holiday in Mexico. The holiday was “pushed onto the American calendar in the 1960s by Mexican Americans who wanted to establish their rights and

pride,” Rodriguez said, and it has since gained popularity in other countries worldwide including Canada and Malta.

French teacher Manny Ramirez then took the floor to read a poem in Spanish. Ramirez wanted to participate in this event both to support his students and to celebrate their Hispanic background. “I hope [the event] brings awareness for the Latino members of our student body,” he said. “It’s well known [they are] not a particularly large group at this school, but I think it’s important that they still celebrate their heritage, and [that] they’re respected, and that people come. It’s actually really nice that most of the people in the audience

ordinator Angel Colon. ASPIRA and BSL showed an excerpt from the documentary “Mi Chacra (My Land)” (2009), which follows the lives of Peruvian farmers. Then, Stuyvesant alumnus Erik Paulino (’89) gave his remarks. The program concluded with a closing speech and a singing of “México en la Piel.”

Though difficulties with the catering delayed its arrival, organizers and attendees then enjoyed traditional Mexican food, such as rice and beans, and Hispanic music, even breaking a Coco-themed piñata in celebration.

Organizing the event “was a group effort, which made everything less stressful,” Rodriguez

asked, ‘How come you don’t do my culture?’ [...] It’s hard to squeeze all of these [holidays and celebrations] in a 10-month period,” he said. “The toughest part is the schedule.”

The event allowed students outside and inside ASPIRA and BSL to celebrate and learn more about Hispanic culture. “By attending the event, I feel like I definitely learned more about the history of the event itself as well as Mexican culture. I was able to taste food which I normally do not eat that was not only traditional Mexican food but also Cuban. I was also exposed to a new kind of music and felt that, overall, I learned a lot more about Hispanic culture,”

“Having discovered such a rich history behind the holiday most people associate with margaritas, we knew it was important to host a Cinco de Mayo celebration that reminded people of why we have the holiday in the first place.”

—Yajaira Rodriguez, senior and ASPIRA president were themselves not of Latino background. Their friends came to support and to help them honor their heritage.”

Ramirez also shares a personal connection with the holiday.

“What’s kind of ironic is that my mother was born in Mexico, and Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday, but I’m a French teacher. And it’s funny because it celebrates the day that Mexican peasants defeated the invading French army,” he said.

The event continued with a traditional dance performed by Rodriguez and speeches by Principal Eric Contreras and SPARK co-

said. “In the month before the event, club members gave suggestions on performances to include in the program, food and drinks we could bring to the dinner, and even ensured that the Stuy community received news of the event.

Once they received word, Latinx alumni also helped out with the planning. Many offered donations to fund the catering, and a few offered to be a guest speaker.”

Colon also emphasized the students’ role in planning the event, saying, “It wasn’t me, it was the students, ASPIRA, BSL.” As SPARK coordinator, “I always get

sophomore and BSL vice president Falina Ongus said.

Organizers agreed that the event could be improved. Colon suggested adding a survey to better gauge student interest and receive feedback from attendees. Junior and ASPIRA leader Bryan MongeSerrano suggested inviting middle school students to attend the event during the upcoming years. Exposing prospective Hispanic students to events like this would help them feel more comfortable coming to Stuyvesant, which is known for having a small Hispanic student population. “Just having an event

like this for seventh graders, even, would be great because it would get the word out [about the Stuyvesant Hispanic community],” he said.

Despite minor technical difficulties and delays, the event was widely considered a success. “In the end, everyone enjoyed themselves, which for me was a key reason for organizing the event,” Rodriguez said. “I’m sure there’ll be another Cinco de Mayo celebration next year. Despite the hiccups, everyone seemed to really like the event, and they look forward to attending again next year. With our member count increasing and more alumni willing to come back and help ASPIRA and BSL, I’m sure whoever’s in charge next year will organize an even more successful Cinco de Mayo celebration.”

“I think the event was a success and many were able to learn more about Hispanic culture,” Ongus said. “I know this particular event had not been held before but a good number of people still came.”

When asked if he would participate in this event should it be held next year, Ramirez said, “Definitely, for a number of reasons.

I’m always happy to support my students, especially when they take initiative. In this case, it was totally student-run, which I really respected, and also to celebrate diversity.”

Colon also encourages other students to be proactive in organizing events like this for their own cultures. “You know, you can do this too,” he said. “Just take an initiative, get some people. I will collaborate.”

By BRIAN ZHANG, EVELYN MA, SAMIA ISLAM and ALICE ZHU Stuyvesant hosted a semi-performative play reading of “Something that Belongs to You” on June 3.

The play was written by Stuyvesant alumnus Dr. Roald Hoffman (’55), who is a Nobel laureate in chemistry as well as a Holocaust survivor. The event, organized by history teacher Lisa Shuman and Stuyvesant alumna Raisa Ostapenko (’07), exclusively showcased student actors and was accompanied by a short ceremony honoring Dr. Hoffman’s accomplishments.

“Something that Belongs to You” is primarily based around Dr. Hoffman’s childhood experiences during the Holocaust and how those moments shaped him as an adult. The play follows a family in 1992 looking back on their experiences during 1942. The story starts with an 81-year-old woman named Frieda Pressner, whose son Emile and granddaughter Heather ask her to talk about her experiences during World War II. In the play, Dr. Hoffman utilizes symbolic objects, most notably a wedding ring, to emphasize the cynicism and false relationships that characterized the Holocaust. The play also alternates between flashbacks and the present day to portray the themes of loss, hate, and forgiveness. Though the play tells a solemn story, its humor

By SHREYA PAUL and RUBY ETHIKA

kept the audience engaged.

According to Shuman, who herself led an acting career in the past, using drama and film to convey the Holocaust’s undertakings was not only an essential teaching tool, but it also helped present the play’s relevant themes. This may have been the first program of its type that Stuyvesant put together, but “the students worked extremely hard and knocked it out of the park. [...] I am really proud,” she said.

Such success would not have been possible if it weren’t for two aspects: the student actors’ interest in Dr. Hoffman’s story and their dedication to story-telling. “We worked very hard with the students on line delivery, connection to the story characters, projection of messages, as well as on ideas to make presentation multi-sensory,” Shuman said.

Despite a busy academic season and rehearsals being only once a week after school on Fridays, the cast and production crew managed to be productive with the time they had, which contributed to the success of the play. “We would read through the play and the directors would give us information on how they would like to see the piece performed and on how to approach the stage,” sophomore Katherina Corr said. “Furthermore, the directors were very understanding with other commitments that came up, such as APs.”

Though the play was a success, cast members expressed frustration with time constraints. Corr recognized the potential that the play would have had if more time had been allotted to its development.

“While the play was only reading, having a more comprehensive set would have helped distinguish between the 1992 and 1942 scenes,” she said.

Shuman elaborated on the challenges that the students encountered by discussing how the script itself jumps between periods of time, something which is difficult to execute even in theatrical productions. “This was compounded by the lack of tech rehearsals in the auditorium,” said sophomore Katie Leton, who ran technical elements behind the scenes. “Fortunately, there weren’t any major problems with the technical aspects in the end, such as lights and sound. We pulled it off!”

Students who attended the play reading were able to recognize its underlying themes. “What’s important about this play is the idea of getting past the hate that they have while still remembering what happened,” sophomore Eve Lin said.

In addition to acknowledging the importance of forgiveness, Corr hopes that onlookers realized that sometimes, trivial objects—in this case, a ring—can hold great significance and power. “While it seemed like a nice deed to return the wed-

Mary Shang/ The Spectator

Rehearsal of Remembrance: Stuyvesant Hosts Dr. Roald Hoffman

ding ring, Frieda’s memories were reawakened as a result,” Corr said.

Looking ahead, Shuman is optimistic about putting together a production similar to “Something that Belongs to You” and encourages more students to participate in Stuyvesant’s theatrical productions.

“Performances are a great experi-

Dr. Wheeler: 22 Years of Transforming Music

After 22 years of teaching music at Stuyvesant, Assistant Principal of Music, Art, and Technology Dr. Raymond Wheeler has announced his retirement. He began teaching in 1997, later becoming the assistant principal of his department. He currently teaches concert and symphonic band. Dr. Wheeler is looking forward to drinking coffee at a reasonable hour and going on a cruise with his wife and their friends.

Dr. Wheeler takes pride in the Stuyvesant music community’s development over the last two decades. In 1997, there were only three performing ensembles. Today, there are 12 ensembles. “My biggest thing here was to get the performing ensembles to absolutely reach their

peak of whatever talent is available, whatever that can be, without being overburdened—now that’s a tricky thing to do,” Dr. Wheeler said.

He is also proud of the teachers within his department. “It’s a firstrate faculty. The quality we have here would be [the envy] of many universities,” he said. Dr. Wheeler is confident he is leaving Stuyvesant in the hands of talented and experienced teachers.

Many students are sad to see him go. “Without him, it’s going to feel really different in band,” junior Yae-Eun Kim said. She fondly recalls chatting with Dr. Wheeler on the M20 bus about concert band and music on the way back from school.

“I’m sad that he is retiring,” Kim said. “[I’m going to] miss him a lot because he’s a great conductor and

a great teacher. He knows his stuff.

He also knows a lot about concert band and the concert experience.”

Dr. Wheeler has a reputation for being a funny and relaxed teacher among his students, and when asked about what she would miss most about Dr. Wheeler, Kim said, “His jokes. During band he would roast almost every section, especially the percussion. His favorite line is: ‘Of course the percussion aren’t paying attention, like they’re percussion.’”

Junior Rohit Roy agrees that he would miss Dr. Wheeler’s jokes.

“The laughter we shared with and because of him will be missed most of all,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Roy has had Dr. Wheeler for concert band for the past two years. “[Dr. Wheeler has] been at Stuy for so long, and he will surely be missed

by everyone: students, teachers, and faculty. He was a fresh presence in such a tense environment like Stuy, and he brought a smile to all of our faces,” Roy said. “Back when Dr. Wheeler still used to conduct, I would look forward to band. He inspired students to have fun in the class while actually playing music and learning how to play instruments.”

While Dr. Wheeler is looking forward to retirement, he will miss being a part of the Stuyvesant community. “I’ve stayed here for so long, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done.

That’s [including] students, faculty, and support from other administrators. You don’t put in 50 years in something that you don’t enjoy doing, you just don’t,” Dr. Wheeler said. “Now is the time, though, for me to begin to shift, to start looking

ence, especially for life skills such as creativity and acting. If you’re not already involved in the Stuyvesant Theater Community, you should feel comfortable trying out new things because you never know when you have hidden talents,” she said.

toward other adventures.”

When asked about his upcoming retirement plans, Dr. Wheeler mentioned traveling, reading, and spending time with his grandchildren. However, he also hopes to continue to conduct and play music.

“I play in some community groups just to have fun playing. I will also play at a very high level with other professional musicians to keep it fresh,” he said.

While Dr. Wheeler understands that most Stuyvesant students will not major in music, he wants them to incorporate music somewhere in their future lives, regardless of what profession they ultimately pursue.

“Music can be a part of your life.

You don’t have to be a professional musician,” Dr. Wheeler said. “Enjoy life. You only go around once. Enjoy what you’re doing.”

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The Spectator â—? June 26, 2019

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By Christine Yan

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 9

Features Stuyvesant Smoochers: Romantic Relationships at School

By CLARA SHAPIRO

Throughout this article, fake names are used to represent real people in order to protect their anonymity.

With the flurry of finals, extracurriculars, and the Sisyphean cycle of tests and homework, Stuyvesant can seem like an unlikely hotspot for young love.

Kissing couples accessorize the stairwells, the half-floor, and even the darkest regions of the Hudson stairwell. Hand-holders are in abundance, as are their angry single counterparts: “[Expletive], when I text you something, actually respond, or at least react to it so I know you actually give a little damn about me. Please, I’m a sad, lonely person,” disclosed Confession #2354 on the Facebook page “Stuy Confessions,” an online niche exploding with sexual frustration. At school, no longer protected by online anonymity, most Stuyvesant students tame their undomesticated hormones, though there are the few brazen ones who copulate in bathroom stalls throughout the building.

For the single onlookers of Stuyvesant, these lavatory escapades and public displays of affection (PDA) often evoke complex feelings. “Please stop making out on the escalator or on the stairs when I wanna fricking walk!” an anonymous sophomore begged the school PDA-ers. “It’s not that I think it’s gross, necessarily. It’s just that nobody will do it with me!”

But in the minds of many

Stuyvesant smoochers, the motives of PDA are benign. “We like PDA,” sophomore couple Julian Cunningham and Reilly Amera chorused, though both are mindful of PDA’s potential to hurt others. “[...] As long as it’s not exclusionary, it’s okay,” Cunningham added.

Another couple echoed Cunningham’s stance: “I enjoy PDA,” junior Serena Loving said. “Of course, it can go over the top, but I think it’s cute. I like love. It’s adorable.” But as a same-sex couple, Loving and her girlfriend Amanda Snogging experience PDA differently from the heterosexual couples of the school. “It’s kind of a jealousy, almost,” Loving said of PDA between straight couples.

“They don’t have to worry about, ‘Will people judge us? Can we hold hands here?’ Straight people don’t have to worry about that.”

Beyond the hurdle of homophobia, Loving and Snogging also struggle with their one-year age gap, which, especially during SING! season, can prove a challenge. “During SING! it was terrible. I knew all the Soph-Frosh plot because she can’t keep a secret, but I couldn’t tell her the Ju-

nior plot because she can’t keep a secret,” Loving recounted. “The

Andrea Huang / The Spectator

whole competition air kinda got to us a bit.”

Grade level is a particular menace to senior couples, who cling to each other even as their paths in

life diverge. With the distance between them soon to span states, countries, or even continents, senior duos now face either a painful goodbye or, for the more ambitious couples, the struggles of a long-distance relationship.

“I think we’re trying to make it work out,” senior couple Rob Chang and Alina Peng said. After one month of dating and four years of friendship, both Chang and Peng are determined to confront a daunting distance of 2,000 miles.

“I’m planning on coming back to the city every four weeks and on holidays to see my family, and, of course, to see her,” Californiabound Chang said.

But for many of the single seniors of Stuyvesant, the departure for college is a welcome escape from the graphic exhibitions of love they see in the hallways.

Rhea Mitra, a self-identified bitter single senior, discusses her perspective on her coupling contemporaries: “I used to be much more bitter than I am now about being single, but it’s still just like, ‘Do they have to do this in the hallway?’ It’s cute when you see PDA in a movie, but when you see it in real life, it’s like… eww,” she said.

Despite the disappointments of non-cinematographic romance, Mitra described the attractiveness of the Stuyvesant male population in glowing superlatives. “I feel like [...] they’re not that ugly, are they?”

she mused. “I don’t know. Maybe I just have low standards.”

This is perhaps one of the pitfalls of a teenage relationship: the contrast between the expectations of romance and the chappedlipped reality.

“At age 16, most of a person’s exposure to love and romance has been through TV shows and movies that are sensationalized and Hollywoodized, or, even worse, through the internet,” English teacher Lauren Stuzin explained over e-mail. “The best thing a person can do is take any portrayal of romance with a grain of salt.”

Stuzin adds that students, whether they take their romance salted or unsalted, should remember to consider their futures: “You are in high school, and while there is no age requirement to have a relationship, you are still trying to go to college and start your life […] so make sure you prioritize your own goals and desires and needs.

Remember to prioritize yourself, your own comfort and happiness, in every relationship,” she said.

Mitra echoed this doctrine of wellness, reminding her peers that, ultimately, self-love can be much more gratifying than any romantic love. “Sometimes, you have to go through life alone, but other times you will have a partner. And if, right now, you don’t have one, it’s not the end of the world,” she said. “You’ve got family and friends. You’ve got yourself. And in the end, that’s the only thing that really matters.”

Dear Stuyvesant Students... the Seniors Have Advice!

BY THE FEATURES DEPARTMENT

“Take time off every now and then. Spend more time with friends and explore the city. That’s what you’ll remember after you leave.” —Nishmi Abeyweera

“Have as many conversations with different people as you can; don’t let tests keep you from having a good time and remember, high school goes fast, so enjoy it!” —Chloe Doumar

“Do your best to view and critique yourself without comparing yourself to what ‘the best’ students at Stuy[vesant] act [like]. In a competitive environment, we have a natural tendency to look for our shortcomings in relation to other people, which makes us more hostile than we need to be.” —Meredith Silfen

“Try really hard in your junior year English class.

Think a lot about your essays. Don’t slack off. Those are your starting points for your college app[lication] essays.” —Xinyue Nam

“I think the one piece of advice that I would’ve wanted to hear as a freshman is that you will find your place eventually. My entire freshman year, I was so distracted, trying to find my place and my people, the ones who would undoubtedly be my closest friends for all of Stuy[vesant]. But at the end of senior year, you come to realize there are so many people you’ll have met over the years that you would never have imagined, and even if it’s only four years of high school, the end of it is worlds away from the beginning. Even if it takes a little while, you’ll find a home here somewhere. Don’t search for it too hard; it’ll come to you.” —Maia Brydon “Join clubs to find friends, interests, and passions; don’t be afraid to leave a club if you don’t like it. [...] Use Stuy[vesant] to figure out who you are and what you want to do in college or life. Stuy[vesant] is a pressure cooker, but if you’re able to break from the ‘do homework, eat, sleep’ cycle to include other stuff, you will be better off as a person.” —Raunak Chowdhury

“Don’t follow the advice other upperclassmen feed you like it’s a manual. Stuyvesant and generally, life, will be tailored around your own individual preferences that only you may discover and master. You should not be mimicking the essence of those who seem older and wiser, for you are your own existence. You are merely one in this vast, mysterious universe. It’s both terrifying and comforting in itself. You will be okay.” —William Wang

“The advice I would give is don’t fret so much about grades. One math test won’t make or break you; one project won’t either. It took me a while to understand this but I eventually learned how important it is to enjoy your time at Stuy[vesant].” —Kathryn Jano

“I think my biggest regret as a freshman was being too afraid to ask questions.” — Ashley Burnett

“Cherish each moment because it really does fly by.”

—Tahrima Chowdhury

“Surround yourself with the right people.” —Nadia Rahman

“Don’t be afraid to take a break sometimes because burning out is real; sometimes just take a day off and do nothing. Start studying for a test before the night before.”

—Eliza Spinna

“The worst that could happen through exploring everything you can is that you’ll find only one thing that you love. The best that could happen is more than one!” —Nathaniel Unger

“Don’t take a class because someone else tells you to take or not take it. If you are interested in a class, go for it. Everyone has different experiences in every class, and you never know for sure where you’ll fall. [...] Do what sounds fun.”

—Hanah Jun

“To put it simply, I’ve learned to stay true to myself at Stuy[vesant]. This has left me alone on many train rides as I’ve gone home in the past four years. However, it was a worthwhile sacrifice for what I truly cared about. It may have been more convenient to just do what my friends were doing. I would’ve spent more time with them and had fewer lonely train rides. But I wouldn’t have been doing myself justice if I had. I chose to venture on my own path, and I am so glad I did. It’s important to keep your friends close to your heart, but if you don’t let yourself be the true embodiment of who you are, there is no heart.” —Jason Kim

“It’s important to keep up with your studies but also be outgoing and join lots of clubs. Meeting new people and making friends is definitely the most important thing [in] freshman year.” —Kaitlin Wan “I can attest to the fact that you are never too far gone, and you can always bounce back from the lowest of lows, so long as you aren’t afraid to ask for help.” —Daniel Schraeter “If you’re ever having a bad day, get a Peach Pure Leaf and enjoy it while watching a Mets game.” —Kaitlyn Duong

“I guess four years pass faster than you think it will.

Go to class. Make time to do fun stuff. Take breaks, but not too many.”

—Jordan Espiritu

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 10

Features

For the Stuyvesant community, the month of May is filled with Advanced Placement (AP) exam preparations. From first-time testtakers to teachers, these exams can either cause anxiety or are nothing to worry about. No matter what experiences Stuyvesant students and staff have with AP exams, they all have something to say about AP season.

Sophomore Alyssa Sulaiman, who just finished her first AP season, believes that the AP exam is not a good representation of what she has learned in class. “You don’t really get to show important concepts that you took away from [certain] topics in the curriculum.

Every AP class in this school is different. Every teacher is different, […] and that’s what I feel like the real problem is—that we’re not really learning a universal curriculum,” she started. Despite these difficulties, Sulaiman advises, “I think it’s all about falling and keeping your goals in mind so that you have the motivation to get back up and do more.”

“This is my second year taking APs, and [though] I’m kind of nervous, I know that I really tried in all of my classes, so it shouldn’t be that hard,” junior Bernard Wang explained. Wang relieves his APrelated stress by playing ultimate frisbee and doing other extracurricular activities, such as volunteering with Red Cross. “I do things that I’d normally do before another test. I don’t view the AP test as something that I’m especially stressed for. I treat it as a big unit test,” Wang said. To first-time AP test-takers, Wang offers, “If you’re stressed, you want to study, but study in a healthy manner. Build confidence through studying up until the AP.” Senior Hanna Yang recalls her first AP season experience, when she was “super scared” and thought that the AP test “would have a huge impact on college [admissions],” she said. This being her third year taking AP tests, Yang definitely feels less pressure.

“I think the best way [to combat AP-related stress] is to start [studying] early. When I start studying for the test, I feel much better because I feel like I’m doing something.

Just get started and then things will seem less scary,” she advised.

Students aren’t the only ones who experience exam-related pressures. Teachers also spend time figuring out ways to best prepare their classes. AP Chemistry teacher Dr. Steven O’Malley takes a unique approach to make sure his students know the material.

In addition to giving students inclass group practice problems and providing them with take-home problems, Dr. O’Malley allows each student to teach a problem that has appeared on a past AP

By LAURA ILOAEI

Chemistry exam to the class. “It’s set up so that every single student in this class is put in charge of a slightly lengthy problem, and they just simply have to teach the class how to do it,” Dr. O’Malley said. “I think it’s more interesting than just watching me, the teacher, the person they’ve seen since September, teach all these questions to them, again.”

These informal presentations take a few weeks to complete, but “by the end, every single student knows at least one problem really well, and every student has had 33 others explained to them, in a variety of ways,” Dr. O’Malley explained. Some students choose to make their presentation into a game, and, if they wish, they can even use it as a way to show off to their peers. Mostly, this activity is an effective method to master testtaking strategies and tricks.

AP Biology and AP Psychology teacher Marianna Reep finds that administering past exams from the College Board during class time is more helpful to her students than going through the entire curriculum again at triple speed. “Unless you ask me to specifically review something, I’m not going to reteach my entire course for review time,” she said. Because each student’s weaknesses are different, the students have independent study time during class to go over these topics.

The exams for Reep’s two AP courses require students to synthesize information differently. While the AP Biology exam demands that test-takers make predictions and process information, the AP Psychology curriculum is designed more around the expression of ideas. “For AP Psych, it’ll give you information that you have to know, that you have to articulate, [that] you have to be able to write about,” Reep stated. However, for the AP Biology curriculum, “they’re a little more complex,” she elaborated.

Reep understands that as upperclassmen, her students have a fair amount of work to get done. “If you have three or four APs, your head is spinning, and you have so much to do,” she sympathized. The workload may force students to triage each AP test. “I hope my juniors and seniors are smart enough and mature enough that they can say, ‘I’ve got to start doing this,’ do it early, and do it consistently,” Reep continued.

“But life happens, you’ve got a lot of things going on simultaneously, and, you know, it’s hard.”

Both students and teachers agree that consistent, spaced-out practice is the best strategy to overtake the vicious wind that AP season brings. As Dr. O’Malley puts it, “As long as you do a little bit each day in the weeks leading up to it, you’re going to be more than prepared for the actual test.

Not just [for] exams, but [for] life.”

By AMANDA BRUCCULERI Junior Caucus Co-President Zeynep Bromberg is the perfect model of a focused and well-

rounded student. Her journey at Stuyvesant, though, had a rocky start. “The first two months were really terrible; I didn’t know how to study for anything,” she said. “But then I found friends. And I guess SING! was probably the turning point, as it is for a lot of people.”

Her passion for theater developed and grew by her participating in the Stuyvesant Theater Community (STC) as well.

Bromberg was born in Turkey and spent the first few years of her life there. “It was very different there. I didn’t have any friends, but then again I was really small so you don’t really have any friends at that age. So, I think family was something that was very much emphasized throughout my childhood and even today,” she said.

This holds true even after moving to Brooklyn Heights. Growing up in such a loving environment has motivated Bromberg to be in-

volved in as many communities as possible. “I just really like people, and I really like being surrounded by people,” she shared, smiling.

As someone who is very in touch with her culture, Bromberg feels as though being one of the only Turks in Stuyvesant is an obstacle for her. “It’s hard when you’re not constantly reminded of your culture,” she said. “You have to remind yourself.” However, Bromberg shared that she feels as though she has found other senses of community at Stuyvesant: “I found a lot of friends, and I found a lot of people [who] I’m intellectually compatible with, which is really cool,” she said.

Overall, Bromberg describes her experience at Stuyvesant as extremely rewarding. “I found Caucus and STC, and I really found my home here. So, at my time at Stuy[vesant] I’ve been very, very lucky,” she shared.

Hanah Jun, senior

By CLAIRE TEMPELMAN Senior Caucus Co-President Hanah Jun has a number of pieces of advice to give to female students at Stuyvesant. Reflecting on her experiences in an e-mail interview, Jun writes: “At Stuy[vesant], there are many implicit biases against women in power. Oftentimes, people don’t really realize what they’re doing or saying.”

Jun has noticed the effects of implicit bias around her at Stuyvesant, especially when it concerns leadership. “People expect [girls] to be worse leaders and not as intelligent when it comes to decision making,” she explained.

After all, men holding positions of power has become the status quo.

Jun notes how, at Stuyvesant, many

women have been affected by this fact. “I’ve found myself and other empowered women being left out of conversations, undermined, or spoken to condescendingly for no good reason,” she recalled.

Despite such instances, Jun continues to give empowering advice to younger girls at Stuyvesant. “People are going to attack you and make assumptions about your work. Often, they won’t accept your defenses as legitimate or honest. Don’t let them bring you down,” she advised. “You’re amazing. As long as you know that, you’re in a good place.” Jun’s message of confidence will hopefully be heard by those who are looking for support in their journey to become leaders.

Photo courtesy of Hanah Jun

By VERONICA KOWALSKI and MAHIRAH KHAN

13 to 1300: The Girls at Stuyvesant Zeynep Bromberg, junior

Courtesy of Zeynep Bromberg

Tackling AP Season at Stuyvesant

Jeanette Cheung, senior

By RAYMOND WU Senior and girls’ track captain Jeanette Cheung is a prime example of hard work paying off. Becoming track captain had not been easy.

“When I tried out for the team freshman year, I actually didn’t make [it],” she revealed.

“What I did was I joined the Road Runners club, and I ran, and I got better, and then I tried out again the next season, which was indoor track, and I got on the team. And now I’ve progressed to being captain.” Running is something she is genuinely interested in pursuing, making it easier for her to find the resolve to improve.

Her work ethic is reflected in her attitude toward aca-

demics as well. Cheung believes this rigor is a doubleedged sword. “There [are] a lot of moments where it’s just super stressful, and I’m always thinking, ‘Oh my god, I have so much homework [and] I have so many tests.

Would it have been better to have less stress at a not-sogood high school?’” she said.

Cheung also talked about her distaste for the overly competitive environment: “I think one thing that has become really apparent to me, especially this year, as I’m applying for colleges and getting my results, is how toxic Stuy[vesant] can be. After everyone gets their results back, the next day, everyone’s talking about it, and then there are always people [who] are

kind of evaluating other people, and I just find that so not right,” she elaborated.

As a female at Stuyvesant, she does occasionally feel out of place. “In my Science Fiction and Fantasy class that I took last semester, we only had, like, 10 girls in a class of 30 something. That was something that I noticed every day, and it made me feel a little uncomfortable,” she said.

That being said, she does not regret her choice to attend Stuyvesant. “I think I learned a lot, and I’ve grown a lot as a person just because Stuy[vesant] demands so much that you either learn to cope with it and learn to get through everything or you fall apart,” she reflected.

The Controversial Comedic God, GangBuddha

Washington Square Park, late October 2018. Two boys stand in front of the fountain that neighbors the arch, clad in nothing but their boxer shorts despite the frigid air. One surveys the area with a stern gaze and states matter-of-factly, “Ladies don’t like us anymore. We tried ALL THE FEMALES.” He points both fingers in the radius in front of him to emphasize his point before exclaiming, “LOOK AROUND! No females like us! So what are we gonna do?!” He tilts his head toward the heavens slightly, and bellows, “We’re gonna look for MERMAAAAAAIDS!” The boys then proceed to tumble roll, jump, and dive into the fountain with the kind of zeal that only accompanies fervent romantic pursuit. This entire sequence of events is a comedic video composed by none other than @gangbuddha, junior Evan Wong.

The birth of his account was, like the content cranked out after it, done on a spontaneous whim. “I tried taking the name @buddhagang and it was taken, and I needed a domain, so I just kept trying mad stuff, and @gangbuddha was clean,” Wong said.

An entertainer on social media, Wong’s account primarily consists of prank videos and other assorted snippets of crass, explicit humor. He acts without inhibition as he mischievously weaves his way through the five boroughs.

In less than a year he has amassed hundreds of supporters and fans, but he has also garnered attention from those who find his content vulgar and distasteful.

The nature of Wong’s humour has gotten him into trouble, as he frequently films others without their permission. Usually he gets kicked out of fast food establishments or receives empty threats of getting law enforcement involved.

At this point Wong realizes he must

back away and carry on. But there was one occasion that temporarily cost him his position on the football team: “What happened was, I was on the train. There was this random guy next to me and then I was like ‘Ey, I’m gonna make a @gangbuddha vid with this guy.’

[I] whipped out my phone, started recording him. The teacher—I didn’t know he was a teacher at the time, so I made a video and he grabbed my phone. Apparently he was a teacher at Bard,” Wong said. Bard students were tagged in the video, and the situation escalated to the point where Dean Brian Moran was e-mailed a link to Wong’s Instagram. Wong was then kicked off the football team, but was readmitted a few weeks later because of his high state ranking and because his infamy is not due to him being malicious, but instead due to the flamboyant and sensationalist nature of his pranking.

Crude, raw, and uninhibited, Wong is an iconoclast who over-

steps the boundaries of not only restaurants and social norms for the sheer hell of the ‘Gram, but also of the stereotypical image of what an Asian-American Stuyvesant student can be or become, and what their successes could entail.

“The reason I do @gangbuddha, the reason why I do what I do, is for the Asian-American culture. Not even at Stuyvesant, but throughout. Most of our parents are immigrants, and as a result, everyone is working very hard to do good in school. And we need more big [penis] energy in the Asian-American society because we’re picked on, frowned upon,” Wong said. He hopes that by being the greatest comedian he can be, he can inspire others, particularly Asian Americans, to pursue their destiny to be the greatest that they can be at their particular talents, too.

He may be swarmed by a mob of critics, but his indifference prevents him from being oppressed

by his opposition. “People do hate me,” Wong acknowledged.

“It’s funny to me. You’re just being yourself, and someone’s in the comment section like, ‘Go [expletive] yourself,’ and you’re just like, ‘Why?’ When they hate you, they want to be you.” For those who hate him because they believe he’s simply foolish, Wong said, “Then that’s okay. It’s like fear. They want my big [penis] energy. I have unlimited amounts of it.”

Even after he graduates in 2020, Wong still wants to continue making content for his page. However, he does not want to limit himself solely to it: “I have bigger goals than that. Like, I’m gonna be the world’s greatest boxer, I’m gonna become a doctor. I’m gonna become famous, gonna have a million followers on Instagram, a few houses around the world, impregnate multiple women, and continue the legacy,” he said.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 11

Features

By AMANDA YAGERMAN

Every student undoubtedly has a unique Stuyvesant experience. Second-term sophomores are now halfway through high school, a position that gives them a unique perspective on the past and upcoming two years.

Sophomore Subyeta Chowdhury summed up her time so far at Stuyvesant as “pretty great,” she said. Like many incoming freshmen, she entered Stuyvesant expecting to be “bombarded with so much work that [she] wouldn’t be able to breathe,” she said. However, she was pleasantly surprised that, while she was given plenty of work to do, the large amount of work resulted in a useful byproduct. “I was able to develop time management skills because of it,” Chowdhury remarked.

Sophomore Jeff Huang also acknowledged that the sometimes-difficult workload and tight schedule of a Stuyvesant student are heightened by participating in extracurricular activities. “Towards the end of SING! season this year, I would get home at 8:30 p.m., sleep from 10:00 p.m.

Halfway There: Sophomores Reflect

until 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. and wake up to study,” he said. Huang does not regret his participation in clubs, though, acknowledging that the wide range of extracurricular activities is one of his favorite things about this school. “Hey, if you don’t have dark circles at least once, are you really a Stuy student?” he joked.

Other sophomores’ feelings about their Stuyvesant years are decidedly more mixed. Natalia Velez-Rios described Stuyvesant as “exhausting,” due to early mornings, long commutes, and many hours of study time. She conceded, though, that Stuyvesant has plenty of great features, too. “I love all of the teachers I’ve had and the new subjects I’ve been exposed to,” she explained. Her favorite teacher thus far is Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman, who teaches her European Literature class. “I always look forward to his class because he creates such a welcoming environment,” Velez-Rios said. “It feels like our own little community.”

The consensus among sophomores seems to be that they entered Stuyvesant expecting aca-

demic rigor and intensity. What sophomore Michael Russo did not expect as a freshman, however, was the prominent social scene within the Stuyvesant community.

“I’d been told that everyone’s super focused on work and antisocial, but that’s not the case at all,” he observed. One of Russo’s takeaways from the past two years was to “surround yourself with the right people,” a principle that has helped him enjoy his time at Stuyvesant.

The sophomores’ attitudes about their futures as upperclassmen are also varied. Chowdhury looks forward to taking more elective courses and earning leadership positions in clubs, but expressed some anxiety concerning these new commitments. “It kind of daunts me, because I am planning on having a full schedule next year, but I’m not sure how that’s going to play out with all the timemanagement stuff,” she said.

Velez-Rios, too, is eager to choose from an expanded range of courses, but is less enthusiastic about the added pressure that comes with junior year. “Juniors are always complaining about stay-

ing up late,” she elaborated.

Russo, on the other hand, is very much looking forward to the extra workload he will face as an upperclassman. “I usually can’t motivate myself to study in advance or at all for certain subjects,” he admitted. He hopes to improve his work ethic and ability to selfmotivate by the time he graduates.

Huang is concerned about the looming college application process. He is excited, though, to strengthen his friendships over the next two years. “I’m certainly looking forward to furthering the connections I have made so far, and having more involvement in extracurriculars,” he said.

Though each sophomore has individual goals, the vast majority of people all came to Stuyvesant for the same reason: to prepare them for the world. Chowdhury aims to one day be a pediatrician and to meet this end, has taken related electives in the past two years. She also wants to grow as an individual during the remainder of her Stuyvesant experience. “I hope that, by the end of all this, I realize what I really want. I hope I know what I need to prioritize in

my academic life and my personal life,” she explained.

Huang is also interested in medicine and healthcare and has already taken related courses at Stuyvesant. “Hopefully, I’ll make more connections with people within that field in the next two years. Now, as summer begins, I’ve started to look at volunteering and internship opportunities at local hospitals,” he said.

Velez-Rios has made it her mission to leave her comfort zone in her remaining time at Stuyvesant.

“This year, I was a lot braver than freshman year,” she recounted. “I did SING!, I’m doing [Stuyvesant Outlet Showcase] (SOS), I quit track. I was scared of doing these things last year.” She hopes to apply this newfound courage to class participation in the coming two years.

While each sophomore follows a unique path through Stuyvesant, they can agree that their time at Stuyvesant is going by fast. “The past two years flew by so quickly,” Huang exclaimed, awed. “It’s crazy to think that it was over two years ago that I received that fateful acceptance letter.”

Photo Brooklyn Pride 2019

By ZOE OPPENHEIMER

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 12

Editorials Piecing Together Physics Stuyvesant’s famous (or infamous, depending on how one looks at it) reputation for excellence in STEM is well-earned.

Our robotics teams are among the best in the world, many students routinely win high-profile awards in biology and chemistry, and our average test scores for standardized tests in science and math are among the highest in the city. It’s clear that Stuyvesant’s extracurriculars are wellorganized and well-run. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the school’s Physics department under the current administration.

Physics should be one of the most entertaining and exciting scientific subjects to learn.

Wondrous images of exploding nuclei, diffracting light rays, colorful spectrometers, and vibrating sound waves should easily capture students’ attention. But it’s here where Stuyvesant’s Physics department faces its biggest problem—educating. Complaints from students abound about inefficient teaching styles, disorganized curricula, and a general lack of oversight. Students cite an inconsistent level of instruction as one of the chief causes of the department’s problems. These problems are numerous: classes rife with cheating, shockingly low test averages, rooms full of sleeping or inattentive students, and a deep-rooted culture of last-minute studying before exams.

Currently, the Physics department’s most pressing issue is its lack of organization, particularly in its departmental curriculum.

The administration has failed to effectively implement its new policy of teaching all science courses (biology, chemistry, and physics) at an honors level. Disparities among teaching styles are far too common—some teachers include SAT II Subject Test material in their lessons while others stick to the easier and simpler Regents curriculum that is the standard for New York State public schools. The most obvious solution to this problem (and this can be applied to nearly every department in Stuyvesant) is to create and implement a standardized curriculum by which all teachers

must abide. Of course, teachers will still have to implement this curriculum effectively for this change to be successful. However, this shouldn’t prove overly difficult. A standardized curriculum allows teachers to assist each other more effectively; they’ll be able to share teaching materials, methods, or advice without having to account for differences in curricula. The same is true for students: under a standardized curriculum, students from different classes will find it easier to assist each other, as they’ll have been taught the same content and been given similar handouts, homework, and tests. The fact of the matter is that if the Physics department were to abide by a list of topics that must be taught throughout the year, far fewer students will resort to feverish studying, desperate Internet searches, and in the worst-case scenario, cheating to achieve sufficiently high scores.

The next major issue with the department is a failure to effectively teach its students what they need to know to advance their knowledge of the subject.

Physics is unique among the general sciences for its combination of mathematical and theoretical thinking. A student won’t survive simply by “plugging in” values for equations and generating an answer or memorizing long lists of formulas, laws, and concepts.

The combination of thinking both analytically and conceptually is one of the hardest aspects of the subject, and it is why the Physics department fails to live up to Stuyvesant’s reputation for excellence in STEM. While some teachers are excellent at clearly communicating concepts and methods of solving problems, others rely solely on lecture-style classes, in which students are expected to sit and take notes for 45 minutes (or an hour and a half, depending on the day) while reading off of a Smartboard or projector. Not only is this learning style inadequate and outdated, but it also turns students away from what should be a valuable and fascinating subject.

This is another problem with

a relatively simple solution: more oversight. Instead of focusing purely on end-of-term grades and final exam results, the administration should analyze test scores and class averages closely.

By identifying the teachers under whom the most students struggle, school leadership can focus its attention on the areas which teachers have not succeeded in with regards to their pupils. The administration should also speak with students in person about their experiences in physics, doing so with the understanding that teachers will not be told what specific students said about them; whatever the annual student surveys are supposed to convey to the administration, they are clearly not working.

Making serious institutional reforms is always difficult, and this will be no exception. The situation as it currently stands requires a systematic, diligent, and transformative set of reforms aimed at fixing long-standing issues within the Physics department. Right now, there is widespread dissatisfaction among much of the junior class in regards to the Physics department. There is so much untapped potential in Stuyvesant’s Physics community: we are failing to take advantage of the experienced teachers, enthusiastic and STEM-savvy students, and well-funded institution that we have. Recently, a teacher walked out of the room in the middle of class, and in the immediate wake of his exit, it became clear that not a single student in the room had heard what he said before leaving. Another incident occurred when a Physics teacher stormed out of class and decided to leave Stuyvesant altogether due to perceived mistreatment by the administration. In some classes, cheating is rampant and an open secret among students. The reasons behind the erratic quality of instruction within the department will have to be seriously examined. Ultimately, all the puzzle pieces needed to create a thriving, successful Physics department are already there. Though putting them together will be difficult, it is doable. And it must be done.

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Ending Epiphanies

By KRISTIN CHENG I found myself perched on a barstool at my kitchen table a few Saturdays ago, face to face with an old family friend of mine. As a Stuyvesant alum and current Harvard student, she bore both years of fatigue and crimson semi-circles beneath her eyes. And after spending two years here, where wearing a hoodie branded with an Ivy League name on College Apparel Day is often seen as worth more than the years of education we’ll depart with, I couldn’t help but seek advice.

Her words certainly provided

me with valuable insights that have since shaped my view of the Stuyvesant experience. They just weren’t the ones I anticipated.

When I first asked about her Stuyvesant years, I was comforted by the fact that her experiences were, to a large extent, akin to mine. She recalled late nights that spilled into daybreak spent hunched over her Physics textbook, memorizing facts and formulas she knew she’d soon forget. She recalled cheap coffees from the cart near the 2/3 station, the ones she needed to chug to keep from nodding off in the Spanish class she only liked because it was an easy 99.

She recalled the bliss she felt when she saw that three-digit number scrawled in red at the top right corner of her exams, a frivolous quantifier that seemed the central trial of her worth. In short, she recounted with a bit of laughter and nostalgia all the languors and simple pleasures that accompany the ordinary Stuyvesant experience.

What was troubling, though, was her response when I asked how she spent her weekends.

“I can’t remember doing anything but studying,” she muttered, after a few silent moments with a pensive look on her face.

She said that when she came

to Harvard—a place bustling with social justice activists and passionate young researchers— she felt lost, as if her college experience were just a big game of catch-up. Everyone around her seemed deeply passionate about whatever they took interest in; they somehow knew exactly why and how they intended to change the world. They weren’t fixated on having a 4.0 GPA or a 99 average like she was—their minds were set on far more significant goals, and they were pursuing them avidly. It seemed that the flawless transcript she had earned at Stuyvesant would no longer suffice. In fact, the grades she received should never have been what mattered most. She began to detail her Stuyvesant years once again, but her words, once lightly twinged with nostalgia, were now laced with deep regret.

And as this school year draws to a close, I’ve begun to reflect on my own endeavors. I’ve realized that, aside from my articles in these pages, through which I’m able to discuss the issues that fascinate me, I rarely pursue anything that is of interest to me. I’ve reminded myself time and time again that Stuyvesant is about the numbers and getting into college, that my passions

can wait until I have more time.

And I’ve told myself daily to put my head down, stay focused, and keep pushing—it’ll all be worth it when I finally make it through, right?

But from the family friend who stood in my shoes just a few years ago and now stands where I aspire to be, I’ve learned that high school isn’t an escape room.

Interests shouldn’t be brushed off—they’re worth developing. Invest yourself in that

a perfect high school average is only temporary. What will always remain, however, is the work ethic you’ve built and the passions you’ve nurtured. That is where the purpose of education lies— not within the numbers.

Thus, my sophomore year at Stuyvesant has taught me quite a few things. I’ve learned how to graph sine equations, about nuclear fission and fusion, and how to use the past perfect subjunctive in Spanish. More important-

I’ve learned that high school isn’t an escape room.

which excites you. Stop praying for the teachers deemed by others to be “incredibly light” and sulking when you receive those who aren’t. Be genuinely curious about the subjects you’re taught; your takeaways from a class should extend beyond a single line on your report card. Because in the grand scheme of things,

ly, though, I’ve learned that it’s foolish to wish away the next two years of my life, just as it’s foolish to prefer an “easy A” class to one that poses fruitful intellectual challenges. We have the potential to effect real change and the opportunity to be the future we’d like to see. We can’t squander it.

And we won’t.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 13

Opinions

Opinions Don’t Dehumanize Student Grading

By ANNE RHEE and JACOB STEINBERG At this year’s National Education Conference in England, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for the elimination of the SATs, which are the country’s standardized tests for elementary-age children (not to be confused with the college entry exam that American students commonly take). Corbyn said that “Teachers get into the profession because they want to inspire children, not pass them along an assembly line,” and argued that eliminating the SATs in England would bring about a more subjective system to determine a student’s performance and progress in school.

Stuyvesant is facing a similar dilemma now. For years, JupiterEd has served as the primary system for delivering assignments and grading tests and homework. Though it serves as an informative source for individual students’ grades, the site often does not show the full average for a class. Recently, however, teachers have begun to transition to a new system, PupilPath, which functions similarly to JupiterEd except for one key difference: the new platform displays a student’s performance relative to his or her peers.

This transition is ill-advised.

Moving toward a grading system that is based in absolutes sets a dangerous precedent for student evaluation. A platform that only indicates a numbers-based breakdown of a student’s grade fails to account for the many subjective factors behind the academic performance.

For instance, a student who doesn’t respond well to a teacher’s style won’t be as prepared for a test as a student who responds more favorably. Add to that the fact that dif-

Why Grading Curves Don’t Work

By RAE JEONG

ferent teachers have many different styles of teaching, and it becomes impossible to hold any student to a uniform performance standard.

The effects of such a variety in teaching methods are most apparent during the administration of departmental finals, when even a small discrepancy in student knowledge can result in an entire class’s underperformance. Not taking into account the dynamic between a teacher and a student gives a limited view of the overall educational systems in place, as the participation and interaction a student does in class is the very foundation for the student’s performance in that class. A universal grading system fails to consider the diverse educational experiences of students, and a black-and-white grade breakdown of tests and homework—no matter how objective it’s meant to be—fully ignores the reality of a student’s educational experience.

As it stands, JupiterEd allows for teachers to take teaching styles and difficulty into consideration when determining students’ grades.

Due to the lack of a definitive average, a student’s final grade is unnoticeably malleable until it is due. If a teacher recognizes a student’s understanding of a subject, the teacher can change the grade to one more appropriate. Be it a classwide curve or one meant for an individual student’s benefit, JupiterEd sets a subjective environment for a topic that ought to be, at its essence, subjective. Not addressing that and implementing PupilPath, a by-the-numbers system that ignores the human experiences at the core of our educational system, will lead to a reductionist experience for students, devaluing the meaning of learning for ourselves and future generations of Stuyvesant students to come.

The transition from middle school to Stuyvesant, a specialized elite high school, was, for many incoming students, a foray into unfamiliar territory.

Our school’s motto is “pro scientia atque sapientia,” a Latin phrase which translates to “for knowledge and wisdom.” Every incoming freshman is already familiar with Stuyvesant’s famed rigor, even before the start of his or her first term. What students won’t be familiar with is Stuyvesant’s lack of accountability. It’s usually through social media that incoming freshmen first become acquainted with Stuyvesant’s true colors.

“How’s [insert teacher] for [insert course]? Does he/she curve?”

The word “curve” is one of the first new and unfamiliar terms that incoming freshmen are forced to learn. What it means is that, given the right conditions, a teacher can “tweak” your grade and thereby grant you a higher average in that class. Curves are a great boon for the students who receive them, as they boost their GPAs and their morales, too. For the students who don’t receive them, it’s precisely the opposite; they do worse not necessarily because of academic performance, but ultimately because that teacher is free to weigh biases alongside test scores when grading.

Middle school for most students was dominated by grading programs that required teachers to input every grade numerically and weigh the grades consistently on metrics like participation, homework, tests, quizzes, and projects. “Curving” was impossible; grades were determined strictly by academic performance, as they were (and are) meant to be.

In Stuyvesant, this manipulation of grades has become a facade that grants immunity to teacher negligence. What makes curving so harmful is that grades aren’t supposed to be flexible. They are ultimately meant to serve two purposes: to evaluate a stu-

dent’s performance and to effectively judge a teacher’s ability to educate his or her students. The difference between an effective teacher and an ineffective one becomes invisible when the grades they give no longer strictly reflect academic performance. With the power to “curve” grades, teachers lose the incentive to teach effectively and fairly as grades no longer reflect student performance or teacher effectiveness.

The freedom to manipulate grades also means that students are no longer evaluated on performance. Rather, grades become a metric by which teachers reward their favored students for doing well in class on a subjective scale of likability. The dynamic between any given teacher and student is all too unique; what makes curving so detrimental is that when it comes time for established departmental finals or examinations like AP tests, the lack of consistency between teachers and students in a given student body disproportionately harms students who both happen to end up with a negligent teacher and can’t win that teacher’s favor.

A universal and objective grading system creates an environment where the average a student receives on his report card can be accounted for and easily verified. Grades are transparent and serve the purpose they are intended to—as a reflection of academic performance. Accountable grading means that students are no longer disadvantaged when they don’t happen to win a teacher’s favor. Accountable grading means that teachers are incentivized to actively teach students, as they can’t use curves to cover up their negligent teaching. Accountable grading means that students can compete on a level playing field where the metric by which they’re accepted into colleges, courses, and various programs isn’t determined by a teacher’s bias. Implementing a universal and fair grading system is a vital step to making sure that students, from freshman year to graduation, are guaranteed equal opportunities to succeed.

A Not-So-Healthy “Health” Education

By SHREYA PAUL Juniors at Stuyvesant High School learn about the significance of the Stonewall Riots in their U.S. History classes—this series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations called for the end of discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community.

They’re encouraged to accept and celebrate the diversity of sexual orientations. However, that inclusivity doesn’t seem to apply when these same juniors learn about sexual education in their health classes.

The word “sex” has always implicitly referred to heterosexual sex in our health classrooms.

The sex education unit is limited to a study of male and female anatomy, the different methods of contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy. There is no mention of the larger LGBTQIA+ community, which is often at a higher risk for STIs than their heterosexual counterparts. Throughout this whole semester, I have never heard my health teacher even mention alternative forms of sex, let alone discuss safer sex practices for the LGBTQIA+ community. This lack of recognition from teachers and the curriculum dismisses the experiences of queer teens while fostering a classroom environment

that is inherently discriminatory.

Stuyvesant’s health classes send out a clear message that invalidates non-heterosexual sex.

Stigmatization of LGBTQIA+ people and homophobia are further reinforced in the classes when health teachers refuse to expand their lessons beyond male-female relationships and heterosexual intercourse. An article published in these pages earlier this year detailed the struggles of LGBTQ+ students at Stuyvesant—getting a comprehensive, inclusive, and affirming sex education shouldn’t be one of them.

Unfortunately, Stuyvesant is not alone: in the 2015 Millennials, Sexuality, and Reproductive Health Survey, only 12 percent of millennials interviewed said their sex education classes covered same-sex relationships.

Only California, Iowa, Colorado, and Washington D.C. have state laws or regulatory guidance requiring LGBTQ-inclusive sex education as of 2015. Programs without such regulation stigmatize the LGBTQIA+ community and actively create a hostile environment where students do not feel safe. A health education classroom, where students are expected to learn to improve their physical, mental, and social health, should not be fostering this type of exclusionary envi-

ronment.

Creating LGBTQIA+-inclusive health classrooms is not difficult at all. There are simple changes that Stuyvesant’s health department and its teachers could implement into the current curriculum to initiate change. At the very least, medically appropriate information for all students about sexual orientation and gender identity should be provided. Teachers should be required to include discussions of LGBTQIA+ individuals and same-sex couples when teaching about relationships, sexual behavior, and sexual health.

Prevention messages related to contraception and birth control use should not be taught exclusively in terms of the male and female anatomy, nor should they imply that only heterosexual or cis-gender individuals need to be concerned about unintended pregnancy and STIs. In fact, a study of New York City high school students suggests that LGBTQIA+ youth are more likely to get pregnant than their heterosexual counterparts because they become sexually active at an earlier age and engage in both heterosexual intercourse and other forms of sex with multiple partners. The fact that non-heterosexual youths can face pregnancy needs to be addressed in our health classes.

And for the love of God, the word “sex” can no longer be code for heterosexual sex. Both the definition of and the discussion around sex need to expand beyond pregnancy and heterosexual relationships. Health teachers have to acknowledge that sex is more expansive than heterosexual intercourse.

Implementing an LGBTQIA+-inclusive sexual education curriculum in Stuyvesant would benefit all students, not just those who identify as a part of that community. A “comprehensive sex education [that] provides factual, non-stigmatizing information on sexual orientation and gender identity as a part of human development [would teach students] to respect [their] LGBTQ [peers],” according to the Human Rights Campaign. Having affirming, non-shameful conversations about sexual identity and orientation in the classroom would be a big step toward reducing the stigma of coming out as LGBTQ or the shame surrounding same-sex experimentation.

Students who do not identify as a part of the LGBTQIA+ community would also directly benefit from a more LGBTQIA+ inclusive sex education because heterosexual individuals can (and often do) engage in forms of non-heterosexual

intercourse. Because alternative forms of sex are never discussed in health class, students engage in this kind of behavior without proper protection or understanding of the associated risks. A more expansive sex education curriculum addresses this issue by teaching students about the different forms of sex, explaining the risk for STIs and how they are transmitted with respect to the various forms of sex, and discussing contraception use beyond heterosexual sex.

In my three years at Stuyvesant, I’ve frequently heard homophobic remarks and slurs in the halls. The attitudes of many students prove that homophobia continues to exist in this school.

But there is no reason for it to be legitimized in the health curriculum and practiced in classrooms. Continuing to ignore LGBTQIA+ students and their concerns in health classrooms can have detrimental effects on an individual’s self-esteem and mental health while strengthening the heteronormative attitude already present in this school.

Opening up the discussion of sexual education in health classrooms certainly will not undo this damage, but it may be a step toward creating a more inclusive and accepting Stuyvesant.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 14

Opinions The Problem With Pay-to-Stay Jails

By ALICE ZHU Across America, a system called “pay-to-stay” jails is an option only the richest criminal offenders can afford. For an average of $100 per night, “prisoners” can buy their way into a more lenient jail. These “pay-to-stay” jails, fully outfitted with beach views, in-house computers, flat screen TVs, and well-equipped libraries, are nothing like the shabbier ones faced by less affluent criminals, often as punishment for far pettier crimes. Such an unequal and obviously lopsided system should be a thing of the past— a throwback to the glory days of the Gilded Age when loose societal norms and unfettered capital markets allowed tycoons and robber barons unprecedented control over America’s justice system. However, these “pay-to-stay” jails remain a huge part of our court system

today, having been introduced in the 1980s as part of legislative reforms to America’s criminal justice system. Pay-to-stay jails are a symbol of inequality improperly embedded in the country’s justice system, and America is better off without them.

Since the wealthy can afford better attorneys and thus ensure a friendlier trial outcome, they already have an advantage in the courts. That, on top of a severe shortage of public defendants and legal aid for poor citizens, stacks the deck of the U.S. criminal justice system in favor of wealthy individuals and organizations. A national survey published in 2016 by the Justice Index found that for every 10,000 people within 200 percent of the federal poverty level, there are only .64 civil legal aid attorneys available. That is 60 times fewer than the number of available attorneys per

10,000 people nationally. Not only are $2,000-an-hour attorneys able to prove a guilty (and wealthy) person innocent—or at least greatly decrease one’s sentence—but the punishment meted out to their clients also rarely serves as a representation of the truth.

Proponents of pay-to-stay jails say that it helps offset the cost of housing prisoners and benefits the U.S. economy, but the purpose of the criminal justice system was never to generate profit. While private prisons operate outside of federal oversight, government-run prisons should never aim to benefit financially at the expense of the integrity of the country’s criminal justice system. Others argue that prisoners should pay for their own food, clothing, and shelter during their time in prison, and while this does make sense in theory, the reality is that

Let the Free Market Stand, The Public Demands

By MAYA DUNAYER and JUSTIN MURDOCK Have you ever found yourself staring into the void of your phone screen, mindlessly scrolling through post after post, with nothing to say except: “What am I doing?”

You’re not alone. In fact, the average American spends 4 hours and 33 minutes each day on his or her phone or tablet. That’s a quarter of waking hours. Worst of all, this time is not spent on quality interactions or productivity; instead, technology seeks to exploit the user through instant gratification. Tech corporations manipulate the user’s attention through a series of design and algorithmic choices that use basic human psychology to increase “time on site.” However, technology doesn’t have to be this way. If companies can align their incentives to match real human goals, technology can be a force for good.

Modern technology has done much to degrade humanity in the past several decades.

People are ever more dependent on their devices in everyday life, with the average American checking their phone once every 12 minutes. Furthermore, each of these seemingly minor distractions has been found capable of distracting for up to 23 minutes.

This compulsive behavior yields little benefit. The time spent scrolling and “checking” our devices for push notifications mindlessly amount to nothing more than wasted time, where the user only receives short-term gratification and little actual value.

These push notifications serve as an integral feature of these companies’ business models. We’re constantly bombarded with alert after alert as well as an incessant barrage of likes and comments. The reason for this lies in the incentives of the attention economy, an advertising-based business model where human attention is a commodity in short supply. The more time spent in-app, the more money made from ads and data collection. Notifications can grab your attention in a way nothing else can. A study found that receiving just one notification each week increased device usage by a factor of two.

Now imagine the 45 notifications the average American receives each day.

Each notification, when received, triggers the release of dopamine in the brain of the user. Notifications provide what is known as the “variable ratio schedule.” The “variable ratio schedule” is found in casino slots. A gambler pulls the lever of the slot machine for the variable monetary reward. Every time we take out our phones to check for notifications, we pull the lever of the miniature slot machine in our pocket. However, this reward doesn’t come in cash form. Each time we check our phone, we could be greeted with either insignificant notifications or a college acceptance e-mail. The variability of the dopamine schedule keeps users coming back.

Once an app has notified you and very likely pushed you into their platform, the designers have entered the user into the next level of their apparatus. The user has already been ensnared by the app’s tantalizing hook; now, it only has to keep them trapped. Upon opening the app, a host of other distracting features await the user.

Pulled in by the colors tailor-made for the human brain and natural curiosity, one might get sucked into the social media-trademarked endless scrolling or stories. Here again, I am faced with another slot machine of variable reward. Each tap or scroll is like a pull on the lever that can provide a burst of dopamine from any post one might find. This seemingly minor psychological bug can have massive effects. Slot machines make more money than “professional baseball, theme parks, and movie theaters” combined, using the same variable reward.

But unlike a normal slot machine, this one pulls its own lever. Nowadays, there isn’t a place on the internet that waits for the user to opt in before it starts autoplaying a video or showing another image. Designers at Facebook had one revelation in 2013: people are lazy. Not just don’t-go-to-the-gym lazy, but so lazy, in fact, that they would watch a video, even if they didn’t really want to. The most obvious example of autoplay is in Youtube, one of the most time-wasting applications on the market. Once a video finishes, the user has only seven seconds to opt out of the next video. The tactic works. Quickly, every single service adopted autoplay to help in the arms race for user attention.

Along with the three main features outlined—the notifications, “variable ratio schedule,” and autoplay—technology tries to control the user’s attention through many other ways. The colors of every part of every app is designed to catch the human eye.

Snapchat streaks prey on the teenage desire for social connection and create a game in which neither side wants to lose. This feature predictably pulls users back to the app every day, increasing time on site.

On Youtube, recommendation engine algorithms use information they collected from the viewer’s viewing habits to find the video the user is most likely to click on. These custom-chosen videos manipulate natural curiosity to keep the user on the site. When was the last time you successfully watched just one Youtube video? You open the service up for a video and then check the time an hour later in a trance-like state. The average length of watch time for Youtube on mobile devices is 40 minutes. It’s not a question of awareness; one could be watching a video about how Youtube tricks the brain, but then still be enticed by the next video in the autoplay queue.

Recommendation engines also guide users to outcomes that make them more precontinued on page 15

around 80 percent of those in the criminal justice system are not able to afford an attorney (let alone their own upkeep) without a stable job and source of financial support. Expecting prisoners to help “cut costs” by forcing them to pay for basic rights such as food and shelter is not only nonsensical but also inhumane and deeply immoral.

A popular myth holds that rich prisoners will not pose a threat to society upon release from jail, given the white-collar nature of their crimes. However, a study conducted by the Marshall Project and the LA Times on 3500 individuals in Southern California found that 4.5 percent of criminals residing in pay-to-stay jails had committed deadly crimes such as sexual violence, assault, battery, and others. Still, many more are guilty of vehicular manslaughter and illegally transporting drugs. While the percentage

of violent and dangerous payto-stay prisoners remains relatively low, it is still a travesty to allow wealthy murderers and rapists to live in comfort while supposedly being punished for their crimes. Pay-to-stay prisons undermine the basic purposes of America’s criminal justice system: to prevent crime through just punishment and to ensure that criminals are not a threat to citizens.

The question comes down to why the rich deserve better jail conditions when it serves as a legal way for the wealthy to circumvent traditional incarceration policies. The simple truth is that they don’t.

Pay-to-stay jails are an instrument of inequality and act as a way for the rich to escape the rightful punishments of a traditional prison. For that reason, they should not exist.

Losing Control: The Fight for Humane Technology

By AARON VISSER and JOSHUA GINDIS The United States has long been one of the greatest technological superpowers in the world. According to the 2017 CIA World Factbook, the U.S. ranks third in the amount of Internet users and fourth in the amount of mobile cellular device users as compared with the rest of the world. In pure numbers, that’s 395.881 million people with cellular devices and 246,809,221 people with Internet access. With so many people connecting to the Internet and using cellular devices, it’s no wonder that the top 10 American technology companies were worth over $1 trillion in 2017. The extensive use of social media by Americans has caused many to call for a restructuring of the current system of government regulation of technology, but doing so would go against the American principles of a free market, as well as against the will of the consumer.

Any company that produces an application has a specific business model in mind. Some of the most dominant technological companies in the industry, such as Google and Facebook, do not charge consumers to use their services. Instead, through advertising and data mining, they push the “best in class” applications at consumers through advertising and data mining. Since companies want to make as much money as possible, they pay social media companies to advertise their products, which allows the social media company to turn a profit without spending too much on marketing efforts. However, this business model can effectively function only if there is a demand for the product. If consumers do not use the social media apps currently used to advertise such products, the companies designing and manufacturing them will go out of business. Essentially, to argue that apps should eliminate features such as YouTube’s “Autoplay” because of the addictive aspect is to say that TV shows shouldn’t have cliffhangers because they encourage people to keep watching (looking at you, Game of Thrones!).

The issue of addictive forms

of entertainment is not a new one.

For generations, parents have complained that children spend too much time watching television, playing video games, and now using apps. It should be evident by now that particular features of social media and other apps are not the issue at hand. Rather the nature of technological entertainment and entertainment as a whole should be the topic of discussion. Entertainment is designed to hold the attention of its audience and to provide a pleasurable distraction, whether through a book, a board game, or social media. To say that the problem begins and ends with social media is to disregard the entire point and history of entertainment.

One solution to excessive use of social media is to create a section in “app stores” designed to promoting market applications beneficial to the people who use them. These apps are intended to entertain while still being beneficial to society; for example, some function as games that donate to charity for every mile run by the user, and some donate one grain of rice for every math problem completed. While trying to establish an ethical section of an app store certainly sounds useful and noble, it will be of little practical benefit to consumers. Apple will have its own standard for what constitutes an ethical app, Amazon will have another, and Google will have yet another. One thing will be sure: none of these tech giants will place their own apps outside of the “ethical” category. Moreover, they may simply use ethical categorizations as a weapon. In the same way that Apple can ban certain apps from its app store, Apple could easily put Amazon and Google apps outside Apple’s “ethical” category by changing its definition of an “ethical” app.

At its core, application stores are fundamentally no different from the food market. While there are organic and cruelty-free options for foods at supermarkets, the reality is that most people simply buy (or download) what’s cheapest and what’s best.

Another possible solution continued on page 15

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Opinions

Opinions Let the Free Market Stand, The Public Demands continued from page 14

dictable. What Youtube shows the user isn’t just what it thinks you’ll want; rather, it’s about maximizing “time on site.” This can have major effects. People with more extreme views are easy to predict, so algorithms push people more to the extremes.

Anyone who views any politically rightleaning videos quickly is pushed toward Milo Yiannopoulos or Alex Jones. The same is true on the political left. These algorithms, which only seek to increase time on site with outrageous or false content, are also responsible for spreading preposterous conspiracy theories, such as “flat earthism” or “9/11 truth.” When basketball star Kyrie Irving apologized for saying that the earth is flat, he blamed it specifically on the “Youtube rabbit hole.”

Our technology isn’t designed to help people; it’s designed to distract them. That is not to say that technology doesn’t help people or provide interesting content; this article could only have been written with Google search connecting us to information.

Defenders of Silicon Valley will argue that if people don’t like these services, they are free to not use them. This is a lie. For most consumers, tech is essential to their social, work, and school life. These handful of companies have a virtual monopoly over our lives. We need alternative technology that doesn’t brain hack, but doing that doesn’t have to mean throwing out the baby with the bath water. We can keep the good parts of technology while disposing of the bad.

The key to the solution is to change the incentives. A solution would need to disrupt the attention economy and make improving the user’s well-being the ultimate end of technology. For a workable solution, we can look to the past.

Food was grown using synthetic fertil-

Page 15

izers and all meat was inhumanely factory-farmed in the mid-20th century. Even though consumers could now buy industrial food for lower prices than ever, many wanted a humane way of food consumption. The organic food movement was driven by normal consumers, who, through applying pressure and demanding organic food, created a whole new way to farm.

What if the same movement could exist for technology? While the vast majority of food is still not organic, technology is extremely scalable and could change the entire market. Such a movement already exists. Tristan Harris, dubbed the thought process behind this as “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience” on April 23, and Aza Raskin, the inventor of the endless scroll, launched the Humane Technology movement. The movement seeks to skirt the entire system through purely capitalist means. Based in Silicon Valley, the movement seeks to pressure software engineers and executives of companies directly. But it can’t work without consumer support. People have to demand humane technology that doesn’t seek to manipulate its users and instead builds human relationships. A humane social media company seeks to actually improve the relationships between people on the platform. A humane video service works to supply the user with what they want—not choose what the user wants. A humane messaging service doesn’t just try to make messaging simple—it seeks to improve communication without distraction to improve human connection and well-being. The organization Humane Technology designates certain applications as humane, so that users can know that it works in favor of their interests. Apple and Google could have entire sections of their application stores for humane technology. All of this only works if the demand exists. We must all demand technology that works for us and not just for Facebook’s bottom line.

Losing Control: The Fight for Humane Technology continued from page 14

would be for the government to set its own standards of what apps can or cannot do. But government regulation would be a blunt instrument to accomplish this goal. Government simply cannot keep up with the pace of innovation in app development and would simply end up fighting last year’s war. The technological industry—and the innovation it fosters— is extremely fast paced, while federal bureaucracy moves extremely slowly at best. By the time any meaningful legislation is passed, it will likely be rendered invalid as the market will have moved away from what the regulations are targeting. With such a long time frame for bureaucratic action, it is also possible for technological companies to find loopholes or avoid regulations altogether. In short, government regulations would be completely ineffective and would not be the solution to solve this issue.

Some politicians like Elizabeth Warren go so far to argue that the tech giants are simply too big and powerful and stifle competition by virtue of their very existence. She essentially argues that the free market has failed to function properly and that the only answer is to pass new antitrust laws to break up today’s dominant tech giants. What politicians like Warren fail to recognize is that American tech giants compete with each other every single day.

Tech giants in other countries, notably China, are catching up and even have government support for their technological advances. Breaking up

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American tech giants is tantamount to unilateral cyber-disarmament and would place undue burdens on their ability to compete. Regulating tech companies out of existence could very well cause America to lose its position to other countries unafraid to back up their own corporate powerhouses.

There is simply no way to force companies or consumers to adhere to any sort of regulation on social media usage, as it infringes on not only the free market but also on the rights of the consumers themselves.

The only viable solution is to make sure that people can make the correct decisions on their own. The first step is working with companies to try and find ethical alternatives to existing apps. Educating citizens about why ethical apps are beneficial would be a good way to increase their usage and generate ad-based profits at the same time. Soon enough, the new apps will become more and more popular, allowing companies to continue to make money while having apps that benefit the community.

Technology will continue to grow and change, and so will our sources of entertainment. It is human nature to be addicted to pleasure and entertainment, and a few government regulations or creation of a new section in application stores will not help. In order for the idea of ethical apps to actually work, it is necessary for companies and consumers themselves to come to the decision to create and use them. It is vital to preserve the free market and free will that we as Americans pride ourselves on.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 16

Science Hello, readers! The Spectator is introducing a new addition to Stuyvesant’s biweekly newspaper: the Science section. Science articles will cover everything from groundbreaking research efforts, to profiles of innovative experiments and pioneers, to thought pieces on the most recent developments, and more.

We hope you enjoy reading this brand-new section of The Spectator as much as we did creating it.

That Time Stuyvesant Students Built a Particle Accelerator

By CLAIRE SHIN

In the pivotal decades of the Cold War, the globe became a battleground between two titanic superpowers: the United States and the USSR. The world watched as the nations went to astonishing lengths to best one another in a dangerous arms race and gain advantages in scientific advancement, particularly in nuclear physics. Motivated by patriotism and a feverish

was to accomplish nothing less than the construction of a particle accelerator.

A particle accelerator does essentially what its name suggests: it shoots (or accelerates) atomic nuclei and subatomic particles, like protons, through an elongated pipe. In a cyclotron, the most common type of particle accelerator, this pipe is circular. In all accelerators, however, the basic function remains the same: incredibly small

tector records the products of the collision, like radiation and energy.

The sheer complexity and technical know-how inherent in building a particle accelerator made this a considerable undertaking for a group of teenagers, even if they were considered the best and brightest students in New York City. But the project began in earnest; the students began to build the machine from scratch. Donations of materi-

Fifty Stuyvesant students, led by physics teacher Alfred Bender, formed the Cyclotron Committee to accomplish an extraordinary feat: the construction of a particle accelerator.

desire for discovery, scientists in both the U.S. and the USSR took enormous leaps in experimentation and, in doing so, created incredible overlaps in fantasy and reality.

The students at our own Stuyvesant High School were no exception. In the 1960s, at the height of this tense conflict, 50 Stuyvesant students led by physics teacher Alfred Bender created the Cyclotron Committee. The Committee’s mission

By KRISTOFF MISQUITTA Two millennia ago, the Roman writer and philosopher Plutarch posed this timeless paradox: if every plank of a sailing ship is replaced throughout its journey, is it still, fundamentally, the same ship? Seventeenthcentury thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke pondered the question’s meaning with theory and logic, thinking up new ideas of natural law, human nature, and governance in attempts to provide an answer.

Today, genetic scientists bring the “Theseus paradox” to life in cutting-edge experiments and research. The subject? The genomic data, or DNA, of Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. coli.

These unlikely philosophers, termed “synthetic biologists,” exploit the many existing building blocks of life to engineer entirely new biological systems.

Propelled by technological advances in computing and DNA sequencing, they have reprogrammed bacteria to invade cancer cells, generate biofuels, and coalesce into vibrant microbial art. These intrepid experiments have not only attracted lengthy queues of big-name customers like Goodyear and DuPont, but have also launched

particles are shot at near-light speed toward a certain object, like a gold foil or another particle beam originating from the opposite direction. The pipe is kept in a vacuum to ensure an unobstructed particle beam.

In linear particle accelerators, the beam will simply travel in a straight line, whereas in cyclotrons, electromagnets are used to keep the beam on a constant circular course. When the beam strikes a specified target, a de-

als from multiple manufacturing companies helped keep the project afloat, and the students received a half-ton of steel, five miles of copper wire, and an already-constructed transmitter for a control system. In the end, various other donations and fundraising efforts by the students helped to dramatically lower the price of construction to $10,000. While this already seems like a huge amount (especially in the 1960s), consider

that the Large Hadron Collider (the largest particle accelerator in the world) cost a total of $6.4 billion and took around 30 years to build.

The Committee divided the student task force into small, specialized groups, each tasked with constructing or designing parts of the cyclotron; one group designed the electromagnet, another created the vacuum chamber, and so on.

Testimonies from Stuyvesant students and teachers of the time indicated that the power required for the accelerator to function “tanked the electrical system for the building and surrounding area,” an effective indicator of the sheer scale of such a project.

The Cyclotron Committee was not formed solely in the spirit of scientific curiosity nor of patriotism. Besides contributing to incredible advancements in medicine, chemistry, and physics, particle accelerators present awe-inspiring possibilities that, at times, almost seem to cross into the realm of science fiction. In 2010, worldrenowned physicist Stephen Hawking published an article asserting that particle accelerators are the “last and best hope of building a real time machine.”

Given Einstein’s foundational theory that time slows down for fast-moving objects to protect the cosmic limit of light speed, Hawking reasoned that it would theoretically be possible to transport humans to the future through the temporal fourth dimension. The only machine

The Bacteria of Theseus?

nascent biotechnology companies and startups like Moderna and Zymergen into the spotlight. Rolling in government grants and record-setting investor funds, they are on track to complete their most ambitious experiments yet.

Jason Chin and his team at the British Medical Research Council are at the vanguard of these efforts, having recently reported the successful transplant of the largest-ever artificial genome into living E. coli. These “synthetic” bacteria are identical to their natural counterparts, save for slower replication and more elongated shapes. However, the researchers did not simply bundle the same organism in a different wrapping paper and call it new. In fact, every TCG, TCA, and TAG codon in the original DNA was replaced with a “synonym” codon in the replica. Such a copy-and-paste operation should, theoretically, have muddled the instructions and resulted in a dysfunctional product; and yet, the synthetic bacteria thrive. It is hard to say which is more astounding: the modified DNA molecules functioning identically to the original chains, or the (so far) successful viability of the organism itself.

The scientists’ experimental method was to exploit the inherent redundancy of life’s

genetic code: across all organisms, 64 DNA codons encode only 20 amino acids. In nature, the assignment of multiple codons for the same amino acid prevents minor DNA mutations from snowballing into the production of misfolded, broken proteins. In most labs, this inborn biological defense mechanism neither helps nor harms experiments. But in the crafty minds of Jason Chin and

terial genome, Chin was left with three unassigned codons.

Though small, the vacancy adds a whole new dimension of freedom to lab-based protein production. E. coli are already able components of drugs that help treat multiple sclerosis, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis. Pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly depend on robust E. coli populations to supply insulin for medicinal use, yet store them in

capable of transporting matter to such speeds as of now is a particle accelerator, though it is limited to only the most minuscule of particles. Particle accelerators can also reach temperatures of up to 7.2 trillion degrees (close to the estimated temperature of the universe just after the Big Bang), and the inside of the Large Hadron Collider is regularly kept in subzero conditions (colder than outer space.) Though their efforts clearly could not match the scale of the Collider —which began construction in 1976— the Stuyvesant students of the Cyclotron Committee undoubtedly hoped, aided by their own skill and will, to capture each of the fascinating elements of the creation of a particle accelerator. The 1962 issue of the Indicator suggests that the machine was completed, but to this day there seems to be no evidence of the project’s actual completion.

Stuyvesant students are often credited as exceptional, whether it is in academics, service, or creativity. Like true scientists, they challenge themselves and push the limits of nature and of knowledge, turning fiction into reality and driving society to ever greater heights. Even though its ambitious goals never achieved fruition, the Cyclotron Committee retains its impressive mark on school history, serving as one of the crowning achievements of the school ever since its inception.

ria undoubtedly still display the fundamental characteristics of life. That they can move, grow, and proliferate is a development that blurs the once-clear boundaries between the organic and the synthetic. Yes, scientists are optimistic that, if given virtually unlimited freedom to rewire their machinery, they can transform synthetic bacteria into drug-producing factories built for medicinal chemistry.

But in the crafty mind of a synthetic biologist, the redundancy represents a prime opportunity to hijack the bacteria and transform them into prolific protein factories.

his fellow scientists, this redundancy represented a prime opportunity to hijack the bacteria and transform them into prolific protein factories.

After substituting codons at more than 18,000 sites across the 4-million-base-pair bac-

50,000-liter bioreactors prone to viral infection. The synthetic bacteria may now be recoded to resist viral infection, potentially saving the industry millions of dollars each year.

Despite being almost entirely artificial, the synthesized bacte-

But they are also cautious as they contemplate their answer to a slightly modified version of Plutarch’s paradox: if every part of a bacterial genome is replaced, is it still, fundamentally, the same bacterium?

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment The Cairo Cowboy

Television

By Sunan Tajwar Netflix and other media networks have been riding the wave of immigrant American stories to raise viewership among a newer and more diverse generation. As a Bengali Muslim growing up in New York, I find myself longing for personally relevant content outside of Bollywood and Arab theater. Hulu’s new show, “Ramy,” has fulfilled that.

Produced by and centered around stand-up comedian Ramy Youssef ’s life as a Muslim American from the Jersey suburbs, the show reflects on Youssef ’s experiences growing up as the son of Egyptian immigrants in a post 9/11 America. He plays Ramy Hassan, a TV version of himself going through the trials of being a both a millennial and a Muslim American who looks to God for answers, despite being rejected by members of his religious community. Ramy faces an existential crisis because of his questioning faith in God and his simultaneous joy found in exaggerated American ideals like sex, drugs, and women.

In the midst of uncles and imams acting as the Islam police and the temptations of women and partying around him, Ramy faces the dilemma of “having Friday prayer in the morning, and a party later that night.” The pres-

Film

By Jacqueline Thom As a longtime fan of slowburning Westerns and wretched characters doomed to failure, “Dreamland” was a must-watch for me. It has the hazy wonder of an independent film and sports a sense of naive charm brought on by the greenness of director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. That naivety is transferred to the illusions of adventure that the film’s main character, Eugene Evans (Finn Cole), harbors as he toys with the thought of leaving his family’s Oklahoma farm for something greater.

“Dreamland” is by no means a perfect drama. The harshness of the world is reflected in the youthful stubbornness and the impossible dreams of its protagonist, and minor gaps in the plot are reflective of Evans’s unrealistic views on life.

Perhaps the feeling that the film wasn’t entirely thought out comes from the young age of its director and the majority of his crew, but what “Dreamland” sometimes lacks in storytelling formidability is made up in its cinematography, production design, and acting chops.

Set in the Dust Bowl, Eugene Evans is a teenager with a penchant for seeking adventure and an obsession with dime store detective novels. Like his long gone father, Evans is infatuated with everything that is not the slowly-progressing plains of the Midwest and longs to escape. That opportunity comes when a reward is posted for anyone who catches a femme fatale on the lam. As expected, Evans finds the fugitive, Allison Wells (Margot Robbie), but thinks twice about turning her in at the sight of her gunshot wounds and soft-spoken but confident demeanor.

It becomes evident that it is Evans’s stepfather, George (Travis Fimmel), who becomes the greater villain as he tries to crack down on the whereabouts of Wells while scaring his stepson straight.

As with any good film, “Dreamland” spends its first five minutes teaching viewers how to watch it. Right off the bat, we’re

sure to be an ideal Muslim in a modern American becomes a recurring theme in the show. Ramy consistently feels rejected by the older generation of the Muslim community because of his failure to blindly accept all of their teachings that he once accepted as truth. It’s that voice in the back of Ramy’s head that both forces him to question his own faith and drives a wedge between him and the mosque.

Out of all his haram antics, the one that is highlighted over the course of the first ten episodes is Ramy’s desire for premarital sex. To the horror of his fervently religious friends and family, Ramy prefers to spend time with non-Arab and nonMuslim women. Growing up in a strict Muslim household and subsequently disobeying your parents and teachings engenders an adrenaline rush, yet it also acts as a window for doubt and regret to creep in.

Even then, Ramy often engages in haram activities and consistently disregards Islam’s fundamental teachings without self-pity. That doesn’t mean Ramy goes without grand philosophical moments. For instance, in one episode, we see Ramy flashback to the days before 9/11. An elementary school Ramy finds himself questioning his faith in Islam. The skepticism he faced from his white

friend group, who suspected him to be a terrorist after the attacks, leads to a test of loyalty in which Ramy feels he must prove himself as a regular American boy. His failure to do so forces a young Ramy to question whether or not he should be trying to be an American at all, or if he should resign to being a terrorist just because he is a Muslim by birth.

Furthermore, in a rather awkward, but very telling, scene portraying the state of Islamophobia at the time, Ramy has a dream conversation with a rather calm and persuasive Osama BinLaden. The conversation beautifully portrays the recurrent doubt in the minds of young Muslim Americans, who incriminate their faith and beliefs because of the way they are rejected by American society. When listening to Bin Laden, Ramy accepts that Muslims are not yet fully accepted in America, but he denies

teachers. It is Ramy’s ultimate decision to realize that he is not the same as a terrorist. This acts as a turning point midway

through the series. As a young man, he distinguishes Islam from terrorism and realizes that being Muslim and American are not

Katherine Lwin/ The Spectator

any association with the horror Bin Laden preaches that put tears in the eyes of his classmates and

mutually exclusive. It is the latter portion of this personal revelation that catches up with Ramy in

Sweet Dreams in the West

greeted with a rising crane shot revealing a sprawling, desolate countryside with golden hour to boot. The actors’ slightly off, but not terrible, Oklahoman accents say much about the time period they’re in, thrusting willing audience members into a world not of their own.

With each passing moment, audiences are led deeper into a wellshot period piece, and considering that this is only Joris-Peyrafitte’s second feature, it’s safe to say that he is incredibly capable behind the camera. Along with seasoned cinematographer Lyle Vincent, Joris-Peyrafitte creates a believable plainlands setting that is supported by the work of production designer Meredith Lippincott. Dust-laden houses, clothes, and barns are a

no lack of ill-timed dust storms to put the film’s characters in their place and certainly everybody is as mean as living in a 1930s Midwest requires. All of it only serves to depict just how out of touch with reality Evans is and how, as he grows into his own, he realizes none of his dreams are possible, at least without life-changing sacrifices.

Evans and Wells’s struggle to make it to freedom in the south makes up only a quarter of the movie, yet it provides the most insight into the pair’s unlikely relationship and how much Evans has grown. Supporting all of the tension inspired by their unlawfulness is the harrowing sound of a bow to wiry violin strings on the part of Patrick Higgins. It’s eerily similar to film composer Philip Shep-

What “Dreamland” sometimes lacks in storytelling formidability is made up in its cinematography, production design, and acting chops. staple in this movie, and the ever so slow but methodical movements of the camera only add to the tension and sense of restlessness that Cole invokes in his character.

Interestingly enough, nothing is romanticized here. Yes, Evans is a dreamy, wide-eyed boy who, in his naivety, believes he can live out his illusions of finding his biological father in Mexico and escaping to freedom with Wells, and yes, the movie is made from the lens of a dreamy, wide-eyed boy, but that’s just a byproduct of having a teenager as the main character. Despite the wistfulness with which the era is approached, the land, its people, the relationship between Evans and Wells—none of that is made to be better than it actually is. There is

pard’s work, and brings along vibes from “The Assassination of Jesse James” (2007), which is equally intense and slow in its approach to its characters’ ends.

“Dreamland” is a film that serves viewers well if they’re willing to let it. For some, the Midwestern accents might already be too much to handle. For others, it’s the excellent buildup of investment in the movie’s characters and what the breathtaking setting has to offer that provide the most entertainment. If you liked Netflix’s “Hostiles” (2017) and don’t mind a period Western without the same amount of action akin to “The Hateful Eight” (2015), “Dreamland” should be your next watch.

Music

his adult life.

In an attempt to repent for his sins and find his truest Muslim self, Ramy travels back to Egypt where, almost unsurprisingly, his extended family is just as dysfunctional as the one back in America. His cousin, who is somehow more American than Ramy, is addicted to partying, alcohol, and drugs—symbolic of everything Ramy was trying to run away from. When he confronts his cousin, Ramy’s eyes are opened to a new Egypt: one whose religious foundations have been turned upside down in the midst of revolution and political turmoil.

Leaving both its main character and its audience confused in more ways than one, “Ramy” has laid the foundation for a flagship satirical drama for years to come.

For some Muslim American viewers, the hyperbolic sinful desires depicted by the show’s frontrunner may be a little too dramatized for their liking. For others, the show has the makings of a great comedy that has the potential to have lighthearted humor address serious issues within the Muslim American community. For all the Muslims and Arabs who have been longing for an opportunity to view cultural references from the inside, Hulu’s “Ramy” should be queued up ASAP.

For Consideration in Your Unlimited Free Time: ISLAND

By Matthew Wagman 4:20 is the exact length of the first song on British band ISLAND’s new EP, “When We’re Still.” Now that I’ve got your attention, the project isn’t about smoking weed. Or, maybe it is?

On the album’s third track, frontman Rollo Doherty chants, “And she’ll lie, lie, lie to get high, lie, lie.”

The album’s four songs are so out of this world that they could very well be about cannabis, but that doesn’t really matter next to the amazing blend of guitar riffs and chords that they consistently use.

ISLAND is a four piece guitar band (wow, I know, very retro) from England, which has been dropping projects for the past five years, yet only released an album last year. I have been listening for about as long, having found them somewhere in the depths of the internet. I actually went to one of their shows, and they all played extremely well and in much likeness to their digital music. If it weren’t for their modern black shirts, skinny jeans, and the date on my watch, I could’ve sworn that I was in the long forgotten past. The members’ long hair, crooning vocals, and slow-and-steady use of the guitar are so clearly derived from another era of music.

Despite having all the hallmarks of older bands and eras, their music is relatively fresh and unique, considering that many of the genres they share Spotify playlists and festival lineups with are either classic rock revival or pop. ISLAND’s music has always been minimal in production and instrumentation, with two guitars weaving impossible interplaying patterns over a steady thud of reverb-soaked drums and bass.

While they typically use two spare and overlapping guitar lines in their songs, this EP is a bit of a departure. They start to get into Coldplay-level steady drum beats and rhythm guitar strums, with the lead guitar either soaring above or even taking the back seat to give the song some accent or tension.

The way ISLAND structures their songs is extremely satisfying, defying traditional pop songwriting layout while also using it to their advantage to get the perfect amount of empty air between a break and a drop. While the guitar playing is less adventurous on this album, it’s actually more comforting, keeping out of some of the difficult, higher ranges of the guitar and holding a steady and calming pulse. While they manage to continue to create original chord progressions and melodies, some of their songs still tend to bleed into one another. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if there are not enough new ideas, their music may start to seem repetitive and they may lose listeners.

From the building tension and insecure musings of Doherty’s rough voice under distant guitars in “Just That Time of the Night” to the steady repetitive melody and paranoid rhetorical questions of “All in My Head,” ISLAND continues in a cloud of excellent playing and beautiful chords. But you really don’t need to be able to understand just how difficult it is to get those clear and complex notes from a guitar to appreciate this band. Anyone can feel the gentle plucks of songs “She” and the rich guitar of “Lyra” deep in their bones—the warmth of pure bliss that only music can bring.

Page 18

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Arts and Entertainment

A Year In [SPORTS] September 6: Serena Williams loses her cool at the U.S. Open after losing to Naomi Osaka.

[EVENT] September 10: The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards are held.

[DEATH] September 26: Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang’s death.

SEPTEMBER

[FILM] October 5: Release of “A Star is Born” [FILM] October 5: Release of “The Hate U Give”

OCTOBER

[LOVE] December 1: Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra’s wedding [GAME] December 7: Release of “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” [EVENT] December 17: Filipina model Catriona Gray is crowned Miss Universe.

[FILM] December 19: Release of “Mary Poppins Returns” [FILM] December 21: Release of “Aquaman” [FILM] December 28: Release of “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”

DECEMBER [DEATH] March 4: Actor Luke Perry’s death [FILM] March 8: Release of “Captain Marvel” [MEDIA] A sudden increase in college admissions scandals, including allegations that actress Lori Loughlin bribed USC to accept her daughter Olivia Jade [FOOD] March 15: Closing of Kung Fu Tea’s 315 Greenwich Street location [FOOD] March 29: Grand opening of Downtown Yogurt’s 303 Greenwich Street location [GAME] March 29: Release of “Yoshi’s Crafted World”

MARCH

APRIL

[EVENT] April 12: Beginning of the 2019 Coachella Festival [WORLD] April 15: The roof of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris catches fire, burning for around 15 hours.

[THEATER] April 17: Opening of “Hadestown” on Broadway [FILM] April 26: Release of “Avengers: Endgame” [GAME] April 29: Release of “Mortal Kombat 11”

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 19

Arts and Entertainment

Review [FILM] November 2: Release of “Bohemian Rhapsody” [DEATH] November 12: Marvel Comics creative leader Stan Lee’s death [FILM] November 16: Release of “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” [GAME] November 16: Release of “Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!” and “Let’s Go, Eevee!”

[FILM] November 21: Release of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” [SCIENCE] November 25: The creation of the first gene-edited (CRISPR) babies, Lulu and Nana, are announced by Chinese scientist He Jiankui.

[DEATH] November 26: Animator, voice actor, and “Spongebob” creator Stephen Hillenburg’s death [FILM] November 29: Release of “Mowgli: Into the Jungle”

NOVEMBER

[TV] January 3: Premiere of “Surviving R. Kelly” [EVENT] January 6: 76th Global Globe Awards [DEATH] January 18: Influencer and pomeranian Boo’s death [GAME] January 25: Release of “Kingdom Hearts III”

JANUARY

[EVENT] February 10: The 61st Grammy Awards [EVENT] February 29: The 91st Academy Awards

FEBRUARY

[EVENT] June 9: The 73rd Tony Awards [FILM] June 14: Release of “Men in Black: International” [FILM] June 21: Release of “Toy Story 4”

MAY

JUNE

[LOVE] May 6: Birth of Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, son to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex [FASHION] May 6: The 71st Met Gala, themed “Camp: Notes on Fashion” [FILM] May 10: Release of “Detective Pikachu” [MEDIA] May 11: Beauty guru and YouTuber James Charles breaks the record for most subscribers lost in a day, losing over 1.2 million.

[TV] May 16: Series finale of “The Big Bang Theory” [DEATH] May 16: Architect I. M. Pei (Ieoh Ming Pei)’s death [FILM] May 17: Release of “John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum” [MUSIC] May 18: The 64th Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Israel, won by Dutch artist Duncan Lawrence’s song, “Arcade” [TV] May 19: Series finale of “Game of Thrones” [FILM] May 24: Release of “Aladdin” [FILM] May 14: Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” wins Palme d’Or, the highest award for a film at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

[FILM] May 31: Release of “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”

Page 20

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Arts and Entertainment The Problem with Sequels

thinkpiece

By MORRIS RASKIN

lain, better powers. Similar threat, more devastating consequences, etc. Again, it leaves the audience feeling cheated, as they are still getting the same product, just in different packaging.

The third reason why sequels are almost always worse than the original is simply not having enough time. When a sequel, or any movie for that matter, is rushed, the story, characters, dialogue, and action don’t get enough thought put into them, and the film ends up feeling incomplete. Sometimes, like in “Black Panther” (2018), even the

thinkpiece

By MIRANDA LEPRI A stop on Omar Apollo’s Voyager tour, the Bowery Ballroom’s doors opened at 8:00 p.m., but the headliner didn’t go on until 10 p.m.

The Ballroom was packed by 8:20 p.m. with a mixture of teenagers and millennials—the distinctions between the two being glaringly obvious—all whispering excitedly. A playlist of bedroom pop and Kanye played in the background.

The lights were low. Plumes of smoke occasionally rose up from the crowd, each sparking a new wave of laughter.

But when Apollo appeared on the stage, the lapels on his blazer coated in rhinestones, the crowd of seemingly mild-mannered students went wild. Throaty screams and declarations of adoration echoed from the audience. People

shoved past each other, trying to get to the edge of the stage. “I love you, Omar,” one man hollered above the rest of the crowd. A hundred phones emerged at once, everyone desperate to capture the singer’s appearance on Snapchat or Instagram. As the band played the opening riffs of “Ignorin,” a 2018 single, the crowd collectively began to sway.

Omar Apollo is actually Omar Velasco, the youngest of three siblings whose parents immigrated to the U.S. to escape the gang violence of Guadalajara. The two started a local restaurant in South Haven, Indiana, while raising three kids, and were eventually able to become citizens. Apollo has cited their sacrifice and the gratification in being able to financially support them after all they did for him as a major moti-

special effects are not polished enough; the final fight scene of the movie ends up looking like a video game—weightless and mechanical. The VFX artists didn’t have the time to perfect the motion blur or physics of the scene.

When a studio rushes a sequel, fearing the market for the movie will go untapped if they don’t, the movie suffers as a consequence.

In the end, if a filmmaker is trying to produce a high-quality movie it is probably best to make an original film. However, if they are trying to make the most money at the box office, a sequel is a

good idea. In fact, only four of the 40 most profitable movies of all time are not a sequel, reboot, remake, or adaptation. There are many ways that a sequel can fail, but when done correctly, the sequel is a powerful tool that can further the plotline of a story universe, develop new and exciting characters, or even go above and beyond the original film. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to view sequels as valuable pieces of cinema, and not just quick cash grabs studios use to turn a profit.

Fariha Mabud / The Spectator

Picture this: You’re a Hollywood studio executive who has just pumped out a box office smash. At this point, your one priority is capitalizing on the momentum that the film is garnering, and there seems to be one obvious thing to do.

Make a sequel.

You begin pouring money down the throat of any director who thinks they can capture some of the same attention that the original movie received, but this time you need to go bigger. Make a scarier villain, add more conflict, increase the action, and raise the stakes. You rush to throw together the original actors, a new script, some haphazard special effects, and you’re finished.

The original movie might’ve taken up to decades in the writer’s mind, while the sequel usually takes around only two to five years. This is the main problem with sequels as a whole—they’re almost always less focused on the plot, and more focused on the money.

Of course, there are good sequels that exist (think “SpiderMan 2” (2004), “Toy Story 2” (1999), and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)), but the bad ones far outnumber the good. At this point, remakes and sequels have become an industrywide problem, and simply pointing out exceptions to the rule is no longer a proper excuse.

The first and biggest problem with sequels is that writers merely

attempt to copy the plot of the first film. The lack of original ideas in Hollywood really comes out when sequels are just straightup rip-offs of the original. Take the “Hangover” (2009) series: each movie follows the exact same premise. The four friends black out for the night, have to get their bearings, and make it back home before some big event the next day. The first movie is funny and fresh, but with the next two sequels, it seems illogical, if not downright impossible, that these same friends would let their drinks be drugged two more times after the first. In any case, trying to go the same route as the original for the sequel is almost always a recipe for disaster. While it can make big bucks at the box office, it leaves most moviegoers craving something new and creative.

The second problem that often occurs in sequels is the incentive to go bigger and better. In “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012), Peter Parker was only fighting one villain, so the studio figured it was probably a good idea to triple that for the sequel. It evidently was not, and the movie felt choppy, with every character being underdeveloped as a result. It doesn’t help that “Amazing Spiderman 2” (2014) is a sequel designed to a reboot a trilogy adapted from a comic book. When studios raise the stakes for the sequel, it often leads to the movie’s writers going mad with power. They feel the need to take everything from the first movie and multiply it by a factor of two. Similar vil-

I Love You, Omar

vation for his music. His Mexican heritage and its influence on his music is also evident in his often bilingual lyrics and song titles, and even in his sound. The artist’s soulful, snappy, and often jazzy sound reflects the fusion of many musical traditions, like modern R&B and vintage funk, as well as the work of prominent Mexican musicians.

In his earliest albums, Apollo’s signature sound was soft, soulful love ballads. His recent work is more punchy, with the occasional falsetto outcry and bilingual interludes. His fans have welcomed the evolution. His set was a well-balanced mix of the two vibes. “Ignorin” was followed by “Ashamed,” “Kickback,” “Erase,” “Friends,” “Pram,” “Brakelights,” “Trouble,” “There for Me,” “So Good,” and “Unbothered,” finishing off with

“Ugotme,” and, for an encore, “Hijo De Su Madre.”

The slow songs were full of feeling. Apollo stood at the edge of the stage, his performative side stripped down. The crowd responded to it, swaying slowly and rhythmically. The screams quieted in favor of onlookers chanting the lyrics, if not tunefully, then sincerely. A few people around me teared up. The lights faded to a soft purple; the whole thing had a quasi-spiritual vibe.

Apollo’s songs are melancholy, often about unrequited love, and distinctly full of longing.

But they’re not defeated; they’re romantic, and that came through even more in person. Apollo was standing there, his voice raw, his hair mussed, sweat dripping down his face, and bright magenta spotlights beating down on him.

The encore, though, was the epitome of the new Omar. When “Hijo De Su Madre” came on, all hell broke loose. Apollo ditched the stripped-down approach, strutting around the stage and dancing with a manic passion. The lights flashed blue and purple, and strobes lit up the Ballroom. Bodies were crushed together as we all danced to the beat, a radiating pulse that seemed to drag us closer as musicians onstage flung water onto the crowd and jumped into the group. “Put all of your phones away!” Apollo yelled from onstage. “We’re going to get wild.” Not a single screen was out.

It was just 100 strangers, moving to the same music, the same wild, free sound. It was a very present moment, real and romantic, but full of zest for life, emblematic of Apollo’s new sound.

ADVERTISEMENT

playlist

Music For the Goddess in Your Life

By THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT Celebrate all the women in your life. They bold, they powerful, they goddesses.

“One Woman Army” Porcelain Black Electronica

“Doin’ Time” Lana Del Rey Pop

“Nothing Came Out” The Moldy Peaches Anti-folk

“Formation” Beyoncé Pop

“Bitter 16” ADDIE Indie Pop

“Don’t Touch My Hair” Solange R&B

“Light It Up” Robin Huston Pop

“Finishing the Hat” Stephen Sondheim Musical Theater

“California Dreamin’” The Mamas & The Papas Folk

“I’m Good, I’m Gone” Lykke Li Indie Pop

“Nuvole Bianche” Ludovico Einaudi Instrumental

“Just a Girl” No Doubt Pop

“Androgynous” The Replacements Punk

“Anna Sun” WALK THE MOON Alternative Pop

“Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” Tame Impala Psychedelic Rock “Supermodel” SZA R&B

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 21

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

The Spirit Week Report

By THE HUMOR DEPARTMENT We at the Humor department could write about our many thoughts on Stuyvesant’s Schoolwide Spirit Week, but that would make the entire Spectator run out of money, and that’s bad because Olly has to support his family with Biz’s funds and we can’t just waste all of that dough on printing words. So, we had to settle on the second best thing: an extensive coverage of Spirit Week.

Stuy Apparel Day: The Student Union (SU) decided to kick off their first StuyWide Spirit Week by treating it like any other day. The Great Lord Willy Wang deemed Tuesday, May 28, as Stuy Apparel Day, and students were encouraged to flaunt their Stuy merch.

“It’s Spirit Week? What’s that?” commented sophomore Macy Greene, sporting her Humans of Stuy hoodie over her Stuyle tee. “I just threw on the first thing I found in my closet this morning.”

Evidently, this day raised school spirit by just over 999 percent, as it was the deciding factor for nine freshmen to not hate on their school for the next four years. One other freshman reported being “proud to attend Stuyvesant High School” and that he “would do anything for my main man Pegleg Pete,” he said.

It is important to note the astounding amount of freshmen who had been seen wearing their physical education (Not gym! Gym is for peasants) uniforms around the school. Their school pride could be seen everywhere. Father Contreras was so moved by this movement that he, too, had decided to purchase this stunning piece of self-expression.

Preppy Day: This particular day had been marred by controversy ever since its inception. Vishwaa Sofat proposed the day, supposedly to promote something close to the SU’s personal sense of style.

This came with an immediate backlash by the goth and emo

Sophia Li / The Spectator

“This, my friend, is UNFAIR,” a senior said. “At best, it’s insensitive to the decadeslong conflict between us, the goths, and them, the preps! At worst, it’s the SU deciding to openly support the preps! And

the school lets them?”

Surprisingly, some preppy kids were also against the motion. “This is cultural appropriation of prep culture,” a junior said. “You can’t just co-opt our lifestyle of golf clubs and polo shirts for some plebeian ‘Spirit Week’ day! This is an outright act of aggression by the Student Union!”

When the day came, there were visible tensions between the kids who came dressed as preps and the kids who came dressed as goths. In the beginning of the day, it wasn’t so bad. They kept a stern distance of 10 feet apart, which was hell for classes, but otherwise it wasn’t so bad.

It wasn’t until third period that a fight broke out on the half floor, and after that it was pure chaos. A color war between the colors pink and black overwhelmed the school.

No one was safe.

Meme Day: The third day of this pitiful week was hyped up to be the greatest attempt of SU relat-

ability to students.

Well, that was what I thought until apparently no one pulled anything off with Meme Day. Armed with my Minecraft diamond ore, Shaggy clothes, Ricardo cap, and some goggles, I was deeply disappointed to find out that pretty much no one was doing anything for this day. It sucked.

Color Wars: The week ended with Color Wars. On this day, people would dress with a different color for each grade. Reports say that the reason it was enacted was because multiple upperclassmen who were under 60 inches were constantly banging on the SU office, demanding a solution for the fact that they kept getting called freshmen.

The SU’s solution was a Color War. Black for freshmen, purple for sophomores, blue for juniors, and red for seniors. One noticeable occurrence was that very few sophomores participated, many giving the excuse that “who the [explicative] has purple clothes?”

Sentient Stuyvesant Backpacks

By AARON WANG and KELLY YIP

thing that has been troubling any of you, please speak up.

Last week, a collaboration between Stuyvesant’s Science Olympiad and the robotics team developed a communication device for inanimate objects. After an intense bribing session involving the loss of a fairly large sum of money and an elevator pass, we were bestowed with the GREATEST honor of testing their product with the pitiful backpacks of Stuyvesant students. We wanted to truly hear and understand their point of view of being abused by overambitious students, and so we decided to hold a group counseling session with various participants. For their privacy, we’ve kept the backpacks’ names anonymous, because apparently, sentient backpacks are quite easily offended. Shocking indeed.

Backpack A: Hello, my name is ******. Ever since I came to Stuy, I’ve been putting on too much weight at an alarming rate. I can’t even stand up, I just… flop. I must admit that I have been consuming a few extra textbooks recently, but in the past, I could get rid of those pounds within several days, because it’s not like anyone did work in middle school.

Since coming to Stuyvesant, I’ve just gotten heavy. I don’t know what to do. The other backpacks that pass me in the hallways give me glares. Last time, one of them called me fat. My self-image has never been so injured before!

The Spectator: Thank you all for coming today. This is a safe environment so if there’s any-

Backpack A: I am under the ownership of a *shudders* lowly freshman. Of all grades, I was

By WILLIAM LIN and ZIYUN ZHANG

kids of Stuyvesant, who felt that it was an insensitive response by the SU to their conflict with the preppy kids.

The Spectator: Would you mind telling us the status of your human?

chosen by the one grade that isn’t capable of understanding how to unlock their locker. I just want to be sexy and thin like the senior backpacks, so I’m really salty.

The Spectator: Ah yes, we understand your predicament and how stressed you must feel.

However, we’re sure things will resolve itself soon. Does anyone else have a similar matter or a different issue?

Backpack B: My name is ****.

I think my owner is…CHEATING on me. I’m so sorry, I can’t right now. *crying* The Spectator: There seems to be a lot of crying in this session.

Perhaps talking about your emotions will help you feel better.

Remember: we are here for you, things will get better, and you have our support.

Backpack B: Okay, it started a few months ago when I noticed

that my owner stopped entrusting me with their Spanish textbook.

At first, I wasn’t too worried, until one day I saw…oh God… The Spectator: Deep breaths, sweetie, no need to rush it. We got you.

Backpack B: HE PUT THE TEXTBOOK IN THAT LLOCKER, OH MY GOD, I CAN’T RIGHT NOW. I didn’t say anything at first because I thought I was being overdramatic and that this was temporary. But, soon after, he stopped entrusting me with his SAT II BOOKS TOO! THAT [expletive]! What does she do better? Am I just not good enough? Every morning, I see him jangle her lock around and turning it. He NEVER did that to me. And he still uses me without even apologizing…I don’t know what to feel about our relationship anymore. Does he still love me? Or am I just his side-backpack?

Backpack C: Can’t relate but you should totes break up with him. You deserve SO much better, gurl.

Backpack B: YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND BECAUSE YOU’RE A WHEELED BACKPACK! YOU WILL NEVER BE BETRAYED! I seriously thought we were something, you know? I guess I just have too much baggage for him..

At this point, the device promptly ran out of fuel (it was running on our tears, which have since dried a while ago). We are very disappointed that we could not capture the full session, but we hope that this new data can be of use to AP Psych students who choose to study the behavior and possible mental disorders of Stuyvesant’s backpacks. May they receive proper treatment soon.

No, The Escalators Are Not Actually Broken

The shutdown of the five-toseven escalators, a lifeline for exhausted kids coming out of P.E. class, has caused much distress among students.

“It’s already bad enough that the other escalators aren’t working,” freshman Ug Lee said, “but now with the five-to-seven broken, I might have to buy some extra asthma pumps.”

Many students feel the same way. According to Principal Eric Contreras, all of the escalators are currently being replaced. But, as curious journalists looking out for everyone, we decided to investigate further into this issue, and made a groundbreaking discovery.

The truth is, the escalators are all completely functional.

They were only shut down because the school is too poor to

maintain them. Mr. Contreras needed the maintenance money for other “urgent” issues. He had been planning an elaborate summer vacation for his twoyear anniversary as principal of Stuyvesant High School since September, and he had decided that he would check out the gorgeous views of Nigeria. Contreras missed Juan the fish, and decided on Nigeria because of its bustling fish markets. It was a brilliant plan, but the problem was that there was no appropriate housing. So, Contreras decided to sell the Stuyvesant escalators on the black market after failing to auction them by legal methods.

He decided to sell all except the two-to-three and five-to-seven escalators (he had a thing for prime numbers), and earned a hefty $100,000 per escalator sold.

He then used the money to build a mansion in Nigeria. The construction will end on June 26.

Coincidence? I think not.

Just when Contreras thought he was finished with his master plan, it struck him that he needed a companion. After much contemplation, Contreras came across an answer: animals.

He had accidentally stumbled upon Mr. McClellan’s room one day and became infatuated with a singular goldfish among many, whose name was Juan. It was just too beautiful. Its soft orange color, majestic fins, and elegantly shaped body reminded Contreras all too much of his all time favorite fish-shaped cheese snack. He stole that one goldfish, but it died the next day because he forgot to steal the goldfish food too. (We apologize for your loss, Mr. McClellan.)

Out of grief, Contreras decided to go bigger and BETTER. While on spring break, Contreras was in the outskirts of Peru, and found the love of his life: an al-

paca also named Juan. The connection was instant and it was love at first sight. Contreras knew he had to bring Juan home with him. Juan, conveniently, was on sale for $110,000. This was normally an insignificant amount for Contreras, but he already used up all the money from the escalators on his manion, and feeling sorry for the students, he decided against selling the remaining escalators and started a GoFundMe instead. He managed to receive a staggering $1 from SU Presidentelect, Vishwaa Sofat. According to Contreras, “I am very grateful to Vishwaa for always helping me out in my time of need. Everyone else is so heartless. Like, c’mon guys, think about that one time I gave y’all a no-homework day. Show some gratitude.”

Frustrated at the slow progress of his GoFundMe and the lack of student sympathy for his problems, Contreras decided

that he would take matters into his own hands. “The students are so ungrateful. I am going to sell the five-to-seven escalators.

That should teach them a lesson.” By selling the five-to-seven escalators, Contreras finally managed to buy Juan. However, Juan needed to be transported by someone, so Contreras ordered Dean Brian Moran to pick up the alpaca. Moran, of course, being the good guy that he is, flew out to Peru as per Contreras’s orders.

We have yet to hear from Moran, who could still be in Peru as we speak. Moran’s loyalty to his boss is admirable; we have yet to identify anyone else who would fly off to a random country to pick up an alpaca for his boss.

We are currently investigating further into this matter, and will update everyone as soon as we receive new information.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 22

Humor

By JASMINE WANG

Your Actual Summer Plans: A Quick Guide

Summer—a six-letter word that means freedom. Used by the Departments of Education (DOE) in just about every part of the world, it is actually just a really long period of time for DOE overlords to rest. Knowing that their subjects would cause untamed pandemonium, the overlords decided to give everyone else working in the education field a break. And thus, order would be guaranteed year-round.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Giving over a million kids a knock-off version of free reign over their lives for two

months is a terrible decision on the NYC DOE’s part. Even the most intelligent, mature, and accomplished of the bunch (the students of Stuyvesant High School) lose the last bits of however many brain cells they have left.

As you keep telling yourself to continue the grind during the summer ‘cause it never stops, you tell your parents and your friends that you’ll travel, volunteer, win a Nobel Peace Prize, invent the cure to cancer, whatever. Having hopes and dreams is perfectly fine, and of course I could write up this super optimistic list of productive stuff for the summer, but that is de-

AP WORLD Okay, so this looks like the one that I took. I don’t want to look at it again. Can you wait a little bit?

I just need to get something before we continue. Crap. Ow. Why do I have so many sharp things in my bag. Is that a frog? How did that get there? Dang, this thing is a mess—found it!

All right, so now I have a blindfold on. I get that it might not allow me to give you all the

information on what’s inside the AP World exam, but I will try my best.

The paper feels disgusting. I can sense the tears I cried on it when I remembered that I still had to go to classes afterwards.

A common misconception

about the AP World exam, as well as other history tests, is that they are sourced from modern times.

However, there is clearly significant frozen material from what we in the AP business call “Periods 1 and 2.” Instead of fresh, modern human history, we get an essay prompt on whether a large enough stack of T-Rexes could

2018-2019 School Year Reflections

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• • •

• •

Resigning and resigning of Principal Eric Contreras That weird alien invasion light that turned out to be a power outage or something SAP rental truck on Chambers McDonald’s protest with the rat balloon The stupid meme war that we just HAD to write about Humor winning the department apparel contest <33 Principal Contreras’s indecisiveness leading to fullblown panic and

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•

have stopped the K-T extinction event or not.

The claims made by the College Board about quality ingredients are also, pardon my language, a load of horseradish. While they claim the exam has quality ingredients sourced from Barron’s

Jason Lin / The Spectator

AP exams are consumed by Stuy students en masse. When most people think of an AP exam, they think of an organic, brain-stimulating alternative to other subpar standardized tests such as the Regents. We believe it to be the only happiness of our high school experience that we are able to obtain legally.

I’m here to expose the truth.

I was totally not blackmailed by my editors to break into the boxes of AP exams and get rid of their bad tests and replace them with good ones. But, for reasons that I will not disclose, I do have a good number of completed AP exams on my desk right now. The pile is so heavy. Now, I will reveal their true components. The truth?

They’re not as great as you think they are.

•

• • • •

•

•

bites that only multiply day by day Getting anxiety from seeing everyone else actually do things on Instagram Buying a bunch of books to use as decor only At least one terrible family excursion I know you’re just going to end up eating chips in your room while you scroll through Reddit.

Forming a negative amount of coherent thoughts a day.

How you manage to do that is well beyond me.

Remembering that you were supposed to do something this summer

The TRUTH Behind Your AP Exam

By CHRISABELLA JAVIER

By THE HUMOR DEPARTMENT

lusional because none of that’s gonna happen. Instead, here’s a list of stuff you WILL be doing this summer. What can I say, reality is often disappointing.

• Making plans that get cancelled because your only two friends dipped • Getting sunburned after going outside for 30 seconds because you haven’t seen the sun since last summer • Suffering because the AC unit broke and you’re too poor to really do anything about it, or because your dad won’t let you turn on the AC • Waking up with 50 bug

then not full-blown panic DEMON ESCALATOR All of the escalators shutting down!! Thanos said half, not all >:( “Subtle asian traits” explosion BMCC teachers protesting?

Regurgitating vampire bats and meth on the AP Bio test We say farewell to Kung Fu Tea :’( Class of 2019 finally did not lose SING! (we won :) ) Cheating in the English department, because people will actually pay for essays Morning announcement jokes

• •

•

•

•

textbooks, they instead get the rotten green leftover history from those textbooks.

AP PHYSICS C This test is incredibly processed, artificial, and disgusting, but it is of my opinion that if you decide to take a physics AP, you kinda deserve a disgusting exam.

+ complaints It literally did not snow this entire year.

The bridge got louder than the second-floor boys’ bathroom + the ceiling cracked.

11th period BC Calc—because they couldn’t fit all the math nerds into a class during the REGULAR school day Mr. Moran wouldn’t let me get high off of the bridge paint and closed the bridge.

The football team actually won a game, but it was against 11 assorted blades of grass in the worst division.

If you somehow find the subject of physics interesting enough that you decide to take an Advanced Placement exam dedicated solely to its existence, then you deserve to be thrown into the ugly formulas and preservatives of the AP Physics C exam.

AP SPANISH The test itself is incredibly average in terms of stress. However, studies have shown that the reason why the AP Spanish exam, as well as all other language tests, is considered average instead of “time-to-die” in terms of stress is simply because Gen-Z students now live in a time and place where the Duolingo owl can come to your house at 11:55 p.m. and make you fight to the death in a competition of conjugation in order to save your family from an intricate death trap. Also, we now have Google Translate.

Compared to that nightmare, any AP Language exam is a breeze. Overall, you would get a better deal from a free language app than from an AP exam that you have to pay $100 just to take and another $20 just to dip.

AP MUSIC THEORY For an exam called AP Music, the content does not represent anything that could be considered listenable music. It is just

ADVERTISEMENT

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Spending a whole four hours trapped in a social media black hole until your phone finally runs out of battery Buying way too many things online Downloading 50 random games to cure your boredom and becoming addicted to them for about seven days before deleting them all Increasing dread as you think about colleges (fun fact: your college dread increases exponentially based on how close you are to senior year!)

full of nerdy and indie stuff like Bach and Pachelbel or whatever.

Who cares? Now, if the test required you to study TRUE music legends like Big Time Rush, well, it would have so much more merit. It would become an exam truly deserving of being taken by Stuyvesant High School students.

Like, imagine: instead of learning dumb notes and scales or whatever, you could be learning about how no one realized that Miley Stewart looked exactly like Hannah Montana. (Seriously, her only “disguise” was a wig! It’s not like someone becomes totally unrecognizable when they dye their hair!)

AP COMPUTER SCIENCE I got electrocuted by this AP exam. 5/10, would not recommend if you still have a will to live.

AP FRESHMAN BIOLOGY Okay, so this one is in a plastic package saying “BIOHAZARD,” but hey, it can’t mean anything bad, right?

So I’m gonna open this—oh God, why is it glowing—and I’m going to look at it. I deserve a raise.

All right, on three. One, two, thre—AGGAHAGAHGAGAHAHGAGAKHELPMEPLEA.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

By VERONIKA KOWALSKI So you’ve chosen to take Technical Drawing as a secondterm sophomore instead of waiting until your senior year.

Good for you. You’ve already got a head start, since I can tell you don’t procrastinate. Once you finish celebrating the fact that you won’t have to spend hours running a fine-toothed comb through NetLogo bugs anymore, here’s what’s in store for you.

Denial The first stage of Technical Drawing, more commonly known as drafting, is Denial.

During this period (approxi-

By GORDON EBANKS Theresa May will be stepping down as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on June 7, 2019, exacerbating Brexit confusion, and complicating Britain’s already complicated future.

While Britons and other Europeans worry about what May’s resignation means for the future of Europe, many questions continue to confound Americans; first among them, who is Theresa May? And moreover, what is Brexit?

The increasing number of Brexit references on cable news and semi-political late-night comedy shows in the wake of May’s announcement have pressured many Americans to take charge and maybe do a quick

By JONATHAN XU Do you want to get a summer beach body, even though you’re just gonna watch Netflix and inhale ice cream? Need to lose some weight, but don’t have time to hit the gym? Or do you wanna look ripped while being the Stuy scholar you are? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s your handy guide on how to do calisthenics at and around Stuy!

“Why Stuy?” you may ask.

Well, as a very large school, Stuy has all sorts of things in its arsenal, from gyms to weightlifting rooms to even a joke department in the school paper! There are limitless combinations of the utility of Stuy’s resources, so we must make each one of them

The Five Stages of Drafting

mately one to two weeks) you will compare schedules with your peers, knowing full well that none of them will have the same period as you, if they’re even taking drafting, as they are all scholars and trying to get into APCS next year. “It can’t be as bad as they say,” you’ll tell yourself. “I’m going to love drafting.”

Anger The second stage of drafting is Anger, which lasts approximately six weeks (one marking period). It is characterized by random fits of rage every time you encounter an array of neatly-gridded lines. You will be printing your name in

one-eighth-inch capital letters all over your homework. All of the letters’ edges will have equal weight. Your math teacher will soon become very concerned.

The pattern of bathroom tiles will cause you to lose your marbles. Nowhere is safe.

Bargaining The third stage of drafting is Bargaining, at which point you will look up to the sky and beg for an answer from Our Father Contreras. This stage, which normally lasts for less than a day because the Program Office shuts you down as soon as you lift a finger, requires a fair amount of bravery and the possible sacrifice of the Stuyvesant-

endorsed diploma you’ve been working so hard for.

Depression At the start of the fourth stage of drafting, Depression, you will ask yourself, “What is the point of going on?” You will find yourself tearing your hair out over the difference between a quarter and an eighth of an inch. You will quickly learn how to instantly tell the difference between an oval and an isometric circle—and that that is the only thing you now know. As you replace the lead in your compass for the 17th time, you will feel the emptiness filling what once was your vibrant freshman soul.

An American’s Guide To Brexit

Google search of something happening in not-America.

However, after just two seconds of Googling, any sane-minded American will quickly realize how angry they are that a nonAmerican country would have the audacity to do something newsworthy, and refuse to do research out of principle.

We at The Spectator Humor department know how you feel, America. We know just how hard researching is, and how profoundly unsettling it can be to learn about events happening in the parts of the world that aren’t lucky enough to be America. To ease your burden, we have compiled a short questionand-answer sheet of the most commonly Googled questions about Brexit to help you sound

like you kinda maybe know what you’re talking about when you are—inevitably—asked a question or two about Brexit, or if you would simply like to sound smart at a dinner party.

Why Brexit?

- Economic anxiety (racism).

How Brexit?

- Also probably racism.

What is a Brexit?

- Britain’s exit from Europe (the EU).

What’s so bad about Europe?

- If you have to ask…

Who is Theresa May? - Soon to be former Prime Minister of the UK.

What is a Prime Minister?

- Basically England’s president.

Wait a minute, I thought England had a queen?

- Yes, they do have a queen but the queen’s just a figurehead.

And no, we will not be explaining what that is.

Is Theresa May just Hillary Clinton with a new haircut?

- Probably not, but depends on who you ask.

Is Theresa May a robot?

- Also depends on who you ask.

Does Theresa May ever blink?

- Never been documented, but The Spectator is still investigat-

Pull Up to Stuy for Pull-Ups

count.

“Wait, what are calisthenics?”

I’m glad you asked! Calisthenics is about using your own bodyweight to work out, without dumbbells or barbells. Push-ups and sit-ups are two examples you should be familiar with. Anyhow, here are some great places in or near Stuy where you can do calisthenics!

BATHROOMS Here’s how it works: you kick down the bathroom door, zoom past the questionably hygienic plumbing installations, and search frantically for an unoccupied bathroom stall, all while holding your breath. You’re getting your cardio in already!

For this next part, you should

ideally choose a toilet that hasn’t been flushed yet (it’s not like you’ll have a choice). Bonus points if it’s still nice and warm. Grab the sides of the toilet seat, jump, and flip yourself so that your arms are straight, your feet are in the air, and your head is pointing downward and hovering above the toilet seat. Congratulations, you’ve achieved your first handstand!

If you want to make the exercise harder, you can always get a friend to flush the toilet repeatedly while pushing you into the water. Only true calisthenics gods can give themselves swirlies by dunking themselves in and out of the toilet bowl.

MARINE CORPS RECRUITMENT

CENTER Chances are you’ve never set foot inside this building on 165 Chambers Street, but the people in there are actually quite chill.

Remember, they’re Marines, not monsters! (Wait, those are different things?) They’ve got pull-up bars and exercise machines EVERYWHERE! Plus, there’s no shortage of people who can spot you and make sure you’re doing your workouts correctly and safely. Just be warned that if you flex too much here, you might get whacked unconscious and wake up in Marine Corps boot camp.

SWIM GYM LOCKER ROOMS The first thing you should do when you strut into the Swim

Page 23

Humor Acceptance The fifth and final stage of drafting is Acceptance (during the third marking period). This is the point of no return, characterized by cystic acne developing over hearing the words “AutoCAD” and “Drafting Final.” A frequent misconception is that the “Acceptance” stage means the victim is “okay” or is living life the way it was before they made the purchase of their drafting notebook. This is not true; instead, they have learned to deal with the reality of the situation, and will continue to slog through HB pencils until they receive their final report card.

ing.

Should I be worried about Brexit?

- Of course not! Well, maybe a little? But if you can’t already tell, we’re not the right people to ask.

Is Brexit coming to America?

- Were you even paying attention???

Should I be vaccinated against Brexit?

- (Spectator writer, realizing how doomed this country is, stops using humor as a way to shield against the inevitable demise of humanity and the universe’s descent into never-ending chaos) You go for it.

Gym locker rooms is head on over to the shower area, where you can grab onto the shower curtain bars and start pulling yourself up. If some rebel is actually showering before swimming, start swinging your legs and give the silly chap a kick in the ribs to knock him back to his senses. That way, not only can you work out your arms and back, but you can also work out your legs too. Afterward, you should lick the rust flakes that rub onto your hands from the shower curtain bars. They’ll provide you with all the iron you’ll need to become a great athlete. Just don’t let the Swim Gym teachers know about it, or else they’ll make you pee in a cup.

Thoughts You Have Between Classes

By ANGÉLIQUE CHARLES-DAVIS It’s Thursday, the middle of the day, and the end isn’t near.

The bell rings to remind everyone to stand up and walk to the next torture chamber in the cycle. The phone you aren’t allowed to check says there’s a flash flood warning, which reminds you that climate change is an unstoppable global phenomenon that will eventually swallow the earth. Here are some thoughts you may have as your teenage body slithers along down the hall: We just finished the fourth period. That’s six periods left.

One of those is my lunch. So that’s only five periods. Which is five 40-minute segments, or 200 minutes. Which is 10 20-minute segments. I just have to do 20 minutes 10 times and then it’s over.

1. We just finished the fourth period. That’s six periods left. One of those is my lunch. So that’s only five periods. Which is five 40-minute segments, or 200 minutes. Which is 10 20-minute segments.

I just have to do 20 minutes 10 times and then it’s over.

2. I wonder how long I can

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

stare blankly into my locker before I’m late to class.

Flash flood??? I forgot my umbrella.

All these happy freshman couples are completely unnecessary.

I think I got a seven percent on that test.

If I just walked out of school now, without swiping out or anything, would the security guards tackle me or…?

Why do so many people go here? Why are so many bodies close to my body?

8. I have to climb 10 flights in three minutes. Thank goodness the two-tothree is fully operational.

9. What grade would I need on my next test to bring my 78 to a 97? If I carry the one, add the four, divide by nine, plug into the golden ratio… I just need a 180 on the final.

10. They’re bugging if they think I’m coming back here tomorrow.

11. Oh look, it’s someone I’ve spoken to a single time. Do I nod or look away or smile awkwardly?

All three it is.

12. I’m so hungry, tired, annoyed, confused, ugly, and just generally pessimistic about my future.

It’s Thursday.

13. The fact that it’s Thursday means that tomorrow is Friday, which is one day closer to Saturday. It also happens to be one day closer to Monday. Crazy how that works.

14. How does that girl fit literally anything in that tiny backpack?

15. I can’t wait to graduate.

Or better yet, I can’t wait for retirement.

Page 24

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Sports

Track & Field: Are Females Making Strides?

By CAROLINE JI and TALIA KAHAN

Female track and field athletes have made huge strides in the past few years, gaining immense attention globally. With recent advancements made toward greater female empowerment, manifesting most notably in the #MeToo movement, issues regarding the legal rights and protections of female runners have garnered much controversy, especially in the cases of Alysia Montaño and Caser Semenya.zz

Alysia Montaño Alysia Montaño is a highly decorated American middle-distance runner. Besides winning six United States Championships, Montaño also holds the current American record in the 600-meter run and 4 x 800-meter relay. Within her illustrious track career, she is best known for her performance at the 2014 U.S. Championships, where she raced the 800-meter event while eight months pregnant with her daughter, Linnea, earning her the nickname of “the pregnant runner.”

In a YouTube video sponsored

by The New York Times, Montaño described the unfortunate situation that her stringent contract with Nike forced her into: Nike threatened to stop sponsoring her until she gave birth and started

competing again. Given that most professional track athletes depend on their sponsorships for a living, Montaño was left with neither maternity protection nor the means to support her soon-to-be-born baby. Montaño’s situation especially highlighted the irony in Nike's “Just do it” campaign that targeted a female audience, but it didn't support her efforts to balance life as both a professional athlete and a mother.

Montaño’s case is just one of many. It is common for professional female athletes to feel insecure about announcing their pregnancies out of fear of losing their contracts. Instead of being allowed to embrace motherhood and maternity, these women face enormous pressure to figure out how to accommodate for the loss of a paycheck, posing both a huge risk to the mother and the baby.

Furthermore, women are advised to take a few months to recover from the mental and physical toll of labor. Many female track and field athletes feel pressured by their contracts to resume vigorous training immediately after giving birth, posing tremendous health risks. However, it can be argued that these women should not be granted paid family leave since they are technically not fulfilling their contract requirements. This lack of oversight reflects a fundamental disconnect between female athletes who need basic maternity rights and labor protections, along with indifferent Nike managers

demanding unrealistic results without providing proper support.

Montaño’s historic performance at the 2014 U.S. Championships was a huge stride for female athletes globally, proving that female runners can be mothers and professional athletes simultaneously.

Montaño's teammate and fellow Olympian, Allyson Felix, drew on Montaño's inspirational message when announcing her plans of motherhood.

Nike has now reversed their legal maternity conditions, offering more support for female athletes planning on entering motherhood.

However, female athletes still vouchfor more rights and protection from Nike for the future generation of professional athletes.

Caster Semenya The Olympic Committee ruled in May that Caster Semenya, a decorated South African middle-distance runner, could not continue racing in the women's mid-distance events because she has a medical condition known as differences of sex development (DSD), which increases her testosterone levels.

The Olympic Committee gave Semenya a few different options: she could race in men’s events, race in longer women’s events (where the results, theoretically, are less dependent on testosterone levels and more on one’s training and skill), or take hormones to reduce her testosterone levels.

This issue is a complex one.

On the one hand, the Olympic Committee does not discriminate against players who have biological advantages in other instances.

For example, basketball players who are naturally very tall—which gives them a clear advantage over other players—are not forced to only compete against other tall players nor are they required to reduce their height. That, of course, would be deemed extremely unreasonable. Furthermore, Eero Mantyranta, an elite Finnish cross country skier, had a genetic defect that allowed his body to naturally produce red blood cells, therefore allowing him to carry an above-average amount of oxygen.

Mantyranta, like Semenya, had a biological advantage but was not forced to adapt to this abnormality. Instead, he was allowed to take advantage of it. What is the difference between Semenya and Mantyranta’s cases?

On the other hand, the comparison of this case to the basketball analogy or to Mantyranta’s unique situation does not carry over fully; there is not a separate sports league for tall people or people with elevated levels of red blood cells. However, most sports are segregated by gender. Furthermore, the Olympic Committee’s ruling is justified because Semenya is not biologically the same as many of her competitors. She has an unfair advantage because the races that she competes in are very dependent on muscle mass. Mus-

cle mass, unlike skill, has a direct correlation to testosterone levels; higher testosterone makes it easier for people to develop large muscles. In addition, it now becomes much more difficult for fellow runners to compete with her given the clear biological di advantage they are given.

Semenya appealed the Olympic Committee’s ruling immediately after it was released. The Swiss court recently suspended the Olympic Committee's ruling, therefore allowing Semenya to continue running the 800 meters, her signature event, without undergoing hormone therapy. Semenya, who was originally planning on running the 3000 meters at the Prefontaine Classic, now plans on running the 800 meters.

As seen in both Montaño’s and Semenya’s cases, female track and field athletes have recently gained tremendous worldwide attention.

This has brought great awareness to the gender inequalities and controversies within the sport, highlighting flaws in the system. However, there is still much work to be done. Because sports tend to be dominated by males, it is especially imperative that females raise their voices to fight gender oppression.

Only then will changes be made to ensure the protection and freedom of female athletes needed to further their sports. Only then will we witness true female empowerment.

The Champions League Trophy is Headed Down Penny Lane

By AHMED HUSSEIN and MOHAMED ELEISH

As the orange and white Champions League ball ricocheted around Tottenham Hotspur’s box, the Spurs’ defenders could not seem to clear their lines.

Eventually, the ball found its way to Liverpool’s Belgian striker Divock Origi. He needed just one touch to get the ball into space before he dispatched a powerful shot with his weaker left foot into the bottom right corner past Spurs’ goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

2-0. Game. Set. Match. Liverpool were champions of Europe for the sixth time in their history.

But the road to this win was riddled with obstacles in every stage of the competition. Heroic performances like Origi’s were commonplace in the journey to the final. Liverpool’s journey in the tournament. The entire squad put in their all to get to that point and lift the famous old trophy.

It all began on August 30 when the UEFA Champions League group stage was arranged. Liverpool was placed in Group C along with Red Star Belgrade, Napoli, and Paris Saint-German, an undeniable challenge for the Reds. Liverpool played PSG in their first match and it proved to be nothing less than an amazing game. The score was 2-2 up until a stunning piece of footwork followed by a shot by Firmino gave Liverpool a one-goal lead in the 91st minute.

The next match was scheduled to be Liverpool vs Napoli and it proved to be a late heartbreaker at the hands of Napoli’s Lorenzo Insigne. In Liverpool’s first match against Red Star Belgrade, Liverpool’s front three made easy work of Belgrade’s defense in an incredible 4-0 win, with Firmino and Mane getting a goal each, and Salah scoring two.

Eventually, after a startling loss to Red Star Belgrade and PSG in the second leg, the Reds were eager to win to ensure passage to the round of 16 and it all

came down to one game—Liverpool vs. Napoli at Anfield, Liverpool’s home field. They needed to win, and win they did. After a seemingly balanced game, in the 33rd minute, the fate of Liverpool came down to one man— Mohamed Salah, who scored an amazing goal through Napoli goalkeeper David Ospina’s legs right after beating Napoli’s star center-back Kalidou Koulibaly.

It seemed to be a safe victory up until a last-minute chance for Napoli’s forward, Arkadiusz Milik, which would have been an undeniable goal if it weren’t for Alisson Becker’s swift reflexes.

After narrowly making it past the group stage, Liverpool’s next adversary was none other than Bayern Munich. After a disappointing first game at Anfield, Liverpool was determined to outscore the Germans. The match started off open and expansive, with both teams exploiting the spaces that lackluster defense provided. In the 26th minute, Sadio Mane managed to break the deadlock. A pinpoint 50-yard pass from Liverpool center-back Virgil Van Dijk found Mane, but he still had a lot of work to do.

His touch needed to be perfect to beat the defenders surrounding him, and it was. With one touch, he took the defenders and goalkeeper Manuel Neuer out of the equation before calmly chipping it into the empty net. This moment of brilliance was another chapter in an incredible journey for Liverpool. Eventually, after a small setback, Van Dijk and Mane managed to keep the dream alive by scoring a goal each in the second half. The full-time whistle blew. Liverpool was through to the quarterfinals.

Their next adversary was a team that Liverpool had beaten the year before on their journey to the final: FC Porto. Similarly, the Liverpool squad managed to ferociously dismantle the Porto squad in the first and second legs. The first leg ended with a goal for both Naby Keita and

Roberto Firmino, and the second leg ended with a goal for Mane, Van Dijk, and Salah, who scored a one-on-one with Madrid and Spain legend Iker Casillas.

Liverpool was into the semifinals, which would turn out to be a series that would go down in the history of the Champions League. The first leg took place at the Camp Nou, Barcelona’s home stadium, and it appeared to be a brutal awakening for the Reds.

In the 26th minute, an astonishing pass made by Jordi Alba made its way to Suarez, who simply directed the ball past the keeper with a spectacular touch for the first goal of the game. The game seemed to eventually fall apart for Liverpool in the beginning of the second half after missing chances to score a goal. Lionel Messi, on the other hand, was having an amazing game. After scoring a tap in on the 75th minute, Messi was determined to score a superb goal to celebrate his 600th goal for the club and he did just that after scoring a stunning free kick that made its way past Alisson Becker’s fingertips and into the top left corner. Full Time.

3-0. The dream appeared to have come to an end.

Though Liverpool was down by three, they were resilient and wanted to at least create a respectable game for the fans at Anfield.

Their diligence managed to pay off in the first seven minutes with a Divock Origi goal after a weak parry by Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen. For the remaining of the first half, the game was at a standstill. Eventually, after a Liverpool substitution in the second half, Gini Wijnaldum came on to the pitch and it appeared to be Jurgen Klopp’s best decision all season. After being benched for the entire first half of the semifinal, Wijnaldum was eager to prove himself and it only took him a few minutes to do just that. After a brilliant cross by Liverpool’s fullback Alexander Arnold, Wijnaldum went on an amazing goal-scoring run

in the 54th minute in which he managed to outpace Jordi Alba and tuck the ball right beside the Barcelona keeper, making the score 2-0. Amazingly, Wijnaldum managed to score an amazing header just three minutes later after a world class pass by Xherdan Shaqiri. The aggregated score was now 3-3. The atmosphere at Anfield was revived once again. The dream of making it to the finals for the second year in a row was now in sight.

In the 76th minute, a corner kick was granted to the Liverpool side. 20-year-old fullback Alexander Arnold gently placed the ball in position. He turned around, looked up, and took a couple of steps. He examined the field, starting from the back. Took another step. He scanned the front of the field. Took a quick half step and in lightning succession, dashed toward the ball. Glancing one last time at the front of the field, Arnold hit a brilliant fast ground ball which was received right in front of Origi’s feet. In one touch, the ball was driven between Ter Stegen and Pique and into the inside of the left netting.

Barcelona was caught off guard.

4-3. The full-time whistle went off. Liverpool had just completed one of the most spectacular comebacks in Champions League history, showing shades of the 2005 Liverpool team that won it all in a match, now known as the “Miracle of Istanbul.” Liverpool had booked their ticket to the final in the most dramatic fashion.

The Champion’s league final that Liverpool worked so hard to reach was scheduled to be played on June 1 at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid. Madrid was a disappointing place for Liverpool historically, with Real Madrid beating them to the Champions League last year after Mohamed Salah’s tragic injury in last year’s final. Liverpool hoped this year’s story would have a happier ending. This time they were favorites against fellow Premier League

team Tottenham Hotspur, a team who had their own fairytale comeback against Ajax to earn a spot in this final. The hype around this game, which was slowly building with fans of the Premier League, excited for a final that would feature two English teams, a rare occasion in this competition. The stage was set for a great game and by the time June 1 rolled around, all eyes were on Madrid. Very few expected what would happen after the kickoff. Within two minutes, Mane’s attempted cross was blocked by Tottenham midfielder Moussa Sissoko. With his armpit.

The referee pointed to the spot moments later and the crowd erupted into a heated debate over the decision. Despite being debatable, VAR could not interfere with the call since it was not “a clear and obvious error” on the referee’s part. So, the penalty would be taken and it was only fitting that the man who was forced out of the final last year’s final would step up. Mohamed Salah picked up the ball, placed it on the spot, and locked eyes with Hugo Lloris. He took two steps to the right and ran toward the ball before coolly dispatching a powerful shot to the right, narrowly passing the grasp of Lloris. Liverpool had the dream start they had hoped for. The game quickly slipped from Liverpool’s control after that and Tottenham had a majority of the possession. They did very little with the ball, however, and Liverpool easily repelled their advances. The score stayed the same until later on when Origi scored the second to end Tottenham’s hopes of a comeback.

Liverpool could finally lift a trophy under Jürgen Klopp’s management, and the emotion at the final whistle truly represented this beautiful sport. Liverpool, led by their captain, Jordan Henderson, lifted the trophy, truly silencing their critics. Salah ran down the wing for the last time this season, this time with the Champions League trophy in hand.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 25

Sports Spotlight on Captains

A Closer Look At Outstanding Athletes Leaving Us This Year Jeanette Cheung Outdoor Track, Indoor Track, and Cross Country

Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

Jeanette Cheung has won the Outstanding Senior award for all three of her sports.

How I started playing...

So I started running my freshman year, and it wasn’t a “I love running so I’m going to join the track team” sort of thing. It was more like the following: I hadn’t really found my place at Stuy yet and I wanted to find a place where I would be with peo-

ple every day and be around them all the time. I wanted to find a place with a common goal and the first team that came to mind was track.

I went to tryouts and everybody seemed really welcoming, so it was my way of finding a family at Stuy.

How it has affected my Stuyvesant experience... I think it’s a lot of what I said before. Being in track has giv-

en me such a big family here at Stuy. Whether it’s about working out together or working toward a common goal, there’s just the sense of responsibility that I have as captain. We are all there for each other and we support each other. It’s such a supportive environment that I found myself in. Track has also helped my time management skills. I have to manage

being in school and building around my practice schedule so I can get everything done.

Why you should join a team... Don’t be hesitant.

There are so many great things that can come out of joining a team. Teams are like family; having people be there for you and support you no matter what is such a great thing to have.

Ruby Gary, Soccer, Basketball, and Softball I really loved basketball and I still do love it. I quit basketball after my sophomore year season because it overlapped with SING!, though. If we won the playoffs, our next game would have been on the night of the Friday show. I was also the coordinator of the performance, so it would be hard for me to pursue both. It was super hard for me, since Miller put so much into it, and I just love the team and sport. I like this sport better than softball because of the constant action. I started softball a year after basketball. All of my neighborhood friends go to do spring ball, summer ball, and fall ball—just a couple nights a week at the pier.

How has it affected my experience at Stuy... I met my closest friends on these teams, in part because we’re always around each other, like when traveling to games. It’s also a way to connect with others beyond schoolwork, because

so many friendships revolve around taking a class with someone and just talking about that class all the time, so this was a way to find a common interest with someone and get to know them in a new way.

Especially with upperclassmen, I found a lot of role models through sports. For example, I grew close with Rose Citron, who was my basketball captain in freshman year, and Shannon Lau, who was my basketball captain in sophomore year.

They were such good athletes, but also such good people.

Getting girls on sports teams is one of the most important things you can do for them, especially in this society where there are so many forces telling us girls not to be athletic, aggressive, have big muscles, and focus on ourselves. I think sports tell you that it’s okay to focus on yourself and have goals. Growing up, so many forces told me that I should be passive and that having goals is

Allison Eng, Soccer and Table tennis Allison Eng was the captain of both the girls’ varsity soccer and table tennis team.

She won a myriad of honors in table tennis, such as Outstanding Performance, and was named MVP and Rookie of the Year her freshman year.

How I started playing... I started soccer when I was eight in an intramural club. I played for the club, Port Washington Wave Runners, when I was around 14 or 15, and we met a few times a week. I also played on a travel team, Auburndale Galaxy, when I was 12 to 13, where I would go around the city to play other teams; I would also play on the state level. I had to quit for a little while because my mom said I had to go to Chinese school, but I ended up playing again for the Wave Runners. For table tennis, I would always play on cruise ships with my dad because they always had those free tables. I decided to join my middle school’s table tennis club, and we met a few times a week.

Why I wanted to join... I knew I wanted to join the soccer team because I already had experience and I knew that I wanted to play intramural soccer in college. For table tennis, I decided to join on a whim. I knew I was good at table tennis, but I had a hard time choosing between trying out for basketball or table tennis. I even had my parental consent and medicals ready and all signed with only the sport I was trying out for blank. I had played basketball before, but I thought it was hard, so I tried out for table tennis, got in, and everything went from there.

Impact on my Stuyvesant experience... Joining table tennis impacted me a lot as a leader. I wasn’t doing it for college or anything like that, but the level of trust placed on me by my team made me feel like a role model. Also, doing things like planning dinners or hangouts and organizing team spirit weeks made me a much more responsible person. It was also really fun to create so many friendships and bond with the other girls. My mental game also really improved because when I was younger and still played on cruise ships for fun, every time I lost five points in a row, I would get super upset.

But now, even my dad has noticed that my mental game has gotten much better and now I’m able to focus point by point. For soccer, I always look forward to practice and it’s so fun to be with such a spirited group of girls. Soccer is like my second life and it’s just great to be around people who make me happy, and to have sleepovers and dinners with them. When I got injured during my junior year, I was so sad because I got so used to always having soccer at the end of every day and seeing my team, but I had so much support from the girls.

self-centered, and throughout my life, I have often criticized male athletes who are overly confident or obnoxious. This confidence is rarely shown in female sports, and when it is, I admire these women so much for overcoming stigmas and owning their talents. I’m a very versatile athlete, and had I put more effort into my sports, my results would be better, but seeing confidence in female athletes is still really rewarding.

It is also really rewarding that I get to take care of my body.

There’s also so many intense body standards. Especially when going through middle and high school, puberty really sucks, and it feels like your body is working against you.

I hit my athletic peak in sixth grade. I haven’t really grown much since then. I just felt so dominant for the first time— instead of tall and lanky in my NEST polo shirt. Sports have been so important for me in defining not just my intellec-

tual self, but also my physical self. It’s such a different way of using your brain, and it’s still intellectual because it’s so instinctual. That’s what makes practice so much more fun than studying: there’s no instinct to performing well on the test, whereas practice feels like knowledge, not just information I need to regurgitate.

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Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

Winner of the Sportsmanship Award, Ruby Gary has helped lead the softball team to semi-finals this year. Juggling SING! and sports, she has also won Outstanding Senior for softball as well.

How I started playing...

I went from being a threeseason athlete, to a two-season athlete, to a one-season athlete.

In my freshman year, I did soccer, basketball, and softball.

For soccer, I had never played beyond little camps during the summer. During eighth grade, I was convinced by the boys’ soccer coach to join because I was fast and coordinated. It was nice to do three seasons since I had something to do every day after school. For me, soccer was more of something I had never really done, so I wanted to try it. I have been playing basketball since I was eight in the Greenwich Village Youth Council. It’s really big in my family; my cousins play it and so do my dad and brother.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Spotlight on Captains

Page 26

THE SPECTATOR SPORTS

A Closer Look At Outstanding Athletes Leaving Us This Year

By AKI YAMAGUCHI, ALICIA YU, and CAROLINE JI

Talia Kirshenbaum, Volleyball, Basketball, and Softball

manding they are physically and how much of a toll they take on me emotionally. Having practice every day for the whole year because it’s three seasons sort of determined how I structured my day around for all of high school. It also forced me to prioritize my health because I couldn’t be staying up. It’s made a huge difference on how I take care of myself.

Biggest change if

you didn’t play sports...

I would be a much more insecure person; much of my confidence comes from sports and they gives you a strong sense of purpose. They give you shortterm goals every day and long-term goals. It feels good to be part of a team and to be needed; you have a place to go to every day after school and you also have something important to do.

Zoe Oppenheimer / The Spectator

Celina Liu, tennis The captain of the girls’ varsity tennis team, she has been the first singles player on the team since junior year. Celina has won MVP for the tennis team and this year, she led her team to the quarterfinals.

How I started playing... I started playing tennis when I was three or four, just because my parents played it. They put me into the sport because it was their passion; therefore, it became my passion. I’ve been playing tournaments outside of school since I was 12, and so I joined the Stuy team for the experience. I‘ve always had the idea that I would play singles at Stuy one day, be the best player on the team, and that sort of thing...

How it affected my Stuyvesant experience... I would say that since tennis is a fall sport, that means everything gets started before school starts. The season starts like the last week of August, and our games are the first day of school. It has definitely motivated me to not procrastinate, especially at the beginning of the year because there’s so much going on. I have to get all stuff done, but at the same time, the games relieve some stress. As soon as I am on the court, I don’t focus on Stuy stuff at all and it’s stress-free.

Why you should join a team… I think that for a lot of the sports teams at Stuy, people started in their freshman year. They didn’t start outside of school or anything and then joined and suddenly became the best. I think that some people have that vision of sports teams. However, I think that there are a lot of teams that don’t necessarily require outside experience and that if you are willing to put the work and effort into learning a new sport, you should totally do it because that’s amazing. I know that if I hadn’t started playing tennis when I was younger, I would have totally joined different sports at Stuy, such as lacrosse or soccer. It’s important to stay healthy and active, and sports teams are a great way to do that.

Courtesy of Talia Kirshenbaum

Talia Kirshenbaum has had a great athletic career in all three of her sports.

The recipient of the Louisa Wingate Underhill Certificate for Athletic Improvement, Scholarship, & Character Award, Talia has won Outstanding Senior for the basketball team and MVP as well. The softball team went to semifinals this year, the farthest they have gone in the four years.

How I started playing... I played basketball first in a rec league in my neighborhood when I was in elementary school and I did that until middle school. After that, throughout middle and high school, I played on the teams there. For softball, I started playing little league around the same time at eight or nine. I didn’t play volleyball until eighth grade; I just started because a friend of mine wanted me to try out for the team and then I kept doing it in high school because it seemed like a fun thing to do.

How has playing sports affected you...

I think that the three of them are very different sports in terms of how de-

Lucy K. Wang, Badminton How I started playing... I started playing badminton when I was in elementary school. It was nothing serious, just hitting back and forth with my dad in a park near our house, but I really enjoyed it as a kid. When I was in middle school, I began playing more seriously and started to train with a coach at a local badminton center.

Why I joined... I knew Stuy had a badminton team before I took the SHSAT. It was actually one of the many reasons I wanted to go to Stuy. I moved to New York from China after my freshman year when I was an incoming sophomore. I went to the interest meeting in March. Coach Francis seemed really nice, and everyone on the team loved their experience and was very passionate about it, so I tried out for the team and it was THE best decision ever!

The effect on my Stuyvesant experience... Badminton is definitely one of the most important parts of my Stuy life. During badminton season, I look forward to going to practice every day, and it really helps me de-stress take my mind off schoolwork. Because we have practice after school every single day, I would usually get home at 8:00 p.m. or even later during the season. To keep up with schoolwork, I learned to better manage my time. The team has a very supportive environment and I made some of my closest friends through the team as well.

Plans for the future… I will continue playing in college! I’m going to the University of Michigan, and they have an active badminton club there. During my college visit, I met some of the club members and rallied with them. They are all excellent players and I can’t wait to go to college badminton tournaments!

Maia Brydon, Swimming While on the team, Maia has won two PSAL titles for Girls Swimming during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 season and Open Champs in the 2018-19 season. At Open Champs her senior year, she came in 13th for the 200-meter freestyle in the finals. Maia was also awarded the John L. Baron Memorial Award for Swimming, Service, and Scholarship this year.

How I started playing... I started swimming 10 years ago; I was on a club team outside of school. My dad was a swimmer, so it was kind of assumed that I would eventually become one too.

Why I joined… When I came to Stuy, it just seemed natural for me to join the swim team. It was the only thing I was sure of when I got here.

Impact on my Stuy experience... Swimming has had a huge impact on my Stuy life; during these four years, I’ve always had a family to fall back on, no matter how stressful it got. Each year, even though I dreaded starting school again, that feeling was eclipsed by the prospect of starting the new swim season. And as short as the season is, it’s always the best time of the year.

Plans for the future… I really do want to continue swimming in college with a club team, though I have a relatively severe shoulder injury to deal with before it comes to that. But I do hope that I can recover and swim with a team before I graduate.

Ally Archer, Volleyball, Basketball, and Softball Ally Archer was the captain of the volleyball and basketball teams. She was the MVP for volleyball for the past two years and MVP for basketball her junior year. She was also awarded the Female Scholar Athlete award at Senior Awards Night.

How I started playing… Sports have always been a huge part of my life. I started playing basketball before softball and volleyball due to my height. Since I’ve always been tall, when I was around the age of seven, my parents wanted me to play basketball, so I did. I started playing softball a few years later when I was 10. My brother had grown up loving and playing baseball so it only seemed right for me to try out softball. Lastly, I started playing volleyball seriously my freshman year of high school. I had gone to a few volleyball clinics when I was in eighth grade but I had never played a competitive game of volleyball until I had made the team.

Why I joined… Since I have always played sports and they have been a huge part of my life, I knew I wanted to try and play sports in high school.

I’m not exactly sure why I was so set on trying out for all three teams but it was a decision I had made prior to starting school. I had no clue how my skill level was going to compare so I really went into each tryout hoping to stand out as someone with a decent amount of skill and potential to improve.

Impact on my Stuyvesant experience… These three sports teams have been the most important aspect of my life for the past four years. I have spent practically all and any free time with the women on these teams and I could not have been more honored and privileged. They have shaped me into the person that I am. They have been the people who have supported me not only through the lowest of lows but also the highest of highs, and for that I could not be more grateful. They have made Stuyvesant a period of my life that I will cherish forever.

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

Page 27

The SpectatHER Celebrating 50 Years THE PIONEERS (cont’d.)

LISA BECKLEY

By DARIUS JANKAUSKAS Like many of the first 13 females who entered Stuyvesant in 1969, Lisa Beckley (’72) did not attend in order to challenge gender norms, but rather because the commute to Stuyvesant was shorter than that for other specialized schools. “I had no idea how many girls would be there. I had no role model teachers. I actually was trying to keep a low profile,” Beckley recalled.

The overall environment in 1969 was one that remains familiar today. Classes were quiet and students focused on academics. Beckley’s passion was mathematics; her most gratifying moment at Stuyvesant was receiving math grades higher than those of most of her friends. However, her passion for math did not extend to the sciences, which were then core to the Stuyvesant curriculum. Beckley did poorly in these classes, causing her to realize that she “was going to graduate at the bottom of the class,” she said. Ultimately, she transferred to her local high school at the end of her sophomore year.

While Beckley might not have graduated from Stuyvesant, her experiences during those first two years in a male-dominated environment, along with the teachings of her mother, taught her to be more assertive.

“I was always taught to stand up for myself, which I did,” she said. “If a boy bothered me with unwanted attention, I told him flatly to leave me alone.” This attitude proved helpful not only in Stuyvesant, but also in her first few jobs, where her confident attitude helped her fend off unwanted attention from male coworkers. Beckley carried on this attitude during her adult life, when she became a teacher at an all-male prison for 17 years; there, she helped prisoners earn their General Education Development (GED) certification.

Beckley also taught at a women’s prison for five years, where she taught girls under 21 to become more assertive. “One girl told me her boyfriend said to her, ‘If you love me, you will do this,’” Beckley recalled.

“I asked her why she didn’t respond, ‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to [do] this.’” Beckley hopes that her students have internalized those types of responses to difficult situations. She has since retired, but still holds strong opinions: regarding the #MeToo movement, she states that it does not encourage women to stand up for themselves in the moment. “You don’t tolerate disrespect or unwanted advances,” she explained. “Say something NOW, not 20 or 30 or 40 years later.” Not everyone can reasonably meet this standard. But her closing piece of advice is universal: “Try your best, achieve your goals honestly, don’t step on other people, and never give up,” she said.

PROMINENT ALUMNI NZHINGA PRESCOD

By ZOE OPPENHEIMER

“There’s always going to be a path.

If you’ve ended up at Stuyvesant, you can figure your path out.”

—Nzingha Prescod (’10) SHIRLEY MOY

Stuyvesant is known for being one of the best schools in New York, always churning out innovative thinkers. The list of notable alumni is filled with well-known scientists, lawyers, doctors, and all-around brainiacs. However, Stuyvesant is not always known for producing amazing athletes, such as Olympic fencer Nzingha Prescod (’10).

Prescod had always pushed herself to succeed academically. “Fencing and school were two things I really wanted to excel at,” she said. “Stuyvesant was a natural path for me because I was academic but also athletically focused. The balance of the two [was] really helpful to excel in both, though fencing was my priority very clearly.”

For Prescod, “Stuy was hard. Stuy was rough,” she said. “I think the number one reason it was rough was because I had this huge time commitment outside of school: fencing. I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to studying and really understanding the material and doing all the reading, so it was always a challenge to keep up with the assignments and the tests and participating; it was a lot to manage.”

While she had gone to Stuyvesant for the academic rigor, the atmosphere isolated her. “I didn’t have a community I felt connected to,” she recalled. “I had friends— they were kinda scattered—but I didn’t feel like I had a typical high school experience where you have a lot of fun and you chill with your friends. I felt kind of isolated, and I think part of that was because it was the most rigorous school.”

There were benefits, though, with Stuyvesant’s competitive and focused attitude. “The Stuy community is so inspirational and motivating,” Prescod said. “It was great to be around people who were interested in excelling and they had interests and passions.”

Currently, Prescod is training for the 2020 Tokyo qualifications, and hopefully the 2020 Tokyo Olympics itself. She has been fencing since she was just nine years old, when her mother heard about the Peter Westbrook Foundation, a nonprofit organization started by Peter Westbrook, a six-time Olympian who is half Japanese and half black. “He grew up in the projects of Newark and he wanted to share his sport with more minorities around the city, because he saw how much fencing did for him,” Prescod said.

For Prescod, fencing is a way to keep pushing herself to be the best athlete and person she can be. “I always want to be better, and it’s my arena where I’m trying to be better all the time. The sport never really changes but you’re changing as a person and you figure out ways to stay motivated and continue staying effective,” she said.

DR. LISA RANDALL

By JIAHE WANG

By AMANDA PENG

Shirley Moy (’80) decided to attend Stuyvesant simply because her middle school teacher recommended it. According to her, not many people at the time knew about Stuyvesant and certainly no one took any test prep.

People seemed, in fact, to have a much more nonchalant attitude toward the specialized high schools in general.

“You take the test,” Ms. Moy said. “If you get in, you get in.”

A first-generation immigrant, Ms. Moy grew up in Little Italy. She excelled despite her difficult home life— her mother had gotten ill and was hospitalized during her time at Stuyvesant, so Ms. Moy was forced to take up more responsibilities. She remained optimistic and pushed through these struggles.

They allowed her to reach emotional maturity at an age much younger than her peers, which proved to be useful in the future.

After attending Stuyvesant, Ms. Moy went on to study at Harvard University. During her time there, she developed a passion for architecture.

Now she works as the program manager for Penn Station Improvements in the MTA Capital group. She manages transportation engineering projects. Ms. Moy described her job with a vivid analogy: “I guess I’m kind of like the conductor of an orchestra; I deal with designers, construction workers, lawyers, maintainers, the public—I put everything together into a cohesive whole.” She has renovated roughly 60 subway stations in the past 25 years, transforming deteriorating stations into utilitarian modern stations. This job is extremely rewarding when the final tangible product is completed— Ms. Moy takes pride in her work on the 96th Street 123 train station.

Moy wants to set an example for all current Stuyvesant students. “Some kids try to do a hundred things. There are only so many hours in a day. Cull your activities to the things and experiences that are meaningful to you versus doing a thousand activities,” Moy advised. “Do things that you want to do, not things that you ‘have to’ do.

Don’t do it for the resume.”

Dr. Lisa Randall’s (’80) career after Stuyvesant is a clear example of a success story. A current physics professor at Harvard University, Dr. Randall has created a name for herself as a prominent theoretical physicist through her fascinating theories on extra dimensions. Her interest in the sciences began at a young age and she had decided to apply to Stuyvesant on her own. “I came to Stuyvesant to get a good education—and to get out of Queens which I found stultifying and homogenizing,” Dr. Randall said in an e-mail interview.

“Everyone was supposed to be and dress the same, and being smart even meant a deviation from the norm! But I wanted a good education and liked that it was available.”

Thankfully, Dr. Randall’s hopes of escaping the uniformity of Queens were greatly satisfied at Stuyvesant. “The thing that sticks with me about Stuyvesant at the time was how refreshing it was to see all sorts of students celebrated for who they were without the enforced social conformity of my neighborhood in Queens,” Dr. Randall recalled. To her, Stuyvesant was diverse in both the socioeconomic and racial sense. “Being from a wealthy family didn’t give you automatic status the way it did in college, for example.

Being talented, smart, [and] interesting counted. I might be idealizing but [Stuyvesant] was pretty great—and I’ve never seen any place quite like it since.”

Like many current students at Stuyvesant, Dr. Randall found opportunities to highlight and practice her interest in the sciences. While many students today seek out internships and competitions, Dr. Randall entered the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Remembering the moment when she won, Dr. Randall said, “There were three finalists from Stuy and they announce[d] winners in reverse order. One of the others was a runner up and another placed so I was either going to be the only one to go home empty-handed or a winner. [I was] glad when I heard the announcer say ‘from Fresh Meadows.’

[That] might [have been] the only time I was happy to hear those words!”

However, Dr. Randall occasionally faced challenges in pursuing her talents at Stuyvesant. “When I first arrived in 10th grade, I wasn’t allowed to go into the honors math class since they didn’t trust any other school,” she said.

“Another girl and I were clearly the best in the class and the teacher appreciated it but still mourned for the old male days in Stuyvesant.” Dr. Randall recalled the irony of the situation once she was allowed to take the course, describing that the extra time she needed to catch up on the policy actually set her back. “In retrospect, who knows if they would have done this if I was a boy. And now that I think about it, there was probably at least one teacher who noticed boys’ contributions more than [those] of girls,” she said.

Despite this setback, Dr. Randall went on to attend Harvard University where she earned a B.A. in physics as well as a Ph.D in theoretical particle physics. “I get to study cool aspects of the universe, ranging from the very small (particle physics) to the very large (cosmology and astronomy), and work with amazing colleagues and students,” Dr. Randall said. She has also written multiple books on physics, two of which have covered the recent exciting discovery of the Higgs Boson. “Trying to do research, write, give public appearances, [and] teach all at the same time is challenging! [It] can also be rewarding. For example, I never thought I’d be a public person, and seeing how it has influenced others is very gratifying. [What is] also gratifying is the feeling of discovery—having a cool new research result no one else had thought of before.”

To current students, “Don’t immediately rate yourself compared to an abstract idealization of what you need to be,” Dr. Randall advised. “Look at the person next to you. If you think you can do as well or better and you want to pursue something, go ahead. Do your best and try.”

January 1973 Roe v. Wade protects women’s right to have an abortion.

July 1981 Sandra O’Connor becomes the first female Supreme Court Justice.

1983 Dr. Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman to be sent into space.

“Some kids try to do a hundred things. There are only so many hours in a day.

Cull your activities to the things and experiences that are meaningful to you versus doing a thousand activities,” — Shirley Moy (‘80)

“Whatever you are doing, try to enjoy it. Ultimately, this is not something that is going onto your permanent record; nobody is going to check that you took a stuffed animal to your ninth grade Regents.” — Rebecca Pawel (‘95)

REBECCA PAWEL

By AMY HALDER Rebecca Pawel (’95) moved from the old Stuyvesant building at 345 15th Street to the current building at 345 Chambers Street as a rising sophomore. Beyond the eyecatching Olympic-sized swimming pool and 10 floors, women at Stuyvesant realized a more inconspicuous change: there were bathrooms specifically designed for women on every floor. “[In the old building] you had to search for the right floor, and get to bathrooms that had not been set up for women,” Pawel said. Upon exploring the new building Pawel exclaimed, “Yes! Multiple stall bathrooms on every floor!”

Notwithstanding the shift between buildings, Pawel’s Stuyvesant experience was much like that of today’s students. “We [women] were 50 percent of the class or some equivalent of that,” Pawel said. This statistic represents the incredible progress women have made; women have progressed from a once small minority of the student body to an entire half.

Furthermore, Pawel, like many students today, “originally ended up with teachers who were notorious for having a lot of homework,” she said. “I remember doing the thing of getting home at 7:00 p.m., eating dinner and having it be 9:00 p.m., and staring at three hours of homework, saying, ‘I can’t do this.’ The homework was definitely a killer.” Even more, students’ diversity of interests in over 200 clubs and activities existed even then. “There were people interested in all kinds of different stuff, whatever you thought you could do was cool,” she said.

Pawel did not let her initial trepidations stop her from excelling. Having studied flamenco and classical Spanish dance in junior high school, she enrolled in Spanish as a freshman. At the time, Stuyvesant students needed to take Spanish IV as a prerequisite for AP Spanish. Wanting to take AP Spanish, Pawel spent a summer living in Madrid as a rising senior. She took part in an intensive Spanish immersion program led by the husband-wife duo, former Assistant Principal of World Languages Arlene Ubettia and former Spanish teacher Juan Mendez.

On the trip, Pawel fell in love with Spain so much that she majored in Spanish language and literature as an undergraduate, obtained a Master’s degree in teaching English and Spanish, and wrote four historical fiction novels set in Spain while also teaching high school. After 13 years of teaching, Pawel decided to shift gears and pursue a Ph.D. Today, Pawel is attending Columbia University, simultaneously revising her Ph.D. dissertation and teaching undergraduates. She jokingly said, “I live in hopes of coming across a Stuyvesant student, but have not yet.” Her Ph.D. relates once again to her first trip to Spain, focusing on African American authors such as Langston Hughes, who had visited and written about Spain.

To today’s Stuyvesant students, Pawel offers: “Whatever you are doing, try to enjoy it. Ultimately, this is not something that is going onto your permanent record; nobody is going to check that you took a stuffed animal to your ninth grade Regents.”

2007 Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the House.

January 2013 The United States removes a military ban prohibiting women from serving in combat positions.

Page 28

The Spectator ● June 26, 2019

The SpectatHER Celebrating 50 Years LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO

By AMY HUANG “My job is I’m a writer. How great is that to say?” Laurie Gwen Shapiro (‘84) is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She had always been a humanities student, and it only took one person to help her realize that.

The late English teacher and Pulitzer Prize recipient Frank McCourt told her, “I have really terrible news for you. You’re a writer.”

And it always came back to writing. Shapiro worked in radio and TV as an assistant at ABC News, and while that world had initially been glamorous, she wanted to tell stories herself, despite the financial instability of being a filmmaker or journalist. She has, however, recognized the avenue through which success can be found. “The power is in the stories,” she said. “If you’re the person [who] can nail down a story that no one else can get, whether it’s fiction or journalism—if you have the best story in the room, you’re golden, and you don’t have to be famous to have a great story.”

This lesson narrates the inspiration behind Shapiro’s article in The New Yorker, titled “How a Thirteen-Year-Old Smashed the Gender Divide in American High Schools.” The article told the story of a teenage girl who became a national icon in the youth movement to gender desegregate American schools. Working with two activists, one of whom was a lawyer, Alice de Rivera requested admission to Stuyvesant. The principal at the time, Dr. Leonard J. Fliedner, denied her request, prompting de Rivera to file a lawsuit against the New York City Board of Education (BOE) on January 20, 1969.

De Rivera’s win set off a domino effect: over the years since 1969, 13 girls became 200 and one co-ed high school became the precedent for the gender desegregation of other high schools, universities, and prep schools. “The idea that she did this at 13 just blew my mind,” Shapiro said. When she met de Rivera at an alumni event, she channeled McCourt’s advice: “Write what no one else has.”

“I felt a responsibility,” Shapiro said. “I knew what other people didn’t know, which was that hundreds of thousands of women had been affected by that one girl’s decision. I felt that not [only] was this a great story, but I [also] had access to it.” Shapiro created her own access, finding de Rivera’s phone number and traveling to Maine to speak with her. “I use my documentary skills,” Shapiro said. “You go to the place, you don’t just write about it from your desk.”

The article was more than a celebration of de Rivera’s story; it was also a dedication and a thank you to the woman who had opened doors for others. “I was a Stuyvesant girl who benefited from her,” Shapiro said. It is not uncommon to find people who are “gatekeepers,” those who harbor experiences and resources from others. Shapiro advocates for being a connector, someone who shows support and gives. “One of the things that I do for other writers [when] they have a book that comes out—I go to the readings. I buy their book,” Shapiro said. “People want to be acknowledged in the world. It’s just human nature.”

Having once been a humanities student at Stuyvesant, Shapiro shares advice with students like her: “[Your timetable] doesn’t look like [that of] the people [who] are going into business and law. Your life doesn’t have to look like what everyone else’s life looks like. You really have to not compete with other people. You have to be your own best friend.”

Photos courtesy of Suzanne Rose Shapiro (‘73), a former Spectator Editor-in-Chief

January 2017 The first Women’s March is held in protest of the election of Donald Trump as president.

November 2017 Congress has a record number of women, with 104 female House members and 21 female Senators.

July 2018 Serena Williams wins her 23rd Grand Slam title at Wimbledon.

Fall 2019 The #MeToo movement shocks the world with widespread allegations of sexual abuse and violence against famous men.