Page 6
The Spectator ● December 11, 2015
Features The Writing Center Orchestrator By Jeannie Au and Anthony Liang The Writing Center, located in the library, is a tranquil area where students and peer editors work together on essays. If you were to take a look into it, you would see a blonde-haired woman in the corner. This is Writing Center head and alumnus Casey Griffin (‘10), who just came to Stuyvesant three months ago. Before interviewing Griffin, we contacted Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman to ask him some preliminary questions. According to Grossman, who has known Griffin since her sophomore year, Griffin was a leader even when she was a student. “[It is satisfying] to be able to bring her back to Stuyvesant, and to watch her supervise current students of mine in the Writing Center,” Grossman said in an e-mail interview. “She’s surpassed my expectations [...] After her first day, she came to me with a list of things to improve and after a week she was asking for additional tasks.” When we sat down with Griffin, we immediately noticed her cropped blonde hair and easy smile. As the interview continued, we learned more about her
background. During her education at Stuyvesant, Griffin loved English. She took AP English courses and enrolled in electives such as “Creative Nonfiction.” “Writing served primarily as an emotional outlet—a way for me to deal with the things happening in my life,” she said. She also loved social studies and spent much of her time outside of the classroom participating in student government. This passion carried into college, where she majored in American Studies. “During college, I was encouraged to write using a mix of personal narrative and academic styles and content,” Griffin said. She feels that she is most confident and proud of the writing she did for this major. Her American Studies class made her appreciate and develop courage in her writing. Surprisingly, Griffin was never completely confident about her writing and still is not. “I like to think that most people, even best-selling authors, feel this way as well,” she said. “I know that I always undervalued myself as a writer in high school and I worry that other Stuyvesant students do the same.” She understands that not everyone is born as a
natural writer, and empathizes with their dilemma. Her insecurity inspired her to work at the Writing Center and provide students with the confidence she lacked in high school. This attitude permeates various aspects of Griffin’s life—when we
“I fully expect to be working for her one day.” —Eric Grossman, Assistant Principal of English
asked her what punctuation mark she would be if she had to become a punctuation mark, Griffin said she would become a colon. Colons are used to push forward a sentence and allow a writer to expand on her ideas. Similarly, Griffin wants to push
her students onwards to better writing. As a result of her desire to help students improve with their writing, she tends to focus on large-scale revision. While her peers target the specifics such as grammar, formatting, and sentence structure, Griffin prefers to work on the piece as a whole. She likes to restructure the piece and offer new ideas to get students thinking. In addition, Griffin says that she enjoys reading creative assignments over the analytical pieces. This is because it allows her to know students she would otherwise have no idea about. Her favorite pieces to read are personal writing. Recently, she has been helping seniors edit their college essays and doing so has allowed her to get to know several students on a more personal level. By managing the Writing Center, Griffin has improved its organization, and sends out an e-mail every weekend to all the peer tutors to make sure that there will be a few students present during every period that the Writing Center is open. English teachers have noticed this change, and are grateful for it. “I know my students have benefitted greatly from her be-
ing a consistent presence there. My teacher mailbox has been stuffed with receipts from their meets,” English teacher Mikaela Dunitz said. “I am super grateful she is the Writing Center orchestrator.” Aside from managing the Writing Center, Griffin is also working a second job at a market research firm, which occupies a lot of her time. “My main passion is educational philosophy, so I like to read theory, go to talks, and pursue projects in that realm,” she said. Her hobbies include reading and seeing theater a lot. She studied drama in college and tries to stay engaged with the theater world of New York. To do so, she sees shows and tries to help her friends who are more actively pursuing drama. In the near future, she plans to start a master’s in philosophy and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “I would like to eventually be able to make large-scale changes to the way this country’s education system works,” Griffin said. How she would like to go about that, she is not yet sure. However, Grossman is confident that Griffin will succeed in her goals. “I fully expect to be working for her someday,” he said.
Julie Chan/ The Spectator
A Crumbling Wall
By Sumaita Mahmood and Kamila Radjabova Three years ago, in the hot, sweaty climate of Kerala, India, the mustache of history teacher Zachary Berman was elaborately styled using the finest tools that local barbers had to offer. Berman felt the cool blade against his burning skin and watched curiously to see the barber at work. When Berman looked into the grimy mirror, he was elated to see the barber shape his mustache into the style popular amongst many of the area’s young Hindus. Interested by this new look, Berman found out the historical significance of mustaches and decided to keep the mustache for the rest of his travels in Southern Asia and Africa. However, what Berman didn’t realize at first was that this mustache was tricky to master in other parts of the world. In Kerala, the mustache style may have meant that Berman was a young, humble Hindu, but upon traveling to Egypt, Berman had now transformed into a young, modern, secular Muslim. His appearance was exactly the same except for the facial hair, but in the eyes of every Egyptian, he had changed completely. Cul-
tural clashes like these fascinated Berman and motivated him to pursue a career in history. Berman encountered his first cultural clash while growing up in San Francisco’s Castro District. His family had moved all around America before finally settling in a place with a large LGBT population. During the ‘80s and Berman recalled seeing gay couples with no children living in the surrounding houses. “It was a strange place to be a kid. [I saw] not just men making out on street corners, but for some reason it was very popular for men to wear leather chaps over their jeans,” Berman described. “It felt almost like growing up in a neighborhood that has a majority ethnic group that wasn’t mine. I felt like a minority.” Yet, his experiences with his neighbors allowed him to learn to respect people not for their culture, religion, or sexual orientation, but for what makes them special, a valuable quality to have when it comes to history. While his experiences growing up were quite different from those of many of his students, Berman’s school life was surprisingly similar to that of Stuyvesant students. During his years in high school, Berman re-
membered sneaking out during lunch to a pool hall and hanging out with his friends. “We were all nerdy. I was not the most popular kid,” Berman said. However, Berman’s style of hair and taste in food were all too similar to his ‘80s peers. “We all grew our hair long. It seemed like everybody was becoming vegetarian and growing their hair long,” said Berman. “I became a vegetarian, and I was a vegan for six months. I was just the thing that everybody did.” Despite his rather unconventional experiences in school, things quickly changed as he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, as a religious studies major. He didn’t know what he was doing with his career at that point. “I would sit on a tree on campus and do goofy stuff,” Berman said. He even sat in on a pagan ceremony, just out of curiosity. On the day of his graduation, Berman remembered feeling stressed about his future. “I remember having this weekly planner and on graduation day I drew a brick wall. [I did not] know what was on the other side of that wall. That was really scary,” Berman said. After graduating, he moved to New York and was immediately worked in a series of odd jobs, like driving people on bikes. “I had lots of friends [in New York] and it seemed like there was something to do [there],” Berman said. During this time, he witnessed the events of the Twin Towers falling. As buildings came crashing down and people went into a frenzied panic, Berman stopped and reflected on the event. In the days after 9/11, Berman finally realized what he wanted to do with his life. He found what was on the other side of the wall: a doctorate degree in Middle Eastern history. Berman took classes at Columbia and New York Uni-
versity, including a 10-week summer immersion course in which they could only communicate in Arabic. “I learned Arabic, and I moved to Egypt,” Berman said. His Ph.D. took him on adventures throughout places in the Middle East, such as the archives in Cairo. There, he looked through old letters and documents of historical events related to Egyptian history. “That was really hard. [I had to] self-translate [Arabic], and the archives were really sloppy,” Berman explained. Along with traveling to Egypt, Berman visited other Middle Eastern countries like Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. He also traveled to other parts of the world like Norway, Tunisia, and India. “I don’t know what I expected [out of Egypt],” Berman said. “Sometimes you learn things by reading books and sometimes you learn things by being there. Going [to Egypt] is such a subjective experience. It’s better to learn about it by
“It felt almost like growing up in a neighborhood that has a majority ethnic group that wasn’t mine.” —Zachary Berman, history teacher
reading about it.” In addition, Berman visited other places involved in various trade networks that affect Middle Eastern history. He lived in Morocco for one summer and nostalgically recalled the front doors of houses being painted light blue in the city of Chefchaouen. Berman was surprised by the development in Morocco, or the lack of it. “Seeing that it’s so close to Spain, [it’s surprising because] it’s so underdeveloped, and there’s Berber culture. The Old City of Fez is so [amazing],” Berman said. Even though Berman was visiting the city with a tour group, he still happened to get lost. “It’s so hard not to get lost there, you have to bring a compass,” he joked. Over the course of his travels, Berman grew attached to both Morocco and Egypt. However, Berman realized that he liked the aspect of teaching more than he liked the research. “At some point I also realized that I wanted to be teaching,” Berman said. “All along I was teaching, [I taught at] City College, Pratt, and Cooper Union and all these different places around town. I [taught] after I got back from Egypt and before I left for Egypt.” Ultimately, Berman believed a Ph.D. would only prevent him from pursuing a job that included his passion for teaching. Growing tired of his adventures in the Middle East, Berman settled down in New York with his wife and two kids. Yet, he hasn’t completely forgotten about his love of the region. Berman has hopes of starting to teach electives at Stuyvesant, his choices being modern Middle Eastern history, the IsraeliPalestine conflict, or an Arabic language class. “I don’t want to leave Stuyvesant,” said Berman, expressing his final career choice after his many years of exploring.