The Spectator ● June 16, 2014
Page 4
News
Katherine Fennell / The Spectator
Summer Happenings at Stuyvesant
Summer school classes will take place at Stuyvesant instead of Brooklyn Tech.
By Stephanie Chen and Sharon Lin Summer is quickly approaching, and even while final exams and Regents may loom overhead, there has already been talk of happenings occurring around the school in preparation for the 2014-2015 school year. For the first time in years, the Stuyvesant High School building will be opened for summer school. The summer courses, which include subjects such as Biology and Physics, are intended for students who have failed at least one semester during the school year. This year, in addition to hosting the summer school session, Stuyvesant will be inviting students from Bard High School Early College, High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School to enroll as well. The building will also be opened for professional development programs for teachers. The DOE annually hosts these programs, targeted at both new and experienced teachers, and teaching assistants to provide training for the upcoming year. These programs are aimed at teaching Core Curriculum programs to instructors. Examples include ReadyGen, Go Math!, Code X, and Connected Mathematics Project Three (CMP3). ReadyGen is a comprehensive English and Language Arts program, Go Math! is a K-8 mathematics program, Code X is a language arts curriculum created for middle school students, and CPM3 is a middle school-
targeted mathematics program that seeks to engage students in personalized learning. “[The programs] will probably take up one or two floors, but they will be [set] apart from the students,” Principal Jie Zhang said. Science labs will also be open to allow students to work on their Intel Science Talent Search research projects. Stuyvesant will also be offering a variety of courses in computer science, mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, and social science for students to get a head start on scientific research. The principal, along with administrators, security guards, teachers, and custodial staff will be present in the building during the duration of these projects. “The students will be working under close supervision,” Zhang said. In terms of maintenance, every clock and window will be investigated. The clocks in our school are always regarded as a nuisance as many of them are never functionally operating. “Just the fact that my clock doesn’t work makes me want to throw something at it,” Zhang said jokingly. The school custodial staff works solely on general maintenance during the summer months—cleaning classrooms, waxing and stripping floors, cleaning bathrooms, etc. If there are any specific repairs that must be made, a complaint is filed by the school. In response, the Division of School Facilities, an organization responsible for maintaining all facilities under the jurisdiction of New
York City’s school system, decides whether their budget allows for the repair to be made. “For instance, if repairs need to be made with the clocks, the [Division of ] School Facilities sends the clocks [to the school]. The head contractor then comes in and his staff repairs them. That’s going to happen, but we don’t know when,” Head Custodian Fred Arnebold said. A typical complaint from the students is the perpetually malfunctioning escalators. These are repaired by outside contractors, according to Arnebold. The school’s custodians are not in charge of hiring contractors to perform maintenance, however. In the past, contracted repairs have taken up to a year and a half to follow through, so Arnebold is not holding up hopes for sudden changes in the summer. “The administration’s the one in charge of the money in the budget. All I do is turn in work requests to get the work done,” he said. Because of the school’s limited budget, it may not be plausible for major repairs to occur over the summer, even with the two months. “The escalators are capital improvements, but they’re a pretty large scale. It’s like asking for a million dollars to improve the pools, but we really need approval for those,” Zhang said. Another common complaint among the student population, especially during the months of late May to early June, is the poor air conditioning in the building. Zhang is also aware of this issue, as it was brought up to her numerous times by both students and administrators. Air conditioning is installed and maintained by the school’s custodians. “There are specific rooms in the building where the air conditioning doesn’t work. Those are specific univents. If we can fix them ourselves, we will do so,” Arnebold said. From summer school to maintenance of the school, the Stuyvesant building will be filled with bustling activity throughout the summer. Many hope to see a better Stuyvesant, albeit with some skepticism. “I believe there will be change, but it won’t be apparent,” sophomore Jessica Tom said.
Intro to Computer Science Finals Cancelled By Susan Wu and Sharon Li
When the finals and Regents schedule was initially released on the Stuyvesant website on May 29, a wave of confusion swept through the computer science students of the class of 2016. An allotted time period for the departmental Introduction to Computer Science final was nowhere to be found. The previous Fall term, students were required to pass a rigorous hour-long computer science final, complete with a multiple choice and short answer section. In addition, students in all classes, except those taught by Computer Science teacher David Holmes, were required to submit a final project in which pairs of students were given a period of approximately two weeks to create a game or model based on the NetLogo language. Currently many teachers have opted to replace the final exam with the final project. The final project, as opposed to the test, allows the students to experience a more real world aspect of coding. “[The final project] is not only based on memorization, but more on logic, skill, and the ability to meet a deadline. [It] is more similar to a real life situation, where a programmer is given a task and a certain amount of time to complete it,” sophomore James Chin said. Chin also believes it is both applicable in the working world, and a valuable experience, comparable to the work often completed in technical jobs involving coding. The final exam was initially administered to determine if students in the introductory class were suited to take the Advanced Placement Computer Science (AP CS) class. Because the students who will be advancing to AP CS have already been chosen, many of the computer science teachers felt that there was no need to create another departmental final. “The decision for the kids taking AP CS next year is already made, so what good is
making them all take a final? I’d rather let the teachers give them assessments and assign them final projects,” computer science department coordinator Michael Zamansky said. Another argument against final exams focuses on Stuyvesant’s graduation requirements. Final exams are primarily given to assess individual students and provide their teachers with a general overview of their mastery of the course material. In addition to this, the unique requirements of the Stuyvesant diploma state that although Introduction to Computer Science is a required class, further computer science classes are not necessary for graduation. This was the main issue, as the computer science teachers felt that it was unfair to issue an exam that would not be relevant to students in the future. While first term computer science needed the evaluation for their second term teachers, students taking the course only to fulfill graduation requirements were not likely to take additional computer science classes. A few students agree fully with the decision to stop administering the computer science final exam, satisfied with the decision to replace it with the students’ final projects. “Giving final projects is a better choice than to give a final because students can take time to think about their code and actually analyze what they do wrong, something they can take advantage of if they use coding for a job,” sophomore Brandon Lin said. In addition, because computer science is a more creative and less technical class than trigonometry or chemistry, some believe that it would be unfair to place a time limit on the final exam. “[Computer science] is a time consuming, meticulous process that requires trial-and-error and further ingenuity to discovering an alternate route to the same objective. [In addition,] CS is a visual class. Students need to be able to see the result,” sophomore Spencer Eo said.
Former Civil Rights Activist Talks to APUSH Classes By Rebecca Chang with additional reporting by Sharon Lin In the 1960s, when a young man and civil rights activist born and raised in New York City, Ivanhoe Donaldson, first heard about the sit-ins that were occurring in Greensboro, North Carolina, he was amazed. He was inspired by the message of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that advocated social justice and equality. Fifty years later, Donaldson was recruited by the Zinn Education Project, an organization that strives to emphasize social history and how history can be viewed from victims or oppressed individuals. The organization was founded by Howard Zinn, most well known for his revisionist text, “A People’s History of the United States,” and engages in many different projects that try to emphasize different areas of history. Donaldson was asked to be a part of the SNCC Legacy Project,
whose goal was to preserve and extend the organization’s legacy. In addition, the project also accepted applications for teachers who were interested in having Donaldson speak. Social studies teacher Robert Sandler was extremely interested upon seeing an email that mentioned the project, and applied for the program. “I explained how I showed [my students] films and I had them see an exhibit on Civil Rights in art. I had them read Taylor Branch’s trilogy on civil rights,” Sandler said. “They were impressed and chose me and two other teachers in the country to have him come and talk.” After discussing with the project staff regarding the logistics behind the talk, they both decided that a Google Hangout session for his period two and three Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) classes would be the most logical way to have Donaldson speak. Donaldson started his talk with a short introduction about who he was, and his role in the
SNCC. When Donaldson was a college student at Michigan State University, he decided to leave in order to aid the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He had heard about the terrible conditions and discrimination that African-Americans faced in Southern states, especially in Mississippi and Alabama. Ku Klux Klan members terrorized and intimidated many AfricanAmericans to stop them from voting, and were not afraid to use tactics like burning down houses and churches or even killing those who spoke out. As a result, even though Donaldson knew he was taking a big risk by going to the South, he along with other students from Michigan State, were willing to make the sacrifice to help other African-Americans. He worked as a SNCC employee for two years in Mississippi, and helped to deliver food to impoverished African-American neighborhoods where the residents were not given enough money for their work by their white counterparts, and also ended up in
jail for two weeks for doing so. “I thought that was really awesome because we usually only hear about the famous figures of the movement. We know what they did, but we don’t know how other people got into it,” junior Udita Tonnee said. One negative aspect, however, that students mentioned was that Donaldson tried to encourage the students to speak about their own initiatives, rather than explaining more about his experiences. “I thought it helped a lot to understand his point of view of what happened but I felt like if he had lectured a little more, we would’ve gotten more information,” junior Leonard Margolis said. “But when he did answer the questions thoroughly or in the first part where he lectured us, I found that very engaging.” Sandler agreed that he also noticed the different interests of Donaldson and his students during the Hangout. “The kids wanted to hear more dramatic stories about his jail time, but he really just wanted to hear about
what they were doing,” he said. In addition, since the visit was conducted over Google Hangout, there were also some technical issues. “I had a problem with the quality of the screen. They could’ve worked out a better connection but I guess it was a pilot program so I couldn’t really expect more,” Tonnee said. “There were so many communication errors, especially since he’s so softspoken. A lot of kids had to repeat their questions twice,” Sandler said. “It could’ve been more effective, but he really couldn’t come all the way here, and it was really just an experiment with technology.” Overall, the presentation was a very eye-opening experience for the students of Sandler’s APUSH classes, as they were able to listen to a first-hand story of what the civil rights movement was like. “The reality is, people like Ivanhoe [Donaldson] were really the people who changed the course of history,” Sandler said.