The Spectator ●November 21, 2013
Page 3
News
Alice Oh/ The Spectator
Civil War Historian Thomas Fleming Visits Stuyvesant
Thomas Fleming, a notable American military historian and novelist, presented his latest book, A Disease of the Public Mind, to American History students and generously donated a signed copy to the school’s library.
By REBECCA CHANG A critical time in American history was brought to life for three Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History classes when historian Thomas Fleming visited Stuyvesant to give a presentation on the Civil War on Wednesday, November 20. A nationally acclaimed author, Fleming has published over 60 books that focus on various eras of American history and key figures such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Even though Fleming’s primary focus is the Revolutionary Era, he also has written numerous books about the Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War, among others. In addition, he regularly publishes articles in various magazines, most notably New York Magazine and American Heri-
tage. He received the Gomez Mill House 2012 Pioneer Award and the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Gold History Award Medal for his works. Fleming was invited by David Acton, one of social studies teacher David Hanna’s friends and a director of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. Acton was acquainted with Fleming because of Fleming’s many works on the American Revolution and suggested that Fleming speak at Stuyvesant. During the first part of the presentation, Fleming summarized his newest book, “A Disease in the Public Mind, A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War,” which was published on May 7, 2013. The book examines various causes of the Civil War, focusing on the growing tensions be-
tween the North and the South during this time period. He later went into more detail on how the divide between the North and the South first formed in the 1700s, and how their differing ideologies caused many problems between them. At the end, he took student questions on specific aspects of the war and the events that precipitated them, such as the “tipping point,” the point at which the war became inevitable, and how both sides took advantage of public fear and propaganda to attract attention. “The questions were absolutely delightful and intelligent,” Fleming said. Students were glad to have the rare opportunity to engage with an expert in a field they were studying. “I like the different perspective, because if you’re hearing from the same teacher year-long, it gets repetitive. So there is a benefit in having a break with these presentations,” junior Adam Dehovitz said. “It was actually really interesting to hear him say the names and the things I had learned in class,” junior Alexander Gabriel said. “To hear it in a real kind of setting was pretty cool.” Hanna agrees that the lecture was a helpful experience. “Getting to actually meet someone who has written a book on this topic that required a lot of research is always insightful,” Hanna said. “You don’t have to necessarily think his book was a great book, or you don’t have to agree with his premise of the book, but even then, it’s still a great learning experience.”
ATRs Take Attendance By Tina Jiang and Aimee Lee Several weeks ago, students began seeing unfamiliar adults standing in the doorways of the music classrooms on the first floor. Rumors immediately started flying regarding who they are and why they were in the classrooms. According to Principal Jie Zhang, these people are Absent Teacher Reserves (ATRs). ATRs are teachers who have lost their daily teaching positions and no longer have an assigned building. Most of the job losses have been due to the ongoing Department of Education (DOE) school closings and reorganizations. These teachers are reassigned to substitute for absent teachers or to perform clerical work, such as taking down attendance. New Teacher Project, a nonprofit organization, issued a report on September 22, 2008 that revealed that the city budget for ATRs was $74 million. This budget would otherwise be spent on substitute teachers, who tend to be younger and less well-paid than ATRs. Every week, Zhang receives an email from the DOE with the ATR assignments for the week. Due to the large demand for teachers in the music rooms, many of the ATRs are assigned to that area and have been recording and monitoring attendance. Before ATRs came to the school, the music departments had assigned students to take attendance in place of the teacher, in an effort to start rehearsals earlier. Senior and chamber choir alto section leader Carolyn Fisher believes that it is more efficient to let students take attendance. “Very little would get done in chorus if students didn’t take the attendance,” Fisher said. “When the chorus was smaller, it prob-
ably didn’t take very long for Ms. Hall to take the attendance, but since the chorus has 130 people, it would take at least ten minutes.” “Who cares if students take the attendance?” senior Hassan Mohammed said. “Teachers typically choose responsible students and often glance over it afterwards.” Junior Tali Rose Herzfeld disagrees. “I think that it is possible for someone to mark a friend present that’s actually cutting, so it is understandable that the school wishes to use ATRs instead,” she said. Orchestra teacher Joseph Tamosaitis has a similar view to that of Herzfeld. “ATRs are extremely helpful. They are useful in allowing the classes to get started earlier so that students can have more playing time,” he said. Sophomore Fahmeeda Alam, however, believes that the ATR’s are intrusive. “I would like the music rooms to be just for music,” she said. “The ATR’s just seem out of place.” Senior Sweyn Venderbush agrees. “Based on the time that I’ve been exposed to them, they just never seem busy and it doesn’t appear that they have any assignments,” he said. “The student librarians and managers are still doing all the same work, so I don’t know what they are doing.” While there is controversy on whether allowing students to take attendance is the more effective choice, according to Zhang, it is illegal. “As I see it… students are not supposed to be taking attendance,” she said. However, with the oversight of a teacher, Zhang believes that it is acceptable. “As long as the students fill in the bubbles on the attendance sheet and the teachers sign it off, we are not violating any DOE rules,” she said, indicating that ATRs may not be completely necessary as attendance monitors.
Naviance: Streamlining the College Process at Stuyvesant By Tina Jiang and Gabe Rosen In an effort to modernize its college application database, Stuyvesant will implement the Naviance college and career readiness platform at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year. Naviance is a web-based program founded in 2002 that provides a single location for school administrators to engage students and families, improve college and career planning, and measure student outcomes. The program will replace Stuyvesant’s current Student Tools website. Naviance encourages students to compile their academic information and explore various post-secondary opportunities by recommending programs that match a student’s interests and personalized goals. The software also gives students tools to search for college programs, determines the courses he or she needs to take, and pinpoints areas for improvement based on an evaluative test. Upon beginning the college admissions process, students can search for colleges, apply for scholarships, and track their admissions status through the platform. Another large part of Naviance is the power that it gives to families of student applicants. Parents are able to directly track the progress of their kids and to communicate with college counselors too. Naviance will also allow schools to find students that are struggling with the application process so that
these students can be given more help by their counselors. Furthermore, students are able to quickly access data and goals not only from within their own school but also from schools across the country. Statistics can also be collected on the effectiveness of a school’s college program applications. Guidance counselors can use the program to collect information when writing recommendation letters. Additionally, the school administration receives in-depth spreadsheets detailing student progress in different areas of the application process as well as student responses to questions regarding their interests. Schools may use this data to gauge student interest in new electives the school hopes to incorporate into their course offerings. “There are so many different layers to Naivance that one single person cannot know everything about it,” Director of College Counseling and Interim Assistant Principal of Guidance (APG) Casey Pedrick said. “We are working on the nuts and bolts of the program and plan to use all of its features to our advantage,” she said. While Stuyvesant is working towards a future with Naviance, it is already in wide use by private schools in New York, such as the Horace Mann School, the Trinity School, as well as many Minneapolis public schools. Shelly Landry, lead counselor of Minneapolis Public Schools and former president of the Minnesota Counselors Association,
praises Naviance’s impact on the student body. Since it started using Naviance two years ago, her district has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of students who have postsecondary education and career plans, and the number of students attending a four-year college has increased by 6 percent. Landry says that the Minneapolis public school class of 2011 showed an improvement of 15 percent over the previous year, with 87 percent of students heading to college. “Naviance has really made the entire process easier,” said senior Zach Stern of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, which has already begun using the software. “Not only does it have useful functions that allow you to look at what programs at what colleges would be best for you, but it has also lessened the workload on the small college office of our school. What’s coolest is the data collected on your interests, because it introduced me and my friends to programs we might have otherwise missed.” Despite all of the success stories associated with Naviance, it was not until Pedrick joined the staff that Naviance was seriously considered for use at Stuyvesant. “After seeing Stuyvesant still sending all the school forms to the colleges via reams and reams of printed paper, I knew that moving towards Naviance had to be the goal,” Pedrick said. After giving a presentation about Naviance to administrators and recommending it to Principal Jie Zhang, Pedrick
signed onto a contract with the company. This contract serves as a trial run and lasts for one year. For this first year, Stuyvesant will not be paying any money for the program until it renews Naviance again next year. After the contract was signed, the administration decided that Naviance would replace some parts of Stuyvesant’s current Daedalus based college database software, called Student Tools, which was developed in the 1990s by former Assistant Principal of Technology Steve Kramer. Daedalus only allows for limited automation of the college application process by the college office. It does not provide analytical tools for the administration, nor does it allow for personalized college planning for students. Daedalus will continue to be used for are programming and attendance, but other services will be moved to Naviance. When interviewed about her reasons for approving the Naviance contract, Zhang said, “[Naviance] will provide a quality replacement for our current in-house college database, and hopefully we will have a seamless transition to using it.” Many students are happy about the transition that the school is making towards Naviance. “Student Tools is horribly slow to use,” senior Frankie Lee said. “And you can tell just from the code for it how old it is, compared to the Naviance website.” Being in line with student opinions, after taking the first baby steps with Naviance, more
stages to the implementation of this system are being unraveled. Many teachers such as Math teacher Richard Ku and Social Studies teacher Matthew Polazzo are volunteering to become more familiar with Naviance, as are parents like former president of the Parents’ Association Peter Galasinao. Secretary Angela DeMaso whose son used Naviance said, “My son was very organized and got everything done in a timely and fashionable manner.” Aside from the parents and teachers that are becoming more integrated with Naviance, two guidance interns, Joy Wang and Nataliya Kisina, have been working with Pedrick to become familiar with Naviance as one of their projects. “We are exploring all the bells and whistles, learning each button and transferring our knowledge to others,” Kisina said. Wang and Kisina will then set up a series of workshops, eventually meeting with every junior to pass on their knowledge of the software. While the administration has had very optimistic views with Navaince, student opinions vary. “Naviance will have a practical advantage for the administration, but not for students,” senior Zeerak Abbas said. “In addition, the multiple systems will only be bound to cause confusion.” Senior Aron Helfet, on the other hand, thinks differently. “Naviance will be an incredibly useful system to implement,” he said. “Even if the transition is rough, everyone will still be better off.”