Voice, Selected Pages

From the 63rd Annual New England Scholastic Press Association Conference Thayer Academy’s Student Magazine Voice Brought home the following awards

NON-FICTION

Abby Sullivan

“Otis”

page 3

Irini Sotiri

Photo accompanying “A Wish Your Heart Makes”

page 4

Sam Martin

“A Wish Your Heart Makes”

page 5

FICTION

Shane Gallagher

“Just Another Silly Game”

page 7

COVER

Katie MacVaris, Lily Bowen, Kevin Deng, Ty Richardson & Abby Sullivan

“Glee” parody (front cover)

page 11

FEATURE WRITING

Brennan Murray

“Hazing – A Complex Issue”

page 12

COVER

Katie MacVaris, Lily Bowen, Kevin Deng, Ty Richardson & Abby Sullivan

“Glee” parody (back cover)

page 14

PHOTOGRAPHY

NON-FICTION

Sullivan family photo

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t is worth noting what Otis did not remember, given what he did remember. He did not remember eating Pedigree sprinkled with crushed pills, or what he had endured mercilessly every week at the veterinary office. Otis did not remember his vet, whom he had growled at before she shot him with insulin. He did not remember sitting outside in the snow as the cold ground soothed the continuously appearing sores on his stomach.

Otis did not remember his owner saying of the pills, “Eat ’em up puppy dog. They’ll make you feel strong again.” He did not remember Ms. Missy teaching his class how to sit, lie down, and roll over. He did not remember his contempt at these lessons. Otis did not remember the embarrassment he felt after peeing on the carpet for the first time since puppy-hood.

Nor did Otis remember the neighbor who brought over his new puppy one day. He did not remember feeling the puppy’s eager nudge in request for play. He did not remember his lethargy and reluctance to bounce along.

He did not remember deliberately skipping meals or having his stomach rubbed by a bunch of strangers visiting him to say goodbye. He did not remember when he began to regard the stairs with dread, or when he grew helpless when his thirst could not be quenched by endless amounts of water.

This is what he remembered. Seventy-one degrees. A deserted beach.

The first crack of daylight along the horizon. Low tide. His paws splashing in the ocean’s edge, running free alongside his owner. Running free from hurt. Running free.

—Abby Sullivan Inspired by Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the Brain”

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Irini Sotiri photo

Cahall Observatory • Jamie Formato photo

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remember when my dream stared down at me and told me not to give up—that moment when I warded off “the real world” and dug myself deeper into my own version of it. It was my first meteor shower, the Perseids of August 2010, and I had been planning my viewing for weeks. But as the two nights drew nearer, the forecast grew less and less favorable. On the day of the first night, I drove to work absolutely heartbroken by the enormous cloud cover stretching across the sky. All that day, I worked to squeeze every ounce of positivity out of me. I don’t need a perfectly clear night, I told myself. Just a small pocket in the Eastern sky. But when I sat out on the deck that night, there wasn’t even a hint of a meteor. My parents were sympathetic the next morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate it: already cleardarksky.com had redashed my hopes, predicting an even worse second night. So the second day dragged on even longer than the first, but I refused to lose hope. Once home, I told my surprised parents that yes, I was going to try again tonight, and yes, I had read the forecast, and yes, I knew what “heavy cloud cover” meant, and no, I didn’t care. So they laughed and retreated to their corner of the house, probably quietly diagnosing me for a few hours before drifting off to sleep.

So there I was, lying on the back lawn, staring at the evil clouds.

The minutes slowly inched by until suddenly I saw something so extraordinary I thought I was dreaming: there, way over on the western horizon, was a small window of clear sky fighting through the clouds. I held my breath and watched it, using my highly untrained Jedi mind tricks to will it to move east. And it did. Before long, it had migrated across half the sky, centering itself perfectly on the meteor’s path. Suddenly I could hardly breathe as the streaks hurtled across the night sky for a few glorious seconds each.

I started to count them, but each new meteor brought such wonder that I kept forgetting what number I was on. But just as quickly as this window had appeared, it continued its path and disappeared over the other horizon. Content, I crawled into my warm bed and collapsed on the sheets. It didn’t matter that I had waited a combined 7 hours for those wondrous 15 minutes—I could hardly remember the cold, the prickly grass, the agonizing waiting. All I could remember was the gold lights, flaring up and arcing across the sky, melting into infinity. Daring me to chase after them.

Unfortunately, cloud cover isn’t the biggest enemy to late night observers—often, the far more menacing light pollution sends us to bed disappointed. Since my winters in Boston are therefore not filled with stargazing, I turn to the next best thing—learning. I wake up every morning to a new astronomical article on my homepage, and sometimes (if it’s a really good day), there’s a pop-up notification about a newly discovered exo-planet. I go to school and work hard all day, to get the grades I think I need to do more than just look at space—to actually go there.

This naturally begs the question, why? The only explanation I have is that it’s my dream, and therefore I will do everything I can to make it my reality, too. But my current reality is hardly science fiction. I live in a household where MD’s outnumber coffee mugs, so I had thought I would be made fun of for my dream. And I was entirely right. I have to watch everything I say—one misused word, one faulty mental calculation, and they’re all laughing and asking me if NASA’s gone soft. But beneath the jokes and rolled eyes, I know I can still count on their support.

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Self-doubt, however, is a whole different animal. It doesn’t laugh at you, it doesn’t make jokes. It is mostly silent, residing only deep in your heart, just waiting as it plants minuscule seeds of destruction. And then, without warning, it bursts forward and tries to choke you, whispering horrible things into your ear. Things like numbers—facts that can’t be argued. 99.5% is my personal favorite—the percent of astronaut applications that are turned down by NASA every two years. That’s 3,980 no’s to every 20 yes’s. In short, it’s a fantastically effective dream killer. Why put yourself through all those years of work, stress, and school just to ultimately be rejected (statistically speaking)? And here is where the self-doubt pins you down—pointing out the near impossibility of dreams, it pressures you to disregard them entirely. Logically speaking, it would be better to cut your losses and return to the real world—or grow up, as some would say. But, as even Spock himself would agree, there are times when logic just isn’t the way to live your life.

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But even if you’ve combated the family expectations and challenged the self doubt, dreams are simply not engineered to last in the real world. When you’re eight, it’s cute to want to be a Patriots linebacker; at eighteen, it’s time to grow up. So dreams blossom, fade, wither, and are soon replaced by others; it’s their natural life cycle. It’s one that should neither be ended too soon, nor dragged out too long.

And so there is a delicate balance between holding fast to a dream, and grasping so tightly as to rob it of its worth. “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true,” Billy Joel recommends (and gently warns). Dreams do come true; more often they don’t. But Billy Joel knows just as well as I do that getting what you dream for isn’t the point of dreaming at all.

A dream’s true beauty isn’t its realization, but rather its very existence. We must dream and wish and long, because otherwise we end up not only stalled far below our potential, but also tragically convinced we’ve already reached it. If you dream huge, you will invariably end up in some place almost as big—maybe, in some ways, even bigger.

And so I keep on dreaming. I nod along during dinner conversations, pretending I understand how one would find, isolate, develop, and market a monoclonal antibody treatment for C. difficile (which, when I voiced my confusion, my mother clarified by saying, “Oh, it’s Clostridium difficile, Sam,” to which I feigned sudden understanding). I listen to weekly messages from astronauts on the International Space Station, and take it to heart when Tracy Caldwell Dyson says to keep dreaming and join them someday. I look up whenever I can, and try to imagine what it would be like to look down. Those meteors are out there somewhere, and I fully intend to find them.

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veryday in Psych 101 I would glance over and see Gracie Park carefully sit up a little and adjust herself in the mahogany seat placed right next to the window, which peered out across the East Quad to Johnson Lake.

These mannerisms always made her seem distant and removed. However, I’m sure it wasn’t just in the class where she wasn’t herself; I figured it was Frank’s fault. I knew Frank Crowley a little bit because we had been in Neuroscience 170 with Professor Arsenault together. He was Gracie’s boyfriend and an all-around jerk. Standing at about 6 feet with broad shoulders and a strong build, he was not one to mess with. His furrowed eyebrows and prominent chin gave him an intimidating look, which could frighten anyone.

Colby isn’t that big of a school so you really knew everyone. I heard around from people that he was a “good guy,” just ’cause he did some community service stuff and was #1 on the soccer team. However, I knew what kind of guy Frank really was. I always had this knack for reading people, which made it easy to tell that Frank was not a good guy. He was always looming over her when they were together and was clearly far too protective. Whenever I would stare at her, I knew that she knew about it and would create that puzzled expression on her face to play along. We always played silly games like that.

Everything about her was absolutely perfect.

Her looks were the first thing that caught my attention. Now, I know that it’s cliché to talk about how

a girl’s hair glistened in the bright moonlight or that her eyes were green like emeralds, but to me her hair easily flowed and could shine in even the dimmest fluorescent light and her eyes hypnotized me into a state of awe and happiness. To me, Gracie was like an angel with a magnificent glow, the kind that could light up the dim old diner my mom used to work at before she left us. She had an amazing figure that could catch the eye of any other college guy. Her face was out of this world. The cheekbones on her face lined up perfectly with the bridge of her small cute nose. Day after day her beautiful looks sucked Irini Sotiri art me in like a vortex and would make me fantasize about the kind of life we could have together. The two of us on a picnic with me watching her sip an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola and knowing I finally had her. I know it’s weird for me to think about that stuff, but when you’re in love, you want to do nothing but say, “I love you,” like a boyfriend does as he gazes into his girlfriend’s eyes and slowly breathes the words out of his mouth.

After much gawking I finally made the attempt to talk to her. As we were trying to make it through Professor Dormant’s lecture on multiple personalities without dozing off, I turned to her and faintly said, “Hey, do you have a pencil I could borrow?” Her

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After a couple weeks of continuing with our voice softly danced out of her mouth and glided games and some little cute notes I left her, I had dethrough my ears, making me go limp. She rifled cided to take action. Frank was getting on my last through her periwinkle backpack on the floor. A nerve, my evidence of their abusive relationship only note spilled from it. On it was written “To Frank,” showed up with my gut feeling, which was with a heart. I casually reached down and snatched t r a always right. I knew I would become a the note as she continued searching her bag for the iri i Sot n i r I hero to Gracie by ridding her of Frank, pencil. I turned to the side with my back so it had to happen this night. On the hunched over and unfolded the note. It night of our last exam, which meant was a stupid love note she had written to that everyone went out drinking to Frank. I don’t know how he did this to her. celebrate the upcoming break. They He was blatantly abusive to her. I could see were walking slowly together in the moonlight this because he would always pick her up and of our college courtyard back to Gracie’s dorm room. toss her around like some flimsy stuffed doll.

He seemed a little bit impaired, which was probably She would repeat over and over again, “Frank, come because he was about to pass out from the beers he on put me down.” He would smile and continue his had chugged. He had his arm around her shoulders, rampage of overpowering her. His presence practishielding her from freedom and joy while she had an cally paralyzed her to not realize how bad of a guy obvious expression of fear across her face. I quietly he is. It was like his shadow was an iron prison that hid in the bushes, waiting for him to drop her off. held the sensible Gracie that I knew and loved. The About 30 minutes later Frank walked out of Hillside only thing standing in front of our being together Dorms and zipped his North Face jacket up so it was Frank. I couldn’t believe her friends hadn’t talked covered up half his face. His uneven steps turned her out of it. All of them seemed so perceptive and into speed walking. The whipping winter wind smart. struck his face and made his eyes tear up. I didn’t I sat next to her every day and we would concare how cold it was; adrenaline was rapidly pumped tinue our little games of me admiring her, and she through my veins and made everything but my goal would have that cute expression on her face. Our disappear. As he got closer and closer to me I gripped silly games would always go on in class, and though my Crawford butterfly knife, feeling the mother of she never showed it, I knew it all made her happy. pearl insets imprinted into the palm of my hand. It The one thing she made it impossible to do was talk was the knife my dad had given me for my 11th to her. She was always trying to avoid me, but I knew birthday. My mom was really upset at my dad for why. That jerk Frank probably somehow made her giving it to me. I always wondered if that was the feel guilty for talking to any other guy. He wasn’t final straw for her or just something that fueled the even in our class but he paralyzed her with fear of fire that made her leave. abuse. Another thing I noticed was that whenever I Finally he was in close range. I swooped in front saw her, she would almost hide away from everyone. of him and my sudden appearance made him leap a I knew that bastard must’ve beaten her around. I felt mile back and automatically frightened him to the like I had to get proof of this; the best way would be core. I quickly jabbed at his left abdomen. I aimed pictures. Luckily I already had some; she was so right below the rib cage and thrust the knife upward beautiful that it was hard not to take at least one picinto his spleen, continuing into his lung. His expresture of her to just stare at for hours. Trust me, when sion changed almost instantly. His mouth grew wide you actually met someone like Gracie, you wanted a open as well as his eyes. I slowly pulled the knife out picture of her to remind you that all the bad things and the blood flowed just like Gracie’s hair did on a in the world like death, famine, and abandonment sunny day. I stood firmly still while he took two didn’t exist around her.

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quick steps back clutching the wound, and trying to stop the bleeding. I knew he was about to scream, so I went in again, and as he was falling I grabbed the lapel of his jacket and struck again but this time into his throat, making it impossible for him to scream for help. I noticed that I had hit just below his adam’s apple. Some of the blood that was traveling from his lung to his mouth stopped there and continued to suffocate him. The pain on his face was so intense that it did nothing but make me feel even better about what I had just done.

I pulled my knife out of his larynx and he hit the paved pathway hard.

The hand that was clutching his abdomen fell to his side and his head tilted toward the trees of the forest in front of the dorms. I was overcome by a sense of heroism and bravery. I felt accomplished and pleased having seen the pain Frank had in his eyes.

His body grew colder than the air around us and his skin turned pale in the light of the moon.

I flipped the knife shut and put it back into my coat pocket and bent down to grab the lifeless body’s jacket. I gripped the collar once more and began to drag him to the forest close by. He weighed about 180 pounds, making it difficult to smoothly lug his body over to the woods. I finally got to the trees and went in a little further, just far enough so that it could still be discovered. I planned this perfectly so that the body would be discovered fairly soon but look like it wasn’t meant to be found. I carefully took off his jacket while making sure that his jacket was the only thing I touched. I took the dead leaves on the ground and covered up parts of his body with them. I walked out of the woods and went to the trash near my doom room and dumped the bloodsoaked jacket in the can with empty Doritos bags and Hershey Bar wrappers. I went over to the spot where I had hidden some hydrochloric acid from the chem room and dumped it all in there—just to make sure there was no evidence. I had my gloves on as well and dumped the acid in the trash along with the jacket. I returned to my silent room and securely put the knife away. I was making it nearly impossible

for the murder to be pinned back to me. Though it wouldn’t be all bad if that happened, Gracie would probably thank me for ridding her of that now vanquished demon.

A couple days had passed and some party girl who wandered into the woods finally discovered Frank’s body. The discovery put the entire campus in a state of depression and fear. Everything was quieter around Colby after Frank’s death, which made sense. Not everyone had the same intuition that I did about people. If people really knew that jerk then they probably wouldn’t have been as sad. Gracie wasn’t in Psych for a few days after she found out. I couldn’t believe that; even though he was dead he was still making her feel bad. She would see in time that his death was a blessing because it would bring us together. After a week we actually started talking in class. It started out as small talk about a certain test, what our major was, the harsh winter weather, and so on and so forth.

Every time she opened her mouth, I knew I was about to be graced by her beautiful voice dancing ever so slightly around my ears. It was turning into a fairy tale where the hero would finally get the girl.

In class she would mention how she thought it was so cute when I’d peer over to her during class and how I also gave her a nice grin once in a while. I knew that’s what she had been thinking; I’m very good at reading people. We never talked about Frank, which meant he was almost out of her mind.

The next week I decided to ask her to dinner. I asked her and she blushed with a soft “yes.” My life was becoming complete and the most beautiful girl in the world was about to become mine. I decided to take her to Ruby Tuesday in Waterville on our date and it turned out to be amazing. Then again, I already knew it would be. I could’ve cared less that we didn’t have much in common; I just wanted to be with her badly. Everything was going perfectly and somehow became truly amazing when she asked, “Hey, wanna go up to your room and hang out?” I quickly responded with an enthusiastic yes. So we started our walk to my small single dorm room.

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She started looking around, asking what everyand you made yourself think that we shared some thing was and where I had gotten it. She was truly goddamn romance! I’m turning this into the police incredible. I decided to show her my very personal and you can rot in prison!” I realized she must be belongings locked away in my chest under my bed. joking and that it was just another one of our silly We sat down on my royal blue comforter and I games. She started to walk to the closed door of my undid the lock. She began looking through all the room, but I stopped her and said, “Come on, Gracie, stuff that was piled up in the old wooden chest. She quit playing around and give the knife back to me.” grabbed something from it and stood up with her She yelled, “You need help!! Get away from me!!” I back toward me. I couldn’t see what she was holding, playfully tried to snatch the knife back, but she n i g m e a l r t turned around and quickly jabbed the knife tobut I was sure it was some priceless item that she Ari F would find sweet and adorable, just like wards me. I felt a sharp, cold pain in the she was. “You know,” Gracie said, “the middle of my chest. Gracie and I stumpolice had sent Frank’s body to a bled backwards simultaneously. Her forensic lab to find anything that open palm was gently touching her could lead to the killer.” She was mouth, which stayed just as open talking about him again, I guessed as her wide emerald eyes. Her exshe must have forgotten about pression was like Frank’s after I him and was focused on me now. had stabbed him except she was “The only thing that they could not the one who was stabbed, I figure out was the weapon that was was. used. The murder weapon was said to I fell to the ground and she ran out of be a knife with four faces toward the top the room screaming for help. My vision and six faces toward the bottom. It had some grew blurry and dark, but I could still see my deposits of mother of pearl and they were finally able own knife in my chest. The same knife I had become to narrow it down to a Crawford butterfly knife,” a hero with; the same knife my mother had disapGracie continued. I couldn’t really understand her proved of so much. The knife that was supposed to until I noticed she was holding and turning my butsymbolize Gracie’s freedom had symbolized the deterfly knife, the same one I killed Frank with. She struction of our love. I knew it had pierced my heart was starting to realize that in her hands was the key and that I was going to die. I didn’t want Gracie to to her freedom and opened the door to our love. I leave me right now as I was dying. I didn’t want her stood up and asked for the knife back. She reto abandon me like the woman who loved me most sponded saying that my knife looked like the same in this world did eight years ago. I wanted my last one that Frank was killed with. She then flipped it thought and the last picture in my mind to be Gracie open and saw the dried blood stains that I had negright beside me, but it wasn’t. One of the last lected to wash, so I could have a memory of my glothoughts I had was of my mother, getting into the rious triumph. Her face was struck with sudden car with her suitcase in one hand and keys in the realization. I was her hero in this story. I was the one other. She left my father and me at midnight, with who had killed Frank because I knew what he was my dad sleeping in their bed and me at just 11 years doing to her. old, sitting on my bed and peering out the window She turned to me with her lips pursed and unto see her wiping the tears from her face and driving blinking eyes staring me down. “I had to do it,” I exaway. Then, as the memory receded, everything else plained, “I knew what he was really doing to you and started to fade as well, as I peered out into the hallhe was standing in the way of the life we would have way, seeing doors fling open and students looking at together. I saved you, Gracie.” She screamed, “What my body screaming and Gracie running away. are you talking about, you sick freak?! I loved Frank

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Cover design by Katie MacVaris, Lily Bowen, Kevin Deng, Ty Richardson & Abby Sullivan

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Sports Hazing A Complex Issue

• Brennan Murray

92% of high school students will not report hazing incidents.

It’s a dark, brutally cold Tuesday night. The rest of your soccer team, standing in a circle around you, laughs hysterically as a pie is thrown in your face. Your new clothes are One n wrecked, and to add a little more humililio mil ho o l hazing-related 5 . ation to the equation, the older play1 c re h s death per year hig ents a year. ers decide to leash you like a dog and in the U.S., d h u c walk you around the field. After your st ea since 1970. d knees are scraped and your pride is stomped on, you are finally haze accepted.

Just this fall, a situation almost identical to this one occurred at Needham High School, when the girls varsity soccer team Two sophomores at Thayer who took part in my interview both decided to “welcome” a group of underclassmen to the squad. said that they had never been taught what hazing was, nor In what has notably been a bullying era, it is rare that a week warned of its consequences before Decisions class freshman year. goes by without hearing of a high school controversy like this Hazing, according to them, was just “something that seniors one. But students continue to push their peers to depression, do.” This is not the type of trend that any school wants; unaware feelings of inferiority, and in some recent cases, even suicide. underclassmen following unsafe upperclassmen traditions and Though bullying and harassment both have new, relatively allbelieving that it’s acceptable. encompassing laws to punish their offenders, the separate hazDo administrators know when hazing happens at their ing law does not seem to be scaring anyone. The high number school? Athletic Director Matt McGuirk said he did not believe of hazing cases in high schools and universities throughout the hazing played any role at Thayer. However, a majority of the country has called us to question why so many. A lot of cases, student-athletes I interviewed said they had at least heard about like the Needham High School one, point to the possibility that an incident here they thought could be hazing. Mr. McGuirk high school and college students alike may be a bit unclear or emphasized his desire for kids to report instances of hazing. “All uninformed about what counts as hazing, what doesn’t, and of the coaches are given information about hazing every coaches’ when an initiation turns into it. meeting every year,” he said. “I hope that if something did hap“I have no idea what hazing is,” said one TA senior, when pen, it would be brought to my attention.” Surely that seems asked how he would describe hazing. In fact, after interviewing like a reasonable request, but again, how can students report 15 two-or-more sport athletes at Thayer (boys and girls ranging hazing if they are still so unclear as to what it means? I asked from sophomores to seniors), I found that he was not the only Mr. McGuirk how he thought the school administration and one. Almost every student interviewed hesitated for at least a coaches could do a better job of teaching their athletes about moment before he or she attempted to give a definition of hazhazing, and he gave a solid suggestion: “Instead of just talking ing, as though it were a foreign concept to most of them— about what hazing is, coaches should sit down for an hour or something they had never been called upon to discuss before. two with their players and go over some hypothetical situations, Answers varied greatly. One student said hazing was simply, “an talk about scenarios. Talk about what is acceptable and what is initiation,” but a fellow classmate in the same grade gave this not.” more thorough, complex definition: “Hazing is putting an I think many would agree that discussing real-life situations individual into an uncomfortable and unwanted position and would be a better way for kids to learn about hazing than by forcing an act upon them.” Though the responses I received reading a fancy, strictly constructed law on a piece of paper. Seewere so varied, when I asked the same group of students if they ing pictures, watching videos, reading stories about past hazing believed hazing took place at Thayer, an almost unanimous 13 cases, and talking through “What if?” scenarios, students could out of 15 said yes. How could it be that a group so diverse in adopt a more colorful, less black and white interpretation of their definitions of hazing could almost unanimously agree that what constitutes hazing and what does not. The key to decreashazing plays a role in some form at Thayer? ing hazing numbers in high schools and colleges throughout The discrepancy is worrisome, especially concerning such the country might just be having a better understanding of what a dangerous topic. Hazing, in many cases, has gotten teams susit is. In many of the news stories we hear, the hazers, like the pended and coaches fired in other schools. Far more alarmingly, Needham High girls, may not understand they have done anyinitiations-gone-too-far have led to multiple accidental deaths. thing wrong until they are disciplined, which, in their case, The Massachusetts Hazing Law was pushed through the legismeant suspended from the team. lature 25 years ago, prompted by the death of a college student So teachers, coaches, and advisors, before the sports seawho had been forced into consuming alcohol for a fraternity sons start, or just at the start of the school year, take a little time initiation. to inform students about some past hazing cases. Make up some The law was intended to prevent but also set out a clear defhypothetical situations and make sure the kids know what is inition for hazing, including specific examples of unacceptable acceptable and what’s not. Make the extra effort. It won’t take actions like branding, whipping, and forced consumption of much to help prevent unnecessary controversies. food or beverage. But why is hazing still so unclear to students?

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And students and athletes, take hazing seriously and make sure you understand what it is. As a back up, you can always count on the “If you wouldn’t do it in front of your mom, you probably shouldn’t do it” saying to guide you. Hazing is unnecessary. Like Mr. McGuirk suggested during the interview, play some karaoke or something. Start some fresh, new, fun traditions. Team bonding is a lot more useful than team humiliation.

But athletes and coaches are not the only ones who have work to do. It is clear that the Massachusetts lawmakers need to be working

harder too. Our hazing law does not currently require the Department of Education to gather any information about real hazing cases that occur in Massachusetts’ schools. Therefore, many school administrations are not feeling pressure to document the incidents or look for ways to prevent them from occurring in the future.

While the new bullying law puts at least some heat on school administrations to comply, the 25–year-old hazing law does not.

If the Massachusetts government agrees that the hazing law needs an update, now would be a better time than ever to get it done.

1.) Why is hazing so dangerous to the people involved?

Hazing is dangerous, physically and/or emotionally, because it usually involves some form of “extreme” behavior which is meant to test the target’s resolve to be part of a group. There is an imbalance of power between those who are hazing and those who are being hazed; the target implies “consent” to the hazing in order to be accepted into the group. Hazing is a form of emotional blackmail; the targets believe they must participate to be accepted.

2.) How do you think TA, or high schools in general, can do a better job of preventing initiations and acts of hazing?

Education and consequences. High schools need to do a better job educating students and coaches (or other adults) about the law prohibiting hazing. Reading the law is not enough; students and adults need to discuss certain scenarios and specific acts. Some “team-building” behaviors, even when participation is allegedly voluntary, constitute “emotional blackmail.”The student really doesn’t believe they have a choice; if they don’t participate they stand apart from their teammates and appear to be unwilling to sacrifice for the team (athletic teams are not the only groups who “haze”). Consequences, such as disciplinary actions imposed by the school or a conference athletic association, usually in the form of game suspensions, would deter athletes.

3.) When it comes to bullying and hazing, how do you and other faculty members work on improvements?

Education is our best tool. Coaches, students and parents need to be informed about what acts constitute hazing and be warned disciplinary consequences will be imposed if hazing occurs.

Black and Orange photo

Q&A with Beth Sullivan, Director of Counseling

4.) Do you think we will ever see the day when hazing becomes outdated?

If so, when?

At the high school level, hazing may become obsolete when there are uniform and consistent disciplinary consequences for all students (and adults) who participate.

5.) With all the emphasis being put on bullying nowadays, is hazing left out of conversations? Or is it part of the conversations?

Hazing is really a very insidious form of bullying because the hazers believe those being hazed are “consenting” participants in exchange for acceptance into the group. In fact most being hazed believe they have no choice and therefore are the victims of “bullying.” Schools should include “hazing” when discussing the topic of bullying.

6.) Do you think the MA government should work on a new hazing law like they did with the bullying law?

I think the MA Board of Education should be more vigilant about making sure schools are enforcing the law that has existed since 1985 called “An Act Prohibiting Hazing”.

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