31 minute read
Mrs. Javon Reinoso
Casey Williams ’24
Just across the Big Room, when entering room 302, you may be startled to find that the familiar face of Ms. Taylor Smith-Kan is absent and instead replaced with a new face: Mr. Rob Moore.
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Mr. Moore graduated from Loyola University, earned a Master of Arts from Villanova University, and eventually taught English and social studies for three years at a charter school in Camden, New Jersey.
MR. ROB MOORE
He will replace Ms. Smith-Kan while on parental leave. As the long-term substitute for Ms. Smith-Kan, many questions arise as to what type of changes students will experience in his English classroom.
“The overall content of the course will remain the same,” Mr. Moore said, “However, the presentation of the course will certainly be different. [Both Ms. Smith-Kan and I believe that] the most authentic teaching occurs when instructors are able to put their own spin on lessons, assignments, and how their class approaches material. Attempting to mimic another teacher’s style or use their words as your own conveys to students a lack of investment or engagement on the part of the teacher.”
MR. ROB MOORE
teacher/coach model is a norm rather than an exception.”
Mr. Moore’s new position in the Haverford community is partially thanks to the role he’s played as a coach since last year.
“[I was] immediately impressed with how the rowers held themselves,” said Mr. Moore, “I have always valued the relationship between a teacher who also coaches and their student athletes. Coupled with the caliber of student who attends Haverford, I knew it would be a community I would want to be a part of.”
Mr. Moore has already attended school events, talked with Third Formers about integrating into upper school, and considered leading a cooking club.
Mr. Moore has been at Haverford since last winter, as an assistant coach for the rowing team. Being a coach and a teacher can certainly have both advantages and disadvantages. The common decision of whether or not to call someone by the title of “coach” or a more formal title can definitely be difficult, but Mr. Moore looks past that.
“I have always valued the relationship between teachers who coach and student athletes.” Mr. Moore said. “What is great about Haverford in that regard is that the Mr. Rob Moore joins the English department
FIRST LAST ’2#
PIERCE LAVERAN ’24
Mrs. Javon Reinoso brings cultural experience to the modern and classical languages department
Adiyan Nayak ’24
The modern and classical languages department strives for cultural authenticity, and this year’s valuable addition will serve that goal. Mrs. Javon Reinoso will teach Spanish III and Spanish IV, implementing the lessons she has learned over the past several years. With a B.A. from Temple University and an M.A.Ed. from LaSalle University, Mrs. Reinoso has been teaching since 2015, and her recent experiences will bring a unique perspective to the classroom.
Mrs. Reinoso did not always plan to be a teacher. Coming from a family that predominantly worked in the medical field, she started her life wanting to become a nurse.
However, her career outlook changed while taking the General Education class at Temple University.
MRS. JAVON REINOSO
“As part of the education class I had to volunteer at a GED [General Education Development] program,” Mrs. Reinoso said. “Just being there, teaching the students, and developing a rapport with them, it was really eye-opening. So many of them had to drop out due to wanting to help their single parents; they had to get jobs, help in the house, pay for bills…they were just so passionate to go back to school. Occupying a space in their life where I was that influential to them and I could help them throughout their journey to graduate, that was really inspiring to me.”
After her experience teaching in the GED program, Mrs. Reinoso committed to a career in teaching, switching her major to education and landing a job as a Spanish teacher. “After I graduated, I got a job teaching Spanish, and I really liked it and I wanted to get my master’s in it,” Mrs. Reinoso said. “I furthered my education and went to LaSalle University to get a master’s, and it’s just been uphill from there.”
Mrs. Reinoso spent last year teaching and living in Spain, which has helped improve her knowledge of the language and culture.
MRS. JAVON REINOSO
“I always wanted to be fully immersed in the culture,” Mrs. Reinoso said. “I wanted to be able to really understand the people: the way that they dress, the way that they talk. In Spain, they speak a different dialect and they also speak ‘castellano’ [Castilian] instead of just Spanish. I wanted to understand how that language might be similar and different to the Spanish language, and be immersed in the culture by talking to the people.”
One major difference she noticed in Spain was the education system, which emphasizes hands-on learning and the importance of language.
“They want their children to be able to learn in different ways, whether it’s doing activities outside, moving in the classroom, or using technology,” Mrs. Reinoso said. “They encourage children at the age of three to learn a different language, which is English, and they try to embed education in different activities and different ways of thinking.”
Mrs. Reinoso hopes her personal experience will provide her students with a better understanding of Spanish culture.
“Being in that culture and living among them, I can provide my students with more detail and more concrete ideas and get away from any stereotypes,” Mrs. Reinoso said.
To promote authentic understanding in her classes, Mrs. Reinoso is looking forward to the creative opportunities ahead.
“If one way of teaching is not functioning, then try a different way,” Mrs. Reinoso said. “[Haverford] is very open-minded about different ways of teaching, and I really like that because it allows you to get that professional development that you might want or need and apply that in the classroom.”
Ms. Theodora Naqvi connects students with ancient literature
Joey Kauffman ’23
English is influenced by Latin, but it is different in crucial ways. For one, Latin has no fixed word order. A sentence has the same meaning no matter the order of the words.
“It really lets the Latin speaker pick and choose word order to suit their meaning,” Ms. Theodora Naqvi said.
Ms. Naqvi is a new teacher of Latin I, Latin III, and Latin III*, and she is a candidate for a Ph.D. in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She believes that Latin has important implications, even in the modern day.
“[Learning Latin] breaks us out of thinking that language, or even the way people think, has to function in one way, and that’s the way we do it,” she said.
Ms. Naqvi, who also has an M.A. in Classics and Ancient History from Florida State University, found her love for Latin later than one might expect. Her high school did not offer Latin, so she took Spanish and French. In college in Colorado, she studied anthropology, primarily working in archeology.
“It was really exhilarating to be out in the field and looking at these [archaeological] sites, but I really found that I was missing texts. I wanted to read things, but I still wanted to work in the ancient world,” Ms. Naqvi said.
She started to learn Latin in an intensive summer program and then continued to build skills by studying on her own and in seminars throughout her master’s degree and Ph.D. programs. Throughout this time, she started teaching undergraduates and high school students.
“Learning Latin is one of the best ways to learn a lot more about English, to learn about language in general, and we also get to do a fair amount of history and culture,” Ms. Naqvi said.
Her Ph.D. research focuses on Roman tragedies, most of which were written by Seneca, a Roman philosopher/statesman/ writer, and they differ considerably from their Greek counterparts.
“We have a lot of [Seneca’s] letters, we have a lot of his philosophical works, but we also have this weird little corpus of tragedies, and they’re written based on Greek models,” Ms. Naqvi said.
Greek tragedies are generally more beloved, but Roman tragedies have unique historical and anthropological significance.
“What I’m writing specifically on is how the tragedies interact with the idea of history and time. They’re clearly written in the sort of past space, but my dissertation focuses on how that past is related to the Roman context in which they’re written,” Ms. Naqvi said.
Ms. Naqvi hopes to encourage a love for reading ancient texts in her Latin students and also dispel misconceptions about the homogeneity of the Latin language by looking at texts from outside the classical period.
“I hope that students will leave the class with some idea that Latin isn’t just a language where everything ever written in Latin has already been written.”
MS. THEODORA NAQVI
Ms. Theodora Naqvi joins the Language department
PIERCE LAVERAN ’24
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academics
Jay Crowther ’23 exploring the effect of overexpression of the EZH1 gene in the neurodevelopment of children, Cell Culture Workspace
Ian Rosenzweig ’25
JAY CROWTHER ’23
around
the corner
September 23 23 26 29
Varsity Water Polo vs. Beast of the East Tournament
Third Form, Fourth Form, and Fifth Form Trips; Sixth Form works on college applications
Rosh Hashanah, no class F rom observing gene mutations in labs to tracking the history of fashion, students in summer research programs explore individual topics to expand knowledge, draw new conclusions, and grow as learners and thinkers.
Sixth Former Jay Crowther, whose Advanced Laboratory Research Cooperative in biology involved exploring the effect of overexpression of the EZH1 gene in the neurodevelopment of children, worked in previously confidential research to help “combat issues that plague children around the world.”
He also learned about a new field of study.
“My goal, aside from helping the research team, was to determine if [biology] is something I want to pursue down the line in my own future. By the end of my nine weeks, I was able to answer this question,” Crowther said. “My work has without a doubt elevated my passion for biology.”
Crowther also recommended the Advanced Laboratory Research Cooperative to anyone that enjoys a particular academic subject.
“If you have a certain affinity or passion for one of the specific sciences at Haverford, you should absolutely begin reaching out to local universities and hospitals to see if they offer any programs or internships that may interest you,” he said.
Sixth Former Colin Kelly added that it is important to be persistent with your internship applications.
“You have to get 20 ‘no’s’ to get a ‘yes,’” Kelly said, citing his experience before securing a position at Jefferson Health in Cancer Research. Kelly’s research on the effect of Sirtuin 6 on aging pathways affirmed his love for STEM. “I loved it. I had an amazing time working there.”
His work, which focused on previously unresearched discoveries, showed him the importance of learning and gathering information.
“[All of the different work I did in the lab was] focused toward a centralized goal: learning,” Kelly said. “Other labs and biomedical engineers will use our data.”
Aside from the research itself, Kelly thinks that the program gave him an opportunity to expand his knowledge and become fluent in the research process.
Sixth Former Nathan Mirin, a participant in the history department’s Advanced Research Program, also sees his work as an opportunity to grow. Mirin believes his project will improve his essay writing and research skills. He also thinks his plan to set and meet his own deadlines throughout the year will allow him to practice time management, an important skill in both research and life.
Mirin’s project of tracking the history of fashion through the “Great Male Renunciation” in the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is also a fulfillment of his curiosity. Mirin recognizes that his project is a niche, but when he came across the topic in a book called Dress Codes, he became interested in why the change in fashion occurred and, in oversimplified terms, “fashion got boring.” When afforded the opportunity to conduct research on any topic in history, Mirin chose to fulfill his intellectual curiosity. Mirin says that he often grows interested in a topic and independently pursues research. “The desire for greater knowledge is not one that is easily satiated. My want to explore niche historical topics is being throughly supported by the school through this research program.”
NATHAN MIRIN ’23
neighborhood
Rooted in Haverford, Food4Philly expands
Jingyuan Chen ’23
On Friday, September 2, at 8:15 a.m., Sixth Former Ethan Chan was featured on Fox 29’s Good Day Philadelphia for co-founding Food4Philly, a nonprofit, student-led organization combating food insecurity in the Philadelphia region.
“We had to get there 40 minutes prior to set up and get the right angles with the camera crew,” Chan said after the Fox 29 interview. “It felt nerve-wracking in the moment. There are thousands of people watching you.”
Food4Philly is entirely organized and run by high school students, many from the Main Line area. While it seeks to reach and alleviate food impoverishment in the Greater Philadelphia region and beyond, the organization has deep connections with the school community and the local neighborhood.
“We have more than ten members within the Haverford community, from underclassmen to Sixth Formers,” Chan said. “Some of our partners are minutes from Haverford, such as the bakery shop Tous Les Jours right down Lancaster Avenue.”
To alleviate food poverty, Food4Philly takes two types of initiatives. They organize fundraisers at local restaurants, use the funds to purchase non-perishable food and materials to make fresh food, then host events to distribute the food at local churches and food banks. They also communicate with local bakeries and shops to save unsold, perfectly edible food at the end of the day and deliver this food to local churches.
Sixth Former Arnav Sardesai is a member of the school’s Food4Philly chapter. He appreciates the experience of working at fundraisers and giving out food.
“We’d arrange fundraisers at different shops in the neighborhood, like Chipotle,” Sardesai said. “If anyone went to these restaurants between certain hours, a portion of those profits would go to Food4Philly. We then use the funds to buy cans of food. At the True Vine Worship Center in North Philly, we provided six tables full of non-perishable food for over 50 people.”
In addition to providing underserved communities with a balanced mix of canned meat and vegetables, members of Food4Philly also make fresh food to give out at events.
“At the Old First United Church, we cooked over 50 breakfast sandwiches and had an industrial kitchen to ourselves,” Chan said. “We were able to help hundreds of people at the end of the day, and that was the most important accomplishment for the organization.”
Sometimes, the organization takes a more direct approach to bridge the gap between local restaurants with food surpluses and churches that can help give out food to those in need.
“A lot of restaurants threw away food in perfectly good conditions,” Chan explained. “Dunkin’ Donuts, Tous Les Jours… so we contact these shops to pick up their surpluses, and send these foods to the Memorial Church of God in Christ at Haverford, among other food banks.”
Deeply rooted in the community and its values, Food4Philly expands its constructive influence to other high schools in the region.
“We have a chapter at Penncrest; we have a chapter at Episcopal,” Sardesai said. “There are so many people from these different schools all aiming to combat hunger, working together to achieve this goal. And that is really inspiring.”
After coverage from Fox 29, interested students and organizations reached out to Food4Philly, seeking cooperation. Chan envisions further expansion of the organization with an unchanged commitment to alleviating hunger.
“As we continue to grow, it’s important to stay grounded in our mission,” Chan said. “Right now, we have chapters in Boston and the Bay Area. We hope to have more chapters in different areas. The opportunity to run a part of a non-profit corporation in high school is special, and I aspire for more students to get involved with their perspectives.”
ETHAN CHAN ’23
Ethan Chan ’23 on Fox 29’s Good Day Philadelphia, September 2, 2022
ARNAV SARDESAI ’23
COURTESY OF GOOD DAY PHILADELPHIA, FOX 29
ETHAN CHAN ’23
campus opinions
Connor Simpkins ’25
At the start of sixth grade, one of my teachers read aloud a picture book called Zen Shorts. The book offers versions of ancient parables. One is the tale of two monks going for a walk. As they walk they encounter a woman who needs help crossing a creek. The older monk carries the woman across the water, but when they get to the other side the woman just walks away without saying thank you. The two monks continue on their way, but the younger monk seems bothered and eventually bursts out in anger about the woman’s rudeness. The older monk says, “I set that woman down hours ago, why are you still carrying her?”
Even in sixth grade, I understood the teacher’s purpose in sharing the story: it was a lesson in knowing when to let things go. It wasn’t until this year that I had to apply the lesson to myself.
Last fall, I fractured a bone in my leg. The injury impacted my entire swim season. Instead of having the season I had imagined, I was frustrated and isolated while my leg slowly healed. At the start of this new school year, I’ve had to think about how I’m going to shake off the many disappointments that injury caused.
I’ve decided to embrace a fresh start.
Research actually supports this idea. Wharton School researcher Katy Milkman has studied what she calls, “The Fresh Start Effect.”
According to Dr. Milkman, the human brain divides life into a series of landmarks that are a lot like chapters of a book. It’s at the beginning of these chapters when humans are most motivated to embrace new behaviors; to set down what has happened in the past and focus on what is ahead. “Fresh start” moments can be birthdays, season changes, holidays, and even the start of a new school year.
Both the ancient Buddist parable and Dr. Milkman’s research offer the same message: let go of what isn’t working and start fresh. The beginning of the new school year is one of the best times to make a change. Whether that change is trying to get to school ten minutes earlier each day, communicating with teachers when you need help, committing to new study habits, or, like me, letting go of a disappointment, now is the time.
In one way or another, the last few years have been tough on everyone. This is the first September in two years that we arrive at school without pandemic-related limitations. Masks and social distancing are gone, as are many of the worries that accompanied the early days of the pandemic.
With school feeling more normal than it has in a long time, it’s the perfect time for all of us to take advantage of the “Fresh Start Effect.”
It was a lesson in knowing when to let things go. It wasn’t until this year that I had to apply the lesson to myself. The “Fresh Start Effect”
The beginning of the new school year is one of the best times to make a change. With the school feeling more normal than it has in a long time, it’s the perfect time for all of us to take advantage of the “Fresh Start Effect.”
Joey Kauffman ’23
The night before school started, I reconnected with friends that I hadn’t seen in months. We were all together at the senior dinner, eating cheesesteaks, making jokes, and, well, stressing. “Have you started Oryx and Crake?” every English IV* student seemed to ask each other, referencing the Margaret Atwood novel assigned as summer reading. “No, but I’m getting through the other one,” everyone seemed to reply. Then, letting reality sink in: “I’ve got a long night ahead of me.”
We stressed, we ate, we went home and read. Then we woke up in a stupor and hoped we didn’t have a quiz on the first day of school. Teachers, I understand if you attribute this late-summer stress to students mismanaging their time. To be fair, most students have a love/hate relationship with procrastination. We are bombarded by mounting workloads at school, on the sports
field, and in extracurriculars, so we look to decompress. We tell ourselves that our breaks from doing homework will be quick. They almost never are. However, I think procrastination isn’t the reason why many students rush to finish summer reading. The problem is the summer reading itself. Summer is a time to take a break from school and focus on just about anything else. Some kids play video games and watch TV all summer. Other kids get jobs and internships, take summer classes, or immerse themselves in a new culture. The variety of ways Haverford students have spent
their time over the summer is stunning. I learned more about myself this summer than I thought possible. I spent time away from thinking about school and started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, a perspective that I didn’t pay much attention to from September to May. I daydreamed, exercised, and consumed art. I traveled, got an internship, and met new people. Most college courses don’t assign summer reading (although colleges will frequently assign freshmen a novel before orientation). Colleges know their students lead busy lives during the summer. So they simply don’t assign material over break. Yet high schoolers, who are less emotionally and academically mature than college students, are tasked with balancing many of the responsibilities that college students have over summers, plus school work to do during break time. This system is especially virulent for rising Sixth Formers, who may be tasked with working a summer job, scrambling to craft some version of themselves in a college application, while also having to do more summer work than ever before. As Alexander Nazaryan, a ninth-grade teacher in Brooklyn, wrote in The Atlantic Magazine’s The Wire in 2013 in an article titled “Trust Me, Assigning Summer Reading Is Totally Pointless,” “If a young person loves reading, she deserves two months [of summer] to read whatever strikes her fancy, free of the strictures of the classroom.”
Class discussions fueled by Sparknotes are boring and a waste of tuition. And what can we do to avoid these discussions? Give harsher penalties to students who don’t do work over break? I hope not. I propose limiting summer work in all classes (other than independent research classes where students choose to read over the summer for their research) to small assignments that can be done in the two weeks before school, when most kids have more free time and are preparing for the school year. Student stress levels heading into the school year would decrease and the academic quality of classes would increase.
Summer is a time to take a break from school and focus on just about anything else. The variety of ways Haverford students have spent their time over the summer is stunning. I propose limiting summer work in all classes to small assignments that can be done in the two weeks before school, when most kids have more free time and are preparing for the school year.
Let the kids play: a case against summer reading
off campus opinions
Queen Elizabeth leaves a lasting legacy, but Gen Z must be sure to see it all
Christopher Schwarting ’24
After seven decades of a long reign—one bearing witness to changing social tides, familial conflicts, and representative prestige— Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. With the longest reign of any British monarch, she leaves a monarchical tradition symbolic of national unity. For Gen Z Americans, how we assess that legacy is important.
Over the pond and two-to-three generations from her passing, America’s Gen Z finds itself in an indirect relationship with the queen. Now over two centuries out of British control, Americans neither directly contribute to nor benefit from her royal status. This context places us in a unique position: how do we interact with the queen and the monarchy?
Among Gen Zers, knowledge often results from interactions with her as a pop cultural figure. An obsession with her as a royal icon cemented her as a Reddit-thread meme with a Kardashian-era resemblant fanbase. Her Hollywood-paralleled celebrity status romanticized her reign and treated her life with an abundance of dreamy depictions. Football, one of the most American pastimes, could not even escape the news of her passing. A game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Buffalo Bills held a moment of silence before the game. It’s not odd to pay respect to passed people, but it is rare for Americans to do so for someone who is not of their own.
And it’s not just the queen. The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton garnered millions of followers from the U.S., as did the funeral of Princess Diana.
But this tech-media American fascination is not all glowing and affirmative. Netflix’s historical drama The Crown earned immediate acclaim for its depiction of the monarchy through the years of the queen’s rule. While reflecting many of her most well-known traits, it also brought-to-light portrayals that cast negative attention on members of the royal family. For example, the depiction of Diana, Princess of Wales’ fragile marriage to now King Charles III outlines toxic family conduct that resulted from marital pressures to remain among aristocratic families. The fourth season shows Diana’s struggles with renunciation from her partner and the royal family, and the harmful consequences these had on her.
The show’s fourth season also underwent scrutiny for lacking historical accuracy. For many, it was a key source of insight into the lives of the royals. It left Gen Z with similar forms of dramatized records to typecast the legacy of the monarchy and its relevance to America.
It’s a stark contrast to the generations preceding us. Middle-aged Americans, those who regaled Princess Diana’s tour of New York in 1989, had a more personal connection to those of the royal family—or Diana, at least. Her tour of hospitals and engagement with everyday people seemed to bridge a gap that removed the typical pedestal upon which the traditional royal sits. Perhaps it is this history that gives these generations an adoration for the queen and her institution, or that it foundationally gives not only older Americans but all Americans the sense that they know the royals personally.
But whether through history or Twitter, the unfortunate reality of the queen and the monarchy is that very few people—especially Gen Z Americans—know much about them at all. While seemingly harmless, the implications of knowing the queen, her legacy, and her surrounding institution through a romanticized or untrue lens threaten to blind our generation from what counts: the legacy of the queen in the world.
The queen’s passing has brought forth a global reckoning of history that has sparked extensive debate. Her extension as a figure of British power also roots her in connection to the British Empire, whose history of violence and exploitation in trying to uphold its colonies has been largely unspoken. For example, Kenya’s anticolonial movement after World War II saw nearly 1.5 million people placed in detention camps. This lack of discussion and reckoning for imperialist harm is often attributed to power—power that queen Elizabeth symbolically represented. That’s not to say Queen Elizabeth is responsible for the violence committed in Britain’s colonial past, nor does it imply she was aware of them at all.
What it does say, however, is that understanding the complete legacy of the monarchy in and out of its relationship to British history is necessary to have a full understanding of how the queen and her institution impact the world. As Gen Zers tasked with the continued improvement of our world, it fills in gaps where we may otherwise make ill assumptions. There is no Jamaican rejection of William and Kate’s Tour of their island without the realization that they are both in a system that once profited off of the island’s people. There are no Commonwealth referendums to remove King Charles III as head of state, such as in Antigua and Barbuda, without the realization that the monarchy is an extension of a painful British history. The insularity of monarchy is not something Gen Z Americans can change, but it certainly is something that we can try to understand. An understanding of the queen, the British monarchy, and history, in general, is foundational to our ability to make fair judgments of the world around us and understand the contexts in which people present themselves. Knowing the queen in her fullness doesn’t invalidate dabbling in her pop cultural limelight either; instead, it only strengthens the institutional story in full.
The interconnectedness of our digital lives and a royal manifestation in pop culture remind us why the queen’s legacy is so important. In seeking beyond the Insta-meme, you do us all a service.
charlie keidel ’24
As the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania heads into the final stretch, major questions surround both Mehmet Oz’s and John Fetterman’s candidacies, and the people of Pennsylvania deserve honest answers.
John Fetterman, the former mayor of Braddock and Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, grapples with the fallout of a stroke he suffered in May. Throughout the summer, Fetterman has been careful about his public presence, almost always declining opportunities to speak to the media and hiding answers about his health. While he’s managed to remain somewhat under the radar in person, he’s still had moments where he is clearly not engaged and struggling to convey a clear message, often mixing up his words. Fetterman’s campaign has been coy about setting up a debate with Dr. Oz this fall, fearful that he would struggle in a longform program where candidates are forced to produce memorable, clear, and concise statements. Currently, according to FiveThirtyEight, Fetterman has an 82% chance of winning the seat. A lot of the time, debates are opportunities for candidates who are behind in the polls to gain ground. They’re also seen as “banana peels” for the front runners who could be harmed by a gaffe or viral moment. While Fetterman is in the driver’s seat, he has little to no incentive to answer any of Dr. Oz’s calls for a debate. Fetterman should be faced with a debate before the general election in November, so voters can understand the scope and scale of his post-stroke condition.
On the other hand, Mehmet Oz has continually struggled to solidify himself as both a serious candidate and the right person to represent Pennsylvania, seeing as his longtime home has been in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Dr. Oz is the stereotypical politician: an opportunistic, money and power driven man who will say one thing and do the other. A lot of the race has been fought on social media, with Fetterman constantly taking shots at Dr. Oz’s permanent residency, the unscrupulous nature of his candidacy, and his lack of understanding for working people and their problems. For instance, Dr. Oz posted a video at the grocery store criticizing the prices of produce, desperately trying to relate to the everyday problems of normal people. Alas, he still managed to mention he was there to prepare crudité, a French appetizer consisting of sliced raw vegetables that are dipped in a dressing, or, in other words… a veggie tray. That 30-second clip went viral, with Fetterman declaring that it shows the disconnect between Oz and the voters that he is vying to represent.
There isn’t a clear path towards moving past this conundrum for Oz. The voters he must win in the most rural parts of the state will always relate to Fetterman, the lifelong Pennsylvanian, a lot more than they relate to Oz, the TV star and national celebrity. In fact, there is little Dr. Oz does that comes across as genuine; his attempts to connect with voters pale in comparison to Fetterman, the small town mayor who has been in the communities long before he asked for their vote.
Students should care about these issues because states like Pennsylvania and who they elect dictate the greater political discussion around the country. For instance, almost every presidential election, people look to Pennsylvania as a bellwether for the country as a whole. While federal and state elections typically come down to the actual issues and the candidates’ stances on those issues, this race exceeds that. When voters make their decision as to whom they would like to support, they then must ask themselves a second question, which will almost certainly be unsatisfactory for both candidates: “Who can I trust?”
Fetterman’s health and Dr. Oz’s authenticity: two candidates, two major questions
John Fetterman
GOVERNOR TOM WOLF VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS OFFICE OF US SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Mehmet Oz
You should care about inflation
CASEY WILLIAMS ’24
Most who have opened the front page of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, or, frankly, anyone who has kept up with current events, will know about the historically high inflation rates that the United States has experienced over the past year, specifically within the past several months. Inflation, primarily tracked by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), shows that in July prices of all goods and services purchased by households were on track to rise 8.1% over the year. If you haven’t seen the data, you’ve definitely seen the high gas prices that have slowly crept down within the past sixty days.
This has not been the only significant change since the Russia-Ukraine war; although you may not be witnessing it firsthand, millions of people across the country have been seeing their weekly grocery bills grow more expensive to the point where Americans are forced to cut back and live with more caution regarding their expenses.
So what is being done to fight against inflation? A lot.
The U.S. Government’s Central Bank, the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the “Fed,” has power over the Federal Funds Rate, the interest rate at which banks lend money to one another overnight. Although seemingly counterintuitive, the tactic the Federal Reserve uses when inflation is high is to raise those interest rates in order to make it more costly to spend money. This slows down spending in the economy, which will force prices to come down. A CNBC survey shows that 63% of economists believe that the Fed will raise interest rates too high to the point where a recession is caused. What does this mean for you? As a high schooler who probably doesn’t do their grocery shopping, you might not notice much. However, as each one of us gets closer to adulthood, you will eventually be forced to keep track of what is going on not only in the news but also in the economy. With adulthood comes the responsibility of keeping track of expenses, paying attention to what is happening, and understanding when to cut back and save for the future will be vital.
Read the news, pay attention during your economics or finance class, and take advantage of our opportunities to prepare for the future. As each one of us gets closer to adulthood, you will eventually be forced to keep track of what is going on not only in the news but also in the economy.
