The Highliner Issue 10 by The Highliner

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REVIEWS

86 THE MOVIES AND BOOKS THAT DEFINE US 88 THOROUGHBREDS 91 SPEAK 92 WES ANDERSONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S 93 VISION BIG THOUGHTS ON LITTLE THINGS

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CONTENTS

96 HOROSCOPES 98 HEADLINERS 99 CROSSWORD

ARTS + LETTERS

94 PELO MELO

text Kavin Chada, Zoe Nelms, Elizabeth Acevedo, Brandon Kramer, Grace Franco, Apryl Adames, Chetan Cutting, Ethan Levy, Anna Bloch, Dylan Vaccaro, Didi Jin, Charlotte Ritchie-Shatz, Lynn Rong, Thais Legrand, Caroline Yu

art lead photography | Elizabeth Acevedo photography | Daniel Khazanov, Brandon Bunt, Olivia Miller, Isabel Mudannayake, Matt Thaxton, Harper Van Doorn, Kavin Chada graphic design | Olivia Miller illustrator | Ethan Friedman

digital digital director | Olivia Miller newsletter | Spencer Chandlee, Grace Franco editor | Amanda Redfern-Taube production | Sophia Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Urso

info Issue XI | Spring 2018 Cover | Olivia Miller Faculty Advisors | Daniel Mendel, Dominiqe Bird

Write to highliner@avenues.org with any responses and letters to the editor.

EDITORIAL

Silence

By Jackson Ehrenworth

his editorial is a little different than most of our editorials. We want to use this space to introduce the next few articles, and to say a bit about some of the themes that underlie them. At first, the articles might seem a little disparate. There’s a piece about a missing plaque in memory of a teen suicide. There are a series of pieces about sexual harassment. Shadowing each of these pieces are cloaks of silence, and uncertainty, and anxiety.

I. “Luc’s Tree,” by Kavin Chada, asks what happens to a memorial for Luc Hawkins, who committed suicide four years ago, two years before he would have been part of the first graduating class of Avenues. What’s interesting about Kavin’s language is the way he hints at his own unease around this topic, and how that unease reflects a kind of master narrative of silence around teen suicide. When looking for the plaque, Chada says, “I told three administrators and teachers, none of whom could figure out what happened, and none got back to me.” There is kind of acceptance of that kind of silence, that runs through even Kavin’s inquiry. Later Chada talks about the school’s position on “Thirteen Reasons Why.” That’s a kind of scary effect wherein by talking about a kid who has committed suicide, the talk itself reinforces that suicide leads to others talking about you, therefore perhaps glamorizing suicide. But the problem is that by not talking about a kid who has committed suicide, you create walls of silence. We don’t

want to delve into the research around teen suicide, or the socializing of it, or the contagion affect. We do know that the assumption that by not talking about things, they simply go away, is false. In this school, at Avenues, when we’re scared of issues, sometimes we don’t talk about them. Two years ago two students (in a class of slightly over forty), left the school over drug issues. The school maintained a blanket of silence. What matters, though, isn’t the school response. It’s that kids didn’t feel as if they could ask for details. A kind of uncertainty keeps teens from asking about issues that are laden with anxiety. In Chada’s article, he quotes Ms. Trotter. What stands out about Ms. Trotter’s quotes and Chada’s interpretation are how careful they both are. There is a precise meticulousness to their speech. They don’t want to get it wrong. So the sparseness of their language stands out, but what also stands out, is how thoughtful people in our community are, how cautious, when they talk about taboo subjects. 5

Art by Olivia Miller

II. “In/Out of the Classroom,” by Zoe Nelms starts like a fiction story. Nelms sets the scene of a high school party, “lush with vodka and a latent sense of fear.” Nelms’s narratives reveal a kind of continual, aggressive misogyny inside of and outside of school. Even as Nelms describes these scenes, there is an odd sense of ‘this is the way it is,’ that

runs through how the females she interviews talk about community-based misogyny. Girls are “warned,” about the “Avenues world.” In Nelms’s article, even female teachers choose to remain anonymous. The talking/not talking theme emerges again.

III. Elizabeth Acevedo’s “Practice What You Preach” has a more assertive tone. Most striking about this article is the calling to account not only of male teachers, but of female teachers, for how they demean female students, pinning their clothes closed, accusing them of distracting male students, holding them responsible for the learning of their male peers. Acevedo writes with biting prose, and she has example after example gathered from female Avenues students who feel humiliated…and who wish to remain anonymous.

We still don’t feel safe talking about these things. Especially students who don’t have lucid positions of power. None of these young women say, “I’m afraid of consequences,” but their requests for anonymity make apparent their need to steer clear, be safe. Consequences don’t mean getting in trouble at school, getting called in to talk to administrators. What consequences will mean, is that people look at you differently, they treat you differently, they talk about you differently. And so, we’re complicit in silencing the very topics we are trying to talk about.

so what? There are threads across these articles that tie them together in subtle ways. There are shadows of uncertainty and anxiety. In many ways, these pieces bridge genres. They’re not seeking final authority. 6

We can’t always change everything, as a publication, and, maybe, as a school. But we can take pieces like the ones these writers present: as the start of more conversation and the possibility of change. •

Photo by Elizabeth Acevedo

LUC’S TREE BY KAVIN CHADA

Luc Hawkins, a part of the first graduating class and tragically, the first Avenues student to commit suicide, had a memorial dedicated to him outside of school. He was featured heavily in “A Class Divide.” His memorial had been missing for what some say has been more than a year. I went searching for answers late one night…

Kavin Chada

October 26, 2017

Memorial to Luc

Tonight I was looking at the trees outside the school and I wondered if the memorial to Luc Hawkins was still there. Some friends and I looked around the bases of the two trees, but we couldn’t find the little metal plate that marked his legacy at Avenues. Is it still there (it was dark and we might have looked in the wrong place)? If not, was it purposefully taken down? If it is I feel very stupid... Let me know if you have any answers to those questions.

f it seems like I was going into too much detail in my description (about the trees, the way I expected to see the metal shining in the light of the school, the little fence surrounding the sanctuary) it’s because I was afraid. The moment was surreal, because it was a very inconvenient realization to have. I wasn’t sure about how I felt. I thought about trying to do a whole investigation into what happened to it, as a way to catch the school in a dirty cover-up--but I didn’t get very far with that. I told three administrators and teachers, none of whom could figure out what happened, and none got back to me. There was a certain sensation I got from building the drama of the story, a certain privilege I felt in knowing the truth while not having known Luc at all. In watching everyone’s reactions to what I said, my resolve to spread the story grew. The funny thing is that my bringing the issue up presuposed that I was taking a position on it. I acted as if I had taken a position to people who knew him, just to avoid hurting their feelings. For that I must apologize. I just wanted to write, so that we, as a community, at the very least could think about what happened. There is something so peculiar about the quandary we face, if we choose to think about it. First of all, I’ve heard off-handed remarks that people haven’t seen the memorial in a while. Like a year-while. Second off, most of the people in the community who knew Luc are gone. Lastly, there is something I would like to call the “Thirteen Reasons Why” effect. Let me explain. This dates back to the school’s position on the Netflix show, whose second season will soon be released, when it was at the height of its popularity in 2017, and even further, to studies done at universities about the rate of suicide as affected by memorializing those who commit suicide. Asso8

ciate Division Head Tiffany Trotter mentioned something to this extent. I think she was referring to something like the “Postvention” Guide to Suicide on College Campuses. In it, there is an entire section on memorials, and it references the “contagion” effect. One thing is clear in their advice: by remembering the person, you cannot glamorize their death (page 24). In fact, they say it’s best not to specify their death at all. They add the note that many religions believe the afterlife can be more pleasant than our present one--but I think the issue stems much deeper than that. Think about Romeo and Juliet. Though we all know it’s a tragedy, both in a literary and colloquial terms, and though good English teachers will tell you it’s not just a romantic story, something about our society makes us tend to want to treat it that way (do pop-culture references to Romeo and Juliet ever reference their suicide?). This is what brings us back to the “Thirteen Reasons Why” effect. The school sent out an email to parents: What they are talking about, the “concern that our students might misunderstand some of these messages,” is exactly why there wasn’t more done after Luc Hawkins’ death-or at least that was the reason I gathered from Ms. Trotter. “It’s something where even though your mind logically understands, why, it’s still difficult to come to terms with” she said, talking about the students who wanted a plaque in the gym, or a retired jersey number. They couldn’t get the closure they wanted and deserved through those means. Still, they were bussed up to his funeral, and offered meetings with the school psychologists at the time, Dr. Raykha Sharma and Dr. Marc Gurtman. “In many ways they [the kids] felt like they weren’t supported by the school” she said. She continued, clearly think-

Amy Young

April 27, 2017

The Netflix series Thirteen Reasons Why an excerpt

Dear Upper Division Parents/Guardians, We would like to call your attention to a television show that some of our students may be watching called Thirteen Reasons Why. This series is based on a book written by Jay Asher and is featured on Netflix. The show relays the fictional story of a high school student, Hannah Baker, who has committed suicide. Hannah leaves behind cassette recordings for the people whom she feels are responsible for her death. The show contains mature subject matter, including suicide, rape and bullying. While these are certainly important themes to address, we are concerned that our students might misunderstand some of these messages. More specifically, we are concerned that this show could reinforce the idea that suicide is a solution to problems and that asking for help from adults is futile.

ing harder, but also speaking delicately, “I don’t think Luc’s legacy needs to exist physically within the school, that was more for 2016 and 2017” she said. She then began to expand on how our legacies are formed at this school, and why Luc did not completely form one at this school, not shying away from the contradiction that one can run into while trying to approach this topic lightly. Usually when I ask about the topic of this article, people tell me that they didn’t even know Luc. They will tell me also, however, that no matter what, he has a legacy here at the school, when asked directly. Ms. Trotter is clearly willing to accept that Luc simply passed through Avenues, which is really hard for many to think about. She explained how he had only been through Freshman and Sophomore year, and when you think of the really established legacies here, Sophie Potter, Jules Franco, their biggest impacts came in junior and senior year. “Luc was right on the cusp of establishing a legacy here,” she told me, softening the blow of this kind of analysis, that can seem so calloused. Who is responsible for keeping his legacy? Is he a part of

Avenues history because of growing pains? Someone in junior year passed away after leaving the school. Think about legacy. There was a ceremony for putting out the memorial. Must we establish a legacy, or do we get one just for existing? Most interesting is that this viewpoint does not prevent her belief that his memorial should be there. She told me that in any case the memorial is a part of our community, just like the first year kids’ names on the gym windows. Picture this. The school is still small. It’s like a big empty gym before a basketball game. The building was built for all of us, but right now it’s just a handful of teachers and a small grade. Faculty meetings with Ms. Trotter, still a history teacher at the time, and Mr. Wang and other Avenues founding teachers are held in a classroom. As they near the end, 9th grade boys, much smaller than I remember them, fresh out of basketball practice, gather near the glass door. They begin to press their cheeks against the door, eyeing the prized extra food leftover. As teachers begin to leave, Ms. Trotter welcomes them in, albeit reluctantly. Luc had moved around a lot in childhood, and, like most 9

Avenues kids, was adjusting to a new school environment. He really liked basketball, and could often be seen with the team wearing some jersey. While we talked, at the end of a busy Valentine’s Day, Ms. Trotter wanted to find the photo encapsulating that moment. It shows Luc, Edgar, Ellis and a couple of others blocking up the door with their wide hungry eyes and playful faces. When I saw the photo I understood immediately why she had pulled it up, though we were both trying not to stall the conversations, we took the obvious opportunities to do so--I could see his nascent character in his face, and see him physically in the building, my school. I got the impression from talking to Ms. Trotter and others that Luc was not an antisocial kid. She spoke of his incredible ability to connect all different kinds of people. This made his loss even more difficult, and students, especially those closest to him, were still struggling even months after. It also speaks to how unexpectedly events played out. Another thing I learned quite early on was that Luc had left Avenues shortly before he passed (I’m not sure how to refer to his suicide). All of these combined facts questioned my primary preconception that Luc represented a kind of growing pain for Avenues, and my conclusion that it was deeply unjust to let his memorial disappear. It was easiest to talk to her, however. Talking to people who didn’t know him was more challenging. Their not knowing causes them to create symbols out of him, whatever those may be, and powerful ones at that. Trying to pick their brains and miss hitting those triggering symbols is challenging. It’s also harmful to our community. I think we collectively need to discuss this, or at least think about it individually. I wanted to talk not only to people who knew Luc, but also kids at the school who are continually reminded of him. One example is senior Olivia Bernstein (or Livy, who uses they/them/their pronouns). About Luc they said: “He was lost for a very specific cause… and a powerful way to honor his legacy is to fight mental health issues at Avenues.” They seemed to be hinting at the thing Ms. Trotter said outright, that the memorial doesn’t matter physically, though it’s hard to say that in all of his exuberant personality and upstanding character, he will only be remembered in one way. They also said we need to remember that suicide is something that can happen within our community, and be aware of making people feel accepted with their mental health issues. Livy does a lot of work with suicide prevention and social justice in general. They organized an Avenues school group to attend a walk called “Out of Darkness” for suicide prevention, upon the request of alumnus Gio Donovan. Honestly, I was expecting them to talk about how terrible the turnout was, because I had assumed it was small. Livy, in their responses, was actually incredibly optimistic. “What I felt was important was that there’s been an Avenues group every year since Luc has passed.” They also said many people

expressed interest and support and solidarity. I, more cynically maybe, would see this as what they later told me. “It was still a small minority… and it’s indicative of the lack of awareness about these issues.” They see Avenues as able to make “an example of how to deal with mental health”. “It’s something we can change based on the language we use to address mental health” they said. It remains to be seen whether that will be done, by them or by any student in the future. Another person who unfortunately did not get to know Luc Hawkins is the current Upper School psychologist, Dr. Sharma. Luc’s death occurred during her first week at the school, so her colleague at the time, Dr. Gurtman, who knew Luc, led the response efforts, with an expert who had come in to help them coordinate. They had a talk with the parents, trying to recognize that suicide responses from a school must depend both on the case of the affected family in the specific situation, and the protocol they hope to establish. She went on their trip to black rock soon after to continue talking with students. I gathered that the responses to these efforts were spotty. She noted that some kids simply might not have wanted to speak to her specifically, at school in particular, “because they wanted to keep school as their safe place.” The idea that Luc could threaten that seems strange to me, but it is one of the many unique perspectives on this event I strive to understand and empathize with. It seems to me that Avenues deals with mental health very cautiously, in a way that sometimes seems they are operating more as a business than a school. When the students only receive official school responses to tragedies, it often appears they are on damage control, minimizing the effects of something for which they already should’ve prepared the students. Many don’t doubt the possibility that the memorial’s removal could’ve been an administrative decision by the school. Some even told me it could’ve been a beautification effort. The fact that we jump to that possible conclusion so quickly, regardless of evidence, does scare me, because it says something about the community. Another twelfth grade male remarked, “I know literally nothing about him personally… honestly I don’t remember much about a class divide.” About Luc’s death he said, “From my knowledge it wasn’t the school’s fault”. When asked if the memorial should still be there, he responded “I have no clue”. I have been brought to tears by what those who knew Luc, and even did not, could tell me of him. I am also someone who never met him, or even saw him in person, and has had no personal experiences with suicide. The fact we must face is that there is a Luc at almost every high school, in America and most of the world. After this article was written, and a day after I interviewed Ms. Trotter, the memorial was returned to its original spot. •

Kavin Chada

February 15, 2018

Luc’s Memorial

Dear Ms. Trotter, I am not sure if you noticed, but Luc’s memorial is back up at its tree. Maybe it was thanks to you, or it was just a random occurrence. I’m so grateful for the stories you shared with me, they have been immensely helpful in my writing and were really meaningful to me personally, so thank you. Have a lovely break, Kavin

IN/OUT OF THE CLASSROOM

B Y Z O E N E L M S

VOICES

eplete with red solo cups and inebriated half-mumblings to rap music, the party was in full swing by the time that Natalie* arrived. It was her first school party. As she walked through the threshold with her two junior friends at her side, she was a little unsure--her public middle school hadn’t prepared her for the bacchanalian landscape she now saw in front of her. Natalie spotted a guy circling the party offering drinks to various girls. She didn’t think much of him first. Suddenly, her friends then pulled her aside, lowering their voices, and told her not to take a drink from him, ever, and that if she did want a drink, she had to pour it herself. At first, Natalie couldn’t believe it. But they were adamant, so, she agreed. “It was revealed to me that he had not only dropped drugs in girls drinks, but that he made sure to do what he wanted with them after he did that,’Natalie later said. “I found out that there were a total of four girls who had been victims of his in some capacity or another.” One of those girls, as Natalie would discover, was one of those friends she had attended the party with. “It was known, and it was real, and young girls were warned about it entering the party scene and being introduced to the Avenues world. I was one of those girls who was warned.” The party continued on, lush with vodka and a latent sense of fear. Things like this, to Natalie, seemed more like a hackneyed storyline on a television show, rather than the reality of an upscale New York City private school that boasts curriculum discussing gender and the structural and interpersonal oppression of women. History classes dissect Mary Wollenscraft in the context of patriarchal colonial America, and English discussions feature impassioned debates about the hypersexualization and romanticization of Disney’s Pocahontas. Some believe that such eloquent intellectualism sometimes doesn’t translate outside the boundaries of the classroom. While academia may foster productive and thoughtful discussion regarding gender politics, a common belief is that societal norms are too pervasive to continue that sense of intellectualism outside of the classroom. In the classroom, exploration and deliberation about male hegemony is common, perhaps even enthusiastically pursued. But still, bigoted remarks, non-consensual touching, even hushed whispers of sexual assault are perpetuated by the same people who, whilst in the classroom, vehemently praise gender equality. So the question persists: why hasn’t an explicit dialogue about the gender inequality, and furthermore, sexual harassment and assault within the Avenues community emerged yet? Some hypothesize that while teachers and curriculum can influence male students to think thoughtfully about sexism in the classroom, ultimately their reach and impact outside of the classroom only goes so far--that patriarchal

* Name changed

pressure always supersedes bell hooks and Betty Friedan. “Theoretically, we can talk about history in class in such an articulate way. But the reality is that we can’t escape those gender norms,” A female member of the Avenues faculty who asked to remain anonymous said. “I remember something one guy did,” Junior Helena Sinding said. She recounted a time in 9th grade when she had been waiting outside a classroom, sitting on the ground. She was wearing a skirt, and one boy in particular rolled an orange between her open legs. “It was really inappropriate. But when you take things seriously, they can get really defensive, even though you know they wouldn’t do that if there was a supervisor or a teacher present.” “I think that from a teacher perspective, what we do, it’s difficult to monitor what goes on outside of class. We do our best to a ect the students, get the dialogue started. Ideally, everyone takes it to heart,” History teacher Mr. Misler said. “But we hope that there are a select few that reflect on it and realize its importance, and why giving the due respect to these topics we talk about in class, to give the respect they give not only in class but outside of class.” A common impression amongst some members of the Avenues community is that after class is over, male students return to sexist patterns and speech, as they believe that they no longer have an obligation to disrupt them. “When we have teaching about sexism in school, it seems like the second a lot of people leave the classroom it’s like ‘Now that’s done, I can go back to what I was doing before,’” Sinding said. Or, perhaps, their acknowledgement of gender inequality dwindles entirely. “Outside of the classroom, they seem to be more quiet about what we talk about in class, because they may not actually believe what they’re saying,” Junior Lauren Schulsohn said. A recurring notion amongst students is that the sheer presence of a teacher in a room, and the looming threat of being graded, is what encourages this egalitarian treatment of gender. “I think with a teacher present it’s really hard to achieve that level of comfort for discussion of what someone may really think,” Junior Ben Agin said. Some attribute this as well to a toxic group mentality amongst male students at Avenues. “If you take guys together, and sit them down in the same room, you on one side and them all on the other and ask them what they think about women--they’re going to be like, ‘Screw women. I need them to have kids and sex and stuff,’” Natalie said. “If you sit any of those guys down individually and say, ‘What do you think of women?’ Most of the time, they genuinely have respect for women,” Natalie said. “And I’m like, “Yet, you still say, ‘ha, I’m going to rape the shit out of her’ as a ‘joke’?” “You have to have a problem to commit the acts that he did. To be able to walk around proudly knowing that you committed these acts,” Natalie said, referring back to the ef-

13 photography by daniel khazanov

fect that group mentality had on the boy. “But I think his friends did have an influence on him, somewhat. I think his group of friends shared the mentality of women in terms of them being disposable.” Some believe that the pressure of behaving a particular way while in a group, in conjunction with the trials and tribulations of adolescence, is what forms a barrier against egalitarian treatment. “The thing is that most of our students here after being in class know these things are not acceptable. But there is also a lot of pressure being a teenager to fit in,” Mr. Misler said. While it in no way excuses misogyny, the social pressures and implications of being a teenager and fitting inare unavoidable. “They know if they do something wrong, ”Wellness teacher Ms. Wilson said. “But a teen’s brain is wired for rebellion.” There is no distinct remedy to this dilemma, just like there isn’t a distinct remedy for misogyny pervading across the workforce or other community spaces. Scenes like Na-

onstrates something about Avenues, and on a wider scale, society as a whole. Avenues community members have suggested their own ideas. Some suggested attempts to foster a community where examining and rallying against misogynistic behavior is accepted, even celebrated. “I feel like what would help would be to establish that it’s cool to say when something isn’t appropriate. Like, it’s cool to say something when your friends are doing something you don’t feel comfortable with,” Sinding said. Others suggest to shine more light on the issue, so that people will be better equipped to find a way to combat it. “The more we talk about it, the better. If there’s an issue, we need to talk about it,” Wilson said. And some think the opposite: one theory for the best way to eradicate this classroom-out of classroom divide is to discuss misogyny less. “Honestly, I think the best way to do that, would be to

I THINK HIS GROUP OF FRIENDS SHARED THE MENTALITY OF WOMEN IN TERMS OF THEM BEING DISPOSABLE.” talie described don’t resemble that of the classroom, and due to all of the reasons presented, the conversations that occur won’t resemble each other, either. But there is the hope that this problem can be aided with systemic reinforcement. Pass or fail classes, such as Wellness, may offer a new environment for further discussion of gender inequality. There’s the presence of a teacher, but no real threat of grades, therefore some believe that allows for more candid conversations. With those candid conversations explicitly attempting to denote what consent consists of, Wellness teachers noticed a sharp contrast in their male and female student’s opinions. “After I explained what consent was in class, most of the girls were like, ‘Yeah, simple,” Wellness teacher Ms. Wilson said. “But the guys were trying to come up with different scenarios when certain things might be okay. Like, ‘What if she’s looking at you in a certain way?’” “There were different interpretations of what stuff meant,” Agin said. “I think guys would try to think thatmaybe more stuff meant yes than no. I mean, no one was pushy about it, no one way trying to say that no was a yes. But guys asked a lot more question about what stuff really means.” This discrepancy between the boys and the girls dem-

talk about it less, which leads to people feeling like it’s not something that needs to be talked about, so that it’s sort of just in the flow of everyday life,” Agin said. No matter what the solution may be, how tedious it may be, if it even exists at all, many believe that one must be found. “It takes a village, but we need to know what our community culture is, so we can adjust it accordingly,” Wilson said. “I’ve heard about this. I know that there’s a conversation about this. Am I concerned? Absolutely” Mr. Misler said. The emergence of the #MeToo movement, people coming forward accusing others of harassment, assault, or abuse, is demonstrative of changing tide in society. Avenues may be following that tide with the implementation works written by women and people of color into classroom curriculum and the emphasis on examining history through the lense of different systems of oppression. a combination of fear, of discomfort, of self preservation has still created the Avenues culture that students exist in, a culture that many regard as deeply sexist and profoundly awed. No matter how many tomes of feminist literature students pour over, if those ideas are not actualized, it’s unclear what effect it will hold. A predator wearing a pink pussy hat is still a predator.

Note:

The student mentioned by Natalie has since graduated. In response to hearing information about the conduct of Avenues students outside of school, the administration released the Sexual Misconduct Policy in January with the hope of clearly outlining a process so that anyone who is a victim of sexual misconduct is aware of how he or she can bring those incidents to the attention of administrators and how an investigation will unfold. This year, the lead investigators for instances of sexual misconnect are Mr. Hudson and Ms. Young. Next year, the administration will identify associate division heads as lead investigators so deans can remain exclusively in a support and advocacy role for students. Last academic year, the deans introduced a consent unit into the deans curriculum. A modified version of that curriculum is introduced to 7th and 8th graders. Deans will run the consent unit each year.

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH

By Elizabeth Acevedo Photos by Class of 21â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

n recent months, headlines have consistently featured a dizzying spate of stories on purported sexual assaults as brave women have spoken up about their experiences. The gush of cases has slowly been eroding the long era of elusion and silence surrounding sexual assault: platforms have been given to the voices of victims, and consequences have been allotted to men who have abused their positions of power. However, there is still a popular belief that women are also to blame, and it has been largely women themselves who have expressed this idea. Model and actress Pamela Anderson said on Megyn Kelly Today that “you know what you’re getting into if you go into a hotel room alone.” Actress Mayim Bialik published an Op-Ed in the New York Times strongly implying that conservative dress and behavior can prevent sexual assault, and that it is up to women to change the culture of female disposability by not being so naive with their physical beauty. Designer Donna Karan defended Harvey Weinstein against early allegations, saying, “[look at] how women are dressing and what they’re asking by just presenting themselves the way they do. What are they asking for? Trouble.” Figures of authority and influence commenting on the way women present themselves inevitably perpetuates victim blaming when women are sexually harassed or assaulted. Our society cannot fully change if fingers are still being pointed in the wrong direction. Some administrators feel that there are moments when the dress code is fairly enforced. Dr. Glazer, for example, says, “Our community values are welcome, safety, and respect. Our attire for the day should demonstrate respect for the learning environment as being distinct from other attire worn for play, casual events or social gatherings.” However, in freshman year, I remember being removed from class by a teacher because my skirt was too short. “You are attracting too much attention,” I was told. “The boys are distracted.” I then had to sit in the dean’s office for an hour and a half until my mother could leave work to bring me a pair of pants. A piece of clothing caused her to lose time at her job, and I missed two classes that day. I could argue about the dress code protocols, about the sexist undertones of the regulations over what girls wear, but that is not the problem. The bigger issue here is the language used to address the clothing. When a teacher argues that a student’s outfit introduces an arousing element into the classroom, they are failing to acknowledge their own sexually charged language.

One female student who wished to remain anonymous shared: “In the middle of a math class, my teacher pulled me outside to tell me that the way I was sitting and what I was wearing was exciting the boys in class too much and affecting their focus.” She was not allowed to return until she found a sweater. “It made me feel like somehow I was being slutty when all I was doing was trying to take notes on the quadratic formula.” When teachers, figures of respect and power, make comments that cause young girls to feel objectified and sexual, it has a lasting effect, especially when made in an environment intended for respect and learning. Here at Avenues, there seems to be a subtle culture of victim-blaming that manifests itself in the comments of educators when they single out female students for distracting boys with their cleavage, and instructing them to change the way they sit because it is “too sexual.” In an environment of young, impressionable students, teachers should not be using their positions of influence to perpetuate a mindset that puts the fault of sexual assault on the girl. Another female student who wished to remain anonymous explained that while waiting to speak at a middle school assembly, she was approached by a teacher for her blouse: “She physically put her hands on my chest to cover things and then closed the v-neck,” the girl said. The teacher’s reasoning was all too familiar: ‘These are middle school boys. They’ll get too excited.’ She froze. “It felt very startling to be touched and also to have that kind of language used,” the girl recalled. I have watched teachers go so far as to pause a lecture in order to pin up a girl’s shirt in front of the rest of the class. “Jim [name changed] is enjoying this too much, too sexy... too sexy,” I remember the teacher saying as they fastened the pin. I, myself, have had my shirt hoisted up by hand while being told I “wanted to flaunt things today, didn’t I.” In moments like these, we don’t know how to respond. We feel too uncomfortable, humiliated even, to protest. So we apologize, put on a sweater, and sit back down. Though the intention behind these instances may only be to maintain a ‘professional’ look among students, using the justification that ‘the clothing is distracting boys’ is unacceptable. It perpetuates the concept of female sexualization and keeps teaching girls that their bodies are the cause of male misconduct. “Their behavior should be condemned, not what I wear,” one female student expressed.

When girls walk down the street late at night - maybe they’re coming back from a party and wearing a more ‘scandalous’ outfit - there is always that tinge of inevitable worry that what they’re wearing will be taken as an invitation from a passerby. “If something happens, will I be blaming myself for my choice in outfit for the rest of my life?” wondered senior Olivia De Rocco. “I think I have those thoughts because of the repetitiveness of people coming up to me about what I’m wearing, instead of going up to guys about their staring.” When these types of comments are made in a school setting on a regular basis, victim-blaming becomes normalized. “It upsets me to hear this kind of culture exists here,” said Mr. Ryan Mislerm a history teacher at Avenues. “I believe that when you single out a student in class in such a way –to have them stand or even go so far as to pull them outside- that is shaming, and under no circumstances do I think that is okay.” It is fine to say, ‘your skirt is too short. You are breaking the dress code.’ It is not okay to say ‘you are responsible for the erotic thoughts of young males,’ that somehow the whole paradigm is your responsibility. To say that is to posit desire as somehow problematic instead of part of human nature. It assumes that modesty of clothing alone can stop desire. It makes the female responsible for controlling the desire of another. And let us acknowledge, too, the heter-

onormativity of this mentality. By pulling girls out of class for their dress, you are telling them their education is worth less than the boys’ they are distracting. By making girls stand in class to have their shirts publically pinned, you are validating the sexualization of women’s bodies. You are holding females responsible for males. You are stigmatizing desire. You are teaching them that harassment is invited. The values we preach must be reflected in the way we address the girls here in this community. If we want our school to be welcoming, safe, and respectful, then it needs to begin with its role models. The mentality behind appropriate dress must be changed because the dress-code is not to mitigate arousal and distraction, it is to maintain professionalism, right? Dr. Glazer has said that, “the school has recently modified the dress code for next year to promote a gender neutral approach. Girls should not find themselves subject to distinct evaluation measures based on certain styles of women’s clothing.” But, how can we teach girls to be empowered when teachers themselves still believe that if a girl “comes to class in a see-through shirt with no bra, she wants to make a statement,” as Ms. Macarena Teixeira said. “She wants someone to say something. She’s daring me to say something.” She isn’t. •

WHERE INNOVATION MEETS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Boyce Technologies, Inc.

47-22 Pearson Place

Long Island City, NY

11101

T. 212.385.8585

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE ELEVATOR By Brandon Kramer

Art by Olivia Miller

FEATURES

he National Football League (NFL) has been around for over a century. Every Sunday, over 85.9 million people on average watch the NFL. In the NFL, there are the elite players that kids look up to. However, there is a darker side to the NFL that has gotten exposed ever since Ray Rice struck and knocked his wife out in an elevator in 2014. Over the past couple of years, news on domestic violence and sexual harassment has started to come out more frequently. According to USA Today, 55.4% of NFL arrests have to do with domestic violence. As a result, football fans are grappling with how to square a player’s off-field behavior with their contributions on the field. Avenues Head of security Joe Millan is also struggling to square players’ off field and on field contributions. He stated, “You have to separate the two, his performance on the field as an athlete you can respect but his performance as a citizen and a human being you can separate.” This opinion is shared by many people, including Mr. Austin Mixsell, Coordinator of School Culture at Avenues. He stated, “As a former player, you have to separate the two, one doesn’t affect the other. Character is not judged by what

they do on the field.” The NFL conduct policy contrasts those opinions. The NFL expects “everyone who is part of the league must refrain from conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the NFL.” But that hasn’t stopped players from committing these crimes. The NFL has had this problem for a while now. Since 2000, 135 of the 883 players arrested were arrested for domestic violence. As a result, the league had made adjustments to their code of conduct policy. It now states that a player who commits a domestic violence crime will be handed a six-game suspension. If the player commits the same crime again he will be banned permanently from the NFL. The league has not had to ban anyone for the league yet. But with the increasing trend, it is only a matter of time. Ray Rice was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft. It only took one year for Ray Rice to be considered one of the best running backs in the league. In total for his career, he was voted to the pro bowl three times and rushed for over 1100 yards in four straight seasons. Rice was also an amazing pass catcher. He had 4 straight seasons of over 450 receiving yards, which is

“I do believe in second chances, but no one should ever strike a woman.”

rare for a running back. Rice won the Super Bowl with the Ravens in 2012, beating the 49ers. Two years later, however, at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City with his fiancé, Rice’s career ended abruptly. While at the casino, Rice went into an elevator with his wife, where he struck her and knocked her unconscious. He then proceeded to drag her out of the elevator. All of this was caught on tape and broadcast nationwide. The crime that Rice committed changed the perception of him from an athlete to an abuser. “Before the incident I had Ray Rice in my top 5 running backs,” said Joe Millan. “I respected him as an athlete. But after that incident I lost all respect for Ray Rice. I do believe in second chances, but no one should ever strike a woman.” Many people have the same viewpoint as Mr. Millan. Mr. Mixsell said, “The act was deplorable and as a result I lost all respect for Ray as a man and certainly as a player.” Many people have had a similar reaction, which has changed the image of the NFL. But there are other people who still respect Rice for the player that he once was. Tom, a 10th grader (named changed for privacy), stated: “In Ray Rice’s perspective he made a huge mistake and no one should ever do that, but he got his punishment and has not been able to play the game he loves. But I still respect what he did on the field.” Charlie Hansen, an 11th grader, agreed, saying, “Everyone gets a second chance, Rice knew what he did was wrong

and horrible but I do believe in second chances.” Although this opinion is the minority, there are still many people who hold this mindset. This is not just a sports issue. Actors, artists and other entertainers are being accused of domestic violence and or sexual harassment. When you exit the 8th floor south elevator you are greeted by a self-portrait of Chuck Close. While the art may seem harmless, there is a dark history to it. Chuck Close was accused of sexual harassment in 2017. “With this new information about this it absolutely changes the way I look at the picture,” said Ms. Jessica Curley, math teacher at Avenues. “It exhibits talent, but then you question whether it became popular because he exploited others. It doesn’t make me happy.” This opinion is very common because an 11th grade female student—who will remain anonymous—stated the exact same thing. Although the piece shows talent, there is a darker part to it that makes people think differently about it. Initially, Rice was only suspended for three games following the incident. But that angered the public, they voiced their opinions, and Rice’s contract with the Ravens was terminated. He has not been able to play football since. Furthermore, this new information on Chuck Close has people rethinking if the portrait should still be up or if they should take it down. Overall, these incidents show that the people have the power to promote change. • 21

a By Olivia Miller

B Y O L I V I A M I L L E R

weat rolled down the face of Ms. Yongling Lu, an Avenues upper grades teacher, as she sat on the airplane clenching her husband’s hand for comfort. Flying the 18 hour trek to India through a particularly bumpy patch over the Arctic, she said she neared the verge of screaming from panic. In times of particular stress she said, “I start to pray, but I am not a religious person. I don’t know who to pray to!” With a wise grin, Lu said, “Those people who project an image, or give people an impression that they’re very confident, don’t forget, that’s just an image. They’re only human beings.” Lu teaches and projects herself with confidence, however, as she said, we are all only human, and fear comes with the package. When she was young, she said she was never fearful of airplanes. In fact, when working for a non-for profit organization in Asia, she flew twenty-six times in six weeks. Tracing back to the origin of her fear, Lu’s voice was overcome with dread, as she said, “And then, you have 9/11. And then, you have the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Somehow, it just got you.” Lu acknowledges the irrationality

of her fear, yet she cannot help but deny her anxieties. She said her fear seems to be getting worse and worse, perhaps even deserving of the title phobia, as she suggested, half jokingly, that next time she flies, she is going to need to take some medication to relieve some of her anxiety. Lu may have acute aerophobia, an extreme or irrational fear of flying, however her situation could also just be considered a fear. The words “fear” and “phobia” often walk hand and hand, however the truth is, the two meanings entail entirely different realities. According to Dr. Raykha Sharma, a phobia is something you’re forced to encounter and actively avoid in your daily life. It ultimately reveals the extent of a traumatic event in your life. A fear on the other hand is something you worry about. It may cause anxiety, but it can be faced without extreme resistance. Sharma said, “You either have a phobia or you don’t. I think in our everyday language we tend to use words that maybe catastrophizes a situation or make it worse.” Perhaps this is why the misuse of the word, “phobia” is so common. Laughing reassuringly, Sharma said, “I don’t care who you are, we all have things that make us anxious. There’s

some situations that will make us more anxious than others, but for me, a true phobia is one in which we’re really starting to avoid, and it’s impairing us and our daily functioning. It’s in that realm of, you’re going to go through great lengths to not have to do this thing. When you’re seeing the impairment, either in school or at home or in your relationships, that’s when an emotional disorder becomes disorder.” Sharma said the origin of development for phobias is usually during early childhood and it is far rarer to acquire one later in life. Through observation or experience, a child could also develop the same phobia as their parent. Sharma said, “The child may see how the parent is interacting or avoiding the object of fear, and think ‘Oh, okay, now I’m scared of this thing too’ and it becomes pretty problematic.” Even with 21 years in the police force under his belt, Mr. Eddie Perez, an Avenues security guard, is still haunted by a fear sparked at age ten. Perez relaxed back into his chair and said, “As a police officer, I did things, scary things. I went into dark buildings, I didn’t know what to expect. There were a lot of arrests, things that would make you ask, does this person have a weapon? Dark alleys, dark rooms. You never knew what to expect, but that didn’t scare me. There were other things, though.” Bracing his knees and hunching forward, Perez said, “It started when I lived in Brooklyn.” Perez lived in a tall, five story walk up. His parents told him cautiously not to look out the windows, fearful he might accidentally fall— dropping down the steep sides of the building to the hard concrete below. However, curiosity, especially in boys at age ten, is hard to suppress. While Perez’s parents were out and his aunt was left babysitting him, the windows were calling his name. Aftering sliding open the forbidden glass pane, he

24 Photo by Daniel Khazanov

stuck his head, inch by inch, further into the air. Eyes growing tense, Perez said, “I just kept wanting to see more. I wanted to see what was straight down at the bottom of the building, I’d never seen that angle before. With that being said, I almost fell off the ledge of the building.” The “almost” is what is key. Perez’s life was fortunately not taken because his legs grabbed the back of the window and he was miraculously able to claw himself up against the brick facade and into the safety of his home. Consequently, for the rest of his life, Perez has avoided looking straight down from lofty heights. Still, from time to time, his mind stirs up dreams where the dramatic scenario plays out. Perez can be found sitting at the entrance of the 259 Avenues building regulating ID badges, greeting incomers, ushering cars on 10th Avenue, and helping hyper kindergartners onto the sidewalk. The one place you won’t find the security guard is sticking his head out of a window on the 10th floor. In regards to treating a phobia, Sharma said exposure therapy is the best practice. This method requires a mental health professional working with the patient to gradually expose them to the thing that makes them panic. This helps the patient manage their fear response and eventually allows them to face the fear with confidence in reality, without the avoidant behavior. With proper treatment, working through the anxiety in the presence of the stimulus, Sharma said, “I definitely think it can be overcome.” For everyone with fears, phobias, or anything in between, the opportunity to manage this possibly debilitating, panic-induced anxiety is achievable, but it will take some courage. This is good news for Perez if skydiving, trapeze arts, or mountain climbing are on his to-do list, however sticking to the ground works just fine too. •

THE WEIGHT OF A R T

B Y

G R A C E

O L I V I A

F R A N C O

M I L L E R

EXPECTATION 25

ust after lunch, several fifth grade girls stand in front of the bathroom mirror. One by one, they begin to pick themselves apart. As if in a choreographed dance, they apply makeup, brush their hair, and pinch the fat from their stomachs. Several years later, these same girls (now freshmen) can still be found in front of the mirror, pinching at themselves. Although none of the girls would objectively or medically be considered overweight, they still suffer insecurities perpetuated by unrealistic expectations. Body image and eating disorders are unfortunately not uncommon among adolescents. But at Avenues, a school centered in the fitness and media hub of Chelsea filled with many affluent teenage students, this behavior can become normalized. “When we go to lunch, a lot of our friends only eat protein bars or maybe some pieces of lettuce,” an anonymous freshman said. Restrictive eating is a symptom of many disorders, including anorexia. This sort of eating style, or lack thereof, is also a reflection of the ability to afford pricey protein bars and dieting plans. Similarly, expensive exercise classes are much more likely to become routine if money is easily accessible. Freshman Victoria Nezaj said, “Especially in this location, my friends are always signing up for new fitness classes or boxing classes, and I guess kids at Avenues just have the money to eat really well and take expensive fitness classes.” This emphasis on being skinny and upholding unrealistic body standards has not only made its way into the mindset of young girls, but is also perpetuated by some boys. A seemingly innocent and popular ‘number game’ between Avenues students demonstrates these disturbing tendencies. “Guys, when they walk past a girl, shout out a number,” freshman Victoria Nezaj said. “At first I didn’t know what it meant, but it’s the number of pounds they think a girl needs to lose in order to be ‘hot.’” While some males admitted to struggling with body image at Avenues, many expressed that this problem is more commonly associated with their female counterparts. An anonymous senior said, “Guys aren’t really concerned with body image—at least not as much as I imagine girls to be. More insecurities stem from clothing and what brand labels you’re wearing.” Regardless of whether pressure stems from brand labels or insecurities about one’s body, it can prove to be especially challenging when perpetuated by peers. A struggle with body image then not only becomes normalized, but something students can fall into from peer pressure. “Sometimes when it comes from your peers, it can have even more of an

effect - more than social media,” an anonymous junior said. “It makes me insecure and hurt to know that my peers think of me that way and only makes me want to take the measures to change myself more - to please them.” Of those interviewed, many felt that it would be beneficial to have a more extensive curriculum pertaining to body image and eating disorders in their Wellness classes, which would allow both students who are struggling and their peers to understand their impact. The current Wellness curriculum, rather than focusing on struggles with body image, takes a more preventative approach. Coach Kaili Keller said, “The curriculum for nutrition for high school Wellness is to get kids to understand how to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives.” While this proactive approach seems reasonable, students still feel it is not enough and does not directly address issues like body image and eating disorders that, while not extremely visible, do exist at Avenues. This emphasis on eating healtily can sometimes inadvertently contribute to the peer pressure to be skinny and feel self conscious about one’s body. Dr. Raykha Sharma explained that she finds it important that students are able to receive this sort of curriculum. However, she also expressed how it needs to be embedded into other areas like peer leadership or dean’s groups. “Finding those other places, because it’s not just about kind of health, its also tied to how we feel about ourselves, how we perform in this building, it’s all intertwined,” Sharma said. Body image is a complicated phenomenon. Self-perception is, by definition, subjective. Preteens and adolescents are especially at risk for developing unhealthy ideas about beauty. The strive for perfection is magnified in a population like the student body of Avenues: high-performing kids, mostly from affluent families, who are used to achieving in a stressful environment. The fact is, eating disorders do exist at Avenues. And those suffering from them may not recognize their own problem. Many of the students interviewed for this article confessed to not eating lunch or dinner. Some routinely avoided family meals so their parents would not notice and admitted to lying to their parents about what they had eaten and when. Assuming that teaching students to make healthy food choices will actually keep them from developing body issues is not an antidote. Students would be better served by confronting the issue head-on, so the weight of expectation is not so heavy. •

Episode 536: “The Gum Drop Chairs” By Zoe Nelms

The highly acclaimed series Black Mirror is a biting, satirical example of television at its best. The science-fiction show often highlights its trademark wry cynicism and poignant performances through striking visuals, in which sterile aesthetics serve as a backdrop to stories of morality and humanity. Similarly, Avenues is host to a sea of interpersonal relationships amid what some consider a sterile and inhospitable environment. A few members of the Avenues community remarked on the clinical quality of Avenues’ decor: “All the white and gray––it’s very sterile. It sometimes feels like a hospital,” junior Athena Hastois said. “That can make me feel uncomfortable.” Others echoed Hasiotis’ sentiment, emphasizing the notion that while monochrome may be chic, it’s not necessarily comforting: “Avenues is very cold aesthetically,” junior Alice Roosevelt said. In Black Mirror, a sterile aesthetic often closely correlates with the experience of its cast. The more pristine and clinical the aesthetic, the more profound and painful the suffering of the characters. For example: Season three episode “Nosedive,” is set in a future where a powerful Uber-esque app creates a caste system driven by superficial ratings dominates its user’s lives. The episode utilizes dreamy pinks to exhibit the saccharine

and shallow nature of the society in which it is set. Lacey, the protagonist, plans to attend her former frenemy’s wedding in order to get her “score” up so she can move into idyllic community Sunset Cove. The “Nosedive” universe is a pastel Norman Rockwell portrait, cloying and candy-colored, where perfection appears to be tangible to those who put in the work. Ultimately, Lacey’s desperate grapple for validation and acceptance is rendered useless when after an arduous journey, she crashes the frenemy’s wedding, threatens violence, and is made both a community pariah and criminal suspect. As police drag Lacy to jail in handcuffs, her face smeared in filth is a stark contrast to the immaculate wedding venue. Unattainable beauty, as it always has been, is the background for her misery. Or, take season four episode “USS Callister:” Timid game designer Robert Daly copies DNA from his coworkers to create digital clones of them, places the clones into a carbon copy of his favorite television show’s spaceship (the USS Callister), and uses physical and emotional manipulation to force them to reenact episodes. The clones occupy the primary color-themed ship as characters of Daly’s design--perpetually well groomed and ever chipper, with the same static smiles as the “Nosedive” characters, only now in 27

a different skin. Also like “Nosedive,” the nostalgic beauty is a facade, used to strip autonomy from the digital clones. Eventually, the clones triumph over the tyrannical Daly, and he is left forever stuck in his computerized kingdom, the terrifyingly immaculate and infinitely beautiful cosmos punctuating his demise. While at first glance, the sugary color palette of “Nosedive”’s suburbia or snazzy sixties garb of “USS Callister” seem inviting and non-threatening, at times even welcoming, but a closer look reveals that their perfection belies an impersonal unapproachability. Some students argued that, like Black Mirror, Avenues decor possesses a shallow, empty charm: “I think Avenues’ aesthetic is a component of its overall vibe--to be different just for being different, to implement things just for the sake of them being there,” junior Ben Kessler said. “I think some of the design choices in the building reflect that. The chairs, for example,” Kessler concluded, referring to the newly added “gumdrop” shaped chairs populating 536. Other students have expressed their frustration over the incorporation of the beautiful but impractical chairs into 536 common spaces.“The furniture in the new building is not comfortable at all. I’m always slipping off the chairs.” freshman Rosie O’Byrne said. A recent policy added in 536 may reinforce student feelings of discomfort–students are not allowed to have free periods or remain in the building after 2:50 in 536 without special permission from their teacher. Even with the ostensibly inviting cushioned nooks and gumdrop chairs, it’s rare

to see Avenues students inhabiting them. The polished but uncomfortable furniture and the monochromatic neutrals, in conjunction with the strict regulations on student occupancy, reinforce the notion that, like so many of the environments in Black Mirror, 536 is technically aesthetically pleasing yet tacitly unfriendly. However, some members of the Avenues community argue that the “clinical” minimalism of Avenues decor incubates creativity. “It’s meticulous in the design, and I think that’s very helpful.” junior Lauren Schulsohn said. “I think the space really cultivates an environment for great work and collaboration.” Others noted the benefits of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows in 536. “536 is filled with light, and I find that very inspiring.” Art teacher Ms. Carrie Pollack said. “It’s a great space to work in, to be creative.” Some members of the Avenues community commented on how 536 architecture enables students to be more focused and deliberate in their work.“I notice my students are working better here (in 536)--there’s greater concentration. We can breathe a little more here.” Art teacher Ms. Howard said. However, Black Mirror has consistently demonstrated that the warmer and grittier the aesthetic, the happier conclusion for the protagonist(s). The season three episode “San Junipero”, while endowed with Black Mirror’s characteristic melancholy, is bittersweet rather than tragic--two elderly women upload their consciousness to a server posing as a 1980s party town, fall in love, and decide to live out their af-

terlife together. Furthermore, the world of “San Junipero” is one that is discernibly textured and homey, from the tousled hair, the gritty dance clubs, the moonlit beach scenes. Unlike “Nosedive” or “USS Callister”, the aesthetic of “San Junipero” is genuinely tinged with humanity--and the experience of the featured protagonist, therefore, follows suit. The implementation of human details—not messiness or disorganization—but a well-articulated divergence from the expected may elevate the Avenues aesthetic from foreboding and chilly to something more welcoming. Some students suggested slight changes in decor help make the Avenues space more comfortable. “I think the student art on the walls is a good idea,” Hasiotis said. “I think it would help the new building feel a little less clinical.” “I’ve read a lot about how students learn better when they’re around plants and flowers and animals.” freshman Rosie O’Byrne said. “I would like if there was more greenery.” While seemingly small, the inclusion of greenery or student art could have a potent effect on the Avenues community. As demonstrated by “San Junipero”, a divergence from strict aesthetic confinement almost always results in a more positive outcome. This is an especially powerful commentary in a show with an unfailing sense of cynicism. Black Mirror is a warning of how technology can fail us--an eerie reflection of a future that may or may not be around the corner. The bleakest of episodes often end with characters’ lives ruined by a seemingly perfect construct of reality that turned out to be ironically flawed despite arriv-

ing in the same gleaming packaging--bright lights, straight lines, an absence of any human touch or presence. Sometimes, this packaging is eerily similar to the Avenues experience of students. Avenues spaces can evoke the same futuristic aesthetic as Black Mirror. It isn’t particularly difficult to imagine the 536 common spaces fashioned into a corrupt robotics studio or the gargantuan screen in classrooms broadcasting dystopian propaganda rather than school news. “Black Mirror is a twisted version of our own world,” sophomore Fleming Slok said. “It’s creepy to us because it’s so realistic.” The glass walls and overly designed spaces of 536 may serve as spaces to develop innovation and spur creativity, but they just as easily seen as picture frames, students posed in lacquered tableaus reminiscent of Black Mirror’s “Nosedive” or “USS Callister.” At the same time, since Avenues physically resembles Black Mirror’s dreamscapes, it has the potential and capability to shed a possibly unwelcoming personality and mitigate its negative influence by evolving to include more human elements. Unlike the manicured nightmares of Black Mirror, Avenues is still malleable, still open to evolution--in response to student concern, we’ve seen the addition of new administrative positions and school policy. It’s still ambiguous whether Avenues will choose to implement aesthetic changes, but it is entirely possible. As of now, it’s unclear how this episode will end. But hopefully, it’ll be more “San Junipero” than “Nosedive.” •

THE AGE OF APATHY

By Apryl Adames

oday, it is easier than ever for teengagers to fall victim to apathetic sentiments. The issue has become so widespread that various campaigns have been started to combat it, including one entitled Fight Apathy. Fight Apathy is a national activism campaign whose aim is to raise awareness about political issues among high school students across the country. According to their website, their mission is to “educate and prepare high school students for a lifetime of political involvement.” But how, exactly, is that accomplished? Apathy is defined as a lack of interest, communication, or concern. Some might define it as a feeling of nothingness. It is ironic, the feeling of nothingness, but it’s a reality many teens across the country face. “You can be apathetic about a subject, but I would say that apathy that is prevalent across your life is probably quite rare. . . I would say the prevalence rate would be around 10 percent,” said school psychologist Dr. Raykha Sharma. But if these feelings are meant to be rare, something must have changed to push these emotions to the forefront. Younger generations have gained a reputation for not having political convictions, much less speaking about them. Less than 20% went to the polls in the 2014 midterms, but with the latest President of the United States, things seem to have changed. More people are keeping up with the news, right? Headline after headline comes rolling in, each one with a new controversy, a new issue to discuss, a new quote to mull over. However, it is important to note the sources from which members of the Avenues community attain this knowledge. Though many of the students interviewed stated that they receive a portion of their news from The New York Times, every student also mentioned some form of social media. In the Avenues community, these topics of discussion can be so complex and overwhelming that it is difficult to know exactly where to begin learning about them. “People expect you to be super informed all of the time and if you’re not, you are shamed for it,” said junior Chloe Shapiro. This fear of being incorrect, though rational, can prevent many important opinions from being heard. In addition, attaining that information has proved itself a difficult task. “Whenever I’m on a news website, it feels overwhelming because it just piles on all of these current events at once. I never really know where to click, because everything seems important,” said Mel Douer, a sophomore. This shift in the ways we access information has caused complications in terms of what news stories are actually being covered. “I think the largest change [in media consumption] is that young people don’t consistently go to a source and consume news,” said history teacher Mr. Ron Widelec. “They

just see what pops up in their social media platforms, and it becomes the main source of what everyone is talking about.” Even though some students feel the need to know what is happening in the country, others have resorted to disregarding it completely. Andres Murillo, a sophomore, said, “I don’t even really watch news media. It’s kinda just what I see randomly or what pops up. I look at the news app from time to time when I get a notification.” This sort of nonchalance surrounding news consumption has become increasingly more common, especially surrounding political issues. When there is a constant flow of information, the repetition can be tiring. Lindsey Chu, a junior, said, “Sometimes I get sick of seeing news all over the place repeatedly. Especially about Trump. It’s always ‘Trump said this,’ or ‘Trump did that.’” Although it is important to be informed about issues of politics, what happens when the main focus falls solely upon those issues? “I feel like I’m missing out on what’s really important because [Trump] invades everything,” said Chu. This “invasion” can block out imperative information. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, most of the media’s focus was not on the disastrous aftermath that left a million citizens without electricity or water; instead, media coverage was spotlighting Trump’s comments on the N.F.L. Anthem Protests. Situations like this occur daily, where crucial topics are eclipsed by the giant that is the media’s constant ‘Trump Flow.’ “The only type of news that I hear discussed amongst student is regarding politics. I rarely ever hear people talk about news regarding other parts of the world,” said junior Iman Karibzhanova. “It’s very frustrating to not get that exposure in discussion.” Alongside these apathetic sentiments comes a confusion that casts a shadow over what is actually happening in the world. “They are just not talking about the reality. They are misrepresenting what is actually happening in the country,” said Widelec. This misrepresentation has had a severe effect on the way discussions of current events play out within Avenues. “I would call it a big game of telephone. Someone hears something, and they interpret it the way they interpret it. By the time you hear it, it might be completely different from the way it began,” said freshman Charles Ottoman. The way to combat this apathy is simpler than one would think: reading from multiple sources. Limiting yourself to one source of information is limiting yourself to one worldview. The world is a place full of issues, many of which can be devastating, but staying knowledgeable about various topics helps foster a community where opinions are heard and stories are told. • 31

Perils of Change By Chetan Cutting

n the corner of Eastern Parkway and Franklin Avenue in the heart of Crown Heights sits a Starbucks. Right beside it is another coffee shop called the Pulp and the Bean. It is a quaint, small shop renowned for its fresh strawberry cream cheese and morning brew. Before Starbucks opened, the Pulp and Bean had little competition from the other coffee houses in the area and the surrounding corner delis. Prices were affordable, but when Starbucks arrived, the Pulp and the Bean had to increase its options besides coffee. Coffee was still a staple, but they added cappuccinos, lattes and an assortment of gourmet snacks to supplement the regular coffee they used to sell. Anything to entice customers to purchase from them, instead of Starbucks. The Starbucks shop, although it is apart of a corporate chain, is essential for the consumer because of their ability to offer a product that is less expensive than the Pulp and Bean. This is also occurring with the housing in the area. Many of the new buildings offer amenities unlike the old apartment buildings in the neighborhood; thus forcing the landlords to compete to get tenants. Prices are soaring, but because of the amenities in the new apartment buildings, landlords in the old buildings have to do something to ensure they get clients to rent from them. Residents in Crown Heights are being forced to move from their homes as landlords increase rent to accommodate new residents. Over the past sixteen years of my life, I have witnessed the radical change of my neighborhood Crown 32

Heights. Many of the kids I use to play with have left the neighborhood, old-fashioned bodegas where I used to buy candy from, are forced to close, and single family homes demolished to make way for the new multi level condos to serve the new upper-middle class residents of the neighborhood. These days, Brooklyn is becoming more expensive due to an influx of new residents who are young, upwardly mobile, professionals, and more often than not, socioeconomically different from those they are displacing. Ms. Jenna Ray is an Avenues World Course teacher who lives in a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Bed-Stuy. Historically, Bed-Stuy has been a black neighborhood. During the Great Depression, African-Americans moved to the neighborhood seeking jobs at the newly opened Navy Yard. “My family has been in the same neighborhood for 100 years and my great grandmother raised 14 children in the same house,” Ray said. “I feel like my family has worked so hard to make a claim in this neighborhood and, due to gentrification, I feel like it is going away.” Like many others, Ms. Ray feels her neighborhood is undergoing changes. New residents are attracted to the neighborhood’s brownstones, relatively low housing costs and close proximity to Manhattan. With an increase in restaurants, cafés, bars, retail shops and organic food markets, Bedford-Stuyvesant has become a popular place to live and work for many of the new residents. Their arrival has put pressure on landlords to raise housing costs, making it in-

Photo by Brandon Bunt

creasingly less affordable for long-term residents, especially seniors, to remain in the neighborhood. “The neighborhood used to be more West Indian families and that has changed. The people that owned the property are no longer people of color,” said Ray. She continued on saying, “There are not a lot of neighborhoods where you can go and see black people own the neighborhood and it is starting to change now. It is sad. I grew up with that being the role model and it is changing.” Unfortunately, Ray is not the only one to experience this going on in her neighborhood. Ms. Zahara Wignot is an Avenues employee who has lived in Crown Heights for the last ten years. From its attractions to its parks, Ms. Wignot enjoys everything Crown Heights has to offer. “I like how close it is to everything. We have Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library.” said Wignot. Ms. Wignot moved to Crown Heights with her sister and has never looked back, however there are some aspects of the neighborhood that worry her. Previous to the start of gentrification, Crown Heights was a rough neighborhood. It was known as a drug area and was riddled with crime. “When I first moved there, there was nothing. Ten years ago, it was totally different than how it is now. I was not able to even walk around without being scared,” Wignot said. In addition to resident safety becoming more of an issue,

Wignot has noticed various economic changes that have begun to arise due to gentrification. “The amount of coffee shops and bars have let me know there has been a lot of change. However, the real change is when they redo a bodega and they suddenly have fancy chips and organic chips.” Wignot said. A “bodega” is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, snack foods, candy, soft drinks, and many more. Bodegas offer things that big, brand name grocery stores cannot give you: cheap, fast and delicious food. In Crown Heights, a common bodega has become something of a rarity. They have to compete with newer restaurants in the area that are offering more organic and healthier food options. Slowly, one by one, they go out of business, waiting for a coffee shop or bar to take its place. “I sometimes feel bad. You start to wonder ... where do these people go?” said Wignot. Ms. Wignot is not the only one asking these tough questions. Both gentrifiers and people undergoing gentrification ask this complicated question. Mr. Ryan Misler is an Upper Grades Avenues World Course teacher. He has lived in Harlem, Sunset Park and Crown Heights. Mr. Misler is not a native to his area and moved to Crown Heights because of a coworker. “I moved there because a friend of Ms. Barry’s was leaving their apartment. I didn’t choose Crown Heights,” said Mr. Misler. Over time, he has learned to appreciate the neighbor33

hood and what it has to offer. Despite his growing fondness for the neighborhood, Misler understands there are some imbalances, specifically in race. Over the years, as more white people have moved into the neighborhood, black population has decreased. According to the New York government, as of 2010, of the 142,839 residents in Crown Heights, 74.7% were Black, 19.1% were White, 4.2% were Hispanic, and 2% were Asian. According to a US census report, in 2016, the white population in Crown Heights has risen by at least 19.3% and black population has decreased by at least 18.5% since 2010. Unlike many gentrifiers, Mr. Misler is aware that he is a part of the problem. “I clearly struggle with gentrification, but I am exploiting it at the same time. Gentrification is defined these days as middle-upper class white people moving into neighborhoods that are less developed than others. ” Misler said. Avenues students also share similar feelings about gentrification and its impact on communities. Tolo Bickford is an Avenues junior who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. For the first seven years of his life, Bickford lived in a neighborhood where the majority of people that resided there were black. His story is an example of how gentrification can connect different people from different backgrounds and status. “Because my family got along with the neighbors, they were very welcoming. We had many barbecues and got along so well. Now, at my dad’s house, my neighbors are also very welcoming because my family and I are very inclusive.” said Bickford. Through communication and the sharing of stories and history, Bickford was able to learn about a different culture and truly take another step into becoming a global citizen. We, as Avenues students, go to a school where gentrification is rarely talked about. For some Avenues students, you are the gentrifiers —and for some Avenues students, you will become gentrifiers. This is bound to occur. There will always be people moving into cheaper, underdeveloped neighborhoods. However, before you move into a space, learn the history and be aware of your presence in that neighborhood, whether it be positive or negative. •

Photo by Brandon Bunt

T H E R E

I S

S O M E T H I N G

A B O U T

by jaden schapiro

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N E H Z EN

the journey itself was an act of Shanzhai 37

remember my first time in Hua Qiang Bei, the Shenzhen electronics market area, like it was yesterday. All seventeen of us tired from the two hour bus ride over, stumbled lazily off of the coach bus and onto the pavement adjacent to a large building with advertisements of American sports brands on its glass facade. It was warm even in the shade when we forced our way through the sea of people and a sprinkling of stubborn traffic as we crossed some outlets between buildings. It was a few minutes of keeping our eyes glued to the backs of our group leaders’ heads when we turned a sharp corner to reveal a large courtyard of tall buildings, fake Apple stores, and what I’m pretty sure was an illegitimate set up for a currency exchange. Cano, Avenues’ cameraman, was pulling out his camera, the Ming De students had been filled with angst from the bus, and the variety of teachers were huddling to confirm their plans before a sphere of plants and tulips. The only thing I could think to myself was: This is it, we’re here, and there’s already so much to do. “We did not get to see where people in those marketplaces get their parts. [...] We didn’t get to see everything that was being offered,” said sophomore Misha Nosenko, reflecting to himself. What Misha is mentioning is some of the questions Avenues students were left with after our journey. The first is really, where do all of these electronic parts come from? And how are there so many of them? One of the answers you might hear from media is that they were stolen or taken from larger factories in the Shenzhen area. In that sense, yes, it would be true. However, what outsiders fail to talk about is the the motive of the market’s existence in the first place: The Shanzhai (山寨) community of southern China. “Shanzhai began as a copycat of western products built in Chinese factories, but gradually moved toward an ecosystem of open sharing printed computer boards and casings known as Gongban (公板) and Gongmo (公模) respectively,” said expatriate and Shenzhen maker Luc Henderson, over a WeChat exchange. This is a word the Mastery Academy group used more than we thought we would on the trip, and even continue to do so back in New York. Like Mr. Henderson said, they did take parts from larger factories, but only for a better cause of their own creations. Other than Luc Henderson, Hong Kong maker and former New Yorker Brian Tang was certain when saying that this community, “has happily coincided with the open source movement which welcomes sharing of intellectual property to facilitate software and hardware innovations.” A slight combination of the two is the definition the Mastery group used and still does if you ask any of them what Shanzhai means to them. It shows how the term has evolved to incredibly specific standards, but manages to connect back to its roots at the same time. Okay, wait. Why should I even care about some people

in the south of China building copyright-infringed phones for money? What’s the point of all this? The point is that without these people, our trip to Shenzhen would have never been possible in the first place; our journey wouldn’t even be a thought in anyone’s mind because that one WIRED documentary would cease to exist. More importantly, I have brought to your attention the importance of the Shanzhai because our trip to Shenzhen reflected many different versions of their community and I want to share them. The first is the most outgoing and prudential as it became the phones we returned from China with. The contraptions of SIM modules and burnt joysticks are all under the impression of taking from one and giving to another to solve a common problem. The idea of Shanzhai emerged in the electronics markets when vendors would acquire spare parts to make their own phones, better than the real ones being sold in China. The standard phones were slow and bland, so innovators added Bluetooth, screens, and to some even cigarette lighters. If the consumer market wanted something, it was made sure to be included in the next trend of homemade phones. The devices were cheap (around ten to thirty USD) and functioned just as well as their name-brand counterparts with the markups of American exports. These were the phones that were ideas shaped for a Chinese-based and open-sourced market, something never seen before. And just like them we made our working phones that could call by the sixth day of our trip, so it was time to get creative with what we had in front of us. “We didn’t see all the work that goes into manufacturing and making those parts but we were there for three weeks and I came in knowing nothing about phones and now I know a lot,” said Nicole Domingo, walking to her next class. We used this information to manufacture our own phones just like the Shanzhai did in Hua Qiang Bei and in the Shenzhen-based companies like DJI and Xiaomi. We bartered and used our Americanized-Chinese to buy mounds of capacitors, resistors, and of course the pieces that make our phones individually special. Next, the Chinese students’ definition of Shanzhai was incorporated into this trip as the adhesive to what we were reading in articles and saw in Hua Qiang Bei. “When you reveal the intrinsic idea of the Shanzhai, they do not only copy others’ ideas of products, but also [the Shanzhai] make more technique enhancements,” said Hannibal, my roomate, glancing up from his Physics II textbook. When describing the importance of what this community was, he did not forget to include the background that these innovators came from: copycats. Others, like William, were obstinate to conclude the Shanzhai have not changed in the years they have evolved in Shenzhen: “Shanzhai means the guy who copies from other

things or even upgrades them. Shanzhai is just fake; some of [their] things are useful but some of the Shanzhai things are useless because it depends who makes them.” He stresses the uses they have in the marketplace due to their abundant iPhone knockoffs and disposable fads influenced from the west. It was important for the Mastery group to interpret the meaning of this culture with the help of students who have interacted repeatedly alongside this community. Finally, our last use of Shanzhai was the program itself. This is the idea of taking what is the basis of a school-trip abroad, but then to also fine tuning its purpose and process to make it an experience. We Shanzhai-ed this to be fully immersed in the Shenzhen culture of innovators, makers, and our family at the Ming De Academy. We didn’t just go to China for the sake of building phones, so we adapted to make it more than that. However, changing an experience does come with a price, and with this trip it was the full journey of building a phone. On one end of the experiential spectrum, the Mastery group bathed in the knowledge of college-level courses beginning in computer board design and coding Arduinos. Therefore it is applicable to say that anyone of us can build a phone and understand how it works. This is only part of the experience. When an idea shown to the world, it is best reflected along-side its process and background; a construction of an innovation always has roots that deepens the meaning of the product to make it stand out; and the origins of phone building in China has a saturated history that goes beyond the borders of the Shanzhai community. Although there were given tours of the DJI and Tencent headquarters, our experienced lacked the infamous manufacturing plants of Shenzhen. “Obviously there were just so many more parts that we could’ve explored,” said Nicole walking to her next class, “but I think that we did explore the most significant ones and the ones that we [the Shenzhen group] got the most out of.” Which brings this article to the final example of

how the journey itself was an act of Shanzhai. We retrofitted the best parts of our trip to ourselves and the world outside of Shenzhen as the true examples of what we composed in three-and-a-half weeks away from school. In some aspects, we took the word “Shanzhai” and applied to ourselves which slowly became a way to to reference ourselves as part of a community of underground makers that must innovate for the sake of being caught up with the rest of the world. We Shanzhai-ed the term “Shanzhai”; We made remoulded the word so it would best fit our cause in Shenzhen. Like Nicole said, “I came in knowing nothing about phones and now I know a lot.” She emphasizes the amount of circuit-building challenges we faced on the first week and then the personal research we had to do in order to make the phones our own. This is where we learned how to make battery chargers on the first day and on the next code an Arduino to communicate with some LEDs. All together, the ideas behind what is in a phone and what goes into the production of technology are what made this trip a unique learning experience. Not to mention the amount of hours each student (and teacher) put into learning about their phones; Our time was not just a few hours of sticking things together here and there, but a genuine effort that pushed us as late as twelve and some to two a.m. just to get one line of code correct for their keypad. Overall, Shenzhen was an amazing place and a community in itself, which only means there is more to know about what this city has to offer. •

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HUDSON YARDS? WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLIVIA MILLER

rom the eleventh floor roof of Avenues, rising skyscrapers glisten in the near distance. Bright orange construction scaffolding circles around chunks of building perimeters and towering cranes dangle from their edges. These buildings are only a few blocks north of Avenues, and they are part of the daily routine of some Avenues community members. Jonathan Wang, an Avenues upper school teacher, and Eoin O’Byrne, a junior, pass by this mega construction project, called Hudson Yards, on their way to school almost everyday. Even when they choose an alternate route, to ride their bikes on the West Side highway, they can still glimpse the Hudson Yards building site reflecting close by. Hudson Yards was started around 2013 and is planned to occupy most of the area between 30th and 34rd Streets, spanning two blocks from the West Side Highway to 10th Avenue. In the history of the United States, it’s the largest private real estate development, costing roughly 20 billion dollars to build. The structure that leaves the biggest impression on Wang is called the Vessel. According to the Hudson Yards website, the Vessel is “the centerpiece of the Hudson Yards public square and gardens.” It was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, and is a geometric staircase that leads nowhere, the intent being to connect the community and attract tourists through a “different kind of public space.” Other than the Vessel, Wang said, “[The buildings] all sort of look the same to me, another generic, new looking building in the city. Just really tall.” O’Byrne said, “Architecturally, I think most of them are really kind of brutish design, they’re not particularly pretty.”

Upon first glance, “pretty,” may be the very word many use to describe the buildings, with their alluring sparkle in the light and modern facades, however, architecture is more than the outward appearance of the structure—it has to have a purpose. For O’Byrne, he said the area is “going to be for the most wealthy, in the most resourced buildings.” This assumption may not be far from the truth, with the buildings averaging $3,000 per-square-foot. They have also advertised luxury facilities on site like, “a 200-room Equinox hotel,” “New York City’s first Neiman Marcus,” and “more than 100 shops and restaurants.” Sandwiched between these amenities, a new 750-seat public school is advertised, however there is currently not much information about it. More prominently on the Hudson Yards website, under the “Neighborhood” tab is a header called, “The Future of Learning.” There’s a short blurb advertising Avenues as a “sought-after international private school blocks from Hudson Yards.” This advertisement suggests Hudson Yards could create an influx of new students to Avenues. However, besides new students, the bigger question might be, how will Hudson Yards impact the Avenues community as a whole? Wang has been passing the area for nearly six years, since becoming a teacher at Avenues, and said, “What felt like a long time, it was just a hole in the ground. And then, all of a sudden, Hudson Yards became less of a joke.” By “joke,” he means an advertisement slapped onto a green construction board, a project too far in the future to fully comprehend. Seeing the buildings near completion is a reminder that Hudson Yards is a reality, and is going to be in full spin sooner rather than later.

It is also a reminder of what New York is becoming: “a big glass building city,” Wang said. He felt torn about this reality because he feared New York is losing some of its character; he described it as getting “sanitized.” O’Byrne recalled the sorts of places Hudson Yards area is slowly losing. He said, “There used to be gas stations, auto repair shops, horse stables, photo studios, rental spaces, and truck depots, you know these are things that cities need.” Ultimately, O’Byrne said that the value of the property is greater than the value of the space for the community. Although the city may suffer from losing these utilities, they do not necessarily hold as much sentimental value, therefore we might not be as passionate about saving the spaces. Wang said, “We might be missing something really meaningful that they just tore down.” At ground level, construction workers clamber across the street in the blistering cold. Waiting for his bus, passerby Len Harris stands patiently across the street ignoring them, his head tilted up toward the upper facade of a new glass

building, its sheen glimmering in his eyes. It was January 30th, and Harris was observing the expansive Hudson Yards building site full of several towering, half-finished structures directly across the street from where he stood. When asked his opinion on the area, he chuckled and said, “It’s funny because that’s exactly what I was just thinking about.” Harris explained that he was disappointed with the buildings, since they had the potential to be “more innovative” and “architecturally sophisticated.” However, they are currently looking “really mundane.” The building site will eventually encompass 18 million square feet of residential and commercial real estate. On the website, it is described as, “a new neighborhood for the next generation.” However, what generation? Who will the tenants be? Harris said, “The reality is, they’re luxury apartments. It’s going to be a generation of wealthy owners, and who knows if they will even live there.” Trying to absorb the enormity of the buildings around him, Harris took a moment to breath deeply, craning his

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neck to the sky, and the tip of the tallest tower. “They could have built more housing for people that need housing. It’s good for business though.” Harris continued to express his dislike for the buildings, repeating “I don’t like it” several times. He came to a conclusion and said, “Each building is owned by a different company, there’s no harmony. Every building is competing against the other building.” According to Harris, competition is the enemy of harmony. Harris expressed concern that Hudson Yards needs to figure out how to find balance with the surrounding area, how to better integrate with the neighborhood. Inquisitively, he said, “Why does it have to be all glass?” Although, he did mention admiration for the “beautiful, simplistic” Javits Center, an all glass building nearby. But, “This new thing is just awful,” he said, “it makes me upset.” Harris was unique, chiefly because everyone else enclosed in this industrial construction bubble seemed to be very busy, too busy to stop and look at their surroundings. But one construction worker standing in front of a metal gate separating one of the building sites from the sidewalk didn’t seem busy at all. When approached, he said, “I am just a security guard, I don’t have any opinions on the buildings. You should talk to somebody else…” His stream of thought was interrupted by another worker with a clipboard, holding some sort of paper checklist he needed to look over. The owner of an Indian food cart, stationed in the heart of one of the construction zones, had no opinion on Hudson Yards either. When asked why he stationed his cart there, he simply shook his head and said,“I don’t know.” The same sort of response was recorded amongst three different delis in the the area. They were all bustling with construction workers, perhaps they had no time to reflect on the new neighborhood being erected around them. The Wells Fargo bank at 10 Hudson Yards had the slogan, “Welcome Hudson Yards” pasted on their window. Through the glass it was evident the room was teeming with unoccupied bank employees. But when asked questions about Hudson Yards, no one could answer. “That is not legally allowed” they said. They did however provide the corporation’s email to send questions. They also recommended walking over to the L’Oreal and Coach headquarters across

the street. From one glass window to the next, the L’Oreal logo was visible, there was a doorman, and some clean white walls. Again, there was no one who could answer a few casual questions, it all had to be done through the formality of emails. Len Harris looked behind him at the familiar sound of a city bus. He gripped his bags while continuing to speak about the buildings, he said, “There’s so much they could have done with it. They just don’t look creative.” As he was ready to board the bus, he turned back and said with a smile, “So what do you think about them?” The question went ringing into the distance, lost in the traffic, the drills, hammers and cranes, the cell phone buzzes, the construction worker boot thuds, and the wind

blowing high against the buildings steel glass sides. Some seem to be deeply observant and affected by the cities developmental changes while others move with them, easily factoring them into their lives. Mara Kravitz, the Director of Advocacy and Partnerships at 596 Acres, a community land access advocacy organization in New York City, had some ideas on how to approach the changes of land use in Hudson Yards and more broadly in the city as a whole. She said that although you are able to access stories and history through old buildings or areas, “there’s no reason to glorify or idealize the past.” It doesn’t always have to be old is good and new is bad with buildings– there needs to be a conversation.

Kravitz recommended community board meetings as an easily accessible place to have these conversations for anyone over sixteen. If the city is rezoning or selling public land for example, it has to go through the “Uniform Land Use Review Procedure,” which directly involves the community board’s land use committee. In a public hearing, this committee’s input is considered seriously and a member’s vote could potentially help determine whether or not the city moves forward with a plan. Not only will board members be up to date on land use agendas, but they can take an active role shaping the neighborhood, making projects like Hudson Yards feel less distant and closer to their vision of the community. •

Art by Olivia Miller

ELEVATING COMMUNITY BY CLARE MALEENY 46

n the six years since Avenues was established, the spatial aesthetic of the school has evolved significantly. Glass walls have created classrooms overnight and a constellation of couches are now scattered around common areas. However, one of the only spaces that all students interact with are the elevators. The Avenues elevators have been subject to both technical and systematic changes as well as aesthetic ones. Seniors slumping under the weight of their backpacks cram next to ELC students singing in Chinese. Against the tiled walls, faculty members straighten ID lanyards while catching up with the security staff. All the while, FOOD cooks squeeze carts of pasta between talkative middle schoolers. Whether or not we’re happy about it, the elevators are spaces of engagement for the entire Avenues community. Beginning in September of 2017, an express elevator was introduced into the morning routine of students and faculty. Once again, this has subtly altered the cultural dynamic of the school. To cultivate a sense of community within these often-packed boxes and defuse potentially awkward or claustrophobic situations, deans operating the elevators have been blasting music. The playlists have become early-morning topics of discussion as the music ranges from Mr. Tim Hudson’s “Country Music Mondays” to Ms. Coryell’s “Showtunes Tuesday.” Mr. Hudson said he finds the interaction with students in the express elevator humorous as, “you’ll notice people hear the music and be surprised: ‘Is that 90s?’” He called the elevator a “shared object of frustration” and added that, “they’ll share that complaint whether they’re a student or faculty member. It’s a sort of quintessentially Avenues thing.” Even in frustration, it remains a space for the entire community to engage, a shared experience like subway delays or harsh winters. Ms. Risa Harms said she enjoys student interaction in the elevators especially on days “before the weekend or a break, those are really exciting for everyone.” Avenues’ elevators have been art installation sites as well. Qi Mei Schmidt, Penelope Thornton, and Tess Price have used the environment for an interactive studio practice project. Schmidt said, “For our project we were given the prompt to change a space using a given material in a way that people would interact with the space differently. Penelope, one of our group members, went to LACMA in California, where there was a sculpture of a similar design. It was made of hoses from the ceiling and the viewers could walk through it. We wanted to do a similar thing and wondered: where is the busiest place in school? Everyone’s in the elevators already, especially the express elevators for upper grades.” Actions like those taken in the elevators and other corners of the building strengthen the Avenues community by changing our interaction with the space. Sixth through ninth grade dean Ms. Coryell described the Avenues aesthetic as open, observing: “All of the common areas, the huge windows, the way that they have those cut outs—for

example the eighth floor to the seventh floor—and you can see what’s happening below.” She continued, “It’s very open in an intentional way, in that you see what’s going on around you, and you see what other classes are doing that maybe you wouldn’t be exposed to if you were shut in a smaller room. There’s a lightness and airiness in the building that I really like that makes it an inviting place for kids to learn.” As Ms. Coryell observed, the overall aesthetic is clearly “open”— however is the functionality open as well? Senior Olivia DeRocco, head of the Food and Hunger Advocacy club, addressed her struggles to connect with the entire Avenues student body, especially lower and middle school students when publicizing food drives and other club driven events: “The most difficult part is approaching all grades. For the Thanksgiving food drive, I wanted to reach students from sixth grade all the way to twelfth grade. I feel like there’s a disconnect even within the high school. We need the building to open up as soon as possible.” She continued on the topic of the Thanksgiving food drive stating she believes, “The elevator is a really beneficial place to make announcements. Technology can only go so far. When we pass by those screens everyday we kind of become immune. But when we see a new poster in the elevator that wasn’t there before we’re more inclined to read it.” DeRocco has found the stairwells along with parts of FOOD to be helpful in this regard as well. Though these areas can be useful to publicize school events and school-wide messages, they are only nooks within the building. But Liz Lee, building designer at HQ, argues that aesthetic strives for more. “My goal, from a centralized HQ standpoint, is to definitely be a resource but certainly help guide the direction of anything related to the building design, not only for the current campus but our future campus as well. There are changes at any given time and that’s a function of the fact that we opened without a tremendous amount of confirmation.” She sees these changes and design experiments as part of a larger plan. “New projects are following a master vision of how the existing building would continue to evolve over time, based on the information that we translate things like the curriculum and program into how that informs the architectural design of the building. We’re also responsible for how the classrooms connect, and we’ve learned a lot from the New York campus.” Several interesting spaces at Avenues are exclusive to the upper division or lower divisions, but is there a place where the entire community functions as a whole? Apart from the elevators, such a space seems fictional. If the physical layout of the school doesn’t facilitate interaction, how can we avoid any cultural disconnect or discordant notes in campus communication? As we consider the current spatial design of the building with an eye towards facilitating interaction and engagement, we might see new opportunities to make an even stronger community. • 47

FROM HIVE MIND TO OPEN MIND A

fter a series of unfortunate train delays, I rushed into my first-period History class fifteen minutes late. Though tardy, I was excited and confident that I had useful insights to share about our previous night’s reading. Instead, I was surprised to walk into a heated dispute amongst my classmates. The argument seemed tangential: whether we should place higher value on emotion-filled personal stories or statistics to deepen our understanding of those unlike ourselves. Not being present for the development of this “heador-heart” clash, the heat it was generating seemed odd, as it was obvious to me that the class agreed that both provided different yet valuable insights to give us a fuller and clearer picture. It was peculiar to watch students become so vehemently divided over the issue, so passionate to get their points across, and so angry at each other for expressing opposite views. I had walked into a full-fledged squabble, with students clamoring to be heard. The frustration on people’s faces made the room more tense, as if common ground couldn’t be reached. With that feeling filling the room, I kept my mouth shut. The argument was counterproductive to the day’s planned curriculum, but I learned more during that discussion than I do most; it highlighted much larger issues that I see as having the potential to impede students’ educations, and inhibit our capability to think and speak freely. After class, I thought about why I decided not to speak during the discussion. I realized it was fear–plain and simple. Given the visceral reactions on display, I was afraid of expressing an unpopular opinion. 48

B Y E T H A N L E V Y

One of my classmates, junior Graham Hirsch, was defending the less popular point of view, and was mocked after he voiced his opinion. “I was laughed at,” he said, “and it did two things. It made me not want to contribute to the discussion anymore, and not want to give other people the respect that they deserve. It made me defensive, and less likely to accept anyone else’s views because they weren’t accepting mine. I could feel myself becoming less open-minded the more people continued to attack me.” Avenues has strong core values that help strengthen our community: “welcome, safety, and respect.” However, are diverse viewpoints truly welcomed and respected in a safe environment? If a discussion in History class devolves into an impassioned feud that spawns dismissiveness and resentment among classmates, there is something dysfunctional going on, and it relates not just to one small progressive school in New York, but to the state of our country and the world. This tendency toward polarization is easily observed in American and global politics. We live in a digital age, where information, advertisements and propaganda are tailored to each individual’s existing biases, often inciting people to be overly emotional about a particular topic and vilify opposing perspectives. Not only is this drawing a thicker line between the two dominant political parties, but between the people who identify with those differences in increasingly unforgiving ways. The more I research and try to formulate my own political beliefs, the clearer it becomes that politics isn’t a dichotomy – it’s a spectrum full of nuance and gray areas. There will

always be multiple sides to every issue, and accepting that is essential to begin any discussion. From my experience, Avenues teachers have been influential in helping students understand the importance of respecting and rationally responding to everyone’s beliefs and ideologies. Yet the prevalent dogma of “political correctness” – defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “avoiding language or behavior that any particular group of people might feel is unkind or offensive”– instills fear that threatens to limit truly free expression. Even though I agree with the PC intention in many ways, by its own definition it equates an individual’s speech to what others might perceive it to be, tilting the power in a debate towards the listener and not the speaker. Free speech is the mechanism that we use every day to process ideas from others through productive discussion. It is a freedom that keeps our country’s societal structure in place, and grants people of any background the right to say what is on their mind. Historically, free speech has exposed corruption within our nation, and brought people together to induce necessary change. However, in a 21st-century America afflicted with polarization, free speech – and the necessary respect it gives to opposing viewpoints – is increasingly under siege. We are told free speech shouldn’t be hate-speech, and we all agree to hate hate-speech. Simultaneously, I often hear the interpretation that the First Amendment is, somewhere in its core, a defense of people to exercise hate-speech. Hate speech is on the rise with the election of a president who instigates the alt-right to feel safer in expressing their

hatred. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent civil rights organization, after a 15% decrease in the amount of hate groups from 2008 to 2014, the number has since risen again upwards of 21%. So hate speech certainly does merit more focused attention. However, an increased fear of free speech being labeled “hate-speech” – the mere possibility of being defined and dismissed as someone who holds “hatred,” – has created a quiet form of censorship, often self-inflicted, regarding what is correct or incorrect to say. A disagreement on politics or belief systems can suddenly become equated to a personal attack on someone’s individual identity, warranting visceral and emotional reactions. This is a false equivalency that is, in its nature, even more polarizing. It’s a tough nut to crack. It appears natural that the majority of issues that separate us originate with moral passion. Yet, that passion needs to somehow contain both head and heart in order to remain morally defensible. In the packing list for my upcoming Global Journeys trip to China, below the specs for hiking shoes and drip-dry shirts, there’s a reminder that “the most important thing to pack is an OPEN MIND.” If that is a prerequisite for visiting a vast foreign land on the opposite side of the world, then it should certainly apply to our school, one of many on this island. I hope that, as individuals, we can come to see each other in a more nuanced way – as “liberal” without being smug and elitist, and as “conservative” without being fascist. And that the admirable habit of keeping an open mind can occasionally mean testing our own most ardent beliefs. • 49

Art by Olivia Miller

GAME ON

t’s mid-November, around 3pm. The 9th floor is bustling with students and multiple phones are out, all lit up with the face of wide-eyed Scott Rogowsky. Before the trivia game show goes live, senior Lukas Mack shouts out “HQ!” and almost every student in the vicinity habitually whips out their phones to begin playing. After sitting through a 2 minute countdown to elevator music, the host, Scott, rambles on and on in a desperate effort to wait for a larger number of players, and the echo of his energized voice can be heard throughout the 9th floor. The free trivia app, which was released in August 2017, has attracted an average of 1 million players each game, all competing for cash prizes ranging from $1,500 on an average Tuesday, to $12,000 on Christmas Day and $18,000 on New Years eve. Ever since early October, Avenues students have been gathering daily to play together with the hope of winning money. Sophomore Penelope Thornton said she feels like the game has a large influence on the student body, and 50

By Anna Bloch

when people play they’re almost held captive. Mr. Jonathan Wang, Avenues faculty member, said, “There are some people whose bodies are almost set to HQ time…” Questions on HQ range from: “Who wrote the most #1 hit singles after Paul McCartney and Lennon?” to “What city was never a capital of the Persian empire?” The game aims to engage multiple generations, however, many Avenues faculty members have never heard of the game, let alone played it. Ms. Jenna Ray, 9th and 10th grade Humanities teacher, said that she had never heard of the app; five other teachers sitting near her agreed. Junior Isabella Green said, “I think part of the reason so much of the student body plays is because people really do enjoy feeling like they’re a part of something bigger, and the fact that it’s live adds to that feeling.” Green also said that she isn’t surprised at the popularity of game, “Everyone likes free money, and HQ feeds into that.” Another bonus is that the app is free, a fact that Av-

“There

are some people whose bodies are almost set to HQ time

”

- Jonathan Wang

enues faculty members, Mr. David Felsen and Mr. Austin Mixsell, were surprised by. Sophomore Andres Murillo won $6.37 in HQ Trivia in November, split with 215 other people. He was in the 9th floor commons with seven other Avenues students by his side. The question he won on asked, “What was so special about the ‘Reef Blower’ episode on Spongebob?” and he nervously took a guess, “There was no audio.” However, he could not collect the money because at the time the game had a policy that didn’t allow winners to collect their winnings if the amount was less than $20. He was nonetheless happy about winning.” Some members of the community are less confident about HQ’s power to bring people together. Junior Mickey Carton wonders if these short interactions throughout the duration of the game are authentic, and questions how we can actually build community without relying on an app. “People are more or less trying to win as a team, but it makes me think about why it takes an app for us to come together in that way,” she said. Administrators at Avenues talk a lot about a connected culture, and programs like Peer Leadership have been put in place as an effort to create a sense of community. People gravitate towards each other based on common interests, and they tend to stay in those groups. Like many others, Carton believes that the place we gather each day for the next four years of our life should be a place where we feel a strong sense of community and are surrounded by supportive people. HQ Trivia has shown us that we can come together with a shared goal, even if it is something as mundane as answering questions about the sound that a cow makes. Green thinks that “shared goals are important to maintain a sense of unity,” and believes that “something that we all can agree on is that we want high school to be an enjoyable experience.” The idea that a simple app can bring us together, across friend groups and grades—even just for fifteen minutes—shows us that maybe there is something the school community can learn from this. There are many reasons so many students are attracted to this app, and that is something to pay attention to. Whether you play for money and money only, or as a fun routine activity with the rest of your school, HQ has had an immense impact on Avenues. There will always be difficulty building community. It is something that all schools struggle with, no matter how old or young they are. As we try to build a community, a live trivia game show might be a small, unexpected step in the right direction. It is up to us to take it from there. • 51

what lies belo w by d ylan

vacc a

tanding on either corner of 26th and 25th and 10th avenue, the colossal beige colored building, with its signature American flag waving in the wind, towers over the street. Since its inception, the Avenues facilities have been revered for their stylish and modern design with its repurposed garage doors opening up onto the Highline and it’s almost all white interior. Due to mass press coverage, widespread advertisements, and dozens of tours being conducted each day, people have become well acquainted with the impressive facilities. But what lies below the building that makes it run so smoothly? When students were asked this same question they responded with intrigue. Some students said the expected; boxes, storage, and cleaning supplies. Other students thought only the worst could lie in the dungeon below such as, all the former teachers and students who have left Avenues, boxes filled with confiscated spinners, and the mysterious administration’s HQ. Yet what’s really in the basement is far less ominous and is rather vital to the school’s upkeep. Accessible by three separate entrance ways, the basement is mainly divided into two separate sections: food facilities and maintenance facilities. The entranceway, primarily used for non food related activities, is located on the last level of stairway A, though it’s guarded by a security system fit for a James Bond villain. Walking through this entrance is a hallway that divides the food from the maintenance facilities leading to the director’s offices. This space during the day is filled with 26 full time employees hired from FLIK as well as four Avenues staff members, including one full time “Avenues Engineer.” Mike Bannon the Avenues Engineer is in charge of monitoring all the heat and water pressure for the building. This is all done through the boiler room containing two black steam engine-like boilers, and mass amounts of red, orange, and yellow piping running throughout the room in every direction. On any particular day, the boiler room area feels like a sauna with its temperatures running at an average of around 85 degrees. However, even with such high levels of

heat going through the boilers, the building never feels adequately heated. Either rooms are overly hot or overly cold. This is due to the two pipe heating system. In addition to the boiler room and the adjacent engineering’s office, there are two locker rooms where faculty uniforms are stored, and even a conference room for meetings and an afternoon coffee jolt. Another vital member to this space is Keith Waskowitz. Mr. Waskowitz is the Senior Food Service Director. Without him there would be a lot of unhappy students. In his own words he stated, “[My job is] essentially making sure everything just gets done. I really oversee all of the off the scene facilities ranging from the store cafe to all the ELC up until the 12th grade, and obviously all of the snack and lunch programs here including the catered events.” Moving through the cold metal black doors, the hustle and bustle of the kitchen made the room feel like a blur. The kitchen area is systematically broken down into three sections with three distinct types of jobs. The first area that is visible from the entrance way of the door is all the food storage. Making up around a little more than half of the total kitchen space, the storage facilities are comprised of dry storage, a freezer, and a cooler. The next section of the kitchen is the cleaning area. This section has two small sinks and a commercial-grade dishwasher that despite its functionality, it looks identical to an airport baggage scanner. The final section of the kitchen is where all of the food is prepared. Mr. Waskowitz pointing to the far end of the room, where several cooks dressed in chef ’s attire are hard at work preparing the daily grub. What lies below Avenues isn’t the treacherous place that students thought it to be, rather, it is a well-devised space performing the behind the scenes magic that makes the building run so smoothly. In the words of Mr. Waskowitz, “there is a brand that Avenues associates itself with, which is that of high-quality education. And the basement seeks to ensure it. •

From Wall Street to Bitcoin and Back Again By Eva Hwang

itcoin first emerged in the marketplace in 2009, utilizing blockchain technology developed the prior year by alias technician Satoshi Nakamoto. This system solved the problem presented by earlier forms of cryptocurrency of double spending, where digital currency could be copied and spent twice, by verifying sets of transactions in the form of “blocks” every 10 minutes and adding them onto a universal ledger (called blockchain). Its presence and value have since grown to reach popular culture and experience a meteoric rise over the past few years. By 2017, Avenues freshman Alexander Solton approached the podium at assembly to share his own surprise in how his small, forgotten Bitcoin investment had gained major value over the course of a few years. At the same assembly, senior and avid stock investor Lukas Mack publicly denounced Bitcoin, warning the high schoolers about the dangers of such investments. “It’s not really directly related, but I always like to think that it has some relationship with a Ponzi scheme,” said Mack in a later interview. “Where I do see a problem is that it’s inflating the value of something that, to some degree, is not really pegged to anything. For example, people still say that it maintains value because it has some relationship with the dollar, but if any government chose to outlaw Bitcoin or 54

these other third party cryptocurrencies, their value could really drop. Investors are basically inflating the price by saying, ‘Get in, get in, get in,’ but a lot of people who don’t understand that it’s so inflated and has no real value at this juncture are going to get burned at some point.” Despite its problems, the emergence of modern cryptocurrency technology in Bitcoin has undoubtedly broken into mainstream media. The media is flooded with articles predicting its downfall, calculating past interest rates, and taunting those who refuse to take advantage of this modern method to fast cash. In 2014, rapper 50 Cent decided to accept payment for his album via Bitcoin, only to discover just 3 years later that he’d accumulated a small fortune from a forgotten investment. But these tempting stories of miraculous millions are not as common as publicized. “I don’t know if forgetting about your investment is so smart, and this shouldn’t be a sign like, ‘Oh, I should invest in something.’ It’s more anecdotal,” junior Oren Schweitzer said. “I think that those Bitcoin cases are extremely rare and just have to do with the recent meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies, but that’s not indicative of how the stock market generally works.” In fact, many Avenues students seem unfazed by this brand name and are wary of trendy investments. “Most people are like, ‘I think it’s going to go up,’ when they have no

idea what the company is, but I think it’s really important that you invest in companies that you like and are knowledgeable about.” said sophomore Hugo Law-Gisiko. “You always have to look at the earnings reports, to see how their revenue and their profits are doing, check the news, and their reputation.” Beyond the growing industry of cryptocurrency, some students at Avenues do believe that “one and done” investments can be valuable. “I’ve heard of this study about how the best investment strategy is to put your money into the S&P 500 index and then just never look at it again. I think that’s very fiscally responsible because you know for a fact that it will go up consistently,” said Schweitzer. However, students will more often than not try their hand at engaging in the industry, rather than letting their investments sit untouched. “I think, for me in some ways, it’s not necessarily a game, but I like the idea of beating out the market because there’s some sort of sense of accomplishment in that.” This allure of stock investment is sometimes compared to casino gambling. “The comparison is problematic because, on one hand, you're purchasing a small piece of a company that ostensibly wants to succeed and remain valuable. On the other hand, you're buying into games that are purposely designed to help you part ways with your money,” psychology teacher Mr. Michael Yarbrough said. “One way in which they can be similar, though, is in how both people -- the investor and the gambler -- are rewarded.” Student stock investment at Avenues is a rather unique sport, not only due to the small pool of investors, but also their close relationship to the industry. For sophomore Rachel Hymes, interest in finance has always been second nature. “I’ve always been really interested in the finance industry only because my parents are in the finance industry,” Hymes said. “I think it’s the inevitable path I’m bound on even though I try to do other things. Even when I was really little, I was handling the finances of my lemonade stand.” For some students, stock investment has remained a casual pastime.“I personally consider it a hobby, but I think that’s a kind of a privileged thing to say, especially when returns are pretty great, and to other people it’s not really a hobby. I don’t want to go into the financial industry, I don’t want to necessarily work on Wall Street, but I enjoy the fact that I can have control over my own money, teach myself about economics, and learn how to survive in the real world,” said Schweitzer. For other students, this passion has developed from a hobby into a career platform. Mack said that he checks his stocks “probably 5-10 times a day. I’m usually just checking my portfolios, I’ll be reading the news to see how my stocks and portfolio are doing. Most of the conversations between my Dad and I are based around stocks, so I’ll talk to him about questions I have.” Mack continued, “I’m basically just doing this all the time.” Thinking about finance and engaging in the stock market, however, does not typically come at such a young age.

“I think we go to a school where many of the students here come from Wall Street families,” junior Anna Polo said. “When kids are exposed to and have money, it’s easier to put money on the line because you have more to support yourself--it’s not going to make or break you. But in a lowincome family where that idea isn’t as common, people have to be more careful with the choices they make and investing might not be a safe option.” Despite students’ interest in stock investment based on close family connections, cultural habits and ingrained gender expectations still find their way into other aspects of stock investment as well. The activity relies to a large extent on the understanding and manipulation of data. At each juncture where students have autonomy to determine their own curriculum, however, women seem to be opting out of the more math-oriented options. Sophomores, for instance, have increasing jurisdiction over their courses and are able to become members of clubs. In evaluating her clubs, though, Hymes said, “Of all of my clubs, I’m the only girl or there’s one other girl. I’m not really sure why that is, but in general, my friends who are girls aren’t really interested in clubs or investing because they might not think it’s important.” Polo experienced the same disparity in gender entering her junior year, where students can select two of their electives. “In my statistics class, which I guess is the class that would be most associated with examining numbers, I’m the only girl in my grade and there are three girls in total in the class. I think it’s difficult because as early as the opportunity is given, women aren’t necessarily seen in the classes.” “I think that some occupations are gendered and I wonder if that also seeps down into whether hobbies are gendered as well.” said statistics teacher Ms. Isil Celimli on the potential gender disparity between young women and men in stocks. “If that is the case, I’d find that really sad because I don’t think that any occupation should necessarily by nature be gendered, or any hobby.” On evaluating the role of gender within the adult workplace, psychology teacher Mr. Michael Yarbrough said: “Traditionally, women have either been excluded from the workplace altogether or have not had complete agency over money they earn through the work they get.” He continued, “As a result, a lot of the institutional knowledge has been kept from women and, as someone who largely had to learn about investing on my own as well, it can be a very intimidating system to navigate without help.” Nonetheless, prospective student investors should be wary of this ingrained phenomenon as they endeavor to pursue stock investment, both casually and professionally. With modern cryptocurrencies emerging as an innovative yet unreliable front, there also exists the potential for a new wave of young investors. As the next generation, learning the traditional ropes both independently and through familial connections, Avenues students should continue their headstrong approach to stock investment, but be more intentional about spreading their knowledge to a diverse audience and encouraging their peers to engage in this exclusive culture. • 55

MAYBE IT’S ALWAYS BY GRACE FRANCO

TOO LATE

line of students trail out of the cafe during the regular Upper Division lunch period. At the front of the line, students tap their feet and continuously glance at the clock while awaiting their usual order. But there wasn’t a usual order– it wasn’t a usual day. Over the weekend, the familiar face behind the counter who knew almost every student’s “usual” had departed. Anthony Bartolomey had been working for Avenues for about one year before deciding to pursue a career as a nurse. Despite his short tenure, his impact will not be forgotten. Freshman Grace Malley said, “Anthony would always remember my order. He was just such a sweet person. It was always nice to begin your morning with that kind of encounter… I’m really sad that he’s gone.” For a school that has only been operating for six years, Avenues has seen many come and go through a seemingly revolving door. From staff to teachers to students, there are few still points in Avenues’ changing environment. Perhaps the relatively small size of the community makes the loss of even one member more intensely felt. But when that one person was someone who simply chose to remember your name and offer you a warm beverage with a smile each morning, it’s worthwhile to reflect on how such small acts of kindness really do have an impact. There is a ripple effect. Ms. Celimli, a statistics teacher, said, “It just feels so weird that all these people you see so often because they are a part of your daily routine suddenly disappear. It feels a

little unsettling to have that kind of change.” Unsettling change is something students at Avenues have become almost immune to. Whether it is shifts in buildings, schedules, or start times, Avenues students have become quite adaptable. However, the ‘disappearance’ of a person is something that even the most resilient may not be prepared for. Students were “shocked,” “saddened,” and “dismayed” over Anthony’s departure. But, perhaps more important to them was the fact that that he didn’t say goodbye. However, with constant moving and transitions, the need for a goodbye seems almost diminished. Ms. Shim, an english teacher, said, “In my experience, the meaning of saying goodbye has diminished a bit because I know I am going to keep in touch with some of them. I think that’s true for a lot of people these days because we move around so much. I think saying goodbye can take different forms too: it could be a formal goodbye or something that happens more naturally over time.” Anthony took the time to get to know every student he encountered, yet rarely did anyone take the time to get to know him. In this day and age, we may not allow ourselves to be open to these encounters. Perhaps we are too distracted in the moment to see our mornings in the cafe as more than transactional. When life moves so quickly and our relationships become more transient, it is easier to keep the distance. Ms. Celimli said, “Knowing that that person may not be there tomorrow, I think we probably try and protect our-

selves by not getting closer to people because then if that person goes away, you won’t lose that kind of friendship. I think it changes the way we relate to people.” It is inevitable to not feel some sort of guilt or regret over what could have been said or done before it is too late. Ms. Shim described a time at her old school when she became close with one of the maintenance ladies, but then lost touch with her when she moved to a new side of the building. By the time she went to check to see where, Ms. Shim realized she had left the school. Ms. Shim said, “It made me think I should have kept in touch with her. It made me feel a little bit guilty.” Ms. Celimli told a similar story about a lady who was an attendant at her local laundromat as a graduate student, who would be there everyday. Ms. Celemli moved away, but she later found herself walking past the same laundromat and found a flyer posted

Photo by Elizabeth Acevedo

on the door captioned ‘In Loving Memory’ with a photo of the woman. Ms. Celimli said, “it just made me feel so guilty. I should have come back and said hello.” Unfortunately, people do not realize this regret or guilt for what could have been until it is too late. Ms. Shim said, “Maybe we don’t have enough time. It’s almost like it is always too late. Like when we remember someone, or remember to do something with someone, it’s already passed. I feel like that’s something a lot of people can agree with.” But before it’s too late, before someone else decides to exit through the revolving door, we can collectively resolve to be open, to be kind, and to be in the moment. Then, we can begin to better appreciate all those around us. We will look up into their faces, not down into our phones. At least it’s never too late to try. •

By Anna Bloch 58

The Biography and Philosophy of Mr. Wiese

FRACTIONS TO FOOTWORK 59

itting in a corner classroom in 515 West 26th street, eight juniors fidget in their seats just five minutes into their HIP Math class, when a chatty junior asks, “Mr. Wiese, what’s your dream job? If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?” Other students laugh, because they know what this is: a common tactic used to try to distract the teacher from actually teaching class. But this question is genuine and answered with sincerity. HIP Math teacher, Mr. Caleb Wiese, smiles and pauses before he slowly responds, choosing his words carefully. The students in the room eagerly await his answer. “Well, HIP is the perfect combination of everything I love, so it’s probably the closest thing I’ll get to my dream job,” he says enthusiastically. Before Mr. Wiese saw a job opening for a “HIP Thinking through Math,” teacher at Avenues, he was teaching math at the college level, tutoring, and consulting. Before that, he studied number theory at CUNY. As a kid, he was not always top in his math class; he was quiet, and uninterested in the typical things that were happening around him. He described himself as, “pretty nerdy, as you might predict. I just stuck to myself and my group of friends. Just because, that’s what you do, right?” Mr. Wiese believes that figuring out what you love and what gives you passion is an extremely important part of life, and the best time to do that is in high school. Passion is what drives him, and he has never been entirely sold on the mindset of taking a job just to make money. He says, “I find that kind of boring. All the people I’m interested in are people who are willing to be the starving artist and take risks to do what they’re interested in.” Mr. Caleb Wiese earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida in Mathematics and Physics. He described himself as “directionless” in terms of what type of math he enjoyed the most. He thinks of himself of a curious person– somebody who is always open to new ideas and ready for a challenge. Before he found out what HIP was, or that Avenues even existed, he used to tell his wife of two years, “Everything that everyone enjoys is because of learning. If you’re learning new things, then that means you’re having a good time. For example, if you’re experiencing a good dance, it’s because you’re experiencing it as a way of learning more about your environment, your situation, and your emotions.” He says that he hasn’t found a counterexample to this philosophy: the reason that we enjoy things is because they enrich our minds. He says, “When you do something you enjoy, you’re growing your mind and you’re learning about yourself through what you’re doing - whether it be writing, music, whatever. There

is learning involved in it. The manifestation of that in teaching… is HIP. Giving you the tools to be a good learner.” Wiese says that HIP might not necessarily be his “dream job,” but it is the best realization of it that he has seen in the opportunities he’s looked at. While he loves teaching, the role of the “regular old math teacher” isn’t really his thing, but he loves the free-form environment of HIP classrooms. Mr. Wiese says that the HIP elements (empathy, planning, abstraction, mental agility, metacognition, creativity, and critical thinking) are the things that he uses in life the most, and what he enjoys the most. HIP is an ideal culmination of his passions, and he hopes HIP will create interesting, curious, innovative thinkers. One of the many things that sets HIP apart from other classes at Avenues is the no grading policy. Mr. Wiese is in favor of this thinking. He says, “As long as you’re being evaluated in a way that expresses your creative ideas and allows you to make mistakes while learning from them, that’s great, and I feel like grades don’t always allow either of those.” The way that Wiese conducts his classes also reflects this mindset. He encourages constructive, honest feedback in the form of an exit ticket, which usually ask students what value they got out of the lesson, and what skills they used. Hamilton Gruber, a junior, said, “The first day I saw Mr. Wiese... I didn’t really know what to think. I could tell he was extremely passionate right off the bat. I, along with my peers, can tend to get pretty distracted during class, and just uninterested. He does a good job of getting us on track. I truly admire his patience dealing with a bunch of high schoolers.” Mr. Wiese believes that high school and college are the only places where people can really take time to discover who they are and the things they’re interested in. He thinks high schoolers should really take advantage of that by exposing themselves to different things, and take the opportunity to become well rounded people. He did this himself at the University of Central Florida, when he joined the swing dancing club about two years into his time there. He says, “I realized it was really fun. I enjoyed learning about it, having experiences from it, and meeting new people. I was always hanging out with the math and physics people, and it’s a very different crowd.” Whether it be math or swing dancing, Mr. Caleb Wiese applies his love for curiosity and creativity into every corner of his life. His philosophy on the importance of finding yourself is what has led him to become the curious, open minded, well rounded person that he is today, and he hopes that HIP Math can help do the same for us. •

Mr. Wiese

“Everything that everyone enjoys is because of learning. If you’re learning new things, then that means you’re having a good time.”

September in an October Cafe By Elizabeth Acevedo

n Thursday October, 26th at approximately 11:15 am, the entire cafe burst into spontaneous song. For days following the event, students were abuzz about the transformative experience. Music is often played in the cafe during lunch breaks, but there was something different about this day. Tense, isolated high schoolers abandoned their tight tables and joined together to chorus 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and early 2000s classics. With the college application deadline a mere six days away for seniors, and ACT and SAT tutoring having just recently initiated for juniors, most students believe brimming stress to be the most likely impetus for the cafe catharsis. “It was just a regular old lunch period,” said Anthony Bartolomey, a well known and beloved cafe worker. “[It was] crowded, kids everywhere. A little music bumpin’.” But soon the scene escalated as student Max Harris, the orchestrator of it all, incrementally raised his speaker’s volume. “Normally, I like to listen to music during lunch, but on that Thursday, I couldn’t find my headphones,” he said. “I figured I 62

could use my speaker quietly instead.” Even at a low volume, though, the classic beat of the Bee Gees was too compelling for nearby friends not to hum along. As song after song played on - September by Earth Wind and Fire, Valerie by Amy Winehouse, My Girl by The Temptations – students all around began to chime in singing. “The next thing I knew, the entire cafe was in chorus together.” Before the event, students were, as usual, situated at their own tiny tables, secluded and not interacting, but once joined in song, they came together as one. Chitchat of test scores, acceptance rates, and term grades fell to the collective belting of old hits. “It was like a big family,” said Harris, “I remember stepping out for a moment and then coming back to see everyone so happy and united. It was such a feel-good moment.” According to Mr. Michael Yarbrough, teacher of a junior-senior psychology class, singing the same song can function as an outward expression of a group’s similarity and togetherness: “You might be a part of different cliques or conform to different high school stereo-

Photo by Isabel Mudannayake

types, but when you’re in the cafe and a certain song senior seminar class called “Rock, Rap, Revival,” often comes on that you all know, similarities and shared plays music at the beginning of his morning classes. likes begin to emerge,” he said. Collectively singing “At 8:30 AM after long nights of work, I find it helps Stayin’ Alive in between bites of baked potato, then, the students face the day with more ease,” he said. Like could have been an expression of the sentiment that many, he believes music can function as an escape from everyone was in the same thing together that day. the worlds around us causing stress. But the event’s effects expanded even beyond that Along with Mr. Misler and several others, Ms. lunch period. Students’ Macarena Teixeira, a moods remained bright- “The next thing I knew, the entire Spanish teacher who can ened and calmed for the often be spotted singing cafe was in chorus together” rest of the day: “Going alongside other students - 12th Grader, Max Harris back to class after singin lunchtime and asseming, I felt more at ease bly performances, beand less stressed out,” said senior Mercer Pipa. “Music lieves music could be used as a tool to unite the Avecan do that for me - can present a perfect outlet of nues high school community and lift their spirits. “The release when I’m very anxious.” And junior Blake Eagrades are too divided and unengaged,” she said, “but gan expressed a similar response: “I had been feeling if more music was incorporated into the curriculum, so preoccupied about starting ACT tutoring, but after I think things could change.” And maybe she’s right; that lunch period I felt a little more present and a little maybe all we need to solve that ever-present high less worried.” school dilemma we keep writing about - social partiFor this very reason, Mr. Ryan Misler, teacher of a tions and insatiable stress - is just a little more music. • 63

OP-EDS

THE MINDSET OF SUCCESS What does it mean to get good grades at Avenues? BY SAM BOYCE

uppose the following scenario: At the beginning of the year, Student 1 writes a well-structured, well-evidenced paper and receives an A. For the same assignment, Student 2 writes a disorganized paper in need of more evidence and receives a B. Later in the year, however, Student 1 and Student 2 write equally-strong papers for a second project but receive different grades: Student 1, being scaled against his own A paper from earlier in the year, receives a B for producing the same level of work as the first project and for showing no improvement. On the other hand, Student 2 receives an A for his vast progress compared to his original mediocre paper. Despite the fact that Student 1 has produced a higher level of work between the two projects, his final grade will be equal or lower than Student 2’s grade. How is this allowed to happen? Before writing this article, this is how I used to think about the grading system: An arbitrary construct engineered to favor those students who have a slow start to the year but vastly improve by the end of the year, while penalizing those who push themselves year-round for a lack of growth. After further investigation, however, I realized that the problem, in fact, is not the grading system: It’s our understanding of it. In order to truly understand the Avenues grading system, one must first understand the meaning of the B. Whether it’s called a B, an 85%, or a Meeting Expectations (ME), it can seem like a disappointing result for many students and families—an “almost there” or a “not quite good enough.” But the reality is that a B at Avenues is not necessarily the 64

same as a B at other more traditional schools. A B, in fact, simply means that a student is doing everything required of them, and as Ms. Amy Young, the director of deans and college counseling at Avenues, explains, a student should be proud to receive one. But what distinguishes A work from B work is the ability of the student to be exceptional and to surprise their teachers in new and interesting ways; “A B is simply not going beyond,” says Ms. Young. Of course, it’s difficult to exceed expectations for every class consistently, so it makes sense that most Avenues students don’t receive As all the time. Somewhere in the development and refinement of our grading system, however, our language surrounding it has inexplicably lagged behind, and thus has the ability to communicate how grading works to parents and students. As Ms. Julia Chun, the head of the Upper School, says, “The school needs to do a better job of articulating the system.” This article hopes to start that conversation. Grading differs depending on the subject. On the humanities side, English and history teachers have different ways of evaluating learning and growth than in the science and math departments, as should be the case, for students cannot be expected to perform universally across different disciplines and subject matters. As I learned through my research for this article, all academic divisions at Avenues share one common goal: to help students learn in the best way possible. And they are living up to this goal. In the humanities department, the main challenge in evaluating students is trying to find a balance between stan-

dard-based and abstract analysis. When assessing an assignment, English teachers like Ms. Karin Shim, who teaches 11th and 12th grade English, try to navigate a middle ground between standard expectations across the class and soft skills that are individual to each student. Part of defining this larger classwide view means clearly outlining the expectations for each assignment, and this is done through rubrics. Not only do rubrics explicitly identify what is required of the student, but they take different forms for each type of writing (analytical, personal, etc.). In addition, teachers try to be fair when tracking student growth over time, measuring general trends instead of simply punching in numbers. The process is comprehensive and time-consuming as teachers fill out rubrics for each student while considering other elements such as the uniqueness of a student’s writing. Say, for instance, that one student has decided to challenge herself with an interesting and original take on the assignment, despite the fact that her writing contains some grammatical and structural errors. English teachers will take a holistic standpoint, looking past these relatively small and insignificant mistakes and instead focusing on the student’s effort to address a unique and complex topic. While it is difficult to give objective feedback, according to 9th and 10th grade English teacher Mr. Dominiqe Bird, grading is a constant work-in-progress. The grading system is also not fixed, but fluid, says Ms. Shim: “We are constantly trying to assess the student based on our changing world.” In other words, the standards and metrics used for grading are constantly adapting to prepare students for a constantly-evolving society. A similar method of assessment can be observed in the science department, where standard-based grading takes a more prevalent role. According to Ms. Michelle Muldowney, an upper division science teacher, the Exceeding Expectations (EE) through Does Not Meet Expectations (DME) scale “is more of a general way to describe how a student is doing.” These standards are not a linear equation: Grades are never arrived at by simply averaging groups of numbers. Rather, teachers take into account a number of factors—like test scores, writing skills, and notebook detail—as well as more abstract ones—like participation, collaboration, and the ability to genuinely surprise the teacher by going above and beyond what is required—when evaluating a student. And, as the year progresses and students learn, the bar rises on an individual scale to ensure that students continue to grow. The most important thing for teachers to observe, affirms Ms. Muldowney, is not for students to be scoring high on tests, but to be a) developing their fundamental skills, such as using models and synthesizing information, and b) responding well to personalized feedback. This feedback, though often overlooked in favor of the attached grades, is a crucial component to the grading system, providing students with the tools they need to improve moving forward. So, if anecdotes are the most important part of our transcript, why do we have grades at all? It’s a question that arises commonly in the upper school, and two common responses typically arise when it’s asked: One, we’re not established

enough as other institutions like Saint Ann’s, which have forsaken grades entirely for written feedback, or two, colleges still need an easy way to digest and compare students’ applications. These answers never seem satisfactory, and it turns out there’s a better answer. According to Ms. Young, who has worked extensively on both sides of the college admission process, a solely anecdotal-based assessment system can actually be detrimental to an application. During the admission process, the average time spent reading an application is only seven to ten minutes (“You would be lucky to get seven,” says Ms. Young). Those few minutes are valuable, and forcing admissions workers to read through dozens of anecdotes just to learn about a student’s academic performance detracts from the time they spend on more important components of the application, like the essay, recommendations, and extracurriculars, which better help them to get to know the student. Because having some teacher anecdotes is important, however, Avenues compiles a “highlight reel”— as Ms. Young calls it—for each student consisting of positive comments collected from report cards throughout their entire high school career. In addition, colleges are provided with a packet that outlines how the grading system works at Avenues, and colleges are known to be conscientious about assessing the academic performance of a student not only based in the context of their school’s particular grading system, but also in the context of the rest of the student body. (For instance, if in a particular school only 15% of students get A’s in every class, an A is an impressive figure. But if 80% of the student body has straight A’s, an A suddenly becomes much less significant.) Because of all of these elements, Ms. Young reports, colleges have a history—albeit a relatively short one—of understanding Avenues students very well. So, why grades? Because they are a universally-understood shorthand of assessing student performance. When paired with teacher anecdotes, they create a fairly accurate and personalized characterization of each student, and having this traditional letter-based grading system allows colleges to spend more time on the important parts of student applications: the essay, recommendations, and EC sheet. The reality is that many Avenues students are striving for the best grades and gunning for the top colleges. It’s great to have these long term goals. But it’s also important to step back once in a while and realize that, though it might sound counterintuitive, academic success is not really about grades: It’s about mindset. Avenues supports an attitude of personal growth through its holistic grading system, which is available to all who are willing to embrace it. While having higher grades can make a student more competitive, the reality is that colleges care less about copy-paste straight-A students and are instead more likely to seek well-rounded applicants. They want risk-takers, they want those of strong will and character, they want curious students who pursue genuine interest, who produce exceptional work, who push past the goalposts set for them. Once students are focused on learning and growing not only academically, but as people, I can assure them: The grades will follow. • 65

G R O W I N G P A I N S

By Isabel Mudannayake

Photo by Matt Thaxton

his past winter, Avenues opened its new campus at 536 West 26th Street, just a short walk down the street from the main building. The new building is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and technology, such as sliding glass garage doors between classrooms, a cabinet full of soldering irons, a teaching kitchen for the Early Learning Center students, and even printed (smooth) braille. That’s right, braille that is printed onto paper and laminated — completely defeating the purpose of braille, since it is devoid of texture. Although the idea behind putting braille in the building is very inclusive and open, this would only be effective if the braille were actually able to be of use, which it is clearly not. It looks very chic and impressive, as though it is embodying the Avenues World Elements of metacognition and empathy and including a diverse crowd of visitors to the building, but upon further thought it is actually flawed and impractical — somewhat emblematic of the new building itself, it seems, as of now. There is no denying that the building is outwardly impressive, and Avenues has made it clear to students that they went through deliberate efforts to make it not reassemble a school — claiming that this is wonderful, because the rooms look more like “actual science labs and art studios” than classrooms. This was proudly announced to the students during the orientation subsequent to the building’s opening before we took our first tour of the facility. Upon walking into the building, it can be seen that it really does not look like a school, to such an extent that it is actually very impractical: there are some unrealistically strict rules, no common spaces, no lockers and several other flaws. The building, although beautiful, has a very cold and sterile feel to it. This makes it extremely difficult to create a sense of community and inclusion. There is little evidence of school spirit, or even that there are students in the building at all, other than some carefully-selected student art neatly displayed on the walls. Also, as if New York City is not colorless enough, practically everything on the fifth floor follows Avenues’ classic black, white and grey color scheme and stone-grey tiles line the classroom walls. “You walk in and it’s just white, grey and cold — no warm feeling,” says sophomore Asta Farrell about the building. On the other hand, another sophomore, Andres Murillo, says he was initially attracted by all of the “technological aspects” of Avenues and the fact that it was “more modern and computer-based than other schools,” something that especially appealed to him. In an increasingly digital age, more and more prospective-parents and students are looking for a school with more technology, that teaches its students to become comfortable with the digital world. Being an Apple

Distinguished school, one of the selling-points of Avenues is its impressive technology. Upon walking into the 259 campus for the first time, prospective-students and parents come to the building and are awed by the television screens, the “smart wall” on the second floor and the iPad-controlled elevators. The new building, with its glass-walled classrooms and slick design, includes many aesthetically-pleasing elements and technology, catering directly to the quintessential, affluent, Chelsea crowd that Avenues strives to appeal to more and more. But if this is so, how inclusive a community can Avenues really be? Since it opened, Avenues has been striving to attract a diverse, international crowd, but this building is a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who is not within the one-percent, as was shown in the film Class Divide. Although many parents will be impressed by the facility, it could also make others uncomfortable if they do not feel like they belong in such a sophisticated, affluent atmosphere and end up doing just as much repelling as it does attracting. When asked his thoughts on the new building, Upper School Science teacher Jason Hoeksema had nothing but high praise, enthusiastically referring to it as “beautiful, amazing and sophisticated.” In addition, Mr. Hoeksema believes that it is “perhaps one of the top high school science labs in New York City, maybe even in the country,” and says it has exceeded his expectations in every possible way. Mr. Hoeksema, who was initially attracted to Avenues because of its “dynamic and social culture” says that he loves having everything in one space, rather than being strewn about the eighth floor as it was in the 259 campus. Gone are the days of having to traipse back and forth between the iLab and the science rooms for supplies or visiting three different classrooms in search of a beaker. Now, everything is together in one location. With the fancy new technology though comes a new sense of responsibility for the students. As Mr. Hoeksema says, students now need to recognize that the space is “different in the sense that it should be respected as a lab,” rather than only a classroom. Given that the dividers between the science rooms are glass, there is more room for distractions, so there also needs to be a higher degree of focus among students, something that has been challenging and a notable “growing pain,” as everyone is growing accustomed to it. The general consensus is that once this adjustment is made, it will be worth it because of all of the new facilities that we have. However, although the science rooms have every possible feature of technology, leaving the science teachers beyond satisfied, the same cannot be said about the art rooms or the general feeling that the building emits. Although hesitant, Mr. Hoeksema believes that “science has been

kind of the highlight” in the building rather than art and, this is clear upon comparing the high-tech science rooms to those designated for art. The strict rules in the building prevent students from being able to be “messy” in the art rooms, which seems rather contradictory. Upon being asked if an equal amount of thought was put into arts as sciences in the building, Asta Farrell replied: “Definitely not. I think that this school typically tends to overlook art, like the fact that they say STEM a lot and not STEAM. Even though personally I am not really an art person, they should be equal.” After a short pause, she added, “I think it’s unfair that a new building was designed, and art was completely neglected.” Among the students, there is a distinct dissatisfaction with the new arts facilities, especially in comparison to those for science, but it seems as though the art teachers are more than happy. “I love [the building]. We now have so much space to actually do the things that we want to do,” said Upper School art teacher Carrie Pollack. “In the other building we only had one room and, it didn’t have the tools we needed. Now we have all of those tools and more — a kiln, a printmaking space, a separate photography space, a critique area.” Ms. Pollack expressed gratitude for being able to have a space in which all can be creative, a space that was “imagined and planned by teachers, with the architects,” so that the art program could

Photo by Isabel Mudannayake

gain everything that it needed. Additionally, Ms. Pollack believes that students are more focused in the new building, given that there are no distractions of “middle schoolers slamming their lockers,” and it has a less chaotic vibe. Despite her praise of the facilities, Ms. Pollack is one of many people who believes that, thus far, the building is lacking cohesion. “There needs to be common work space, places for kids to be social and hang out,” she says. Part of what attracted Ms. Pollack to Avenues in the first place was that, Avenues being a new school, she believed that it had the potential for anything and those involved in the school could help “invent what they wanted it to be.” Thus, she believes that this space is no different and the only reason there is currently so little “community feel” is because the space is new and, over time these spaces will be developed and there will be a greater sense of warmth and community emanating from them, as there has already come to be since it opened. Right now, at least to much of the student body, it seems that many aspects of the building are cold and impractical, or even clearly just put there for their aesthetics and devoid of any other purpose, like the braille in the lobby, but maybe Ms. Pollack is correct in that these are just inevitable growing pains that will be overcome as we continue to familiarize ourselves with the space. Only time will tell. •

To G A P or not to GAP by sophia koock

o take or not to take a gap year. That has been the question that some students have contemplated during their college process. I have been told that gap years are stupid. They are, according to friends, a waste of time and resources--if anything, taking a gap year will delay your emergence into the workforce. I have also been told gap years are great. Teachers have encouraged me, noting that the traditional trajectory of going to college right away was established in a different time. With the conflicting advice that circulates about gap years, I’ll try to break through the noise so you can decide if gap years will be a part of your college plan.

why take/not take a gap year? Gap years can imbue students with a greater sense of responsibility and freedom. In high school, we’re limited in the scope of what we can do. We are obligated to our studies and are in school for a solid eight hours a day. Though clubs can be a place where pursue one’s outside interests, time makes it difficult to get involved with everything you may be curious about. Gap years are flexible-- you can design your time to try things you didn’t get a chance to in high school. Were you always curious about art but never had a chance to delve deeply into it? You can make time for it during your gap year. For example, Senior Jackson Ehrenworth is planning on taking a gap year to pursue his interest in climbing, spending half the year training to be an EMT, and the other half on climbing expeditions-- something that wouldn’t be possible during his freshman year in college. However, for some people, gap years may be not be advantageous. Senior Luc Cea-Sanson, who was debating taking a gap year spoke to noted that since he wanted to go into the music business, he decided that a gap year wasn’t for him. “I thought I should speak to some of my mentors in the industry and see what their thoughts were before embarking on it. They all had similar reasons on why I shouldn’t,” said Cea-Sanson. “It really boiled down to two things: this is sort of specific to the industry, but if you’re touring and working hard, you become family with the people you’re working with and it’s going to be hard to tear yourself away from that-same thing if you have a great job. The other side of it is, well let’s say you don’t have that great of an internship or job that that’s the case, the only other option is that it’s not going to be worth your time.”

how to fund your gap year? It’s no lie-- gap years can be expensive. However, with planning, they don’t have to be. For one, you can get a job during your gap year. Even if its not in the exact area you’re passionate about, it can provide the means in which you can pursue your passion when you’re finished with work. Job experience in general can also entice employers to take a second look at your resume, and you may learn more from your job than you think you may be able to. There are also programs paid programs available. Americorps offers several paid community engagement programs throughout the U.S. that include working with agencies like FEMA. With some careful searching, you may also be able to find a paid internship in the field of your interest. So, whether gap years are for you or not, know that your college experience can be flexible. • 69

Re-Imagining the Avenues Ideal

Words and Photo by Kavin Chada

here was a dream behind Avenues when every student or teacher or administrator first signed onto the project. For each person it was unique in some aspects, but what made it a risk worth taking was the shared philosophy of student-driven, modern learning. Many of us have read the mission statement numerous times, but to me it’s never felt like something I took part in, so I never saw much value in acting on its words. The vision I act upon when I take part in this experimental project that is Avenues, is the one I had when I first decided to come. I am now proud to say that in my fourth and final year at this school that vision has been renewed and updated. Five seniors, in the middle of the 3 weeks of classes leading up to spring break, were sent off to Brazil, what seemed to many like an unlikely location for the true beginning of Avenues’ international expeditions. These seniors, me being one of them, were named “Peer Ambassadors”, and were to visit the first program of the nascent school, Avenues São Paulo. The objective was quite simple in the beginning--try to bring some of the elements of Avenues culture and thinking to the first senior class in Brazil-- but soon we all stumbled upon a whole new Avenues ideal, something much more than what we had ever first imagined. 70

Many cynically would write it off as “the Avenues honeymoon period”, but the energy within the program we were suddenly thrown into was incredible. It took a second to dawn on us, but that feeling of energy and life in the building was so nostalgic, and threw us back to the first years of the New York school--students forging new clubs, teachers staying late, drastic changing in scheduling--we realized that this too was Avenues. They say a student remembers a much higher percentage of what they hear from their peers as what they hear from their teachers. The heart of the Avenues ideal lies in destroying the traditional gulf between the students and teachers, and in the roles we were given, there was space to personify that blurred line. We acted as both teaching assistants and mentors and role models, inside and outside of class. We made very strong bonds with the students by speaking to them authentically and respectfully--not trying to patronize them with how much older we were or how much more experience with Avenues we had--and all the while they were being immersed in speaking English, a language they are fluent in, but could always use some work. As a reminder, that was another Avenues dream--the concept of immersion. In the

role of the Peer Ambassador, students could also give more sincere feedback on their attitude towards the class, and we have a better ability to empathize and relay their critiques to the teachers, who trusted us as well as colleagues with our special role. By the end of the program it was difficult to imagine how things would work without us, even some of the students wondered. It seemed natural that there was a teacher needed to give instruction and plan the larger goals, and a buffer needed to actually carry out those goals with the students, and be a role model to them. Another idea I saw progress was the use of interdisciplinary project based learning. These are things that are often considered a lot when teachers in New York plan their curriculums. Those conversations often take place as comprisations, however. Teachers in New York, and understandably, no longer feel as if they are cultivating one program, but as if they are responsible for teaching the content of their class and no less. In Brazil there was complete flexibility will scheduling, curricular commitments, and even grades, so the teachers had these conversations very differently. Instead of starting

It almost felt wrong for education to seem that simple--you learn one way and then you reflect and think about how to learn better with many different classes planned for each week, everything began with a project that was useful in and of itself for everyone to do. I guarantee none of us students will go out into the modern world and make a handwritten poster--so the question must arise, why would we ever do that in class? Out of the project idea there are infinite opportunities for curricular needs to then be met. Here’s some examples: It’s week X and we’re doing a design challenge on waste transformation. Both the science and math teachers want to teach about collecting data, the world course teacher has a plan to have students research waste management in other countries, the art teacher wants the students to transform waste into sculpture and will collaborate with the english teacher to make artist’s statements, so it might seem that the WAM teacher is left out. The WAM teacher, in this situation, is actually involved intimately in planning all the larger aspects of the project work, and somehow found a way to have students use the waste

they collected for their data as weight in their workouts. This makes each day one coherent thought, and a logical next step to the end of the project at the end of the week. Working to plan this is lots of work, especially when it’s tailored to the students and planned on the fly, so it requires complete fluency in subject matter; and the consistent energy makes it a pure joy to work in that environment. There are also many opportunities to change the curriculum as students’ interests change. If everything is not set in stone, there’s opportunity to react to how students are actually responding to the project. One night we realized that we wanted students to not just be doing their math problems, but also learning valuable and useful information for their projects. For each project group we led, we wrote math problems that would help further their understanding of their project and of mathematical skills. My group was studying energy usage, and so I put together a math problem using real data on solar panels in São Paulo. The positive mindset becomes subconscious through the introduction of design challenges. In essence, it would now feel wrong to even suggest problems to the students without the framework to solve those problems. In project based learning it’s essential that students do work of real consequence, so that it actually matters, and there are people involved and depending on the solutions they come up with. The best place to do a lot of this work is in their own school. This is where I saw the most success in the program turning curricular failures, with confusion and unclear messages, into learning opportunities. The final design challenge for which we were present was about making a global journeys trip proposal, a real form that would be submitted and presented to Mr. Murungi, after they had just gone on a global journeys trip. When we asked for the students to brainstorm areas for improvement on the trip it seemed like nothing had gone right: “the trip had no purpose”, “it was completely unsustainable”, “we were falling asleep during the lectures”. In fact, they so thoroughly outlined all their critiques that we had to ask for reassurance that they did actually enjoy it--to which they said most emphatically did! They then spent the next couple of days creating a proposal for a trip that would solve the problems they outlined. It almost felt wrong for education to seem that simple--you learn one way and then you reflect and think about how to learn better--then I realized that it was just the Avenues ideal. My ideal for Avenues when I came here, instead of Stuyvesant, or my old school, was that it would keep changing as new campuses were added, so that it would not fall into a rut--I never want to hear “I’ve been doing this class this way for six years, I’m not gonna change it.” Avenues São Paulo and the Os Primeiros program is not only a fully integrated part of the Avenues vision, it is the next step in achieving the ideal set out by all of us in the community. • 71

B Y D I D I J I N

EVERYBODY EATS (AND WASTES) By Didi Jin 72

tudents move hastily amongst the crowd of hungry children and teenagers. Paper plates, plastic cups, and mounds of food are tossed into any of the large trash containers without regard. “Ew, this tastes terrible.” Students move on with their days, too preoccupied with the thought of finishing their homework for their next class, or the dread of going through another three hours of school to worry about what happened during this brief, thirty-minute window of the day. This is what lunchtime looks like at Avenues: The World School. And it doesn’t end there. Every day, huge amounts of food, utensils, and other sorts of miscellaneous trash gets thrown into big garbage cans, specifically in the cafeteria. There are multiple bins with different lids and signs next to them, covered in tiny letters. In the cafeteria, there are big, clunky bins with no labels lined up against the wall. Where does all of this go? When asked what he noticed about the food waste at Avenues and what happens to it, sophomore Jimmy Kerr was unsure: “In the cafeteria, there are big garbage cans and people just throw garbage in any trash basket. This happens even more in the classrooms because there aren’t any labels on the bins. Even though everything we have in the cafeteria is compostable, I think, I don’t know where it goes.” That feeling of confusion about what happens to the trash and where to put it is shared among students and faculty alike. Ms. Corporan, a faculty member on the 8th floor, thinks that, “People don’t recycle enough. I always notice people throwing their bottles into the wrong bin, and in the cafeteria all of the trash — like food, cups, and bottles — goes to the big trash cans with no labels. And there’s a lot of it.” I also had an opportunity to speak with some of the maintenance workers about what type of litter they observe, especially on the cafeteria floor. “There is a lot of food, especially in the big containers [along the wall],” she told me. “Every day, there are at least six or seven big bags, and most of it is food.” When I asked about what is inside, she told me: “There is at least [some trash] that has been placed into the wrong bins. When I find it, I have to put it in the right bag.” However, she did go on to explain that all of the different types of waste found in the smaller cans with labels are all thrown away separately, meaning that all the waste that doesn’t go into the landfill bin is reused. All of the items from the Avenues cafeteria and cafe — utensils, plates, and cups are biodegradable — this means that when the aforementioned items are disposed of, they decompose quickly (typically around a few weeks) as opposed to materials like plastic, which takes hundreds of years. These biodegradable items are compostable as well; this greatly reduces the amount of waste from the hundreds of thousands of utensils, plates and cups we use as a school. However, biodegradables in a landfill have no impact what-

soever, so it is vital these items from the cafeteria are placed in their proper cans around the school. Additionally, the sous chef in the cafeteria, Alfredo Prestegui, had a lot to say about Avenues’ dedication to Zero Waste in the food making process. “We use around 1600 pounds of food everyday, and serve around 3600 snacks per day. Any leftovers from the lunch or snack is reused. For example, we use bananas from snack to make banana bread. Cheese sticks are turned into cheese sauce. The only thing we throw out are food particles that can’t be used again, like eggshells.” Avenues’ drive to reduce its waste is also evident in the cafe; all the remaining food and snacks are donated to the local food drive at the end of the day. The problem is really the students. “Students always ask, “Can I have a lot of food?” said Prestegui. “However, I always notice the kids throwing away food. It’s not necessarily that they don’t like the food, but they just throw it away [without regard]. I see [students] take a bite of food, and then just throw it away.” “I think it’s very important for people to know that you eat less than you think. When people serve themselves, they grab too much of everything. It’s very important that people be conscious about how much they take, and how much they really eat. They don’t really care about throwing out a plate [of food]-- but those plates add up for thousands of students.” So, how can we help? As members of the Avenues community, as citizens of the world, we have a responsibility to help whenever and wherever we can. The Zero Waste club is attempting to make changes about how we can help the environment, but ultimately it is up to us. “They [Avenues students] should make conscious decisions every day about lifestyle choices. Bring a reusable water bottle, throw stuff out in the correct bins. It’s about the little things. You don’t have to make drastic life changes to make an impact,” said club founder, Sophomore, Malcolm Davol. As for the complaints about the signs on the trash cans, that’s the club’s number one priority. “We are working on creating new signs for Avenues-specific garbage — things Avenues students typically try to throw out — in the near future.” The club also recommends the usage of reusable water bottles as opposed to using plastic bottles, like those that can be bought in the cafe. According to a 2017 Forbes report, people buy a million plastic bottles per minute, and 91% of those bottles aren’t even recycled. The impacts of this have already started to affect you; people who regularly eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic each year. You do not have to be a waste expert or an activist to change the world. Change starts with you. •

By Char Ritchie-Shatz

In September of last year, a friend and I were chatting online about the Charlottesville protest. I had just watched a VICE video called “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” showing some of the outright bigotry on display by some of the white supremacists at the march as a reporter followed them and challenged their views. I sent her the video, and she agreed about how scary it was. In response she sent me a video by a youtuber named ContraPoints, titled “Decrypting the Alt-Right: How to Recognize a F@cist”. Curious, I watched. In the video, ContraPoints describes ways in which people on the authoritarian right use coded symbols and names to disguise their true beliefs and make them more palatable. She uses a style which could only be described as “aesthetic”, with pink and blue light bathing each shot. She deploys a combination of comedy and incisive political analysis that never gets boring, almost like saying “if the altright can rebrand itself, so can the left.” Initially, I would never watch political youtube videos, my time spent dedicated to watching video essay upon video essay, analysing how David Fincher hijacks your eyes, or how Edgar Wright excels at visual comedy. But after watching ContraPoints’s video I began to avidly consume her content, quickly moving to other similar youtubers like HBomberguy, Shaun and Jen, and Thom Avella. I found myself agreeing to many of their points, and while I had cared about social justice ever since middle school, it had always been from a removed, neo-liberal perspective. But I had never truly been exposed to even the idea that the injustices I perceived in the world could come from the fundamental makeup of the structures we live in. I started to wonder if anyone had has the same journey as me, considering how prevalent the use of Youtube has become. The internet has created a medium that is more conducive to politics than any other before, and according to Pew Research Center, 52% of 18-29 year olds often get their news online, compared to 23% who get their news on cable television. Out of all the students that I talked to, every single one said that watching a video was more stimulating than reading an article. They also said the most important factors in choosing to watch video content over reading an article were its ease of use and accessibility, its visual aesthetic, its length, its accuracy, and the personality displayed in the content. In addition to this, most said that usually they would watch a video based on its creator, and seek outside knowledge if the video was on a topic they didn’t know that much about. A creator consistently cited was Vox Media, a web publication that has a very active youtube channel that creates videos about global and national news, but also human interest and edutainment stories. Vox has created a recognizable form with sleek graphics and friendly hosts, which is attractive for talking about unattractive subjects. This, in conjunction with their coverage of the election, is likely the reason their subscriber count has jumped from 42,000 subscribers in January 2016, to 3,665,000 subscribers now. But the rise of political Youtube may not prove to be the

end of traditional media. Multiple people cited Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah as sources of news through their Youtube channels. With their high production value and dependable release schedules, they have a leg up over the “youtuber”, who usually has to handle the brunt of writing, production, and editing by themself. They are some of Youtube’s most heavily promoted content, often ending up on the trending page due to their advertiser-friendly content and large viewer base. Still, ever since last year’s election, both the left and the right have seen a huge increase in popularity, with many students I interviewed saying that Donald Trump’s rise and surprising win contributed to their renewed interest in politics. As young people see their world shifting farther and farther into the corrupt ideas of conservatism, they are often holding onto their liberalism even more steadfastly, to a point where “liberal” has become a synonym with “left wing”, and “libertarian” has been co-opted and twisted far past its original anti-capitalist origins. This is best shown by an idea known as the “Overton Window”, meaning the window of beliefs that are acceptable in public discourse. Right now, with a conservative government, the Overton window is shifting farther and farther right, where traditional conservatives start to seem like centrists, and the alt-right seem to only become more popular. But the alt-right aren’t the only outside political identity to be growing. More far-left positions, like communism, socialism, and anarchism, are gaining traction among young people. While it might be expected of any generation to rebel against the ideas of the past, there is something different about what is happening in the internet age that is affecting young people’s political opinion. “Yeah, memes turned me communist,” Olive Bernstein, senior, said, laughing. “No, I mean- not really, but yeah.” It seems only inevitable that as memes become more and more prevalent, that they spread into the realm of the political. Ridiculous though it might seem, just as how television and movies legitimizes stereotypes by normalizing them, memes do the same for political ideas. An anonymous senior told me, “If, for example, you have a friend who’s leaning pretty left, and they follow a communist meme page, and they show you all these hilarious memes, and you’re like ‘Haha, that’s pretty funny, I agree with that’, you’ll want to make it seem like you agree or that you think it’s funny and you want to participate, and I guess that will ultimately lead you through the wormhole of being a communist through memes.” Laughing at communist memes is just one more step to genuinely being interested in its system of beliefs. This works on both sides of the political spectrum- for examples, think of the “triggered” meme of last year. Originally a phrase useed to stereotype feminists, along with the term “SJW” (short for Social Justice Warrior), it became so ubiquitous that it ended up being used just to something you were angry at. The problematic aspect of this is that it

delegitimizes a word used in the mental health community usually to describe something that might cause a panic attack. This is only one instance of how memes can have harmful, if seemingly insignificant, effects. Other examples might be “I identify as an attack helicopter”, the word “thot”, or the “Ugandan Knuckles” meme. Even the seemingly innocent Pepe has been co-opted by the alt-right and is now labeled as a hate symbol. Not only do these memes normalize making fun of marginalised people, it can also lead to the spread of political ideas like fascism just as easily as it can lead to communism. It’s not a very big leap to go from laughing at a picture of Pepe with a swastika doing a hitler salute to hanging out on 4chan, a breeding ground for overtly racist ideas on the board /pol/, to genuinely calling yourself “not a white nationalist, an identitarian”. It is this slippery slope that is creating a new surge of white supremacist violence, with the Southern Poverty Law Center identifying over 100 people killed by members of the “alt-right”. Of course, not all memes make you a white supremacist, and not all white supremacists developed their ideology from memes. But there is certainly a correlation in validating memetic ideological jokes and people beginning

to genuinely believing in that idea. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where such unexpected political unrest among young people is coming from that so many are moving to outsider stances, but it’s clear a majority feel the government is doing an inadequate job. An AP-NORC study of 790 teenagers found that 6 in 10 felt that the country was headed in the wrong direction. In addition to this, 29% said they identified as Democrats, 23% Republicans, and 24% Independent or another party. When I became interested in ContraPoints, I didn’t know that it would lead me to changing the way I see the world. And stories like mine may be growing, as entertainment becomes indistinguishable from education. It seems only inevitable that our politics cycle becomes completely digitized, and the democratization of platforms like Youtube means there are more voices than ever before. Outside political groups have larger bases than ever before, with how easy it is to find a viewership, and engage with the politics themselves. With such a growing party of people disillusioned with our political state and rising political engagement, this generation may be the most politically active that we have seen in decades. •

KEEPING THE FAITH? BY CLARE MALEENY

t Avenues, identity is a prevalent component of our community. Discussions on race, ethnicity, gender, and even politics crop up in hallways alongside everyday academics. Upper Division students even initiated Awareness Day––an event solely focused on exploring societal issues with regard to identity. And yet with all our talk of diversity, religion is often avoided as a topic or seen as a dividing factor between groups of people, perhaps because of the heightened tensions around religious extremism that have shaped political debate and foreign policy here in the U.S. and abroad. In lieu of religiously-sparked migration and international controversy, the relevance of religious discussion is showing face more than ever before. Religion is inarguably an essential ingredient of identity, especially in New York where we are immersed in such a diverse range of faiths. Religion, like any piece of identity, contributes to our daily interactions with others, and our very perceptions of the world. There is potentially a missed opportunity in excluding religion from our coursework and cultural celebrations at Avenues. Rather than an unspoken of division, faith has the potential to be used as a tool to educate and unify our community. Bringing it out into the open to discuss, debate, and discover how our differences might actually draw us closer together. When openly discussed in an environment like Avenues, religion can be a bridge between people of different backgrounds. Junior Mikal Kizilbash has identified as Muslim since he was young. He said, “For me, my faith has remained the same since childhood.” As a teenager, Kizilbash said he has, “gained a clearer understanding of other religions. I no longer share my faith within a bubble of people but rather a larger community.” Through sharing his beliefs and faith with others, Kizilbash’s community has grown and he has gained new connections and friendships. Not every teenager has the same level of religious confidence or clarity as Kizilbash, however even for the agnostic, there could still be a benefit in having more discussions around the topic of faith. Speaking of her relationship with religion, sophomore Tenley Smith, said,“I have begun to think about it more, but my relationship remains the same. I don’t really believe in a higher power, though I admire the way it can get people through a hard time.” She continued, and said that religion is, “not talked about much in any of my classes, nor do I talk about it with my friends.” Speaking of her desire to craft an individual religious identity, Freshman Vanessa Bye said, “I’m only fifteen and I have yet to be able to experience other faiths besides Christianity.” In regards to her exposure to other religions she said, “I have only learned about other religions in history textbooks.” Bye stressed that although learning about the 78

history of a faith is important, learning about the values and morals is significant as well. She said, “History class does not cover empathizing for a religion or its values. No one is going to come up to you on the street and ask ‘who founded your religion’ or ‘where was it founded’––they’ll care about the values.” Bye acknowledged the value of religious conversations and wished, “students were able to discuss religion in a modern context.” Some schools put religion at the heart of their culture, creating an environment that cements students’ personal connections with their faith. Junior Louisa O’Reilly-Hyland

Art by Olivia Miller

previously attended the religiously affiliated Convent of the Sacred Heart school. She said, “My mom actually went to Sacred Heart as well as my grandmother. You go to Chapel every Thursday––you are guided on how to live and act. I was definitely more in tune with religion then than I am now with the busy high school schedule.” O’Reilly-Hyland also felt that she rarely has the opportunity to discuss religion at Avenues, academically and socially. Like O’Reilly-Hyland, Junior Olivia Shapiro attended a religiously affiliated school called Karmel Academy. Shapiro said religion is “definitely a big part of my life. I have Jewish

heritage and it’s ingrained in my family to care about the morals and teachings of Judaism.” Shapiro, “think[s] about religion in a different way as a teenager. I don’t need to pray everyday to have a connection to my faith. It’s more about the morals and teachings than following every law.” Shapiro’s comments are just one example of how discussing a personal interpretation of faith can bring insight into someone’s life and outlook. For example, while speaking of her religious background, Avenues Faculty member, Lisa Melore said, “I am Jewish and I raised my kids with a sense of Judaism in terms of the community. We don’t partake in the religious holidays.” As a teenager, one of Melore’s children was drawn to an alternate religious path. “In college, my son converted to Catholicism and is now studying to become a priest. Three years ago I also married a Catholic man. I want my kids to be good people and I support them in any religious endeavor as long as they are good people.” On the subject of religion in family, Avenues upper grades teacher, Ron Widelec said, “For our children, my wife and I made distinct choices in regards to faith. I was raised Jewish and my wife, Christian. We hold conversations about religion with our kids and they attend a Sunday school that teaches the values of all religions.” Describing his children’s religious education Widelec said, “When they turn thirteen, they write their own statement on their identity, incorporating the religious values they wish to abide by.” Most children either grow up with a religion or without, and the decision rests in the hands of their parents. Widelec and his wife chose what they believed was a more compelling ideology—the children decide their own religious paths. Evidently religion plays a large role constructing our sense of self, which is particularly relevant to our high school years. As teenagers making the transition into adulthood, it’s a critical time to open ourselves to new perspectives and experiences as we evolve our own beliefs and identities. At Avenues we have the opportunity to broaden our world view and explore the boundaries of our faith simply by talking to our fellow students. If we do nothing else, the simple act of sharing our spiritual side would bring more empathy into our temporal existence. But that is only the first step. If we truly believe that religion is an essential aspect of identity, and if knowing who we are, as individuals, is critical to bringing our community closer together, then an obvious next step would be adding an objective study of religion, its history and its cultures into the curriculum at Avenues. This may require a leap of faith for some, but like any great leap forward, all we have to do is take the first step together. • 79

The Neglected Vice BY KAVIN CHADA ILLUSTRATION BY ETHAN FRIEDMAN

ornography is a touchy subject. I know I can’t entirely change that. I just wish we could talk about it in schools like we do with drugs, alcohol, or sex, which all seem to have their own awareness campaigns within wellness classes (not to say that these are at all sufficient in their coverage); because it is recognized whether we like it or not, that it is going to affect our lives—present and future. Needless to say, internet porn is really popular. Ogi Ogas, a neuroscientist researching sexual desire, found that 13% of internet searches in 2009 were for pornographic content. I can safely assume that most are aware from some kind of personal experience of the sheer scale of the adult video industry. But porn has a specific effect on one group of people: adolescents. Kids normally turn to pornography, specifically on the internet, out of lighthearted and innocent curiosity. For most of them, their experience begins with fascination, but it quickly develops into a source of sexual stimulation as their changing bodies begin to produce a multitude of dominant hormones. Teenagers that grow up after having been exposed to porn may watch it regularly as something that relieves stress or boredom, but will seldom talk about it in an introspective way that acknowledges their behavior. We must ask, what are we missing in this picture? What a lot of teens don’t know is that there is a darker side of pornography. According to the Annual Review of Sex Research 2000, there are, “reliable associations between frequent pornography use and sexually aggressive behaviors.” The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University observed that 9% of porn users stated that they had tried and failed to stop the habit. And according to a survey done by the University of Utah, “it is estimated that 1.5% to 3% of the adult population of the United States meets the criteria for compulsive pornography use.” These statistics don’t even include generations that were raised with internet pornography, because it’s too early—ultimately we are in the dark about what the effects may be, and we may be all like fish in water. It may seem like a whimsical thing, but people lose their livelihoods over this kind of thing. A porn addiction can be just as serious and detrimental as other sorts of addictions.

And as goes with any addiction, subjects can lose care for the people around them, harm and abuse them or themselves, all the while feeding the system that hurts them so much in isolation. On top of this there are unique effects of pornography overuse, like decreased patience to interact with real people, and general attention deficit. A lot of people don’t like to think about these things, and they would rather chalk it up to our changing world and a new internet era. I think, however, many elements of internet porn, a relatively new content area, is worthy of distinction and discussion--either solely because of its massive ubiquity, or simply because of how shocking that effect of addiction can be on some people. I had a life skills class at my old school. The teacher never even came close to the topic of porn. At my old school, my best friend, who we’ll call Frank, was having a meeting with the teacher about some recent anger issues or attention deficit and during the meeting the teacher had asked for his phone. The teacher took the phone, then asked for the password to open it. Once it was opened he jolted backward,

“What a lot of teens don’t know is that there is a darker side of pornography.” and threw the phone back. On Frank’s phone was internet pornography he had been watching at school. The teacher told him rushingly he didn’t want to see that, then to leave. Frank laughed about it as he told the story over. Looking back, I think of that moment as dreadfully sad and shameful. I still believe that teacher could’ve somehow brought Frank out and spoken to him about his pornogrpahy use. He could’ve given countless amounts of helpful advice, but instead he threw him back out into the world to let him try to figure out something a child isn’t even supposed to be aware of (by law at least, the legal minimum viewing age of pornography is 18). Kids on average view porn for the first time at age 11. “Studies suggest that youth who consume pornography may develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs,” a review by the University of Toronto states, in accordance with many

other studies. This combination of high exposure and looming risk is frightening, and it’s even more frightening when considering the possible detrimental effects on their future the kind of addiction described above could have on their life. Thankfully, I believe there are some small steps we can take to prepare adolescents for the reality they will be faced with in life. Many believe that the biggest issue to be addressed when educating kids about porn is the mis-representation that sex has in adult content. I talked to the Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences at Tufts, Nancy Bauer, who teaches about feminism and philosophy, among other things. She said that porn tends to cover up some tough hard facts about intercourse, like that it’s not always equally pleasurable for both partners, or that it is frequently an outlet for anger. When I asked what might be the best way to prepare kids for porn she responded, “It would be really difficult and uncomfortable, but they should be shown what it is really like [to be engaged in sex with another person.]” My plan entails education and therapy. We must educate kids in the risks of pornography consumption and also reach out to kids who already have an addiction, in the same ways we reach out or attempt to, to kids with other addictions. Part of the education should include warning kids that porn dose not represent a full picture of what sex is really like, but the education should place the emphasis on building awareness around the issue. It is really simple, and I have witnessed firsthand the detrimental effects that a lack of education on pornography can

have; basically what happens when you throw a kid into the world of addiction with no labelled caution signs. But all of that said, my first goal is to start a conversation around this issue, and hope that some kind of awareness can be built from that--at least from the knowledge that dangers exist. Of course all of this only scratches the surface on the pornography issue, and doesn’t even get into the harmful effects on the porn “actors” (I use quotes because the title itself is a claim that the participants are completely willing. If they are or are not depends on the definition of consent. Is doing intercourse for money out of free-will?) in the industry and the suspect legality of so many kids eighteen years old accessing pornography. If one wishes to open up those great big doors there is a wonderful Ted talk called “Why I Stopped Watching Porn” by Ran Gavrieli that could get one started. Leaving aside all these other issues however, there is a clear problem with simply leaving out the one most important subjects in a kid’s sexual and wellness education today. It is extremely prevalent in any adolescent’s life, and strangely left out of the conversation. Plus, it contains the possible risk of addiction, just like drugs or alcohol. Clearly the ultimate goal is some kind of conception of the anti-pornography movement. Educators taking the huge step of actually addressing this topic with students could provide a much-needed kickstart to raising some awareness around this issue, and supporting its legitimacy-\—because it would take years of single students like myself talking to their friends about this to make a difference. •

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On December 31st, Viner-turned-YouTuber Logan Paul posted a video onto YouTube to his 15 million subscribers showing a dead body. In the now-deleted video, he and his friends film themselves walking around Aokigahara, a forest in Japan infamous for its popularity as a suicide spot. In the video, Paul and his friends go to the forest knowing its history, but focusing on joking about the paranormal aspect of the morbid site. They then see what they believe to be someone who has killed themselves. They proceed to film the dead body, blurring out the face but leaving everything else visible. Logan and his friends laugh nervously, and generally appear shocked. I saw the video while it was still live, after seeing the controversy blowing up on Twitter. The most shocking part about watching that video was not the graphic content, but the idea that someone had edited this video together, and still thought that it was okay to post. On January 1st, Paul took down the video and posted an apology to Twitter with lines like “I didn’t do it for views. I get views. I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity.” and ending with “I love everyone. I believe in people. I’m out here. #Logang4Life.” This response was heavily criticized for its recklessly privileged perspective. The next day, Paul posted a video apology. He then announced that he would be taking a break from his daily videos. In some ways, this controversy didn’t come as a surprise. Both Logan Paul and his younger brother, Jake Paul, have been criticized for their exploitative and ill-mannered content in the past. In another video taken while Logan Paul was Japan, he and his friends go around Tokyo throwing Pokeballs at passersby, waving live fish at strangers, and generally being disrespectful of Japanese culture in a video titled “KICKED OUT OF JAPAN! (i’m sorry).” Some of his other recent vlogs have titles like “MY DIVORCED PARENTS REACT TO MY 2017 BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE!! **emotional**,” “RUINING MY FRIEND’S DATE TO DISNEYLAND! **kissing**,” and “JUMPING TWO SPEEDING LAMBORGHINIS BACK TO BACK! **don’t attempt**.” Both Paul brothers were stars on Vine, but moved to YouTube after the platform closed last January, and their respective daily content has largely stayed the same since they started. On January 9th, YouTube tweeted that it would be “acting accordingly” in response to Paul’s violation of their community guidelines. Since then, they have removed him

from the Google Prefered Program, which had featured his channels as brand-safe for advertisers. They have also cancelled his YouTube Red content, including the fourth season of “Foursome” and the sequel to “The Thinning,” “The Thinning: New World Order.” In addition to this, on January 18th, YouTube announced that it would be demonetizing channels that have less than 4,000 hours of playtime within the last 12 months with less than 1,000 subscribers. This is just a continuation of YouTube’s further restriction of monetization after 2017’s controversy around the site’s largest creator, Pewdiepie. A controversy arose midway through last year around some of Pewdiepie’s content being anti-semitic and racist, leading many advertisers like Coca-Cola and Amazon to pull their ads from the site. As a result, YouTube tightened its rules around monetization, resulting in what many creators called the “adpocalypse.” YouTube’s algorithm would automatically flag videos about “socially sensitive issues” or “tragedy and conflict.” This meant topics about LGBT, political, comedic, or historical issues were immediately demonetized, creating huge problems for creators who made their livings off of their content. Even searching the word “adpocalypse” on YouTube turns up 32,900 videos, including those by prominent YouTubers like Hank Green, Phillip DeFranco, Pewdiepie, and CGP Grey. Many users then moved to Patreon, a website that allows fans of a creator, or “patrons”, to give money to creators directly per video or per month, in exchange for perks, like access to a Discord server or a monthly patron-only livestream. These new advertiser guidelines are just an extension of YouTube’s tougher stance on permissible content, as they slowly closes the gates of the “free internet.” The past year has been a wake-up call to the fact that even though YouTube is a place where “anyone” can have their voice heard, “anyone” is becoming a smaller and smaller group. YouTube is a company first and foremost, and it’s clear in the type of content they like to promote on their trending page, where more traditional types of media like music videos from Justin Timberlake and Fall Out Boy and clips from talk shows like Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert dominate. It’s an odd switch for a company that originally made its name from its democratization of video to realize that it’s best content comes from large, safe, and advertiser-friendly videos. •

THE MOVIES AND BOOKS THAT DEFINE US BY DYLAN VACCARO

Art by Olivia Miller

venues History teacher Mr. Ryan Misler was only six years old when he first went to go see Steven Spielberg’s shark thriller, Jaws. At the time, he was like any other six year old boy: playful, energetic, highly curious, and most of all, thrilled to be on vacation with his family. Years later, Mr. Misler recalled: “We went to the beach for our family vacation and of course my parents thought it was a good idea to go see the movie Jaws. As my parents realized the film wasn’t appropriate for a six year old, especially since we were at the beach, my mother brought me to the back area of the theater. Unlike most parents who would have taken their six year old son out of the theater, my mother still wanted to watch the film, so she took her bag and put it on top of the banister, to block the film.” But again, like most six year olds, something as simple 86

as a handbag wasn’t going to deter him from watching the film. “I remember that the purse had these straps that fell down towards the end,” said Mr. Misler. “So there was this loophole through the strap and I remember watching the final scene where the shark eats Quint, the main fisherman, and I just thought it was very exciting. At the time I was probably rooting for the shark.” For most people, there are books or movies that resonate with people so deeply that they have been changed because of it. Movies or books like these that create lasting memories, often impact life beyond just the fictional storylines. For Mr. Misler, the impact was clear: “After watching Jaws, I became infatuated with sharks. For a bit, I even wanted to be a marine biologist so I could work with sharks. However, I soon discovered that to be a

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marine biologist, you actually had to learn about all the other fish as well. I really didn’t want to do that, I just wanted to get to learning about sharks. One of my dreams is to actually go to South Africa and go swimming with some great white sharks.” The influence of Jaws extended even into Mr. Misler’s fashion. If one were to pay close attention, a leather string necklace with a small metallic shark could be seen dangling from his neck. Mr. Misler’s feelings towards sharks surpassed fascination. “Now, it’s actually very sad,” he said. “Sharks are now going extinct, and if they were to become nonexistent, it would really devastate the ecosystem. Also, they really are just beautiful.” Like Mr. Misler, Spanish teacher Ms. Teixeira also found one of her greatest passions in film. “I was eight years old when I first saw the film adaptation of The Sound of Music. I think for an eight year old I was very mature for my age, which really is just a nice way to say I was a nerd. But I loved music. So my British grandmother told me to watch this musical. Yet, because the movie was rather old, the only time you could watch it, in Chile, was during reruns on TV during Christmas time. So one Christmas Eve, I remember wearing this blue velvet dress with a white collar and sitting on my grandmother’s bed and watching [the movie], and when it was over I was just completely in love.” Ms. Teixeira went on to describe how the film had a profound effect on her she actually understood herself better from it, saying, “I wanted to be Liesl. She was exactly who I was; she was spirited, adventurous and able to take on challenges.” Ms. Teixeira explained how it was probably because of that movie where she found her love for music and gave her the courage to sing. Now, she is an avid singer and tries to use any occasion as an excuse to practice. She even takes advantage of mundane tasks such as walking the eighth floor halls to stretch her vocal chords while listening to some classic 80s pop music on her phone. To her, though, the movie meant so much more than just beautiful songs. She found a new love for things she had never known before or had no real experience with. That movie was her first real glimpse at love, and that Baron Von Trapp, played by Christopher Plummer, was her first crush. She also expressed how she found a love for travel and nature, and how, compared to her home in the city in Santiago, the rolling hills of Austria and the lakeside abbey with its white gazebos was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. As an adult, when she rewatches the film it reminds her of her childhood and the memories that she had shared with her grandmother. She also now looks to the film as an inspiration, hoping that she now embodies many of the characteristics that she admired so much in the character,

Maria, as a child. Ms. Teixeira finished, saying, “The movie also influenced me and my profession.” She compared herself to the character Maria in the sense that they are both teachers; that they both try to teach with the sense of positive encouragement with an emphasis on making learning enjoyable. A third teacher, HIP instructor, Ms. Molly Avila, found her enjoyment for learning in reading Tolstoy’s, A Confession, a short work depicting ideas of melancholia, philosophy, and religion. “I first read Tolstoy’s Confession on a sunny, cold Saturday afternoon in January. I was a senior in high school and taking a philosophy course, for which the book had been assigned. I’d never read any Russian literature before, but alone in the library that day, something about the text in my hands hit me – hard.” Ms. Avila spoke about how she was able to relate so deeply Tolstoy and his work. She even described it as, “being the first time I felt a work of literature spoke directly to me – as though the great Russian writer himself had reached his hand across time and taken mine. I spent that weekend utterly rapt in the library, aware that I was undergoing something profound.” She even went as far as to march into her teacher’s office the following school day an demanded an explanation for what had happened to her soul. Mr. Hungerford, as Ms. Avila recalled, had replied simply with, “Ah, you’ve succumbed to the Russians!” Perhaps this was due to all the surprising similarities between Ms. Avila, at the time a young American theater girl filled with teenage angst, and a 50-year-old Russian man suffering from an existential crisis in the nineteenth century. While Tolstoy’s specific feelings or experiences did not entirely match up with those of Ms. Avila, it was the way Tolstoy wrote about his feelings and experiences that resonated with her so deeply. “He approached philosophical ideas with a passionate reverence, something I’d always worried was unique only to me,” reflected Ms. Avila. “He is able to be bravely intimate with his reader, heartfelt in self-expression and sincerely curious in his observations about human behavior.” Like Tolstoy, who after writing A Confession, came out from his existential crisis with a renewed sense of hope, Ms. Avila came away with a new love for Russian literature. She still carries that passion with her today as she works to finish her dissertation for a Phd in Russian literature. Whether it’s a book or movie, there will most likely be at least one moment in life where one feels they have found something that truly resonates with them. Art in all its forms can inspire and change minds. It is in these moments that it becomes essential to recognize these emotions and embrace them, for they can impact life far beyond just the fictional storylines.• 87

“Thoroughbreds”

By Zoe Nelms

A STUDY IN CLASS, PRIVILEGE, AND HOW TO MURDER YOUR STEPDAD

n idyllic suburban Connecticut, two teenage girls raid their parents’ liquor cabinet. While examining a bottle opener shaped like a horse, one suggests that the other should kill her stepfather. So begins a murder. Thoroughbreds tells the story of Amanda (Olivia Cooke), a former equestrian champion, currently charged with animal cruelty after killing her horse under suspicious circumstances, and Lily (Anna Taylor-Joy), recently expelled from her prestigious boarding school for plagiarism. After discovering that Lily’s stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks) plans to send Lily off to boarding school, the girls plot to murder him with the help of drug dealer Tim (Anton Yelchin). Their plan spirals into a series of mishaps and violence, ultimately leading to a thought-provoking twist ending. Thoroughbreds primarily benefits from its nuanced performances. While Joy’s portrayal of Lily shifts between doeeyed schoolgirl and cold-blooded killer sometimes more seamlessly than others, her eventual descent into a state of lipsticked mania is nevertheless a delight to watch. She contrasts well with Cooke’s Amanda, who as she tells Lily, feels no emotion--with the exception of hunger, evidenced by her constantly eating throughout the film as if attempting to fill a gaping hole. “Not feeling anything doesn’t mean I’m a bad person,” Amanda tells Lily. “It just means that I have to try harder than everyone else to be good.” The rest of the cast is sufficient but not spectacular, with the exception of Tim (thanks to Yelchin’s pulsing, wheezy intensity). Lily’s parents (Francie Swift and Paul Sparks) feel somewhat twodimensional-the mom is vapid and absent, Mark does all but sneer and twist his nonexistent mustache to indicate he’s not a great guy. Another one of Thoroughbreds charms is its sharp dialogue, peppered with the occasional bout of physical comedy, pop culture reference, or scathing insult. Thoroughbreds revels in its quirk and wickedness within every incident of verbal sparring. In one scene, Amanda cites Steves Jobs as motiva-

tion for Lily to kill Mark, suggesting that she should “think outside the box” like him. As the cast trades barbs with an effortless, coy mirth, Thoroughbreds illustrates the characters’ hidden pain and frustration, leaving viewers waiting for the inevitable emotional outburst post narkfest. Tension is, in many ways, integral to the structure and styling of Thoroughbreds. The sound design serves as a sort of Greek chorus warning the viewers of the wrongdoings still yet to come. “I didn’t love the music, but I do love that it was a character in the movie,” audience member Joe Nelms said. The soundtrack is a collage of staccato drums and whining violins, often cacophonous and then eerily still. As Lily weaves through a crowded party, the track playing underneath sounds like someone gasping for air, and the persistent whir of Mark’s rowing machine scores the girls’ murder plots. The carefully cultivated visual palette also aids in establishing a sense of constant dread. As the camera drifts across the Thoroughbreds dreamscape lush with marble floors, tennis courts, and gleaming Rolls Royces, the audience is primed for the next implosion. When this tension begins to ebb (the several minutelong shots don’t help with this), Thoroughbreds is thankfully able to pivot and raise the stakes accordingly. This weakness may just be a product of being a debut film--written and directed by Cory Finley, the film initially premiered at Sundance in 2017 and sold to Focus Features for five million dollars. Since its release, Thoroughbreds has been hailed by critics as the lovechild of American Psycho and Heathers. It’s a fair comparison--it has the same stylized gore of American Pyscho and the sardonic teen protagonists of Heathers. But Thoroughbreds can fall short of its predecessors: Amanda’s droll inflection slips into monotone, or the plot ploddens rather than races. Nevertheless, much like Heathers or American Psycho, Thoroughbreds is a film about power and empathy—power is what everyone in Thoroughbreds craves, and empathy is what they lose in the process.

Lily yearns to kill Mark in order to avoid going to wealth is brutality and brutality is wealth.“I could always boarding school, primarily, but also to secure her own aufeel the weight of the wealth around me,” Finley said. “Not tonomy and authority. Tim’s self aggrandizement and drug just the love in it, but also the violence.” Lily and Amanda bartering are attempts, even while unsuccessful, to establish exist in a space robust with cash and cruelty, where accounthis own prestige.“Give me five, ten, years--I will be running ability is muffled by riches and callousness is celebrated. As this game.” He insists as Lily and Amanda look on. “All exhibited by Thoroughbreds, this environment can be isolatup the coast. I will be the god.” Unshaven with wandering, ing. There are tenderer moments of the film not striped with bloodshot eyes, he doesn’t yet resemble a deity. But as demmordant, morbid wit and in those moments, we can sympaonstrated by Thoroughbreds, the demigods of the unnamed thize with Lily, with Tim, with those who feel burdened by hamlet will go great lengths to get what they want. And so unachievable expectation. the audience is somewhat inclined to believe him. But Thoroughbreds doesn’t ask the audience to pity the Whether it be Amanda and Lily’s facile friendship, Tim characters, and rightfully so. Lily may be a member of a and Lily’s reluctant collaboration, or the tenuous bond becommunity steeped in materialism and disposable relationtween Lily and her mother, they are all ultimately means ships, and therefore may suffer accordingly, but this doesn’t to an end-- academic success, money, social clout. In Thorexcuse her actions. Her socioeconomic privilege enables her, oughbreds, exploiting social and economic capital for one’s Amanda, and the rest of the characters to engage in depravown benefit is accepted, ity with little consequences or even routine. “Everyone THOROUGHBREDS PAINTS A remorse. Cushioning each act uses everyone,” Finley of manipulation or each physsaid in an interview with PORTRAIT IN WHICH WEALTH ical blow is the understanding Indiewire. “That’s what IS BRUTALITY AND BRUTALITY that things will work out for happens in a world where them in the end, because they IS WEALTH. there are always clear winhave been bred for success. ners and losers.” Thoroughbreds certainly Neither Amanda or Lily have been built for cruelty--yet isn’t a parable, or at least not in the traditional sense--it’s it seems to be inevitable when put together and surrounded far too rife with cursing, carnage, and underage drinking. by incomparable, unbounded fortune. Finley elaborated on But it’s still a sobering look at the ways in which we can this notion: “I was interested in the idea that Amanda isn’t weaponize our inherent advantages. For those who posnecessarily a bad person. She has the capacity for cruelty, as sess privilege, it’s a reminder to be careful of the power they we see in that first scene, but not the will for it. And then wield. For those who don’t, it’s a reminder of what someone Lily has the will to be cruel, but not the capacity for it.” Fincan lose on the journey to acquire said power. Every shot ley said. “She has the healthy moral instincts that we would gliding over a life-sized chess board or a manicured green all have, for instance: ‘Don’t murder someone.’ But meeting lawn and then contrasted with a shot of a limp, bloodied Amanda gives her permission to act in a different way, the hand, portrays the ugliness of unrestrained entitlement and way certain ideologies can enable people to do that.” absence of empathy. Like a candy-coated razor blade, the Amanda may catalyze Lily’s decline, however, she might saccharine visuals and caustic humor of Thoroughbreds make not be the root of it. Thoroughbreds paints a portrait in which it delectable, but difficult to digest. •

Speak

By Lynn Rong

peak by Laurie Halse Anderson is one of the few novels that meticulously captures the emotion and thoughts behind a victim of sexual harassment. The novel speaks for victims, speaks for teenagers, speaks for the female population––encouraging them to speak up for themselves. The story revolves around the main character, Melinda, who called the police at an end-of-summer party during her freshman year of highschool and refused to reveal the reason. Throughout the novel, she is constantly outcasted and excluded by other classmates due to her actions during the party. Speak was written from the perspective of the victim, Melina, making her relatable to many teenagers in school yet revealing her conflicted personality due to trauma. Melinda’s school is not different from many other high schools. She said in the novel that “the first ten lies they will tell you in high school [include]1. We are here to help you, 2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code will be enforced,” and many more phrases . Anderson successfully portrayed the character Melinda in a way that is relatable to students. She the distance between the protagonist and reader, but also implied that these incidents could happen anywhere. In this book, Melinda’s experience seems casual, boring and far from extraordinary. Many descriptions of her school, her daily life, her lunch, and her after school time is described in detail, and yet behind her casualness contains subtle hints of pain and struggle. “Sometimes my mouth relaxes around Heather, if we’re alone. Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.

What is wrong with me?” she said. The ‘boring’ Melinda, the ‘weirdo’ and ‘outcast’ slowly revealed the story behind her mask, and pained many readers for her matureness of dealing with her past till the end. Overall, Anderson successfully dug into a victim’s deep emotion and portrayed the character’s hidden struggle in a daily setting the resonates with the readers. The theme of sexual harassment was deeply analysed throughout Speak. Published in 1999, this issue is still highly relevant today, and I applaud her for diving into this issue through a first person perspective. The approach is unique and it illustrated this issue in a perspective that is plain and real. Anderson herself was a victim of sexual harassment, and this book also reflects some of her own thoughts. She explained in an interview that she didn’t have the courage to speak out about her own experiences and look for help. Anderson hoped that the readers could speak up for themselves and fight for their own rights. The author wrote, “The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can’t speak up for your right to be silent. That’s letting the bad guys win.” Speak concludes as Melinda finally spoke up for herself, but this isn’t the end of Melinda’s journey and shouldn’t be the end of the conversation around sexual harassment. Like what Melinda said in the end of the novel, “IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.” This topic shouldn’t be avoided anymore, and this inspiring, powerful, and important novel should be recommended to all young adults for them to continue this topic further. 91

s ' n o s r e d n n A s e o i s W Vi OF STUDENT ACTION BY DYLAN VACCARO

Photo by Harper Van Doorn

n response to the most recent school shootings in Parkland, Florida, students from hundreds of schools across the country took part in a nationwide walkout for sensible gun control reform on March 14th, at 10 am. This protest was just one of the many events that are being led by students around the world in an effort to evoke change. Now, with the easy access to information and the mass spread of communication through social media platforms, large numbers of youths are joining the movement. The press has responded to this, identifying it as a new form of activism. American film director, Wes Anderson had his own way to respond to the matter. In his newest film and second ever stop-motion work, Isle of Dogs, Anderson creates a strong subtext, covering a wide range of social issues ranging from student protests to fake news. Anderson masterfully weaves in this social commentary while still creating a wonderous and heartwarming story about a boy and his dog. While looking into the eyes of a dog, every child has asked the question: “What if they could talk?” Well, in Isle of Dogs, the dogs do talk, and they have something to say. Isle of Dogs is no exception to Anderson’s record of hit indie films, carrying with it all the traits that make his movies so visually distinct, along with his trademark sense of deadpan humor. However, Isle of Dogs deviates a little from the themes that Anderson normally works with. Set in a fictional world, the film provokes a greater sense of imagination while addressing very real issues. The film’s plot revolves around the fictional Megasaki City in Japan, ruled by a corrupt, cat-loving mayor who has 92

just announced an official decree to banish all dogs to “Trash Island.” The main heroes of the film are in the form of elementary school students, who during a time of political uprival and a numbed desensitized society take a stand. The adults in this dystopian-Japan seem to be simply not listening to their hearts or conscience, and no one can or wants to see the great corruption happening around them. It is only a set of students from Megasaki High School lead by American exchange student Tracy Walker that dares to question the political authority and ask the meaningful questions. Both the student-led organizations from Megasaki High School and those around the United States respond similarly to the issues they face, taking to the streets, marching in the capital, and making it very clear that the youth will no longer sit idly by. Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs ends on a tone of hope, parallel to the way America is feeling now. The final scene of the film shows the young protagonist, Atari Kobayashi, now serving as the mayor of Megasaki City, as well his political cabinet being filled with a much younger generation, the result of which is progress and a morally healthier society. Currently, America’s youth has been renamed the mass shooting generation. Teenagers have become desensitized to the cycle of mass shootings getting press and then joining the void. But for the first time in years, it feels as though change is possible, that gun reform is in reach and that it all can be accomplished by a unified group of young individuals who can see past the greed and stagnation of their government, just like those in Isle of Dogs. •

Big Thoughts on Little Things By Char Ritchie-Shatz Art Work by Twin Fantasy

t is hard to explain, to the uninitiated, why I love Twin Fantasy. Yes, I can describe it- Twin Fantasy is an indie rock concept album, released in 2011 by Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest. It grapples with themes of depression, queer identity, loneliness, and idealizing- but that doesn’t tell you anything meaningful. The best way I can describe Twin Fantasy is that it is an album that sits at the intersection of culture and emotion. It is an album self-aware of its content and where it exists: in between Car Seat Headrest’s discography, the world it’s a product of, and Toledo’s own life. As such, it’s hard to separate the album from my own projections and describe why I love it in only objective terms. It is a deeply personal album to me and many others, so I can only speak to how Twin Fantasy is a masterpiece to me. Twin Fantasy excels at portraying an unstable relationship between two people struggling with mental illness. It deals with raw emotion in specific, grueling details that make Twin Fantasy feel cinematic in nature. You are watching Toledo’s imagined relationship fall apart before your eyes- and in some ways, yours too. To listen to Twin Fantasy is to see yourself in Toledo’s words. Those words, by the way, are beautiful- they build a world to sink into and bury yourself in. On listen after listen, lines like “And I said hell is the sun/ Burning forever at the center of things/ A ball on fire at the center of things” from “High to Death” stick in my mind from their wonder-

ful prose-like quality, at the same time I cry listening to “It’s not enough to love the unreal/ I am inseparable from the impossible.” from “Beach Life-In Death”. It’s hard not to feel a deep “yeah” inside you when Toledo screams “I don’t want to go insane! I don’t want to have schizophrenia!” Since its release, the album has been altered multiple times, from its live performances to its different mixes uploaded on Toledo’s bandcamp. This year, he releases a “re-imagined” version of Twin Fantasy, which takes the ambitions of his original 2011 version and exceeds them, now that he has the power of more than his USB guitar cable and Garageband. But even more interesting is how this remake of Twin Fantasy exists. This album exists in an entirely different context now- Car Seat Headrest is now bigger than Will Toledo, who plays to crowds of thousands and shares a label with bands like Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse, and Stephen Malkmus of Pavement. All this to say, he’s kind of a big deal in the indie world now. But this new version of Twin Fantasy does not bastardize the original- in fact, it feels like the indie rock opus he was intending to write all along, with the budget and production skills he never had at 19.Fan reactions to Toledo’s remake were understandably wary- he had given them an album that they had claimed for themselves, as their stories, but now he was taking it back. Not only was he approaching the same material from a different perspective, but he was giving it to a larger audience than ever before. •

Pelo Malo By Thais Legrand

astry crumbs scatter the dining room table after a busy morning of conversation and in the next room, my mother applies the same crimson lipstick with one hand while brushing pesky flyways with the other, assuring the utmost straightness of her hair. I sit by her knee to admire the neatness of an old vanity, a cream colored wooden set adorned with half-filled bottles of hairspray. Quickly, my admiration is interrupted by a nudge on the shoulder. “Vamos Thais, we’re gonna be late. Tia Nelly has a present for you.” “Okay Mami, do I still need an umbrella? It’s only raining a bit.” Hesitantly, she replies, “Si mija, vamos.” Even when it poured in New York, she never made me take an umbrella, but here things were different; something about the hot climate was bound to ruin the result of my blowout. Still motivated by the thought of a present, I rush down the stairs and into the back of my uncle’s car where I sit on my mother’s knee. Within minutes, we arrive at my great aunt’s apartment, a small home surrounded by an inviting banana tree and a few flowers nearby. As we wait for family to open the door, I become the center of attention. Standing on the patio, it seems all my mother fixates on is hair, my soft, sleek strands. She anxiously fixes the collar of my babydoll top and pats my hair aggressively, as if directed by some sort of obsessive impulse. She steps back and kisses my head inattentively, but quickly regrets her audacity to plant a kiss on such a place. She rings the doorbell again. It seems all this waiting has made my hair frizzy, a result of the island's unforgiving humidity. Flustered, my mom rushes to find a comb through the mess in her purse before my aunt opens the door. She brushes the plastic comb through my bangs and warns me quickly, “Just smile and don’t listen to what they say, we’ll go to..” We are interrupted by my great aunt, a tall, dark woman who was undoubtedly old but still held youthfulness in her glimmering eyes. “¡Hola niña! ¡Que bella y que pelo suave! I missed you!” she says, twirling my hair. My mother smiles and ignores the remark, quickly bringing me inside and keeping me covered by the size of her purse. In the living room sit the oldest members, wrinkled and languid but nevertheless judgemental. They look at me, then at my mom, and back at me. Satisfied, my great uncle holds my hand and caresses my clear, beige skin, saying, “You’re lucky you won’t get these dark skin-tags like me! Pareces una muñeca de porcelana.” His hands were ashy, overworked, and shaky. For hours they chatted over platanos and cafecitos, in efforts to try and bridge the gap between family there and in New York. We left my great aunt’s home disappointed and my mom felt ashamed; she did not know whether to put up with her family’s ignorance simply to make them happy or protect her young daughter from such superficial values. This had been my first visit to the Dominican Republic when I

was seven years old. During her pregnancy, my mother nervously anticipated older members of her family wondering what I would look when born. With genuine worry, each dark-skinned member of my family feared I would turn out like them, too ethnic and much too “tribal” looking. An excess of melanin, of course, meant carrying the weight of a black identity, which followed the loss of privileges, and social acceptance. To my mother, the obsessive adoration over a little Dominican girls’ eurocentric features was conflicting because of how normalized this perception of beauty had become in most Latin American and Caribbean countries. For example, natural hair, or pelo malo, was seen as too ethnic, unkept, and ugly. The kinky hair made Dominicans look too much like their slave ancestors. Although such thinking may seem preposterous at first, victims of racism can subconsciously burden the features of their blackness by covering. With Western beauty standards as the norm, many fell victim to skin bleaching creams and hair perms, as success was defined by the lightness of one’s skin and the straightness of their hair. Forgiving those of my family members who made the decision to cover their blackness in hopes of passing as white, or at least, light-skinned, has been an arduous task. To this day, I am unable to say I have made much progress in this regard but it is, however, easier for me to understand their choices by weighing the benefits; general quality of life as a light-skinned person in the Dominican Republic clearly seemed more pleasurable than life as a dark skin. For this to be true, however, I would have to better understand why their concept of happiness had been held to the limits of a higher social status, access to privileges their white counterparts failed to recognize as such, and isolation from the community that best reflected their truest selves, darkskinned Dominicans with pelo malo. The skin marks on my Tio’s hand were scars from applying too much Fair and Lovely. It seemed incessant, the constant application of that burning cream, yet I could still see the Dominicano in his eyes and through his mannerisms. The artificiality of my Tia Nelly’s pin-straight perm seemed funny to me; as much as she fought the texture of her hair with damaging heat and styling products, I always noticed the rougher edges of her hair. Although covering felt uncomfortable and artificial, it allowed my aunts to navigate the country more quickly than they would have done with “bad hair” and ebony skin. I guess I was born lucky, with the freedom to defy my misleading melanin and curled hair. Although my hair was curly, it was straight enough to be soft, and in the winters, I became paler than my French father; without effort, I had passed the test. As a seven-year-old, my hair seemed to be nothing more than a nest of tangled knots, and far from a blessing in disguise. Tia reminded me to be thankful that day while fixing my hair in the bathroom mirror. She told me I could run my hands through my hair freely and if I straightened it a bit more, no one, absolutely no one, would be able to tell. •

GEMINI MAY 21 – JUNE 20

CANCER JUNE 21 – JULY 22

LEO JULY 23 – AUGUST 22

This month, your relationships will be an important part of your life. Make sure that your are taking time to appreciate the people closest to you. Remember that your dreams and aspirations are the most important driving force behind your actions.

This month, be careful not to get caught up in the small things. Follow through on your goals and remember that it is your initiative that is a driving force behind your path to success. Make sure that you hold yourself accountable to your high standards, and strive to aim higher.

This month, you will be a go-getter––realizing your goal and going for it. In light of this, make sure that you do not burn out. Rely on your friends and family to recharge and get that extra boost of motivation.

Famous Gemini: Kanye West, Marilyn Monroe

Famous Cancers: Lionel Messi, Ariana Grande

Famous Leos: Cole Sprouse, Demi Lovato

VIRGO AUGUST 23 – SEPTEMBER 22

LIBRA SEPTEMBER 22 – OCTOBER 22

SCORPIO OCTOBER 23 – NOVEMBER 21

You need to make sure that you are surrounded by your closest friends and family. Your support system is only as strong as the people around you, and they will continue to support you in your times of need. Try new things and work on fixing an old bad habit.

This month, remember to think through all of your options when making decisions. Face your fears, and don’t be afraid to show vulnerability to the people who care about you the most. Remember to follow your dreams and persevere.

Try and take risks this month. It is your perseverance that will help you on your way to achieving your goals. Remember to keep the people in your support system close and let them know that you appreciate them. Take care of yourself and your relationships.

Famous Virgos: Zendaya, Niall Horan

Famous Libras: Zac Efron, Bruno Mars

Famous Scorpios: Drake, Caitlyn Jenner

HOROSCOPES By Caroline Yu

SAGITTARIUS NOVEMBER 22 – DECEMBER 21

CAPRICORN DECEMBER 22 – JANUARY 19

AQUARIUS JANUARY 12 – FEBRURARY 18

Remember that communication is the most important part of your relationships and an important contributor to moving your relationships to the next level. Make sure that you are continuing to challenge yourself and follow your dreams.

This month will be full of new beginnings. As you follow your path to your goals, it is imperative that you stay humble and remember and recognize the ones who got you there. Make an effort to appreciate those people, and tell them how much they mean to you.

Remember to recharge yourself and grant yourself the same time and patience that you give others. This month will be a time of big decisions, and you need to make sure that you consult all sides. Stay grounded and organized so that you can achieve your goals.

Famous Sagittariuses: Taylor Swift, Frank Sinatra

Famous Capricorns: Tiger Woods, Finn Wolfhard

Famous Aquarii: Ashton Kutcher, Michael Jordan

PISCES FEBRUARY 19 – MARCH 20

ARIES MARCH 21 – APRIL19

TAURUS APRIL 20 – MAY 20

Remember to be confident in yourself and in your decisions. Roll with the punches and try and keep a positive attitude. You know what you need in order to achieve your goals, so make sure that you are approaching problems with that in mind. Be patient with yourself.

Make sure that you are keeping a close eye on your responsibilities this month. Organization will be an important part of your path to success. Remember to be patient with yourself and trust your support systems. Remember to trust yourself and listen to your heart.

This month, you will feel a greater sense of control over your own goals and life. Remember to embrace your creativity and ingenuity. Believe in yourself and your process and always try your best to listen to feedback.

Famous Pisces: Rihanna, Justin Bieber

Famous Aries: Emma Watson, Lady Gaga

Famous Tauruses: Dwayne Johnson, John Cena

ASTROLOGY

Humor After doing God-knows-what since September, Student Council finally to “begin work.” BON APPÉTIT: “3 new varieties” of brown-mush-in-a-cup dessert coming this spring. Advanced Chemistry students discover new element causing their downfall. Its symbol: C+ “Concerns with Recommendations” to be renamed “Let me tell you my political views.” Waffle truck arrives, students now have way to legally bring waffles to school. Student takes “wrong turn” between buildings, arrives late with sushi platter. Mr. Lu: “Triangles are circles, and circles are triangles.” Class: (Ð_Ð) Volunteers needed to begin planning for next year’s highly anticipated “Minute of Code!” “Avenues Students for Trump” Facebook group adds new member, roster now up to 6. Famous musician dies, Mr. Misler cancels class curriculum for the rest of the week. Freshmen: New summer program announced, called “Learn how to speak at assembly.” Sophomores: Honey, you'ev got a big storm comin'. Juniors: Renew gym memberships for EC sheets. Seniors: Finally figure out how to speak at assembly, forget how to pass classes. Alumni: Enjoy second “six month reunion” this June. Teachers: There’s a homework policy? Deans: There’s an attendance policy? Parents: It’s a new school of thought! Waffle Truck: Mmmhm. After doStudents found arranged in a circle worship- September, Student Couning God-knows-what since ping Scott Rogowsky. cil finally to “begin work.” BON APPÉTIT: “3 new varieties” of brown-mushin-a-cup dessert coming this spring. Advanced Chemistry students disGumdrop chairs in the new building come out ing their downfall. Its symcover new element causbol: C+ “Concerns with Recommendations” to be to the low, low price of $800. renamed “Let me tell you my political views.” Waffle truck arrives, students now have way to legally bring Stairs in the lobby of new building closed waffles to school. Student takes “wrong turn” between buildings, arrives down, cited that 5 steps are just too much to late with sushi platter. Mr. Lu: “Triangles are circles, and circles are triangles.” handle. Class: (Ð_Ð) Volunteers needed to begin planning for next year’s highly anticipated “Minute of Code!” “Avenues Students for Trump” Facebook group Kids in the new building complain about the adds new member, roster now up to 6. Famous fact that there is a new building. musician dies, Mr. Misler cancels class curriculum for the rest of the week. Freshmen: New summer program announced, “Learn how to speak Senioritis offically added as third tradition for called at assembly.” Sophomores: Honey, you'ev got a big Seniors storm comin'. Juniors: Renew gym memberships for EC sheets. Seniors: Finally figure out how to speak at assembly, forget how to pass classes. Alumni: Breaking: student throws trash into proper Enjoy second “six month reunion” this June. Teachers: There’s a homework policy? Deans: There’s an receptacle. attendance policy? Parents: It’s a new school of thought! Waffle Truck: Mmmhm. After doing Godknows-what since Sep- Glass walls and joint classrooms to be re inves- tember, Student Council finally to “begin work.” BON APPÉTIT: “3 new vatigated for productivity. rieties” of brown-mush-ina-cup dessert coming this spring. Advanced Chemistry students discover “Peer leadership!” seniors cry above freshmen downfall. Its symbol: C+ new element causing their “Concerns with Recommendations” to be regroans. named “Let me tell you my political views.” Waffle truck arrives, students now have way to legally bring waffles to school. Student takes “wrong turn” Breaking: students found dealing cookies in between buildings, arrives late with sushi platter. Mr. new building. Parents outraged by calorie Lu: “Triangles are circles, and circles are triangles.” count. Class: (Ð_Ð) Volunteers needed to begin planning for next year’s highly anticipated “Minute of Code!” “Avenues Students for Trump” Facebook group adds new member, ros- Dissected pig found missing. New snack policy ter now up to 6. Famous suspected. musician dies, Mr. Misler cancels class curriculum for the rest of the week. Freshmen: New summer program announced, called “Learn how to speak Students open a returning fantasy teacher at assembly.” Sophomores: Honey, you'ev got a big storm comin'. Juniors: Renew gym memberships league. for EC sheets. Seniors: Finally figure out how to speak at assembly, forget how to pass classes. Alumni: Enjoy second “six month reunion” this June. Teachers: There’s a homework policy? Deans: There’s an attendance policy? Parents: It’s a new school of thought! Waffle Truck: Mmmhm. and circles are triangles.” Class: (Ð_Ð) Volunteers needed to begin planning for next year’s highly anticipated “Minute of Code!” “Avenues Students for Trump” Facebook group adds new member, roster now up to 6. Famous musician dies, Mr. Misler cancels class curriculum for the rest of the week. Freshmen: New summer program announced, called “Learn how to speak at assembly.” Sophomores: They still go to school here? Juniors: Renew gym memberships for EC sheets. Seniors: Finally figure out how to speak at assembly, forget how to pass classes. Alumni: Enjoy second “six month reunion” this June. Teachers: There’s a homework policy? Deans: There’s an attendance policy? Parents: It’s a new school of thought! Waffle Truck: Mmmhm.

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