Volume 118 Issue 22
The Record Horace Mann’s Weekly Newspaper Since 1903
Inaugural poet Richard Blanco hosts workshops Sean Lee and Ayesha Sen Staff Writers This week, former President Barack Obama’s inaugural poet Richard Blanco virtually hosted a three-day poetry workshop on the fundamentals of strong poetry writing. Blanco read his poem, “Looking for the Gulf Motel” to the attendees, who then reread it, looking for sensory detail. The attendees then discussed those details, the craft of the poem, and the interaction between poet, poem, and reader. In the following meeting, Blanco went over the technicalities of poetry, including the use of line breaks to emphasize certain elements of a poem. Courtesy of Sean Lee
TELL BY SHOWING Blanco teaches. Blanco emphasized the importance of technical skills and language in poetry during the workshops. “Besides all this technical mumble jumble, writing and thinking and lines and line breaks and typography and stanzas are at the very essence of poetry because it makes us think differently,” Blanco said. “It makes us hear language differently. It makes us put words on paper differently.” English teacher Dr. Deborah Kassel took her 11th and 12th grade English classes to Blanco’s threeday workshop because she thought
Blanco’s talent as a poet and his potential would positively affect her students’ development as writers, she said. Furthermore, the study of poetry is an essential component of her English 11 class, she said. “How could I deprive my students of the opportunity of working directly with one of America’s most celebrated poets?” Arman Azmi (10) attended the workshop because of his own interest in creative writing and to become familiar with Blanco’s work. “I knew about Blanco because he came to our school once already, but I wasn’t familiar with his work,” he said. “After I went to the first day of the workshop, I was blown away when he read his poem ‘Looking for the Gulf Motel.’” English teacher Rebecca Bahr took her 12th grade English elective, Writing Nature, to one of Blanco’s workshops on Wednesday, she said. In the elective, students write or read a significant amount of poetry, so Bahr jumped at the chance to work with Blanco, knowing her class would benefit from his workshop. Bahr was especially impressed with Blanco’s discussion of senses, she said. Blanco showed the attendees that his poems are 98% sensory details, which Bahr has been discussing with her students. “Blanco discussed how we, at essence, are biological beings, always rooted in the senses,” she said. Blanco’s emphasis on the importance of generating a poem with an uncensored flow of words — which can later be structured in a more deliberate way — stood out to Kassel. She was particularly intrigued by Blanco’s inversion of the adage, “show-don’t-tell” into “tell by showing.” Rachel Zhu (12) was fascinated by the discussion about the extent to which a poet can fabricate details for the sake of artistry for emotion. “Blanco said something along the lines of ‘It’s true as long as it’s true to you,’ which is immensely inspiring,” she said. Blanco’s reading of his poems felt more personal and intimate, helping Zhu feel the human connection even more during the workshop, she said. In one activity, Blanco asked students to write a sensory-based poem about a specific location, as he did in his poem, “Looking for the Gulf Motel,” Bahr said. “I love the way he broke down [the assignment] into steps for the students, but also shared the fact that his first version of the poem was really not very good,” she said. After revision, Blanco used only one sentence from the first draft, Bahr said. “That is such a good lesson for us — rarely do the poems just pour out of us,” she said. “There is real craft in getting to the finished product.” Attending the workshop was an extremely positive experience, Zhu said. “The workshop has given me a multitude of insights and perspectives that will cause me to look at [poetry] in a whole new light.”
Courtesy of Keith Renner
record.horacemann.org March 5th, 2021
Courtesy of Adam Casdin
COVID SAFE Renner, his wife, and Casdin exude confidence post-vaccination.
Faculty receive COVID-19 vaccines, new quarantine guidelines follow
Katya Tolunsky Staff Writer Since January 10, the schools’ faculty and employees have been eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. As soon as the local New York health department approves the new Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, employees who received both doses of the vaccine will no longer be required to quarantine if exposed to a positive COVID-19 case, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said. However, the school will stop this practice if a vaccinated employee becomes infected with COVID-19, Kelly said. Both the vaccination locations
the Moderna vaccine at the Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School in the South Bronx. Casdin waited in line with fellow teachers for two hours, he said. “There was a certain camaraderie.” Casdin had no apprehensions about receiving the vaccine. “I have a certain faith in science and I think there was enough scrutiny of the vaccine from outside groups,” he said. Still, Casdin would like to see some hard data in the next few months about the vaccine; specifically, he would like to know whether he is still able to contract COVID-19 and pass it on even if he is asymptomatic. Like Casdin, History teacher Dr. Ellen Bales did not have any
There is a psychological component to receiving the vaccine, Bienstock said. He now feels slightly more comfortable socializing with teachers, specifically teachers in the history department since they have all been vaccinated. With respect to the school’s safety protocols and guidelines, nothing is going to change, Kelly said. “We will not be relaxing our protocols, nor will we be encouraging social get-togethers outside of school,” he said. “In addition, we’ll continue to monitor and adjust the need to remain socially distant across all athletic and co-curricular offerings.” Renner has not changed his
“All of a sudden it was like, ‘I will be able to see my parents soon. Someday there won’t be weird plastic barriers between me and my students. I will delete Zoom from my computer.’” -Keith Renner and available dosages are limited, Kelly said. There remain quite a few school employees still in search of their first shot, he said. Some employees and faculty at the school opted out of this round of vaccinations, Kelly said. “The majority of these individuals have well-documented or verbally communicated reasons for doing so,” he added. “Until the vaccination is mandatory, we will continue to encourage but not require the vaccination.” Ceramics teacher Keith Renner received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx in late January and his second dose in late February. Renner did not experience any major side-effects after receiving the shot. “For a few hours it felt like someone had punched my arm,” he said. “No big deal.” Renner was surprised by how emotional he was when he received the vaccine, he said. “All of a sudden it was like, ‘I will be able to see my parents soon,” he said. “Someday there won’t be weird plastic barriers between me and my students. I will delete Zoom from my computer.” English teacher Dr. Adam Casdin received both doses of
apprehensions about taking the vaccine. “The risks of the vaccine are very low compared to the risks posed by a COVID-19 case,” she said. “It is a matter of relative risk.” Bales received the Pfizer vaccine at the Hospital for Special Surgery on the East Side in January and the second shot in early February. Bales said the process was easy and that the hospital was extremely organized and professional. Bales does not plan on becoming more lenient with respect to social distancing guidelines now that she is vaccinated, she said. “There isn’t yet complete data on whether vaccinated people can infect others, even if they are asymptomatic,” Bales said. “I won’t put other people at risk of a disease that can have very serious and long-term health implications and about which we know little — for obvious reasons — about the long term consequences.” After receiving both doses of the Pfizer vaccine at Mount Sinai Hospital in East Harlem, History teacher Barry Bienstock did not experience any side effects. Bienstock was eager to be vaccinated, and after receiving both doses of the vaccine, felt comfortable visiting his grandchildren for the first time in a long time, he said.
social distancing behavior or plans since he received the vaccine, he said. “Getting the vaccine is more of a psychological victory to me, but my safety protocols are still very much in place.” Corey Brooks (11) feels more comfortable attending school now that so many of his teachers have been vaccinated, he said. Nathan Zelizer (11), however, does not feel more comfortable in school now that teachers have been vaccinated, he said. “The teachers are far more responsible than the students in terms of social distancing, so if I felt worried about contracting COVID at the school, it would have been [from] other students, not the teachers.” Teachers receiving vaccines is just one piece of the larger puzzle, Casdin said. “At least from my side, the concern was always student-to-student transmission,” he said. “I have the sense that the adults in the community are taking precautions and not traveling or socializing. But I think it’s very hard to do that for a young person, to be completely cut off.” Although teachers receiving the vaccine cannot hurt, it will take reaching real herd immunity in the community before things will fully normalize, Bales said.