The Horace Mann Record, Issue 28 - Junior Issue 4

The Horace Mann Record JUNIOR ISSUE #4

HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903

MAY 24TH, 2019 || VOLUME 116, ISSUE 28

Relay for Life rallies against cancer Natalie Sweet Staff Writer

On Alumni Field yesterday afternoon, students, faculty, and parents alike could be spotted playing carnival games, walking laps, and bungee jumping as part of the school’s fourth annual Relay for Life.

The Cancer Awareness Club (CAC) brought together musicians, bouncy castles, and the relay itself to make the day possible. However, rain started to pour an hour into the event, forcing the organizers to shift the activities into the Friedman gymnasium.

Despite the downpour, the event was able to carry on through speeches by CAC co-President Luke Weber (11). Weber and CAC Vice President Kyra Kwok (12) spoke to the students and faculty.

Several performers also took the stage in the gyms, including a piano duet between Yana Gitelman (10) and Annie Wallach (12).

The purpose of Relay for Life is to raise money for the American Cancer Society for research and treatment, but also to make everyone more aware of how much the school community is affected by cancer, Lower Division Coordinator Lita Crichton (10) said.

To accomplish all of these tasks, the 70 members of the CAC were split into 11 different committees such as inter-school, faculty, and activities, with 22 different coordinators leading the committees, Weber said. These leaders then delegated tasks to the other committee members.

Abigail Kraus/Photography Editor

HANDS ON Students spread awareness.

One task given was meeting with people to help bring events to Relay for Life. Jakob Djibankov (12) met with a sales associate of the amusement company that provided the booths.

All of the students in CAC are amazing and very hardworking, which makes the jobs of the faculty advisors a lot easier, Upper Division Dean of Students Dr. Susan Delanty said.

“The dedication of these students is incredible,” Coaches Versus Cancer Coordinator Ray Barile

said. “Through their commitment, they are really capturing the spirit of this event.”

Weber joined Relay for Life for the first time because of his brother Jack Weber ‘17, who founded the CAC, he said.

To Kate Bown (10), being able to lead something that had a great impact such as raising funds for cancer research is empowering.

Weber’s favorite part of organizing Relay for Life is the meetings, where he can give

Juniors showcase research at ISEF Gabby Chong Staff Writer

Naomi Kenyatta (11), Richard Han (11), Brian Wu (11), and Malhaar Agrawal (11) participated last week in the annual Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Phoenix, Arizona. Wu, Kenyatta and Agarwal each recieved prestigious awards.

Wu received the top grant award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Wu’s project was the only one selected out of the 1,842 finalists to receive the grant award.

Kenyatta won the Oracle Award and the Shanghai Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Company Award, she said.

From winning first prize in his category, Agarwal received $3000 for his project, and will have an asteroid named after him by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, he said.

Students from about 80 different countries attended the fair, Agarwal said. “The ISEF is one of the top science competitions for high schoolers at the international level.”

Students qualify for ISEF by competing in a regional science fair, Wu said. “Richard, Malhaar, and I qualified through the New York

Courtesty of Brian Wu

INSIDE

MAN OF THE HOUR Wu (11) rallies the crowd at the competition.

City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF),,” Wu said. At the NYCSEF, each project is evaluated over a span of four hours before judges decide whether its creator can advance to ISEF or not.

Over 700 projects were presented in the NYC fair, and only 13 were selected to advance to the ISEF. Kenyatta took a different path to the competition than Han, Wu, and Agrawal. Kenyatta reached the competition by qualifying through the Kentucky State Science and Engineering Fair.

“My partners and I are all from different regions, so we got a special exception to compete in the Kentucky region,” Kenyatta said.

Kenyatta, Han, Wu, and Agrawal attended the competition together.

“Having other students from the school by my side was really enjoyable,” Agrawal said.

The ISEF lasted a whole week, and missing school for so long has been difficult for the four students, they said.

“Seeing other high schoolers that went through a similar process that I went through, putting loads of dedication and work into their projects, was amazing,” Kenyatta said.

Kenyatta and her partners presented a software project about surface reconstruction, she said. They developed an app that takes pictures of damaged buildings and creates 3D models to help fix them. Kenyatta’s app helps to fix war damaged and natural disaster born areas, she said.

Agrawal presented a new way to diagnose prostate cancer. Agrawal developed an alternative method by using a urine test.

Han investigated the effects of fusobacterium nucleii on the proliferation rate of esophageal cancer,

Scoring Shifts

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Ryan Eastep and Charlotte Cebula discuss the new adversity score.

Wu said. He presented how this type of bacteria accelerated the growth rate of esophageal cancer.

Wu utilized the Doppler spectroscopy method to discover one out of the 24 known circumbinary planets. The circumbinary planet he discovered is the first of its kind detected using this method.

Agrawal’s Advanced Placement Biology Teacher, Melissa Doellman was proud of his accomplishments at the fair. “I think that it is an amazing

Courtesty of Malhaar Agrawal

WINNERS CIRCLE Agrawal (11) poses with his award. accomplishment and well-deserved recognition for the fabulous work Malhaar is doing with his research,” she said. “Malhaar is a bright student and it is wonderful that he was able to experience the research competition.

“Ever since I was little, I’ve been extremely passionate about aerospace engineering as well as astrophysics. I really want to be able to solve major problems the world faces using my extensive skill set,” Wu said.

The ISEF wasn’t only about competing for awards, Wu said. “At the competition, I met many other people who were extremely passionate about using science and engineering to save the world.”

Teacher Alumni

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Faculty describe their experiences as students at the school.

assignments to people and get work done, all while coming together to have a great time, he said.

“It’s always a good time to see the road ahead and see what we have accomplished,” Weber said.

“I look around the room and see that all of these people are here for a reason, they are here to fight cancer because they have been affected by it in some way or the other.”

A new aspect of Relay for Life is the participation from two neighboring schools, Fieldston and Riverdale, Weber said. “This year, the inter-school committee was created to help draw in students from these schools to participate,” he said.

“I hope to see the HM community as a whole take it as their own,” CAC co-president Julia Roth (12) said. “It’s already amazing how many people participate as members of the club, but I’d love to see it become an entirely school-wide event.”

To Djibankov, Relay for Life is a way to make an impact, he said. Seeing people struggling with cancer all around him reminds him of the goal he is working for, he said.

As a cancer survivor himself, it is important to Weber that he can do whatever he can to help others who are going through what he went through, he said.

“At the end of the day, Relay is going to mean and feel something different for each person,” Barile said. “As long as it’s a positive feeling, that’s the goal I wish for everyone.”

College Board announces Environmental Context Dashboard Henry Owens and Hannah Hornfeld Staff & Contributing Writer

The College Board announced their plans to implement a new admissions tool called the Environmental Context Dashboard (ECD) last Thursday, with the goal of providing colleges with more information about students than the SAT test score alone, according to the College Board website.

Some news outlets have referred to the ECD as an “adversity score,” a term that the College Board says is inaccurate. The ECD is not a score, but a set of information that helps better contextualize the SAT score, and has no effect on students’ actual SAT scores.

The ECD includes statistics from the student’s neighborhood about income, housing, education, and crime; information about the student’s high school such as class size, and AP opportunity; and how the student’s score compares with the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile at their school.

One aspect of the Dashboard is a ‘disadvantage level’ which is a scale from 1 to 100 (100 being most disadvantaged) that acts as an average for all the information presented.

Associate Director of College Counseling Frank Cabrera does not feel that the ECD will have a major impact on the college admissions process, he said. “A score is certainly new, but in admissions, we have always been trained to understand the context from which an applicant is coming from.”

“Even as a first year admissions officer back in the 1990s, I was trained to consider a variety of contextual factors when reviewing applications,” Director of College Counseling Canh

Clubs and Trips

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Take a look into the hidden gamer clubs and weekly trips in the Middle Division.

Oxelson said. “The difference today is that the College Board is attempting to quantify this context for colleges.”

The purpose of the ECD is to give college admissions officials an idea of an applicant’s socioeconomic background, and to compare students with others in similar situations and with similar opportunities.

“This is about finding young people who do a great deal with what they’ve been given,” said CEO of the College Board David Coleman in an official statement. “It helps colleges see students who may not have scored as high, but when you look at the environment that they have emerged from, it is amazing.”

The ECD was first tested at just two schools in 2016. Since then, the pilot program has expanded to 50 colleges for this year’s admissions process. It will be implemented at 150 colleges for the 2019-20 admissions process, and beyond that, it will be made available for all schools. Madhav Menon (10) hopes that the ECD will help increase diversity of thought in colleges, as opposed to simply diversity of race, he said. Menon did not say the ECD is a perfect system, but he does think it’s a lot better than having the just SAT score alone, he said.

Cabrera is hopeful that the ECD will only serve as an additional tool in the wide range of factors admissions officers consider when making informed decisions, he said.

However, students should understand that however colleges choose to include this score in their review of applicants, it is only one of many factors being used to understand their achievements, Oxelson said.

“No one should get carried away with this score as there are a lot more data points that will be equally, if not more, important.”

@hm.record @thehoracemannrecord Horace Mann School 231 W 246th St, Bronx, NY 10471

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THE RECORD OPINIONS MAY 24TH, 2019

HORACE MANN NEWS MAY 24TH, 2019

Chou’s performance brings comfort women’s stories to life

Katya Arutyunyan/Art Director

“adversity” scoring policy The adversity score doesn’t just frustrate me and other students like myself. It’s also very frustrating for hard-working parents with aspirations for their children, knowing that something like the new adversity score could work in their children’s favor had they been less successful, thus putting their kids in a better position for the college process.

My mother comes from an underprivileged background, and because she worked incredibly hard to get herself to the position she is in today, my “adversity score” will suffer.

Despite the adversity score, people are Ryan Eastep undoubtedly going to find a way to take advantage of the system. The college process has rarely gone The new adversity score is the wrong answer to years without some sort of scandal or general the right question. First of all, it’s important to dishonesty issues, and to me, this new adversity contextualize every application and its contents score just seems like another way for some to in order to fully understand an applicant’s further strengthen their applications, whether qualifications. That said, a singular score on they really deserve it or not. Nothing is stopping a scale of 1-100 is extremely a student from filling out a different surface level and does little zip code, address, or reported to address the actual contrast family income, all of which could between students from different easily swing their adversity score socioeconomic backgrounds. whichever way they please. And Sure, the schools which students it’s truly unfortunate that things attend does matter and impact are this way - the adversity score quantities like standardized test could be a great way to further scores. However, this new adversity exemplify the troubles faced by score doesn’t even begin to address students throughout their lives, one of the biggest factors that both at school and at home. But truly separates students’ scores doesn’t that naturally come out from one another: outside test prep. Annabelle Chan/Staff Artist through application supplements, There’s an ongoing notion that “if you can basic information, and essays? Why does there afford test prep, you probably took it,” and the need to be such a definitive, pseudoscientific new adversity score is extremely shallow in this value placed on top of everything? regard. “Privileged” students, like myself, who Realistically, the Common Application just did not want to spend thousands of dollars on needs places for students to fill out if they’ve top-tier tutors and never had the advantage of test gone through high school with tutoring, extra prep, are now going to be punished further for time, or anything that actually affects what something out of their control. That’s where the they’re sending to colleges. Remember, context bulk of the problem lies. I’ve never had the benefit is always important in the college process of a standardized test tutor, yet my scores are taken - but this new adversity score just is a sad into account with the assumption that I had one. and frustrating abomination in the making.

when applying to college. With a quick internet search, an admissions officer has access to The adversity index has only led me to further questions and uncertainty.

Charlotte Cebula If you have ever been on a college tour, you have probably heard the sentence “we read your applications holistically.” Essentially, this means that college admissions officers look at your application in the context of your opportunities, without comparing you to students from other schools which have different structures or funding. In theory, ‘adversity’ scoring by the College Board does the same.

My two biggest takeaways from this new method are the following: it will probably not be particularly different from how admissions are determined now, and it is the College Board’s way of admitting that the tests are inherently flawed. Initially, the headlines about a “separate SAT score” based off of factors unrelated to the test seemed daunting.

As a junior going through the college process, the unpredictability of a standardized score only added to the natural stress of the situation. Is my score really my score? After more research, however, my opinion changed, and I began to focus more heavily on broader questions regarding the legitimacy value of standardized testing.

The adversity index streamlines public information and data provided by the applicant. In effect, this will make the admission officers’ jobs a little faster when reviewing an application in context. An applicant gives a home address, zip code, and school name

the information to preview their applicant’s home situation. Yes, the 100-point-scale index makes all the information accessible on one page, but the index itself is not a novelty.

By including a separate score to explain the initial score out of 1600, the College Board is really conceding that its tests are not, in fact, the great equalizers of the college process. If the standardized test needs a new algorithm to restandardize it, perhaps the test itself needs reform.

I don’t believe that the new adversity index will affect me greatly, and I am lucky to say so. Given the education I have received at Horace Mann and the benefits that come with the school, I will not need a new adversity number to explain my original score. But for the countless other students across the country, the uncertainty of their score could have negative repercussions on their admissions.

Unless the test itself is changed to be more reflective of a student’s capabilities rather than their ability to prepare for every variation of a question, I suspect that there will be little change.

The adversity index has only led me to further questions and uncertainty. I can only hope that the College Board’s attempts to ameliorate their system prove to be helpful in creating a fair approach to college admissions, but given the information I have, it seems like they should take a more radical tact. I hope to see a future where college admissions and test scores are truly fair, not governed by society’s deep socioeconomic divide.

One signature signs away women’s right to choose in Alabama

Rohan Bhatia Alabama state representatives signed a bill on May 14th that bans abortion at any stage and criminalizes doctors who perform the procedure. These doctors could go to prison for up to 99 years.The bill represents a large scale change occuring in our nation today.

States like Alabama are using their power to attempt to overturn Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a woman the right to terminate her pregnancy. Thus, the anti-abortion bill is not only a piece of legislation that disrupts the very foundations of our contemporary society, but one that demonstrates a flaw in the democratic process.

Through understanding the consequences and causes for this series of actions, we

can visualize the immense downside to the bill and its negative effects on the nation.

When I first heard of the new law that incriminates those who perform abortions, I was astonished. I did not expect the Alabama state representatives to act so swiftly.

The 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade protects a woman’s right to privacy and control over her own body while also allowing government officials to prevent an abortion in later stages of pregnancy. This seems like a fair compromise that balances a woman’s choice over her own body with a doctor’s medical opinion. Not only is Roe v. Wade reasonable, but the Supreme Court has upheld it since it was decided 46 years ago. This is why I found the sudden signing of new legislation to be oddly abrupt. Frankly, this bill is the result of American politicians dissolving a medical topic, abortion, into the realm of politics.

The American democratic process seems so forward in thought, but when looking at how it is executed in states like Alabama, there is a lack in diversity of thought. All state officials that voted in favor of this bill are elderly white males. The democratic process, in theory, should ensure that these representatives are taking into account the opinions of the women in their respective districts. However, no man

Volume 116 Editorial Board Managing Editor Gabby Kepnes

Editor in Chief Jude Herwitz

Issues Editor Andrew Cassino

Features Julia Robbins Eliza Poster

News Nishtha Sharma Darius McCullough

Opinions Simon Yang Mayanka Dhingra

A&E Amelia Feiner Edwin Jin

Lions’ Den Mark Fernandez Victor Dimitrov

Photography Griffin Smith

Art Directors Katya Arutyunran Gabrielle Fischberg

Design Editors Euwan Kim Reena Ye

Faculty Adviser David Berenson

Middle Division Samuel Keimweiss

Online Editor Henry Wildermuth

Julia Goldberg Staff Writer

can speak in favor of a law that restricts a woman’s right to make decisions in respect to her body. Disregarding who voted for the bill, according to an article published by Vox only 16 percent of all citizens in Alabama support a complete legal ban of abortion. The reason that these representatives win their respective elections is because of their party affiliations, stances on other topics, and support of some form of an abortion ban, but not a complete ban. The election of state officials who support a full legal ban on abortion and the lack of support for this full legal ban from the citizens of Alabama highlights a loophole in the democratic process. In addition, many prominent Republicans have publicly opposed the ban, such as President Trump and Senator Mitt Romney. This demonstrates a disparity of political opinions throughout the party system. These politicians can voice their opinions, but the legislation is voted on by the Alabama state representatives.

Next, the legislation that has been proposed and passed in Alabama and multiple other states incriminates a doctor for facilitating the abortion procedure. The doctor will be charged with a class A felony and will spend up to 99 years in prison. In this case, the concept of checks and balances is practically nonexistent.

Staff Writers Malhaar Agrawal, Laura Bae, Steven Borodkin, Nelson Gaillard, Leonora Gogos, Spencer Kahn, Suraj Khakee Madison Li, Noah Phillips, Kiara Royer, Abigail Salzhauer, Ranya Sareen, Masa Shiiki, Benjamin Wang, Robbie Werdiger, Simon Yang, Isabella Zhang, Izzy Abbott, Bradley Bennett, Sogona Cisse, Jack Crovitz, Jackson Feigin, Adam Frommer, Andie Goldmacher, Julia Goldberg, Avi Kapadia, Marina Kazarian, John Mauro, Henry Owens, Emily Shi, Samuel Singer, Sasha Snyder, Vivien Sweet, Natalie Sweet, Joshua Underberg, Talia Winiarsky, Lauren Ho, Katya Tolunsky, Morgan Smith, Sam Chiang, Maya Nornberg, Liliana Greyf, Emma Colacino, Abby Beckler, Yesh Nikam, Nathan Zelizer, Adrian Arnaboldi, Kate Feiner Staff Photographers Eva Fortunato, Iliana Dezelic, Harrison Haft, Julia Isko, Daniel Lee, Ava Merker Staff Artists Elizabeth Fortunato, Alexandra Crotty, Annabelle Chan, Julia Roth

Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

The state officials have power over a woman’s body and a doctor’s practice. The bill does not make any exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and even attempting the abortion is a class C felony. Not only are these sentences ridiculously excessive, but they provide state officials with control over medical decisions by threatening medical practices for facilitating an abortion. Restricting doctors’ opinions infringes on their ability to help the public and serve the community.

If the government can practically intimidate doctors into sacrificing their professions, then Americans are placed in harm’s way. Today’s actions will have consequences tomorrow, and my fear is that those consequences will affect a doctor’s ability to do their job.

Corrections - Issue 27 In Issue 27, Ben Wang (11) was not recognized as CC Representative. The board apologizes for this error.

Editorial Policy ABOUT The Record is published weekly by the students of Horace Mann School to provide the community with information and entertainment, as well as various viewpoints in the forms of editorials and opinion columns. All editorial decisions regarding content, grammar and layout are made by the editorial board. The Record maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and National Scholastic Press Association.

EDITORIALS & OPINIONS Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the majority of the senior editorial board. Opinion columns are the sole opinion of the author and not of The Record or the editorial board.

NOTE As a student publication, the contents of The Record are the views and work of the students and do not necessarily represent those of the faculty or administration of the Horace Mann School. The Horace Mann School is not responsible for the accuracy and content of The Record, and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

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Stephanie Chou ‘05 returned to the school on Monday to perform Comfort Girl, a musical tribute to the lives of the many Chinese women abducted into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during WWII. Comfort Girl explores the sufferings of these women, not only during captivity, but also after they returned home to their families, who were not always welcoming. It is a story about humanity and a celebration of the strength of the human spirit, Chou said.

Accompanying Chou was singer Orville Mendoza; Andy Lin on erhu, viola, and violin; Jason Yeager on piano; and Ronen Itzik on drums. The incorporation of the erhu player in a jazz setting was untraditional, Chou said.

“The work that I’ve done before has definitely been culturally influenced, but Comfort Girl is my first time creating a narrative song cycle, where all the songs flow together, and my first time incorporating historical content with a specific social justice impact,” Chou said.

The history and music departments collaborated to bring the event to fruition, history teacher Dr. Elisa Milkes said. Music Department Chair Doug Epstein and Milkes worked together every step of the way, communicating with Chou to ensure that the performance was appropriate for a school setting, she said.

“Before this specific presentation, I had done three performances of the work in clubs in New York. Some faculty suggested I do it here, and when I came back this February for Music Week, it just all came together,” she said.

Milkes was concerned about making sure the performance was an event where people were challenged but did not feel overwhelmed, she said. “We needed to be mindful that people would come into the room with different personal stories and different understandings of their own family history.”

For Music teacher Timothy Ho, the most fascinating aspect of Chou’s work was her

thoughtfulness in fusing different aspects of her identity into her music. “The story she was telling was fascinating and very important to hear, especially coming from an Asian woman. She’s the right person to tell that story,” he said.

“I didn’t really know much about the history of comfort women, so it was interesting to have an oratory and visual representation-- the expression on Stephanie’s face seemed very real

mainly instrumental, and her most recent one, Asymptote (2017) reworked arrangements of popular and traditional Chinese folk songs.

This specific performance differed from her prior ones because of additional commentary

by Chou which included a question and answer session at the end. “When we usually do this as a show, there’s a narrator, but no talking done by me,” Chou said.

Courtesy of Ruth Seligman

A MUSICAL HOMAGE Chou honors comfort women through ensemble performance. and very attached to the issue. It helped me understand how heartbreaking it was,” attendee Aidan McAndrew (10) said.

Though Chou originally planned Comfort Girl to be a 40 minute concept album where the songs were loosely connected, she soon realized it would be more effective as a narrative story.

Thus, the piece is a combination of a multitude of different interviews with comfort women she had read about, Chou said.

Most of Chou’s prior music has been collections of songs. Her first album, Prime Knot (2010) was

Originally, Chou was introduced to the horrors that comfort women endured by her sister, Valerie Chou ‘10, who completed a double major in biology and East Asian history at the University of Chicago.

“I found [their lives] to be very moving and just very fascinating,” Chou said. “I wondered how the women endured it, and what their individual experiences were like.”

Chou researched the topic for almost a year after her sister familiarized her with it by reading books and online articles as well as watching

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documentaries. Furthermore, Chou had the opportunity to speak with one of the chief researchers of the subject in Shanghai, who has interviewed many comfort women over the past twenty years, she said.

“I wasn’t going around looking for a topic to write a piece on, but as I learned more, I thought that a musical treatment would be a great way to bring exposure to give a voice to the women who had been silenced for so long, and to bring exposure to the topic,” Chou said. “Art is a great way to express emotional tragedy, because it captures emotion in a different way than a documentary or book can.”

Euwan Kim (11) expected the performance to be more broad, but thought that following a plot added dramatic elements and made it easier to follow than numbers or statistics would have, she said.

“The band was able to embody the emotions and the hardships of people without movement or props, just through sound and expression, and I thought that was brilliant,” McAndrew said.

“It’s important to be honest and open about our collective past,” Milkes said. “If we can’t talk about it in an informed, deliberate, and thoughtful way, it’s possible students will learn about it from another source, which wouldn’t treat different perspectives with the same level of respect,” she said.

“I’m hoping my students see the potential of what they themselves can do, in general, specifically through the field of music,” said Ho, who took his Treble Choir class to the performance.

“My goal with the entire piece, and presenting it, is always to raise awareness about this issue, because it’s often overlooked,” Chou said. “It’s an important story, and it still has echoes today, as survivors continue to fight for justice, and sex trafficking is an online global issue. I hope that musically, or on an emotional level, people are able to connect to a story in a way they otherwise wouldn’t.”

Model Congress gathers gavels Parli concludes season with at Dalton tournament powerful finish

Vivien Sweet Staff Writer

The school’s Model Congress team competed in a conference at The Dalton School last Sunday, debating high school students from schools across the tri-state area, and earning several awards.

High school Model Congress split students up into specific committees of around 15 people to emulate the United States Congress, team member Malhaar Agrawal (11) said.

In the small committees, students act as delegates and vote for potential bills concerning topics such as public works and the environment. Then, all the committees meet together to vote for a couple of select bills and to present their committees’ work, Agrawal said.

Awards in the form of gavels are given out to the best delegates in each committee and in the collective full committee. Madhav Menon (10) won a gavel for the full committee, and Amelia Feiner (11) and Irati Egorho Diez (11) both won gavels in their individual committees.

Since the Dalton conference was only one day long, there were only around 100 students participating, many of whom had competed at the same tournaments as the team had earlier this year, Model Congress member Emma Djoganopoulos (10) said. The ratio of skilled debaters to normal participants made it difficult to pass bills.

Djoganopoulos was readily prepared to debate her opponents in her committee since she had researched information that pertained to her committee concerning education and labor, she said.

Amishi Desai (10), who debated alongside Djoganopoulos in her committee, wrote her bill concerning the creation of a nationwide

minimum wage for prison laborers. Even though there were not a lot of opportunities to speak at the conference due to its one-day time frame, Desai was able to get her bill passed, she said.

At the full gathering, Agrawal spoke about his bill arguing for the killing of more deer, where the federal government would hire hunters to kill deer and extend the hunting season to fix the ecosystem, he said.

One key difference that separated this conference from previous ones was that the team’s presidents, Ben Metzner (12) and Arul Kapoor (12), watched other members debate rather than participate themselves, Blackman said.

“Since I’ve been in the same committee as previous tournaments and already prepared my bill, I got to walk around and watch the underclassmen debate in their committee,” Jack Blackman (11) said. “It was really inspiring to see how well they were speaking.”

According to Metzner, a stipulation of the conference was that no seniors debated since it was only a one-day conference. However, the conference helped him and Kapoor evaluate the juniors’ participation so that they could make decisions regarding leadership next year, Metzner said.

Debaters seemed to get “more Gabby Fischberg/Art Director nervous when Arul and Ben were watching them versus when 50 other competitors were, because they knew that the presidents were actually paying attention to what they were saying,” Blackman said.

Because many inexperienced underclassmen joined the school’s Model Congress team this year, there was a bit of a “learning curve,” Metzner said. However, taking that into consideration, the Dalton conference went well, with a couple underclassmen winning awards, he said.

“We have a bunch of kids who just joined the club this year and were super successful at their first conference.” Metzner said. “It makes you feel good about the future of the club.”

Courtesy of Julia Robbins

WORK HARD, PARLI HARDER Debaters pose after a successful tournament.

Kate Feiner Staff Writer Three students from the school’s Parliamentary Debate Team earned spots within the top five speakers at a tournament at The Dalton School last Saturday, marking the end of a successful competitive season.

Amman Kejela (11) reached the final round and Nathan Zelizer (9) placed fourth in the tournament’s novice bracket. Four teams from the school attended the tournament, as well as various judges, Irati Egorho Diez (11), who advanced to the semi-finals and placed as the second speaker, said.

During the tournament, there were four preliminary rounds, after which, debaters could qualify for the elimination rounds, Egorho Diez said.

William Golub (12), co-president of the team and the executive director of the student-run New York Parliamentary Debate League, was one of the main organizers of the tournament. He worked to manage all of the attending teams, he said.

In a typical round, students are given three motions around which the debate may focus

fifteen minutes prior to its start. They are then allowed to research these for a brief period of time, Golub said.

Zelizer feels that receiving topics a mere fifteen minutes before each round “emphasizes the ability to think fast and also brings a lot of attention to rhetoric over research,” he said.

During the year, the team meets each week to work on their skills, receiving mock resolutions and competing in practice rounds, Egorho Diez said. This practice is important when learning how to quickly prepare arguments, she said.

In addition, the school teaches students how to judge, as they are required to bring judges to the tournament if they want to bring their whole team, faculty advisor Melissa Kazan said.

Students from the team can also volunteer to judge at tournaments as a favor, she said.

Isabel Mignone (11), who judged at the tournament, follows each of the team’s argument through a process called flowing and also judges each speaker based on his or her eloquence, she said. “Because I also debate, I am able to think of a good progression for the round and better understand the strength of speakers,” she said.

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THE RECORD FEATURES MAY 24TH, 2019

1984, Deborah Kassel

Although Dr. Deborah Kassel is an English teacher, she still Liliana Greyf remembers the difference between meiosis and mitosis. This is a Staff Writer fact she credits to her time as a student at the school.

Courtesy of Deborah Kassel

“I’ve been in school for a long time, from college to masters’ degrees in journalism and cinema studies, to getting a PhD in comparative literature, and I can say that Horace Mann was the most influential period educationally,” she said.

Kassel started attending the school in eighth grade, and she always tried to contribute to the school community through community service and extracurricular activities, she said.

She was a staff writer and then associate editor of the Record and participated in plays and stage crew. She also led the Saturday Morning Tutoring Program (SMTP) as a senior which she felt was the most meaningful organization she was a part of at the school, she said. She loved knowing that with the preparation the tutees were getting from the program, they would have better access to a competitive school that offered an outstanding education such as the school, she said.

The clubs that she took part in influenced her career choices.

She continued the journalism she had started at The Record in undergraduate extracurriculars and then as a professional journalist for several years. She was also inspired by SMTP to appreciate the value of teaching. “All of these activities are seeds that took root as I grew older,” she said.

Kassel worked as an adjunct professor for journalism and literature at the City University of New York after graduate school.

This was the start of her teaching career. “I was thrilled to get a job at HM,” she said. “It’s my 23rd year here now.”

The biggest difference of the school now is the relationship teachers have with students, she said. When Kassel was a student she could not negotiate with a teacher and there was no extra help.

“It was sink or swim. I think now teachers and students are much more conscious of the opportunities there are for one-on-one help,” she said.

Having been a student at the school has made Kassel a more compassionate teacher. “I know first hand what it is like to be under stress and have a lot of work,” she said. Kassel always makes sure to give plenty of time to her students for major assignments and to ensure that writing is undertaken as a process of art- not just a result, she said. She is also a strong advocate for testing weeks to ensure that work doesn’t pile up on students.

Kassel looked up to her teachers as a student, so coming to work here was amazing, she said. “I thought they were so smart, and I learned so much from them,” she said.

“Coming back to Horace Mann to work here was coming back to a big part of my childhood; it was a really thrilling experience,” Kassel said.

2014, Shyenne Parris Emma Colacino Staff Writer

Courtesy of Mannikin

Shyenne Parris ‘14, rejoined the school as an admissions associate and co-facilitator of BLEx, a black affinity group, on campus. She said that her experience as a student at the school has inspired her dedication towards creating safe and diverse communities for students within the community.

One area that stood out to Parris as a great opportunity to grow as a thinker at school was in English classes, which later inspired her to major in English in college, she said. “I got to engage with [English] material critically in a way that I wasn’t being asked to do in public school,” she said.

Parris, who identifies as nonbinary, was a part of The Union, an organization that fosters inclusivity, as a student at the school.

Participating in the Union, specifically the group activities in the organization, showed her the importance of leading with compassion, she said.

Parris decided to come back to the school because of the positive and lasting effect it had on her life, she said. “I think that Horace Mann is the first place where I was allowed to be authentically myself,” she said. “I didn’t have to choose to live in the library or participate in sports or be social. I was encouraged to do it all and was supported when I attempted to do it all.”

However, she did not always know that she would return to work at the school full-time, she said. “I’m not really someone who thinks

Sam Chiang Staff Writer Emma Colacino/Staff Photographer

ahead that way. But I knew when I left college that coming back here felt like home,” she said.

Through working in admissions, Parris has been able to understand what factors are taken into consideration when building a community, she said. “I have really valued being able to be on this side and see that larger picture,” she said.

One of the main ways that Parris has seen change at the school since she was a student is in the increased diversity of the community, she said. “Every year I come back, we have focused a little more on making sure that Horace Mann is a microcosm for the larger world, and it’s a lot more accurate now than it was when I was here.”

A lot of Parris’ most fond memories are from when she encountered a problem and teachers reached out to help her solve it, she said.

“I remember my eighth grade math teacher, Mrs. Garrison,” Parris said. “I remember her because she reached out to me, and I was going to fail the class, and [she] was determined to help me study.”

“I lead with compassion because of educators like Mrs. Garrison,” Parris said. “I was blessed to always run into someone who cared about me when I felt very invisible and that made all the difference in my journey. I now strive to give other people that feeling.”

2004, Chris Garrison

Katya Tolunksy Staff Writer Courtesy of Chris Garrison

Back to SchooL! Alumni Faculty

2009, Chris Nelson

When Ultimate Frisbee Coach Chris Nelson ‘09 was a student at the school, frisbee was more than just a sport for him; it was a reprieve from the school’s rigorous curriculum and intense pressure, he said.

“Having previously attended P.S.6, switching to [Horace Mann] was a transformative point in my life because I was suddenly surrounded by new and different resources, academically rigorous courses, and classmates to motivate me,” Nelson said. The clubs and sports at the school made the experience particularly worthwhile, Nelson said.

Playing on the frisbee team was Nelson’s most impactful part of high school, he said. “Making Co-Captain in his senior year, Chris was a super enthusiastic and great player with quick hands and long arms,” UD math teacher and former head frisbee coach, Chris Jones said.

Following his high school career, Nelson played on the frisbee team while he was a college student at New York University. He became a captain of the team and also coached the NYU B team part-time on the side. As his time in college was coming to a close, he realized that he truly loved coaching frisbee, he said.

“As college was coming to a close, I wanted to return to the program that had given me a sense of community and break from academic pressure,” Nelson said. He reached out to his friend and mentor, Jones, to ask if he could work with his old high school team.

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HORACE MANN FEATURES MAY 24TH, 2019

“It was perfect timing because my back and knees had been making it much harder for me to coach,” Jones said. “Coach Nelson was a great assistant coach during the 2013-2014 season, and I had absolute confidence that he would do a great job as head coach the following season. He was already a member of the [Horace Mann] family and was well connected in the world of Ultimate Frisbee.”

“I was inspired to come back because Mr. Jones and the team had given me a community to be a part of and I wanted to give back,” Nelson said.

Having been through a similar high school experience as his players, Nelson uses his unique perspective as an alum of the school to influence how he coaches his team. “I understand the difficulties that students might face, including deadlines and being split between different obligations and requirements,” he said. “I’m aware of the challenges that students face and the pressures that they have to deal with and navigate on a daily basis. When a student has a conflict, I offer alternate ways to learn the material taught during practice.”

“He’s got a great perspective,” Jones said. “He thinks big and has expanded the profile of the team as well as made the team more inclusive, making everybody feel like they have a role.”

As a student, school registrar Chris Garrison ‘04 never imagined he would return to the school to work. “It was a weird path that I took to get here,” he said. “None of it was planned.”

In college, Garrison developed a new appreciation for the school after realizing how rare it is to have such an engaged student body, he said.

“I distinctly remember being so weirded out by the fact that nobody around me cared about some of the most interesting classes I was enrolled in,” he said.

Garrison loved the student body’s enthusiasm about learning: that love hasn’t changed. However, he said that he has noticed that the social life at school has evolved to be more inclusive and supportive than it once was.

“It used to be that if you didn’t fit in as, say, an athlete, theater person, or art person, there wasn’t necessarily a well-defined place for you in the community,” Garrison said. “Now the school has really developed a lot of different areas in the school, so that just about any type of student can find their place here.”

Garrison also appreciates the school’s efforts to create a fun environment outside the classroom.

“In large part due to the work of Dr. Delanty and Caroline Bartels to make sure that the students really enjoy their life outside of the classroom and the ‘non-academic’ aspects of their school

1979, Dr. Susan Delanty

Courtesy of Mannikin

Oliver Steinman Staff Writer Courtesy ofJason Caldwell

life.”

Garrison loved theater as a student, and developed a passion for teaching through working at a theater camp for many years, he said.

Initially, Garrison was hesitant to return to his alma mater, as his mother, MD Mathematics teacher Susan Garrison, his father, Upper Division (UD) tutor Lionel Garrison Jr., and his sister, MD History teacher Catherine Garrison ’01 also work at the school.

“I wanted to be sure I was making a decision that made sense for me and not just following my parents path,” he said. “I think it sort of just happened that way and I couldn’t be happier.”

Garrison does not see his family on school grounds as often as one might think. “There was a time when I was working in Spence cottage, my mom was working in the MD, my dad was working in the UD, and my sister was working in the Lower Division (LD).

So we were really all over the place and only seeing each other occasionally.”

When Garrison attended his 10 year high school reunion, his former classmates weren’t surprised that he ended up where he did, he said.

“They understood how connected I felt to the school, by virtue of the fact that I have seen it from so many different perspectives,” Garrison said.

As a student, one of science teacher and Dean of Abby beckler Students Dr. Susan Delanty’s ’79 favorite qualities of the school was the strong relationships she shared with Staff Writer teachers.

“I felt that [my teachers] were on my side and wanted me to learn,” she said. “They all seemed to love teaching their subjects, which was different from the teachers in my public school.”

A lot has changed since she graduated; however, as a faculty member since 1990, Delanty said that she still regards the passion of the teachers as one of the school’s “greatest gifts.”

Delanty came to the school as a student in ninth grade. “In my public school, it wasn’t cool to be smart,” she said.“When I came here, I was by far not the smartest person in my classes, and people worked very hard. It was a nice change.”

The school opened its doors to women with the graduating class of 1976, and was still adjusting to a changing community when Delanty was a student.

Delanty and her female peers faced sexism from teachers. “One thing I remember was that there was a cohort of male faculty that were not happy that the school went co-ed,” she said. “I remember feeling a bit

of that tension but it didn’t really affect me personally.”

While there were challenges to being the first female students, there were also opportunities to pioneer new endeavors at the school. Delanty was a member of one of the first Girls Varsity Softball and Field Hockey teams.

“We started all the teams because we were the first teams of girls’ at the school,” she said. “There hadn’t been any girls teams before us, so it wasn’t too difficult to become a member, and the expectations weren’t too high.”

Delanty also participated in Searchers, the outdoor program in which students learn to hike, camp, and be resourceful in nature, she said.

“We had practice or training every day after school and it was a lot of learning about yourself and your inner resources,” she said.

Delanty stayed in contact with some of her former teachers from the school after graduating, as she had had hoped to return to the school as a teacher, she said.

“They let me know as soon as a job was available and I took it immediately,” Delanty said. “I loved it here as a student and teaching here was the right thing for me in my life. Being a teacher felt like the right thing for what I wanted for myself and my family.”

1997, Jason Caldwell

When Director of Admissions Jason Caldwell ‘97 P’28 was in high school, he recognized the disparities in the education system comparing his educational experience with that of his peers in his old neighborhood in the Soundview section of the Bronx.

“At its best education is the great equalizer; it can raise someone’s station in life,” he said. This realization is what drove Caldwell to pursue a career in education, and ultimately led him back to work at his alma mater.

Caldwell entered the school as an eighth grader in 1992.

Caldwell struggled to adjust to the school’s demanding academics. “At my old school I was valedictorian, and school had been pretty easy,” he said.

Caldwell discovered he was good at sports and joined the football, basketball, and track and field teams. He was particularly successful at football and became a captain in his senior year, he said.

In addition to playing three sports, Caldwell participated in a variety of different clubs. He was head of the orientation committee, President of the Union, cochair of the Cross Cultural committee, and participated in theater in 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. The Union, which provides a safe space to discuss issues faced by students of color, was particularly important to Caldwell, he said.

During his time at the school, it was hard to pick and choose his activities. Caldwell’s busy schedule meant he had to give up certain activities he enjoyed so that he could prioritize others. “I had to give up theater for track,” he said.

Caldwell’s favorite subject was physics, but also enjoyed discussing literature in his English classes, he said.

The most valuable experiences Caldwell had at the school, however, were not in classes, but through the friendships he made, he said.

“Something that I talk about at every open house is that 29 people who graduated HM were at my wedding,” Caldwell said.

Caldwell implemented the most important lessons he learned at the school in college, including teamwork, writing skills, time management, work ethic, community, but most of all how to be a good friend, he said.

Compared to his years as a student, the school is bigger, more diverse, and feels more like a community, Caldwell said.

“This is the main reason I chose to send my daughter here,” he said. “This type of community is one that looks out for one another and genuinely feels like a family.”

All art in spread is by Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

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THE RECORD ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT MAY 24TH, 2019

Orchestra splits

Students bond over fantasy games Chloe Choi Staff Writer

Katya Arutyunyan/Art Director Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

Yesh Nikam and Andie Goldmacher Staff Writers

Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

Rocky Horror!

See Bebe Steel’s (12) show Tuesday, May 28th in the Recital Hall (Open to Juniors, Seniors, and adults)

“I mean if you can’t fit on stage you can’t fit on stage,” Orchestra conductor Nathan Hetherington said. Hetherington is referring to spatial problems in the Recital Hall—the Orchestra’s rehearsal space— that has required him to split the Orchestra into underclassmen and upperclassmen rehearsal groups.

Aside from the lack of space, Hetherington said that the large size of the ensemble made it harder for him to form close relationships with the students. “The group was getting so big that people were getting lost and I didn’t feel that I could connect with everybody,” he said.

Splitting the Orchestra has enabled Hetherington to personalize classes, he said. “I like being able to tailor rehearsals more specifically, because the way one half of the group rehearses is very different from the way the other part of the group rehearses,” he said.

Alejandro Espejel (9) did not know that the classes practiced together last year, but he feels that the current system helps him improve as a player. “I think I play better with the classes separate because I can actually hear myself and fix my mistakes,” he said.

Aidan Resnick (10) said that Hetherington’s goal to personalize the group was successful. He now gets more attention with Hetherington since there are fewer students in the each rehearsal, he said.

However, some students prefer performing in the full Orchestra. Stella Cha (10) enjoyed practicing with

all of the grades together because it allowed her to create lasting friendships with upperclassmen that had more experience in high school, she said.

Hetherington agrees that the new system hinders underclassmen and upperclassmens’ ability to bond.

“I loved the idea of having all four grades together so that everybody knows each other. The underclassmen really get to know the seniors and look up to them and learn from them,” he said.

The split changed the dynamic within the Orchestra because underclassmen are harder to control without upperclassmen in the room, Cha said. “When we were a joint Orchestra, it was expected that the freshmen would show much more respect towards upperclassmen,” she said.

Elijah Shaham (10) agrees that the split has decreased interaction between grades. “The ensemble is definitely not as close knit as it was last year. The juniors and seniors in the Orchestra only really interact with the freshmen and sophomores in the days leading up to concerts,” he said.

Resnick, however, feels that the divide in classes allowed him to form close relationships with the students in his class. “While I became less connected with the upperclassmen, I was able to form closer relationships with ninth graders in my class,” he said.

Maintaining the communication and closeness of all of the classes that make up the ensemble has been an ongoing challenge, Hetherington said.

In order to maintain the closeness of the group, Orchestra co-presidents Adrian Rogers (12), Emily Yu

U THINKING HARD Voruganti (11) pours over poetry.

(12), and Mieu Imai (12) have been trying to bond the two groups together as frequently as possible, Rogers said. “As an Orchestra president, me and the other copresidents have been trying to bring the two groups together with events and Orchestra merch.”

However, the change threatens to affect performance quality, since each class learns pieces differently, and there is only one dress rehearsal for both orchestras to combine before their performance, Cha said.

Rogers prefers combined classes because it has become increasingly difficult to function as a cohesive group for concerts, he said. “We’ve all developed separately, each group has its own personality and style, and that growth is really good for us as individual players but when it comes time to put things together as one unit it’s certainly challenging.”

Despite the varying opinion amongst the students, Hetherington feels that in general, the split has been a success, he said.

Despite the change in practice, the Orchestra has been putting out some of their best performances yet, Rogers said.

Hetherington does not plan on reverting back to a joint practice in the foreseeable future due to the cramped conditions in the Recital Hall. Regardless of opinions about the change, students are confident that the Orchestra will perform just as well as they did before the change, Cha said.

“The students in the Orchestra are very talented and are able to quickly adapt to whatever challenges we face in combining the two groups together,” Cha said.

t r S A how D

Daniel Lee/Staff Photographer

Voruganti wins poetry scholarship Emily Shi and Nathan Zelizer Staff & Contributing Writer

Rather than continue at the school for her senior year, Priyanka Voruganti (11) will spend her final year of high school nestled between two lakes in rural Michigan, where she will pursue her passion for creative writing at the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy Voruganti is among nine students selected to attend the academy next year out of 200 applicants.

At the beginning of the application process, Voruganti had no idea the scholarship was for a full academic year; she thought that she was applying to a threeweek summer program at Interlochen.

She only realized that she had applied to the boarding school when she received an email from the institution notifying her that she was already being considered for the scholarship and encouraging her to complete the application, she said.

“I was at an impasse. I didn’t go into the application process wanting to attend a boarding school, which has been a scary concept for me in the past,” Voruganti said. “At the same time, I thought about the possibility of winning a scholarship to an amazing writing school, so I decided applying could be a crazy, random thing I should just try to do, and it worked out really well.”

After being accepted to Interlochen with a partial scholarship, Voruganti chose to attend the boarding school her senior year because of the school’s specialized creative writing program, which has the potential to hone Voruganti’s writing technique and help her determine if she wants to pursue writing in the future, she said.

English teacher Sarah McIntyre taught Voruganti during her freshman and sophomore years at the school and has observed her writing grow incredibly, she said. “She deals with complexity well and is unafraid of thorny ethical questions,” McIntyre said.

“She just has a way of writing about every little thing - no matter how intense or inconsequential it may seem, that manages to point out its beauty,” Bebe Steel (12), a friend of Voruganti, said.

At the school, Voruganti writes feminist poetry for Folio 51 and recites poems in the Poetry Out Loud Club. President of Poetry Out Loud and Editor-in-Chief of Folio 51 Claire Yoo (12) always sees Voruganti’s passion in her vivid poetry, she said.

In class, Voruganti gained experience collaborating with other authors through the Performance Workshop course. Theater teacher Benjamin Posner said he appreciates Voruganti’s artistic vision in writing as a medium for theater and willingness to participate in class. “She’s one of the first people who will take out her computer and start jotting down ideas when we’re preparing a performance,” Posner said.

Charlotte Pinney (12), a close friend of Voruganti believes that writing is an outlet for Voruganti to help articulate her feelings, she said. “When you become an artist as an adolescent in high school it takes a long time to get an authentic, honest body of work, but I think Priyanka’s talent is that everything she writes comes from a really, really honest place,” Pinney said.

“I don’t even know if creative writing is something I want to do in college but I love it so much that I think I owe myself one year of an education that is focused on that,” Voruganti said.

Each day, middle schoolers eagerly gather in the atrium during their lunch periods and frees to participate in the games of Magic: The Gathering (Magic) and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). These games both encompass fantasy, and require major strategy. However, they differ in that Magic: The Gathering is a collectible and digital collectible card game, whereas Dungeons & Dragons is one that requires roleplaying and creating a story. Magic came out in the 1990’s and D&D was released in the 1970’s, but both are rapidly gaining increasing popularity and relevance within the MD community.

Magic is a card game in which two or more players take their collection of cards and fight with a variety of different mystical characters. Players cast spells, use artifacts, and summon creatures as depicted on individual cards in order to defeat their opponents, typically, but not always, by draining them of their twenty starting life points. There are different levels of value and rarity among the cards, thus resulting in the buying and selling of the rare ones. Some cards are worth thousands of dollars.

D&D is a roleplaying game that features a combination of fantasy lore and intense attention to detail.

In the game, players direct the actions of their character, as well as their interactions with other characters. It’s similar to creating a story, but the player decides the setting and all of the characters have a will of their own.

D&D club advisor James Brink said that both Magic and D&D really engage students’ creativity and imagination.

There is a strong social element to each, and without electronic devices allowed in the Atrium the games have become great ways for students to get together, talk, and play, he said.

The Magic club was started by a group of passionate eighthgrade students. “It really grew when kids realized there was even a club dedicated to Magic, and that more importantly, there are several kids in the Middle Division who are always very eager to play the game,” club advisor and math teacher Gabriel Cunha said.

The Magic club has a dedicated room to play the game, but students still play in the atrium each day.“I really wanted to join the Magic club because several of my friends and I played, so we thought it would be nice to have an official club room, and a dedicated

place to play, in addition to games in the Atrium,” Harry Lowy (8) said.

One of the MTG club’s founders, Luke Harris (8) initially became interested in the game through a friend. “At first, Magic was just another board game; until I got super into it over the summer of 2018, and have been playing more frequently since then, which led to the creation of the club with some of my friends,” he said.

Jisang Kymm (7) organized the D&D club after discovering the game during spring break, because he found the combination of both roleplay and fantasy intriguing. He felt that the game was something that others in the school would like as well, so Kymm proceeded to share the instructions with his friends and the club grew

many middle schoolers who play Magic in the Atrium every day. “I met someone at camp who taught me how to play, and at first I didn’t know that others in my grade also played, but after I introduced the game to my school friends, it was great to learn they already played Overall, the game has brought us all much closer,” he said.

As the year progressed, many club members began to make the switch to Magic, which resulted in the D&D club becoming defunct. “Magic: The Gathering was actually the first popular game in the beginning of the year, so many people probably wanted to play it again,” Kymm said.

Magic is a simpler game, Cunha said. “It’s much easier to play a quick game of Magic than Dungeons and Dragons ever

Drawing of D&D

Rachel Zhu/Staff Artist

from there.

Middle schoolers have developed strong bonds and relationships due to their participation in these games.

“It goes way beyond just the club-- 6th, 7th, and 8th graders are regularly playing together at multiple Atrium tables during lunches and frees,” Brink said.

Olivia Coward (6) has never played either game but has friends who do, she said. She finds the games to be especially beneficial for students to find a common interest, and form relationships around it, she said.

“The club has brought all the Magic players extremely close together because of their shared love of playing Magic,” Cunha added.

Clubs of all types foster new relationships and strengthen older ones, Director of Middle Division Guidance Wendy Reiter said. “When you consider that HM represents so many zip codes in the tri-state area, clubs do offer a critical opportunity for students to get together or just ‘hang out’ to have fun.”

Magic is no exception, and the game has brought about many positive interactions within the HM community.

Brink said that until Magic took off this year, he’s never noticed so many students playing mixed-grade games.

Ethan Katz (7) is among the Max Shopkorn/Staff Photographer

Photo of MTG Players

Griffin Smith/Photo Editor

ARTISTS ON DISPLAY Featured student work in Fisher Gallery.

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HORACE MANN MIDDLE DIVISION MAY 24TH, 2019

BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS Middle schoolers play Magic.

was,” Cunha said.

Many students felt similarly to Cunha when discussing the simplicity of Magic. “The Dungeons and Dragons club was more structured, with more defined members and a designated room to play, whereas the Magic club is extremely casual, as it doesn’t have a specific room which made it much easier to play,” Kymm said.

Luke Harris (8), a founding member of the Magic club, believes that Magic is more popular than D&D, mostly due to the long time requirement that D&D requires. “Magic doesn’t require a regularly scheduled playgroup and can be played with any other player at any moment, whereas D&D has much less flexibility, is a more daunting game, and a greater time requirement, thus making it the less popular choice,” he said.

D&D is a time-intensive game in which a single story may unfold over weeks. Brink feels that they found it especially challenging to get the whole group together consistently at one-week intervals.

Similarly to most of his peers and faculty, Harris said he prefers Magic because of its complexity and creativity. “Each deck feels less like a tool and more like a creation. Each card feels like it works as a gear in a massive ticking clock tower,” he said.

“Participating in clubs is extremely beneficial as it provides an important moment; one in which students need to make choices about how to spend their time. Given the range of choices with clubs, it provides students with a mechanism by which they can explore, experiment and imagine what they might be interested in or learn more about,” Reiter said.

Emma Colacino/Contributing Photographer

Picture of her

TELLING STORIES Hiranandani speaks to students.

Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

Newbery winner visits school Hanna Hornfield Contributing Writer

Author Veera Hiranandani visited the school last week to speak about her Newbery Honor winning book “The Night Diary” as a part of the Middle Division Lions and Cubs book club.

“The Night Diary” is the second book that Middle Division families have read together in Lions and Cubs, a club founded last year in which MD students and parents read and talk about books together, club founder and leader Rachael Ricker said.

The historical fiction story of “The Night Diary” is told through a series of diary entries written by twelve-year-old half-Hindu half-Muslim Nisha, who flees from Pakistan with her family during the partition of India, a tension-filled event that split India into India and Pakistan in 1947.

Much of the book was inspired by Hiranandani’s personal background, as her father and his family were also refugees during the partition and made the same journey as Nisha does in the book, Hiranandani said. Hiranandani generally prefers to write about topics that she has a connection to, she said. “It makes my relationship to the characters deeper and easier to access on an emotional level,” she said.

When Ricker first read “The Night Diary”, she knew it would be her next pick for the book club, she said. “‘The Night Diary’ felt like the perfect book to share as a family. It has so many connections to family, identity, and history, and I could really envision parents and kids talking about it at the dinner table,” she said.

According to Ricker, Hiranandani was the first author to visit the Lions and Cubs book club, although the author of the previous book they read visited the school for a separate occasion.

Hiranandani was enthusiastic about visiting

the book club because she enjoys speaking to students, she said. “Writing can be a bit lonely, so it’s wonderful to interact with my readers or prospective readers,” she said. “I especially love answering questions and having discussions about my books and my writing.”

In her presentation, Hiranandani spoke about her writing process and the history behind her book. Part of the reason why Hiranandani chose to make her book a middle-grade novel is that she felt that pre-teens needed more access to stories and education about the partition, she said.

Geeta Kumar P’20 P’23, whose parents and parents-in-law went through the partition, particularly enjoyed the book and Hiranandani’s presentation because she had a personal connection to them and was able to share the history with her son, she said.

Avi Kumar (8), Geeta’s son, enjoyed learning about his family history with his mother, he said. “My mom and I both found the book and the presentation to be very thought-provoking, and it was interesting to learn more about my connection to the culture,” he said.

The book also sparked conversations between Natalia Hecker (8) and her mother, Hecker said.

“When I was little, my mom and I would read together all the time,” she said. “It’s really special to be able to connect over books again.”

Avi enjoyed listening to Hiranandani speak about her writing process, he said. “It was nice to learn how she writes, what gives her ideas, and even why she cares about including specific things in her books, such as diverse kinds of foods,” he said.

For all the aspiring writers in the audience, Hiranandani’s advice was to have patience and have fun, she said. “Good writing takes time and practice, so the best thing to do is keep writing, keep reading, and enjoy the ride,” she said.

GSA attends ‘Be More Chill’ Jack Crovitz Staff Writer

Seventh graders from the Middle Division (MD) Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) travelled to see a matinee performance of ‘Be More Chill’ at the Lyceum Theater on Wednesday.

‘Be More Chill’ is a recently opened sciencefiction Broadway musical set in an American Rachel Zhu/Staff Artist high school. It tells the story of Jeremy, a bullied and neurotic 10th grader, and his experiences seventh grader who saw the show, said. with the ‘Squip,’ an injectable supercomputer Despite being a relatively new club, the that tells teenagers how to act properly. The show MD GSA has helped many kids navigate the strongly relates to LGBTQ+ issues, as it features complicated experiences of middle school. a bisexual secondary character’s struggle with The GSA was founded in 2016 by the ICIE, his sexuality. A supporting character, Sam, is Gentile said. “We saw a need to create a space subjected to accusations and name-calling due for students who identified as LGBTQ+ and to rumors that he is gay, showing the negative their allies to come together to build a support effects that society’s stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ network and increase their capacity for selfcommunity can have even on those not part of awareness, resiliency, and positive identity the community. development,” he said.

However, the club is not exclusively interested However, the club is not only limited to kids in the show’s LGBTQ+ subthemes, James Brink, who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community a co-advisor of the MD GSA, said. “It’s a show and does not only deal with LGBTQ-+ issues, about inclusion, acceptance, and being who you said the group’s participants and co-advisors. are,” he said.

“GSA is a safe place where you can come “The GSA chose it because it captures a when you need to get stuff off your chest. It’s universal feeling of being marginalized and somewhere where you can talk about anything wanting to be seen and heard,” said John Gentile, that you might not want to talk about with your the co-director of the Office for Identity, Culture, friends for whatever reason,” Cornelia said. and Institutional Equity (ICIE) and a co-advisor All in all, the Middle Division GSA improves of the GSA. Four students attended the show. the experiences of those in the often confusing “I’m very excited to see ‘Be More Chill.’ I think and difficult transition that is middle school, it’s an interesting concept and a show that many and the trip to see ‘Be More Chill’ is a part of schools wouldn’t take kids to,” Bob*, a 7th grade that mission, Cornelia said. member of the MD GSA, said before he left.

“The club help[s] us navigate middle school, There is also a chance that the entire 8th grade which is sometimes really hard. I’m really happy could see ‘Be More Chill’ in the next school year that we’re seeing the show,” Bob said. as a grade-wide activity, Cornelia*, another *Any name with an asterisk represents a person granted anonymity

Lions’ Den Record Sports

MAY 24TH, 2019

Smith and Anthony transferring to pursue basketball

Adrian Arnaboldi and Joshua Underberg Staff Writers

Star basketball players Ella Anthony (11) and Kelvin Smith (11) will be attending new high schools next fall in hopes of being recruited to play college basketball.

Smith will attend The Hun School of Princeton, while Anthony will attend Christ the King, located in Queens.

“I wanted to increase my chances to get an offer and basketball scholarship to a good academic school,” Smith said. “When you go to Horace Mann Courtesy of Ella Anthony

COURT VISION Ella Anthony (11) looks to pass. not many coaches come to watch us play basketball, so I wanted to go somewhere where I could get more coaches to look at me.”

While playing some of the best basketball of his career this year, Smith said he did not receive the college attention that he hoped he would.

“While AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) does get me looks, there are not that many live periods and it can be hard for coaches to find time to come and see me play,” Smith said. “By going to a sports focused school, coaches have more time and more of a reason to come and see me play.”

Anthony’s college basketball aspirations also played a role in her decision to leave the school. “I want to play division one basketball at the highest

level, and in order to do so, I need to be playing with and against girls who have the same goals as I do for my last year of high school basketball,” Anthony said.

Anthony will have more available time at her new school, and balancing athletics and academics will be significantly easier, she said. “Being a school known for athletics, they are a little more lenient [concerning academics] with serious athletes.”

She debated leaving the school with her family for most of high school, but they discussed it much more during sophomore year. “Ultimately, everybody has wanted me to make a decision that I felt was best for myself,” Anthony said.

Both Smith and Anthony said that they have received help from the school after they decided to leave, they said.

“I have been able to talk to different teachers and they’ve all been supportive,” Anthony said. “I have chatted briefly with Mr. Caldwell and my advisor Dr. Steiner about the pros and cons of leaving versus staying.”

In addition to the school’s teachers, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly has also been supportive of Smith and Anthony’s decision to leave the school next year.

“We made sure that both of the schools involved had a keen understanding of why Ella and Kelvin would be terrific additions to their respective student bodies,” Kelly said.

Over the years, Boys Varsity Basketball Head Coach Tim Sullivan and Smith have developed a close relationship. “I have taught Kelvin since kindergarten and I have always considered him to be a wonderful person,” Sullivan said. “Kelvin had a tremendous career here, but I will miss Kelvin the person even more than Kelvin the basketball player.”

Smith’s mother, a teacher, did not initially approve of the idea of her son leaving the school which he has attended for the last 12 years, but she eventually changed her stance, Smith said. “She wanted to see me graduate at HM, where I’ve been all my life, but she wanted the best for me, and eventually she understood that this would be the best move.”

At his new school, Smith will have more opportunities to work on his game. “I’ll be able to wake up and go to the gym to get some shots up,” he said.

The school day will consist of four to five classes, followed by an hour and a half practice, Smith said.

After the practice, players will be able to stay in the gym and practice their skills.

Anthony will seek a similar opportunity next year, as she will compete at a high level, playing at one of the top girls basketball programs in the country.

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Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

Courtesy of Kelvin Smith

LOCK DOWN DEFENSE Kelvin Smith (11) dominates the opponent’s offense.

“I’ll be practicing with other high division one recruits,” Anthony said. “This new team travels around the country for different tournaments, and I’m very excited to play against some of the top national talent.”

Smith will be a significant loss for the school’s basketball program, Robert Mantz (11) said. “We are losing arguably the best defender and rebounder in the league, one of our primary ball-handlers, and probably the most dominant force in the league,” Mantz said. “He does a really good job of getting his teammates involved, and sometimes he is even too unselfish and likes to dish it out to the wing, which is obviously a great quality for a player to have.”

Even with all of his skill, Smith’s positive attitude and motivation during practices will be one of the main things missed by Smith’s teammates, Ben Chasin (10) said.

Despite Smith’s importance, Coach Sullivan is confident that the team is well prepared to move on without Smith’s. “There is a lot of talent returning to the team and collectively they will fill the void left by Kelvin,” he said.

“Ella is a knowledgeable player of the game and that makes all the players around her better,” Girls Varsity Basketball Coach Ray Barile said.

“She scored, had the ball most of the time, was a playmaker, and played good defense.”

Although Anthony is leaving, there are many players on the team that will help to contribute towards filling her role, Mia Calzolaio (9) said.

“Ella’s leadership and the way she has inspired

us to play with our hearts is the biggest impact she had on this team,” Bella Colacino (9) said. “The way she spreads her knowledge of the game to all of us was amazing, and as a new member of the team I benefited immensely from playing with her as well as watching her play.”

“The two other juniors on the team, Halley and Julia, will be the captains next year and their ability to command the court has already had a great impact on our team,” Calzolaio said.

Smith will be reclassing as a junior, while Anthony remains undecided on her decision to reclass.

“I plan on just finishing my senior year there, but I’m not opposed to reclassing,” Anthony said.

In the long run, Smith looks to pursue a collegiate basketball career at an Ivy League school, he said.

His prefered destinations are Princeton, Yale, and University of Pennsylvania.

Anthony is unsure where she wants to play in college and is trying to focus on enjoying her last AAU season, she said. More than 25 colleges have expressed their interest in Ella, including Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, Yale, Villanova, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Loyola Chicago, she said.

“While most will point to their collective athleticism, I think we’re going to miss their huge hearts and affable spirits,” Kelly said. “Make no mistake, I hate to see each of them leave HM, but I’m excited for what the future holds for both of them.

I have no doubt that wherever they are, they’ll be successful - on and off the courts!”

Track Team stumbles in Ivy Championship and NYSAIS Morgan Smith and Avi Kapadia Staff Writers

The Horace Mann Varsity track teams travelled to Randall’s Island last weekend to compete in the Ivy League championship. The team worked very hard to prepare for this meet, Lauren Gay (10) said. At this event, a few select athletes qualified

far; everyone has been doing fantastically, and consistently putting out some really good times and showing lots of improvement,” Elizabeth Fortunato (12) said.

Ethan Waggoner (9) described his teammates as “his brothers” and attributed the team’s success to their strong chemistry. “We’re all really supportive and encouraging of each other and

Courtesy of Eva Fortunato

HURDLING THEIR OPPONENTS Eva and Liz Fortunato (12) compete in the 100 meter hurdle. for New York State Association of Independent School [NYSAIS] championship at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island on May 22nd.

“I think it’s been a really excellent season so

overall we’re like a family,” Fortunato said.

The team trained arduously in preparation for their Ivy League championship meet. “There

was a lot of pressure to do well against better competition,” Gay said.

The Boys team placed last in the Ivy League championship overall but recorded lots of personal records, Boys Varsity Outdoor Track Coach Meredith Cullen said.

The girls did slightly better as they achieved fifth place out of eight in the Ivy League. “Nice performances included Lauren Gay’s come from behind victory in the 100m to secure All-Ivy First Team honors. She also set personal records in the 100m Hurdles and Long Jump,” Girls Varsity Outdoor Track Head Coach John Eshoo said.

Gay also competed in NYSAIS on May 22 and qualified to compete at the New York State Federation Championships, which all New York schools are able to compete in. She became the NYSAIS state champion for the girls 100m Hurdles and 100m Dash, Eshoo said.

However, Gay was not the only competitor to perform well in the tournament.

Waggoner placed third in the 400m dash, he said and thought he was likely to beat a record for the 800m Dash set in 2002.

“The team has worked together really well. We all want to see each other improve and support each other at track meets and practice. As a team, we push ourselves to do better collectively,” Gay said.

Eva Fortunato (12) described Gay as a standout member of the track team. “She’s an incredible athlete and dominates the sprint events, as well as

Courtesy of Eva Fortunato

FAST AND FURIOUS Ethan Wagonner (9) sprints down the straight. the 100m Hurdles, and the Long Jump,” she said.

“I think Melchior Lee (12) as our captain has been very helpful in leading. Also winning MVP, he is one of, if not our best, runners and jumpers,” Waggoner said.

Several runners earned All-Ivy League honors, Eshoo said. Gay was selected on the first team for Long Jump, 100m Dash and 100m Hurdles. Eva Fortunato placed on the second All-Ivy team for 100 Hurdles and Harmony Li (9) earned secondteam honors for 100m dash and Long Jump.