The Nueva Current | April 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT THE NUEVA SCHOOL

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 / WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

SAN MATEO, CA 94403

BITE BY BITE

Digesting current events at the dinner table WRITTEN BY ANOUSCHKA B.

read on page 12 GRAPHIC BY ALEXANDERCHO & iBRANDIFY / FREEPIK

FEATURES

New SEC Building School-wide Environmental Citizenship opportunities WRITTEN BY EMMA Z.

PHOTO BY W. H. BUTLER

Connected by walkways running along the hillside and overlooking the bay, the newly constructed Science and Environmental Center (SEC) on the Hillsborough campus is a holistic and interdisciplinary space for students to collaborate, explore, and experiment. The SEC’s sliding glass doors serve as a gateway between the campus’ beautiful outdoors and the building’s state-of-the-art interior, designed to enhance the curriculum of the Environmental Citizenship program.

The program—launched only two years ago—guides students in practicing sustainability, conducting environmental

FEATURES and social studies, and debating solutions to environmental challenges. Hybrid lower and middle school students have already begun to work and learn in the new building, but because of the separate campuses, upper school integration seems unlikely—for now.

The good news is that the SEC building was designed and furnished with all Nueva students in mind. The possibilities of its programming, Assistant Director of Environmental Citizenship Aron Walker believes, will overflow with upper school engagement.

“Cross-division interaction works really well, especially when everybody is excited about it,” Walker said. “We really want to support that, and both the building and environment in general can be a meeting ground for different people of different ages and interests in study.”

READ MORE ON PAGE 14

FEATURES

Senior seeks to redefine health and wellness on social media Vienna G. provides recipes, tips, inspiring messages on Instagram WRITTEN BY AMANDA W.

What started as a curiosity in the marketing and statistical side of Instagram accounts has evolved into a vibrant grid of fruit-topped oats and motivating workout tips, often coupled with an inspiring message. Through her health and wellness Instagram page, @flourishwithvivi, Vienna G. ’21 has discovered a supportive community that aids her in her goal of redefining societal norms of “being healthy.”

Typically, Vienna, who started her account in the early shelter-in-place, aims for her account to not only be a more supportive and encouraging platform, but also as a way to track her own progPROMOTING WELLNESS • Vienna G. ’21 performs a middle split in a video post on Instagram, ress and wellness in physical and mental advising followers to set mini goals. SCREENSHOT PROVIDED BY VIENNA G. / @FLOURISHWITHVIVI health. These goals helped to develop her unique username, @flourishwithvivi. this aspect of social media to be hard to always been easy to maintain. Like other “I think the idea of aiming to flourish navigate. social media users, she has experienced and just be better for yourself in general, “[Health and wellness] content can the far too common judgement that alongside me and not under or above, quickly sidestream into very evil kinds of arises on these platforms. just with me, alongside wherever people influence, especially on a lot of girls on “People can think that what you post might be in their journey through any social media,” Vienna said. “I’m always might be annoying, or it could be controlike daily life,” Vienna explained. cautious of that. There are certain acversial… or feel like it is fake or insertShe classifies her account to fit in counts that you sift through and realize your-own-adjective-here,” Vienna said. the health and wellness community of will not be beneficial to your mental “But I think I’m remaining true to my Instagram. Though she enjoys being health.” goal, which is to grow with my account.” able to track her progress and share tips However, Vienna’s peaceful yet READ MORE ON PAGE 10 she’s learned along the way, Vienna finds spunky demeanor on her platform hasn’t

Fostering kindness, year after year Kindness Week strengthens community, honors alumna WRITTEN BY GRACE H.

Kindness Week was never meant to be a tradition. And yet, every February since its inception, there has been a week where kindness reigns supreme.

In previous years, the walls of the second floor stairwell were covered in yellow-gold envelopes, each bearing the words “you are loved” in bright red sharpie below the name and portrait of a student, teacher, or staff member.

Sometimes, stickers graced the envelopes as well, glittery pirates and rabbits frolicking across the makeshift mailboxes. Always, a confetti of white, red, and pink paper strips was strewn on the carpet, spilling from boxes and stacks.

Students and teachers steadied the strips against walls, desks, or friends’ backs as they scribbled appreciations for their closest friends and mentors, for peers they barely knew and teachers whose classes they’d never taken. By the end of the week, the envelopes were stuffed with ink-and-paper reminders of the bonds the community shares.

Last year, a large envelope was added halfway through the week to collect notes and origami hearts for medical workers in China, already battling the coronavirus. This year, the strips were replaced by a Google Form, the envelopes—red, this time, though “you are loved” was still written across them in Alegria Barclay’s bold calligraphy—filled with spreadsheet printouts and mailed from teachers’ homes. Nevertheless, the spirit of the week persisted. More than 4,400 appreciations were sent this year, with messages ranging from the insightful and sincere to the humorous but no less meaningful for it.

The appreciation notes are the heart and soul of Kindness Week. The week itself, an initiative of the Kindness Club, was first implemented four years ago; the aim was to increase the connectedness of the Nueva community. Even now, Kindness Week holds true to that goal.

This year, however, the event adopted a dual purpose, as Anna Sandell ’18, the founder of Kindness Club, was in a snowmobile accident on Jan. 10. She is currently in recovery at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Massachusetts.

READ MORE ON PAGE 11

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 2 / NEWS

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

Hillsdale Caltrain station opens

Inaugural Humanities Fair

The Hillsdale Caltrain Station re-opened for passenger service on Monday, April 26. The new station is located across the street from the San Mateo campus—1,000 feet north of the original station. It now has an elevated center-boarding platform, ondemand bicycle eLockers and traditional bike racks, two parking lots, and six connecting SamTrans routes.

“Our residents will benefit from this project for generations to come,” San Mateo Mayor Eric Rodriguez said in a press release, “especially now with easier access to our beautiful new Hillsdale Shopping

Featuring 17 different seminars with over 65 presenters ranging from students to professional journalists, the inaugural Nueva Humanities Fair took place over Zoom on March 14, 2021. The event showcased community members’ diverse interests and skills in the humanities, including artwork, music, creative writing, and much more.

Center, our world-class tech headquarters, and our popular local restaurants—all while reducing traffic congestion and train horn noise in our neighborhoods.”

Earlier this spring, the 28th Avenue underpass opened, allowing travel between South Delaware Street and El Camino Real.

The opening of this new route aims to clear up the congestion at East 25th Avenue, which is now partially closed due to the 25th Avenue Grade Separation Project that is expected to be completed this fall.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CALTRAIN

65+

presenters helped shape the first-ever Humanities Fair on March 14, 2021

News Briefing WRITTEN BY JORDAN M. & GRACE F.

Senior trivia winners crowned

Internship Program more successful than ever as employers adapt Last year, 43 employers hired at least one Nueva intern. This year, the number is projected to be over 75 after Round II offers.

Last year the pandemic threw off internship plans for many employers and they were forced to back out after initially offering a spot. This year, employers are generally aware of the summer landscape and were able to commit confidently so fewer back-outs occurred.

So how many internships are there? In 2020, there were 92 internships offered between the 43 employers. So far, there are 125 committed internships for 2021, with another 28 pending in Round I and at least another 15 predicted in Round II, bringing the 2021 total above 150.

“That’s the increase I’m most proud of,” said Katie Saylor, Director of Internships.

“It tells me that employers are hiring more Nueva students than ever and it means more applicants are getting an offer.”

Campus return broadened Upper school students gained the opportunity to be on campus Monday through Thursday starting April 26 even if they were not enrolled in any in-person or hybrid classes. While in-person classes will continue to be taught to different grade levels on different days of the week, the gym now functions as a Zoom lounge for students taking hybrid or remote classes.

After-school activities, socially distanced social gatherings, and onsite components of virtual trips are all parts of this increase in on-campus activities.

An email from Head of School Lee Fertig states that while Nueva will continue to honor families’ decisions to continue remote learning for the remainder of this school year, “there is no guarantee there will be remote-only options in the coming school year.”

In addition, it is possible that students will be required to receive COVID-19 vaccinations for the upcoming school year. However, his email states that “at this point in time, it is unlikely that any sort of requirement will be implemented by the beginning of the new school year.”

534

applications were submitted this year, an increase of 16% compared to last year’s numbers

150+

internships are expected to be filled this summer—an increase of over 50% compared to 2020

110 questions. 15 rounds. Five weeks.

Senior trivia nights for the Class of 2025 turned out to be a fierce battle for not only first place but also “Perfectly Average,” which was awarded to the team closest to the average number of points earned.

Hosted by Communications/ Website Manager Rachel Freeman and 12th-Grade Dean Brian Cropper, the competition was spread over five weeks, each with two rounds of traditional Q&A and one special round—which included matching slogans to famous companies and natural landmarks to the flag of the country in which they are located.

The winning team, Pentagon Peters, accumulated a total of 232 points thanks to the efforts of team members Joseph K., Noah V. H., Matthew S., Elliot C., Nikhil T., Alex C., Quetz M., Nick H., and Ryan C. as well as middle school alums Peter G. and Zak T. I-Lab Shop Manager Triple Oswald

TRIVIA MASTERS

The trophy awarded to Pentagon Peters is inspired by the shape of a lightbulb. It will be fabricated by I-Lab Shop Manager Triple Oswald and engraved with their team name.

will be creating a lightbulb-inspired trophy for the winning team.

A prize was also awarded to the team closest to the average score of 221 points.

Team Sliggies earned 223 points and was crowned “Perfectly Average.”

Securly update sparks concern The student safety and device management software was recently updated in students’ Google accounts, resulting in complaints claiming websites like YouTube and Wikipedia were blocked or restricted.

According to Technology Director Ed Chen, however, these issues were a product of Google itself and not due to the Securly updates.

“Students have also expressed concerns about possibly being tracked

by Securly,” Chen said. “With regards to these concerns, everyone—students and adults alike—should be reminded, so long as you are using the Internet, you are being tracked and monitored by a wide variety of organizations, including your own internet service provider.”

How will Travel Week look amidst pandemic?

Adapted virtual experiences to replace in-person trips this spring WRITTEN BY JORDAN MAK

A

fter COVID-19 paused all nonessential travel for the past year, students and families are wondering what will happen to the annual school trips that usually take place during the spring semester.

During the week of May 17, trips will transform into adapted digital experiences that allow students to engage in hands-on learning and global experiences. While the destinations remain largely the same, local activities have been rethought to fit the digital parameters and constraints brought about by the pandemic.

Built upon the theme of diaspora, these trips will incorporate integral parts of previous years’ trips into digital and hands-on components. Every experience will include elements pertaining to Social-Emotional Learning and Science of Mind, environmental citizenship, design-thinking, and social justice in combination with essential questions that guide the notion of diaspora and identity.

“Regardless of where you’re going and regardless of what you’re teaching,

diaspora can be a part of your learning experience—it includes changing over time,” said Dean of Student Life Hillary Freeman. “Whether you’re talking about math, science, or design-thinking, it is pretty easy to build diaspora into the current curriculum.”

This is the first time that trips across divisions will share a focus rather than the grade-specific themes in previous years.

“These trips have allowed us to reenergize and express that curriculum building we all love to do,” Freeman said.

The trips are being coordinated by Freeman and Eighth-Grade Dean Cynthia Kosut alongside the individual deans for fifth through 12th grades.

In addition to using Zoom, some 11thand 12th-grade trips may pilot off-campus components, depending on updates to local COVID-19 restrictions and protocols.

More details regarding individual trips and in-person activities will be shared by the administration and grade-level deans as Travel Week approaches.

COSTA RICA • A group of current seniors snagged a selfie as a bat flew over their heads; they were the last students to have visited Costa Rica two years ago.

“It’s honestly such a bummer to have missed trips this past year,” said Lucy B. ’21. “The trips are such a special part of Nueva so it sucks to miss out on such cool opportunities!”

PHOTO PROVIDED BY MICHAELA DANEK

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

Q&A with Lillian Howard

Interim upper school division head discusses her goals for Nueva, navigating hybrid learning—and Ancient Greek INTERVIEW BY WILLOW TAYLOR C. Y.

L

illian Howard is a balance, a scale that never seems to totter or tip too far in one direction.

She is effusive and warm and jokes about her dog, 7-yearold Callie, who regularly interrupts Zooms with a favorite broccoli-shaped chew toy; she is also efficient and grounded and experienced, having worked in education as a teacher and administrator for over two decades. She finds the uncertainty of coming in as interim heads of schools exciting, but also emphasizes the benefits of streamlined processes, especially within the inner workings of an educational institution like Nueva. She loves Latin, a language she says has an extensive yet “predictable” grammar structure, but also would love to teach the infamously amorphous English grammar.

Since Upper School Division Head Liza Raynal began her maternity leave in March, Howard has stepped in as interim. The longtime educator and former head of numerous schools across the country arrives at a moment plagued by the pandemic’s confusing uncertainty. While the year has tested educators around the country and the world, Howard believes that her experience in being interim heads will help her achieve her goals for Nueva, from now until she leaves next year. In the meantime, she hopes to get students back on campus, improve communication, and keep Callie from interrupting too many Zooms.

Looking to the present day, you’ve said you want to make sure that the transitions between remote and hybrid and eventually fully in-person learning are smooth. We’ve heard a lot about those goals. But, other than that, what are the subgoals or totally different goals that you want to work towards?

As you said, the transition is one—obviously, bringing everybody back safely, et cetera.

I think another one is looking at the processes we have on campus and seeing if there’s a way we can streamline, whether it’s around communication or making decisions.

I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. So I’m still figuring out whether there is a way to do that.

I also want to find a mechanism to increase opportunities for faculty leadership at the upper school, engagement in terms of curriculum and those more academic pieces.

Let’s start with the thing that’s top-of-mind: how has Zoom life been treating you?

It's been treating me as well as can be expected. I’m trying to get over the innate distance and the wall that Zoom perpetually presents. However, I think I’m learning to reach through the wall a bit. Although there are times whether it’s the squeaky toy in the background, someone walking into a room unexpectedly, or some odd thing happening in the background that can be distracting.

I do miss—actually quite a lot—the interpersonal, inperson interactions.

You were at Woodland as interim head of school when the pandemic hit. I do want to ask you: do you think that you handled the pandemic differently because you have a history of being interim head of school at a lot of different places, so there must be that uncertainty already?

I guess uncertainty resonates with me to a certain degree. I enjoy things that are new and different and change. I tend to embrace that. So, I have a level of comfort with uncertainty—but there’s uncertainty and then there’s uncertainty. I do expect there to be some level of stability, some givens from which the uncertainty sprouts. But in this landscape, those givens were gone.

That was what was so challenging, I think, for all of us. As an interim, I use the skills and the experiences that I have—even though educational communities are very different, in high schools you have organization.

There were basic things that just blew us out of the water. Some of the students didn’t have the supplies that they needed. Many of them didn’t have the same internet access or the tech things that they needed. How do you make that work? How does hybrid teaching work? The fundamental assumptions really weren’t true anymore.

So, the uncertainty I embrace, but with a certain level of commonality with a given that didn't really exist.

You mentioned a large part of that base given was due to your past experience. I want to delve into that a little bit. You have been interim head of school at two places—but before that, you were head of school at another two schools and a teacher for 15 years. What brought you to the interim role? Was there a catalyst?

I don’t know that there was one catalyst. I don’t think there are very many people that do it in the independent school world. I felt that it was important work to do.

I also jokingly say that I can pretend that I’m going to retire at the end of every year: I finish my year, I’m ready to retire, and then of course I get another job.

I also think schools are fascinating and being interim gives me the ability to learn about different schools. I can be a person who can get bored easily; I like challenges and, when I was a head of school, I liked to solve problems. I was head of newer schools that were growing and once I solved the issues after six, seven years, I then left the school and went to something else. So, an interim position, I thought, would fit in well with what speaks to me as an educational leader.

I fell into the role. I did it once, liked it, and then decided, “Okay, I’m going to do this.” So far, that’s worked well for me.

SCREENSHOT BY LIANN YIM

These seem like pretty large cultural shifts—is that right?

I don’t see them necessarily as cultural shifts. I don’t think they’re really big things. I’m just trying to figure out ways to get more input. I’m just trying to figure out ways to have more time to provide more support for faculty…

A cultural shift would be something like changing the way we put people in departments or something like that.

That’s not something I’m interested in doing. I really want to be aware and I really want to be aligned with what Liza envisions. I just want to keep us moving forward.

Previously, you were a Latin English history teacher. You also majored in philosophy, humanities, classics, classical languages, literature, and linguistics. What got you interested in those topics?

I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate and did a lot of work in humanities. Latin was the language I studied. I became interested in early Christian literature— Virgil and all of those kinds of classical authors.

I was very skeptical of translation. I wanted to read the things that I was reading in the languages that they were written in. I wanted to read Plato, so I learned Greek. I don't know it as well. I’ve taught Latin for many, many years, but I never taught Greek. You don’t really learn something really, really well until you teach it.

I’m also a really big fan of grammar. I love English grammar—that would be my dream job: just to correct grammar through a lot of the day and then do some Latin.

NEWS / PAGE 3

New school mascot costume to be unveiled in May WRITTEN BY ANISHA K.

P

icture this: the gym is full of third-quarter impatience, spectators and players losing energy as a tough game drags on. The coach calls a timeout, and the Maverick steps in. The mascot leads everyone in a cheer, unwavering grin plastered across its Nueva-blue face, and when the players get back on the court, their play is so reinvigorated that they earn back their lead. When the buzzer rings, the Maverick lands a perfect victory backflip, and the crowd goes wild.

The school spirit is so palpable that everyone in attendance can taste it. (It tastes like gym airconditioning and sweat.)

Mira D. ’22 and Caroline P. ’22 were envisioning a scene just like this—a far cry from our current hybrid state—when they pitched the idea for a school mascot to Upper School Division Head Liza Raynal.

“I think it's especially hard to have spirit in this remote setting,” said Mira, the Spirit and Social representative on Student Council. “We thought that having a school mascot would strengthen school spirit and help create a sense of belonging.”

Mira hopes to cement the Maverick as a symbol the entire community can recognize and associate with Nueva’s values and has brought a community aspect to its creation. Students, faculty, alumni, and even parents are encouraged to submit potential mascot designs that highlight their favorite parts of Nueva, or any values they associate with it, before Mira and Caroline work on combining everyone’s ideas into a single symbol.

“The community input creates this sense of individuality,” Mira said. “When we put the ideas together, it’s bringing people together.”

Due to budget constraints, they had planned to purchase just a character head rather than a full suit. Once the head neared completion, however, Mira and Caroline realized it “didn’t embody Nueva”—it was just a fuzzy gray horse’s head. With trademark Nueva flexibility, they upgraded to a full suit, complete with a Nueva-blue jersey and Mavericks emblem, which any student or staff member can audition to wear at events.

According to Mira, the idea for a mascot was partially sparked by alum Jason Hwong ’20, who, inspired by shows of spirit at other schools, purchased a rubber horse mask and wore it while cheering on Nueva players.

“I think that it had a hugely positive effect on spirit and provided a symbol for our crowd to rally around, whether it be at away games or in our own gym,” Hwong said. “Having a high quality, legitimate mascot head, as opposed to a BoJack Horseman-esque piece of rubber, will serve as an even better way to rally our fans during games.”

The mascot initiative comes on the heels of a wave of growing spirit and involvement in athletics over the last few years, where the student turnout at games increased and more people, like Hwong and his peers, showed up to cheer.

“Having a mascot seems like a natural progression toward having an athletic program that’s fully fleshed out,” Raynal said.

Mira and Caroline plan to introduce the mascot to each division at assemblies in the last week of May. They hope to create an atmosphere of unity and community at the end of a long school year.

That was actually one of my other questions: if you could teach one class at Nueva, what would it be? I assume Latin.

Of course I would love to teach Latin. But, you know what, another really fun and cool, interesting class I was thinking about the other day that would be really cool to teach would be a course like parageography, the geography of imaginary places.

I would, of course, want to use some of the ancient texts, but you could take imaginary places and really map out the geography. You could take a level of Dante, take from the Aeneid, take something from a modern sci-fi. I think that would be a super fun class to teach.

That sounds fascinating. I think a lot of students would be interested.

Yeah, I was thinking, “This is Nueva. What would be a Nueva class I could teach that people would love and receive?” I think people would love that.

MAKING WAVES • Mira and Caroline are working with Sugar’s Mascot Costumes to produce the final product that students and staff members can audition to wear.

GRAPHIC BY LUCIE WHITEHEAD / SUGAR’S MASCOT COSTUMES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 4 / CULTURE

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

Searching for a new era of detective fiction

The Searcher exemplifies broader shift towards character-centric novels WRITTEN BY GRACE H.

T

he Searcher by Tana French opens in a bucolic village in the vague “West of Ireland,” a place where mountains tower over fields of sheep, the closest neighbors are half a mile away, and the air is, in the words of the narrator, “rich as a fruitcake.”

At first glance, it’s the perfect place for retired Chicago police officer Cal Hooper to leave his moral qualms about the police force and the destruction his justiceover-empathy approach wrought on his marriage behind. Beneath the veneer of calm, however, the autumn fog roils with sinister subtext and the town is laden with secrets that have laid latent for years, waiting to trigger explosive action.

The dark eeriness of the tale builds slowly, boiling up from the uncanny closeness of the village and the knife-edge connections that run between the characters.

Cal is eventually drawn into investigating the disappearance of a teenaged villager and, with every thread of mystery he untangles, the web of ancient feuds and fealty threatens to lead him further into danger and deeper into involvement he cannot escape. Cal believes himself to be the “good cop,” and he is that—a good cop. The Searcher is the story of him

realizing that a “good cop” isn’t always a good detective, or able to provide a good solution. Sometimes, Cal realizes, damage is done by a system so tightly woven into the fabric of a community that it cannot be resolved from the side of the perpetrators—it must be addressed with empathy for the victims.

The Searcher falls far from its predecessors in the detective fiction genre. The lack of detective is perhaps the greatest breakage from the mold—though Cal fulfills the role to some degree, he is not a “detective” in the technical sense.

Additionally, The Searcher is, as with all of Tana French’s books, a novel first and a mystery second, with the question and the journey towards its answer both, ultimately, serving the transformation of the detective’s epistemology and the exploration of vast, thematic elements such as trauma, poverty, responsibility, and memory.

In many ways, The Searcher exemplifies a trend in modern mysteries; the detective fiction genre, it seems, is fracturing from

its own structural memory. Media like The Searcher or Sherlock buck the classical structure of detective stories, moving away from tales about the cases being solved and towards a focus on the solvers themselves. These books fall under the umbrella of “literary thriller,” a genre defined by works like Donna Tartt’s Secret History. The literary thriller is characterdriven, rather than solution- or actiondriven; the mysteries are shaped far more by the way they are solved than by the substance of them.

In the case of detective fiction, a shift toward a literary form means a move away from detective stories that are puzzles for the reader, and away from the clear-cut, predictable epistemologies of Miss Marple, Hercules Poirot, or Sherlock Holmes. This new detective fiction leaves room for the uncertainty of justice evident as DNA evidence overturns long-held verdicts and once-trusted forensic practices, such as handwriting and hair analysis, fall under scrutiny. It interrogates the ideas of memory and conviction (in both senses of the word), wrapping the fallibility of eyewitness testimony into its worlds and wielding it to force the reader, again and again, to interrogate the core character’s epistemology. And it leaves room for stories that do not end with the truth, for solutions centered in restorative justice practices and ensuring the dignity of the victims, and for detectives who, though

they know the truth, are wrong in their handling of it.

Ultimately, The Searcher and its fellow literary thriller-detective fiction hybrids represent a new generation of mysteries—a generation of novels in which the mystery is the vehicle, the characters the drivers, and the “answers” left to be found meandering along the intersecting, uncertain lines of justice, memory, trust, and truth.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE IRISH INDEPENDENT

Finding tranquility and clarity in crystals Haight-Ashbury’s crystal shops inspire forays into mindfulness STORY & PHOTOS BY JACK F.

F

or some it was sourdough, for others it was origami—maybe even flower pressing. Over the course of the pandemic, many people, trapped at home or cut off from their usual pursuits, turned to new hobbies. For me, it was collecting crystals.

Various celebrities have popularized this interest during the pandemic. Uma Thurman, Kate Hudson, Naomi Campbell, and Adele have all turned to crystals for mental and spiritual well-being.

Though it may seem like a shallow, eccentric subculture with perhaps some appropriation of religion here and some Wicca thrown in there, the world of crystals and stones has grown into a trendy market made booming by those who believe crystals can help the burned-out feeling of a dragging-on pandemic.

Today, the San Francisco streets are covered in a spattering of various crystal shops. Maybe one is cluttered and smells like overpowering incense. Maybe another is sleek and organized, with a single Buddha or

Ganesha statue in the window. One in particular is a purple building on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, with towering succulents framing the cluttered window. Elegant and dazzling crystals stand beyond the glass; some sparkle while others’ colors alone are statement enough.

This store, the Love of Ganesha, is a great place to start your venture into the world of crystals.

When you enter Ganesha, the scent of mixed incense is potent, yet not overpowering.

“I was immediately welcomed by incredible tapestries and a very kind cashier,” said Alex S., who graduated from the middle school in 2018 and introduced me to Ganesha.

“I looked at the crystals with all the signs explaining their energies; it was a truly wonderful experience.”

The women who work there call you “honey” and guide you inside, leading you to crystals of varying sizes and shapes arranged in small bins. Each bin

It’s important to want to be there, so if you want a truly mindful moment, do it when it's right for you— don't sully the stones with frustration.

has a splendidly decorated paper label, handwritten by another kind woman with incredibly colorful hair. While prices can range from $4 to $2,000, you can’t really place a value on the peace and serenity promised by these crystals. After completing the transaction, you receive your bundle of stones in a lovely silk drawstring bag. So far, I have accumulated multiple silk pouches—all soft, smooth, and beautifully patterned.

A little farther down on Page Street in HaightAshbury sits Things Lucky Handicraft. Wooden masks and plaques frame the windows, and beyond the glass there is a second wall of things—stones, candles, statues, and a mannequin with colorful clothes strung around it. Once inside, though it is a bit cramped, it is a sensory experience. The man who works behind the desk offers you a small wicker basket to carry around your potential purchases. Various stones are kept in cardboard boxes, while a few are kept on the ground in baskets.

Things Lucky has a lot less foot traffic than Ganesha does, making it more of a personal experience. I remember sitting

on the hardwood floor, unable to see any walls past the cluttered wares, and finding myself in an almost meditative state. It was secluded and allowed me to focus completely on the wicker basket of labradorite which I had been pawing through indecisively. I held one piece between my fingers and placed another atop my palm. If not for the almost perfect silence, I would have just grabbed one and been done with it.

All in all, the store you choose to go to really depends on what you are looking for. Though Ganesha has a larger range of crystals and incense, Things Lucky gives a more personal experience. The Love of Ganesha is ideal for those who are new to crystals and need an introduction.

Things Lucky might be something for a weathered traveler to try out.

Most importantly, shoppers should enjoy the experience. It’s important to want to be there, so if you want a truly mindful moment, do it when it's right for you— don't sully the stones with frustration.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

CULTURE / PAGE 5 ILLUSTRATION BY THALIA R.

Pandemic isolation provides creative outlook for student artists Increased free time and flexibility with schedule allow for more opportunities to be creative WRITTEN BY ISABELLE S.

T

he surreal fever dream of the past year has seized and uprooted countless aspects of life—from peacefully reading on public library couches to cheering for sports teams in a stadium full of thousands of people.

Although life has seemingly come to a halt, artists are still continuing to create.

The community of artists at Nueva has adapted to working during this abnormal period of isolation, often finding the positive of quarantine.

For Mia G. ’23, having to stay at home has boosted her productivity and given her more opportunities to songwrite.

“During in-person school, I was always busy with my hands and my creative juices were often put to other uses,” Mia said. “A lot of my songwriting happens in the moment. Whenever I did have that spark, it was somehow blocked—like if I wanted to write a song in the middle of class.”

After someone close to Mia passed away early in the year, she found solace in weaving her emotions into her songs.

“I just stopped what I was doing, turned off my camera, and I muted myself,” Mia said. “I took my guitar, and I wrote a song—right then and there.”

While Mia often found herself to be more productive, Thalia R. ’22 felt the opposite as her motivation sunk in the restless waters of quarantine.

“I’ve realized that just because I have more time, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to be more inspired,” Thalia said. “I had to realize at some point that it’s not bad to be uninspired, and even though I have all this time, I shouldn't be hard on myself for not being able to fill up all the time with more creative projects.”

Thalia eventually found herself using art as a tool to document time as the days seemed to merge. She would draw out how the different days passed, or would sketch a scene or detail that happened on a certain day.

“Even if what happened that day

wasn’t always great, it’s good to be able to look back and ground myself,” Thalia said. “Like these things actually happened, it hasn't all just been like a complete blur.”

Over the past year, she also started pursuing commission art as a way to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Through art commissions, she raised and donated a total of $827 to social justice organizations.

“With all the news and protests and everything that happened over the summer, it made me question what I can do as an artist to help,” Thalia said.

“So by doing commissions for people, my art is a pretty good way to help out with the bigger problems going on in the world.”

Owen Y.-L. ’24 also discovered a way to find community in art and music in the pandemic. As everyone was physically separated, Owen called a friend and decided to write a song about quarantine together.

“Just releasing those kinds of emotions was really nice, and working with someone collaboratively on something creative,” Owen said.

Despite the many setbacks of working in isolation, Owen was able to foster a connection with others creating music in quarantine as well.

“Before, I was always really scared of working with other people on music—I was mostly scared of criticism,” Owen said. “But now that I've seen how helpful it is, how fun it is, even just over FaceTime, I might do that more in the future.”

The pandemic, as isolating as it was, sparked creativity and pushed artists to work in a completely different environment. As the community of Nueva artists have demonstrated, creativity can absorb and overpower just about any attempt at stomping it out and silencing it.

The show must go on How the theatre program has adapted to a virtual setting WRITTEN BY KADEN K.

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE W.

T

he Nueva musical theatre company thought they’d have to cancel when they learned they couldn’t perform in person.

When lockdown hit a year ago, students were midway through rehearsal of the spring musical, Freaky Friday.

Originally, they assumed the pandemic would blow over quickly—rehearsal was postponed and actors practiced individually, expecting to return within a couple weeks. But as the odds of an in-person performance slimmed, they realized they were grappling with a longer quarantine.

“After a week of all of us being demoralized and anticipating having to cancel, [I realized that] if these unbelievable frontline workers are saving all of us under these conditions, I can figure out how ‘the show must go on’ could work online,” musical theatre teacher and director Lisa Share-Sapolsky said.

In order to accommodate the change in setting, the elective had to utilize some new tools. Props and green screens were mailed to the students and used instead of a stage. Audio and video were pre-recorded and edited together piece by piece.

These changes were hard to get used to—students had to figure out how to prop their laptops on their desks at the right angle and dance alone in their bedrooms and homes in front of cameras.

“If you want to feel awkward, take a dance lesson on Zoom,” said Brooke G. ’22. “You get over it pretty quickly.”

However, the biggest difference between settings

is that it’s not a live performance. The energy of performing in front of a crowd is missing, and not having people to perform with is challenging.

“How do you react to what someone’s doing, and how do you know how they’re reacting to what you’re doing?” said Owen Y.-L. ’24. “It’s very hard to get used to.”

The theatre crew sometimes practices for hours a day, all on their own in breakout rooms.

“The craziest thing is that we now have to talk to empty space when we’re filming,” Owen said. “We go into group breakout rooms and just turn off our cameras and mute ourselves. Now that I think about it, I almost forgot we used to practice in big groups.”

But the performers emphasized that the experience is far from negative. The counterpoint to the awkwardness of endlessly re-recording is that the pressure of performing onstage is lessened.

“In the virtual environment, you can just do it scene by scene,” Owen said. “It’s more gradual, more steady, rather than just one huge rush of nerves.”

Even though the virtual setting has at times been isolating, inside jokes still flourish and group chats proliferate as the company begins work on their upcoming spring musical, My Fair Lady.

“Theatre is all based on relationships, how you interact with other people,” Owen said.

And online or in-person, that doesn't change.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 6 / FEATURES

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

ILLUSTRATION BY THALIA R.

The Evolution of Art How new media is dividing and transforming the art world

Regardless of medium, you must primarily be an artist.

WRITTEN BY EMMA Z.

F

or as long as she can remember, Thalia R. ’22 has been creating art. The passion that started out as scribbles on the walls—much to her parents’ dismay—evolved into a hobby, sparked by a brilliant fourth-grade teacher; by middle school, she was completely drawn into the world of digital art.

Thalia finds that traditional mediums are her go-to for serious and “deliberate” pieces, but typically uploads sketches to Photoshop to experiment with color, shape, and texture. She describes the digital process as a little more freeing, explaining that “you can’t just ‘command-Z’ on paper.”

The digital culture of the 21st century is spreading, and industries previously unaltered by the test of time are beginning to undergo the inevitable change brought by the digital era. In the art world, digitized pieces are slowly reshaping the fundamental idea of artistry as technology becomes more accessible.

According to Tate Modern, which houses the U.K.’s national collection of British art in a series of galleries, the first application of the term “digital art” was in the early 1980s, when computer engineers created a paint program used by pioneering digital artist Harold Cohen.

Now, 30 years later, digital art has evolved beyond AIcreated pieces—it has become interactive. Every day, artists around the world utilize software to create and manipulate their work. However, as with all clashes between old and new, there arises a dichotomy between those who welcome the evolution of art and those who believe a distinction must be made between art practices of the past and the present—specifically, traditional and digital methods. Art Representative Tomo G. ’21, whose lifelong passion for painting manifested into natural skill as a photographer and videographer, disagrees with the idea of separating the two.

“I don’t think of digital and traditional art as entirely separate,” said Tomo, who has worked with both mediums. “There’s a lot of overlap in the skills that they require. Ultimately, they’re just different tools for doing similar things, and you can convey the beauty and emotion that art is meant to just as well in any medium.”

Stefan S. ’21, who commonly works through digital methods, echoes the idea that digital software is a tool to be leveraged, not a way to cheat the creative process.

“To be able to utilize these tools you must primarily

have an artistic vision, knowledge of how to utilize brushes and texture, and a firm grasp on the basic concepts of art—such as perspectives and composition,” he said. “Regardless of medium, you must primarily be an artist.”

Middle and upper school art teacher Rachel Dawson, a San Franciscobased artist herself, believes that students would benefit from a partially digitized art curriculum. She often uses technology such as Photoshop to piece together a basic collage of her vision for an art piece, a method that she teaches in her art classes as well.

“While I do think that there is a great deal of importance in starting out foundationally with the real materials,” Dawson said, “the world is moving in a direction in which there are countless technological possibilities—I feel like it would be shortsighted to overlook that.”

The digital revolution that Dawson and others described inspires a new, fascinating, and terrifying question: canvases, sculptures, and other forms of traditional art aren’t going anywhere soon—right?

The answer doesn’t seem to be as black-and-white as people might think. Thalia doesn’t believe that a certain art form will “overtake” the other. In fact, she believes that the distinction between what we know today as “traditional” and “digital” art will fade, as the two begin to amalgamate.

“New forms of mixed media will appear in the future that are combinations of digital and traditional art,” Thalia said. “As digital art gets more and more respected,

STEFAN S. ’21

the boundaries between the two forms of art will also get harder and harder to define.”

While Stefan agrees that the future of traditional art will be defined by the change in medium, he predicts that digital and traditional art will remain separate.

“I think that traditional art will definitely take a new turn because it has to distinguish itself from digital art,” he said. “It has to be different and be more experimental—change the traditional aspect of it—to really stand out from the digital format.”

Stefan also points out that we are already seeing the separation between the two art forms, as digital art is more often used in the entertainment industry—such as in animations, video games, and illustrations—whereas traditional or “fine” art is typically exhibited within art museums.

Dawson has a different outlook on what time will do to these different art forms. Rather than placing the future of art culture in the hands of fate, she rests it in the minds of this generation.

“At some point, the people who run artistic institutions are going to be the young people who have grown up with this kind of technology,” she said.

“And the people who run the institutions—they’re the ones who get to say, basically, ‘This is high art,’ and have a hand in the creation of that art culture.”

As traditional and digital art take on new meanings, many are confident that the art world will continue to change and grow for the better.

Student musicians experiment with technology to continue performing Pandemic brings innovative solutions to collaboration for group performers WRITTEN BY SAMI K.

M

usicians have had a difficult time continuing their work throughout the pandemic. Though most practice can be done individually, performing is where the musical connection between people happens. Because of COVID-19, group musicians have had to adapt and become more innovative in their collaboration.

“The hardest part of doing this online is having that energy, that chemistry,” said Jason Muscat, who teaches Groove Workshop. “When you’re in a room with people, there’s a lot of instant reactions that happen when you put four or five people in a band, and there’s so much happening at once. What’s actually going on at the moment, is that people are listening to each other, playing off each other, and that’s the real magic of music.”

Of course, energy and chemistry are harder to come by in digital spaces, but students and teachers have been able to come up with an alternative.

“We found something called BandLab, which allows everyone to collaborate online, which is really pretty awesome,” Muscat said.

Instead of playing and rehearsing live, students are adding on their tracks one at a time—“layering them one on top of another,” as Muscat put it. “[Students] learning a whole other side of music, which I think is incredibly relevant today, which is music in the digital age,” Muscat said. “Even if you’re a live musician that primarily focuses on live performance, [digital recording] is still an incredibly valuable tool to have in your arsenal.”

This year, Groove Workshop added a Groove Quest—a sort of musical passion project—to its curriculum as a way for students to explore and develop their musical interests. Muscat believes that this will continue in his curriculum even after the return to campus.

“It is a really fun innovation and a perfect remote learning exercise project,” said Bodie C. ’24, a second-year Groove Workshop student. “Mine is to write and learn a medley of songs from my favorite video game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s got beautiful piano and guitar music—it’s fabulous.”

And while Groove Quest has helped student musicians stay engaged and

improve through the pandemic, the main purpose of these group music classes is to play together and share with the community. In Groove Workshop, Jazz Ensemble, and Steel Drums, technologies including Soundtrap, BandLab, and GarageBand have been tested during class, yet there is not a consensus on which is the best.

“BandLab was better than Soundtrap, but both of them kind of sucked,” said Hannah D. ’23, an avid song-writer in Groove Workshop. “So now we’re just on GarageBand… sending files back and forth to each other, which is pretty bad.”

In an effort to share their music with the community, the Steel Drums Band has created a few videos. Producing them has been complicated as the audio must be synced with the visual after recording each piece separately.

“Although we’re not able to [perform] together, being able to perform what I have been working on is still so powerful,” said Megan B. ’23, a second-year student in the Steel Drums elective.

Though these performance videos and curricular adaptations are great ways to engage the students and broader

community in musical performances, they all lack the energy of playing live with and for your friends.

“It’s like when you’re an extrovert and you hang out with a lot of people, and you feel energized,” Bodie said. “It’s the same thing when you’re playing music with somebody and you feel the appreciation from somebody else who kind of gets you.”

For Brandon C. ’22, a member of the a cappella group A Choired Taste, the connection between members has become available through the technology of JackTrip. Developed by parents of the Ragazzi Boys Chorus, a local music group, it is a software and hardware that lowers the latency of Zoom so that people can sing and play instruments together without fear of a lagging connection.

“We can continue rehearsing as if we were in person, even though the [restrictions] prevent that,” Brandon said.

The pandemic has forced everyone to become more creative and search for innovative and productive solutions. For musicians whose creativity and passion fuels their joy, searching for new solutions has paved the way for future success.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / PAGE 7

Memories of pandemic encapsulated in COVID-19 artifact gallery Epidemics in History class compiles tokens from past year to memorialize community’s experience through pandemic.

WRITTEN BY SOFIA T.

I

n the first weeks of distance learning, “When we look at pandemics across advisors and teachers encouraged my time, we can see larger historical class to record what we experienced processes at work,” Burks said. through Zoom boxes: a vortex of current Consequently, the class covered events, sucking away parts of daily life we pandemics chronologically over their had taken for granted. I was quick to pass six-week term. Teaching the Black Death, over the opportunity to journal or take smallpox, and yellow fever, Burks worked photos for lack of time. Now, memories of to “situate our pandemic within the long days, weeks, and months spent at home global history of infectious diseases and blur together, and societies’ responses to them.”

I can’t remember Throughout the year, my day-to-day students compared these experience as major epidemics with each other events passed and with the COVID-19 through. pandemic. Class member Recognizing Gabi B. ’21 says she found that the larger discussions on the differences Nueva community between pandemics and also regretted not their perceptions the most documenting last interesting. year’s whirlwind “How the epidemic was of events, the perceived by people …

Epidemics of influences nearly everything History class about how the epidemic collected artifacts is remembered,” she said, and testimonials emphasizing how the class from the not only looked into the community to jog contemporary attitudes collective memory towards an outbreak, but also and preserve the the historical impacts of these MARIE BURKS present experience perceptions.

Epidemics in History Teacher of the pandemic. In Burks says the artifact order to properly collection project was tell the story of inspired by articles describing the community the challenging task of responding compiling COVID-19 artifact to COVID-19, the students thought galleries, keeping in mind how each critically about how the pandemic will be collection contributes to the historical remembered, providing past epidemics as perception of the pandemic. a frame of reference.

“Archivists and curators must The Epidemics in History elective was consider how the pandemic ought to created this year by Interdisciplinary be remembered, and what role their Studies of Science (ISoS) teacher Marie institutions will play in shaping public Burks, inspired by scholars’ efforts to memory,” she said. “teach the virus.”

Likewise, the class considered how

I hope future viewers will feel a sense of community with those who curated the collection with them in mind.

Student-run nonprofits and projects show support and dedication to their community WRITTEN BY SERENA S.

A

s the sweet aroma of cacao wafts from her kitchen, Ari P. ’23 gets off of the living room couch, leaving her desktop open on the table. The screen displays tabs of various recipes for baked goods ranging from peppermint chocolate to vegan gingerbread.

TEAM MODAP • A team photo was posted on Instagram (@team.modap) announcing their opportunity to pitch for Diamond Challenge and SXSW EDU last February.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY TEAM MODAP

Ari is just one of the many students looking for ways in which they can help support their community. From scooping pounds of rice into packaged bags for food banks to spending hours after school soldering in the I-Lab, countless students are involved in projects all have the same intention of giving back.

Ari and Charlotte P. ’23 started Cookies for a Cause over the summer as a nonprofit that supports both the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund as well as the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Both Ari and Charlotte wanted to use their privilege to help their community and because of their shared love for baking; this was the perfect opportunity.

“We’re new to the world,” Ari said. “We have new ideas, and we can use them to help.”

Their nonprofit sells numerous types of sweets, from peppermint brownies to chocolate chip cookies, and last month, they earned over $600 in profits.

“A nonprofit is just one way to help your community during these times and I feel like it’s been super worthwhile thus far,” Charlotte said.

specifically Nueva’s experience during the pandemic should be memorialized.

Curating the gallery, she says, invited the class to “ask questions about community, inclusion, and collective memory.”

An additional consideration was that the pandemic overlapped with other significant events such as wildfires, a racial justice reckoning, and elections.

A pile of handwritten “Reclaim Our Vote” postcards captures community members’ volunteer work to get out the Georgian vote for the runoff elections.

“COVID-19 was not completely isolated,” Gabi noted. “So many other things have happened during this past year that should go down in the history books.”

A newspaper dated Friday, March 13, 2020, found on display in the WRC, is among the items submitted to the gallery

by WRC and Interim Humanities Director Jennifer Paull.

RECLAIM OUR VOTE • These brightly decorated postcards were handwritten by volunteers for voters in Georgia as part of a community service project.

Captured by a student involved in the project, the hope for these messages was to get through to potential voters in time for the January runoff elections.

Amongst the numerous extracurriculars and clubs at Nueva is Invention Studio, a club that encourages teams of students to design and build products for positive social impact.

Sean C. ’21 and Matthew S. ’21 are co-leads of MODAP, a team working to make an automated drone system that streamlines the search and rescue and post-fire relief process.

With the rampant increase of fires all over the Bay Area, Sean and Matthew were inspired to start MODAP in 2018, and since, the team has grown to 13 members.

“After witnessing so many fires in California, I found the work MODAP was doing incredibly relevant,” said Juliet S. ’23, who has been a part of the MODAP team for two years. “I was excited to bring my ideas and perspectives to the team and positively impact as many people as possible.”

Also stemming from ARI P. ’23 Invention Studio is Phosce, a team dedicated to addressing selfcriticism and promoting the general mental health of the youth. Led by Connie H. ’21 and Anisha K. ’22, Phosce is a mental health journaling app that helps teens navigate their mental health by curating

GETTING CRAFTY • These five cereal boxes, duct taped together, are just the right size to prop up a laptop while teaching classes.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY MARIE BURKS

“When we returned to campus many months later, it was there—such a time capsule,” she said.

The class considered how to assemble individual stories like this one to best represent the collective experience.

Some artifacts memorialize moments of connection with loved ones as more than “two-dimensional disembodied talking head[s] in a computer,” as Burks described. Scrolling through the site, one might find pictures of pandemic essentials like a makeshift laptop stand constructed from cereal boxes and duct tape.

Together, the stories of the pandemic told by the collection are ones of collective resilience. The class collected these artifacts with the hope of passing on this experience to future Nuevans.

“I hope future viewers will feel a sense of community with those who curated the collection with them in mind,” Burks said.

constructive habits and reflecting on negative thoughts.

Uncertainty and anxiety about the virus, prolonged hours on the computer, and isolation have prompted more discussion around mental health as it is an especially relevant focus. Quarantine has forced many to reflect inward and work harder to maintain positive wellbeing.

“It can be difficult for some to connect as easily with others about their mental health and the uncertainties of the ongoing pandemic as before,” Connie said.

“This topic of mental health technologies is especially salient now in providing youth with an outlet to record and make sense of their thoughts individually.”

The goal of the Phosce team is to present themselves as a mental health technology solution, tailored to individual experience, that is available to the general youth population nationwide. These projects and nonprofits are all rooted in the compassion that embodies Nueva students’ drive to create an impact that goes beyond the classroom.

We’re new to the world…

We have new ideas, and we can use them to help.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 8 / FEATURES

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 ILLUSTRATION BY ANISHA K.

Building a supportive community How students, faculty are supporting seniors as college decisions are finalized WRITTEN BY ANOUSCHKA B.

T

here are few times when seniors’ hearts pound as loudly as when they get that endlessly anticipated college acceptance notification. It’s certainly a stressful experience—the final layer of frosting atop the college application cake—and this year, there’s the added challenge of the entire process being remote.

With the pandemic still raging, seniors, teachers, and college counselors are searching for new ways to support students through the college decision process.

At the beginning of the application process, some seniors created a group chat called “College Time”: a place to talk about college and ask questions as they worked on their applications.

“It’s very opt-in,” said Abby P. ’21. “You could leave it or mute it as you want.”

When December rolled around and early decisions started coming in, they created another group chat—a place for sharing successes and milestones as well as rejections and waitlists. However, for those who wished to keep their experiences private or don’t want to be flooded with others’ updates about college decisions, the “College Time” group chat still offers an avenue to ask any questions and converse without having to see others’ exciting news.

“Everybody’s incredibly supportive,” Abby said about the dynamics of the chat. “As soon as somebody says, ‘Hey, I got into this school,’ everybody just gets really excited for everybody else.”

And because of its opt-in nature, there’s no “bitterness,” as Abby puts it. “It’s just a really supportive, friendly group that we’ve created.”

Like previous seniors, members of the Class of 2021 have also forged common ground and norms among themselves about how they want to talk about the college process.

Annie Z. ’21 expresses how there is a shared understanding about which conversations are appropriate for certain scenarios.

“With people you know and feel comfortable with, it’s not that big of a deal,” Annie said, “but there’s also an understanding that if you, say, brag too much about acceptances when you know other people didn’t get in, that will definitely make people uncomfortable.”

Faculty members, such as 12th-Grade Dean Brian

Cropper, and the college counseling team, are working to provide support and perspective.

Cropper strives to offer guidance from a bird’s-eye point of view—“reminding people of the big picture—where we are and where we’re going, what’s coming and how far we’ve come.”

Cropper’s work involves managing the social and emotional side of what the class wants to do. He has collaborated with the Science of Mind teachers to create a set of grade norms, which center around not sharing others’ information and being mindful of others’ comfort levels when talking about college decisions.

“There are some little tricks that are helpful,” Cropper said about talking to others regarding college decisions. One tip is to put the ball in the other player’s court—asking them if they want to talk about the process first. “It’s really low stakes to say, ‘Do you want to share? Do you want to talk about it?’”

College counselor Hillary Higgins has similar advice for talking to other students.

“Let them guide it,” she said. “It’s a deeply personal process, and the information belongs to them.”

The college counseling team provides guidance and support in a different way: through one-on-one meetings.

“I’m still meeting with my seniors frequently,” Higgins said. “We’re here to talk to students when they are feeling discouraged or have any sort of question about moving forward in the college application process as decisions come in.”

Support can be especially helpful to students facing rejections and deferrals. In environments such as the group chats, people are quick to remind others that rejection doesn’t affect their worth as a student. However, Abby also points out that it’s important to not be “too over the top” about offering support concerning rejection.

“Getting rejected from somewhere does hurt a lot—and that’s okay,” she said. Waving around hype balloons for other schools or reinforcing the idea that rejection doesn’t matter is ultimately not helpful for her.

“I’d rather a friend just be supportive and sympathetic to

the situation—just allowing for that initial moment of disappointment before you start to get energized about other schools again,” Abby said.

Higgins seconds the importance of not glossing over rejection. She hopes that the college counseling process can help students find a school that they’re enthusiastic about in spite of rejections.

“Part of our job as college counselors is to help students cast a wide net in the college process,” Higgins said, “and to help them remember that you might not have gotten into this school, but you have a whole list of schools that you applied to.”

The college process can enshroud students in a fog of worry and, at times, disappointment—but there is “a light at the end of the tunnel,” as Higgins puts it. “No matter where these students end up going to college, they are going to be successful.”

Cropper echoes the importance of taking different perspectives.

“This is about you—but you’re also part of a community,” Cropper said. “You’re going to be Nueva graduates in the world, and that’s an amazing thing to be, no matter where you are next.

Is civic engagement a matter of age or ability?

Junior discusses how youth can be voices of power to prepare for the future WRITTEN BY ELLIE K.

C

hildren growing up today will run the world tomorrow. But why should the adolescents of the current decade wait to participate?

Age may determine brain development, but age and maturity are not always aligned.

Youth in the recent decades, and especially at Nueva, have been disproving the widely held misconception that age determines ability.

According to FreeChild, the Institute for Youth and Social Change, “youth can change the world through politics by becoming actively, meaningfully and substantially involved throughout political parties and beyond.”

Currently, the legal voting ages around the world range from 16 to 25 years of age. Brazilians can legally vote once they turn 16, while citizens of the United Arab Emirates wait until 25. According to the 26th Amendment, an American teen under 18 cannot participate in a state or national election by voting. Furthermore, an individual cannot obtain a government position as representative until age 25, and a potential candidate must wait five more years to run for senator, and another five to become president.

The age requirements for voting have recently been questioned. Many wonder if youth or lack of knowledge should restrict civic engagement.

One student, among many, has shown the community the power she can hold while underage during a distinctive election season. Sixteen-year-old Adrienne P. ’22 looks beyond an age requirement.

As the Community Service Learning

(CSL) Representative on Student Council, Adrienne has been personally involved in work with nonpartisan organizations and helped others to participate as well promote voter participation this fall. She has worked with Reclaim Our Vote to write postcards and participated in phone and text banking.

“After learning about the issues of voter suppression and how connected they are to a lot of difficulties our county has, how they are a result of political polarization and the greed of corporate companies and definitely the larger problem of racial inequality,” Adrienne said. “I think that made me realize it is such a huge problem.”

Seeing individuals waiting until voting age to make an impact on these issues frustrates her.

Adrienne organized CSL Day for the fall semester, inspiring the student body

to make an impact on the recent election by inspiring legal voters to utilize their rights; 30 meetings occurred to plan the programming and activities.

Additionally, Adrienne worked with the middle school Community Service Committee to help organize their own CSL Day, solidifying the plans for humanitarianism across divisions.

According to Adrienne, the parents and their children thought “Oh, she’s able to be civically engaged because she is older,” but she argues, “there are probably a lot of 16-year-olds who also think, ‘Oh, I’m not of voting age so I am not as able or responsible or obligated to be civically engaged’—I think that is definitely a misconception.”

Adrienne’s individual efforts to impact today’s global issues by reaching out to organizations and becoming educated

[T]here are probably a lot of 16-yearolds who also think, ‘Oh, I’m not of voting age so I am not as able or responsible or obligated to be civically engaged’—I think that is definitely a misconception.

ADRIENNE P. ’22

Community Service Learning Representative PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NUEVA SCHOOL

granted her the experience to make impacts in the Nueva community and U.S. election.

One barrier for youth hoping to impact an election is lack of exposure to current political issues. People occasionally avoid sharing political information with their children in order to protect them.

“Adults may think that by avoiding discussing certain topics, they are letting their children grow up as a sort of blank slate,” says Stephanie Hertzenberg from BeliefNet. “Hiding a topic away will not convince children to form their own opinions. Parents who want to raise a child who decides what they believe when they are old enough are destined to fail.”

However, if you know where to look, lack of information can be easily rectified.

“There are a lot of different venues where kids can be civically engaged,” Adrienne said. “I think the idea that everyone has agency is really important.”

Politics is a complicated and scary battlefield of opposing beliefs and revelations of pernicious human tendencies. Yet, as California assemblymember Rob Bonta said in a school meeting, “politics is the art of making people’s lives better.”

Moreover, children are affected by societal adjustments in leadership and laws just as their parents and the older generations are.

Politics must be extended past the conventional view of age limits to the next generations, maybe not by voting ballots but by voices. As proven every day, teens can do anything if given the time, space, and moment.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / PAGE 9

Smashing the Glass Ceiling

Kamala Harris’ nomination inspires community WRITTEN BY ISABELLE S.

W

hether it was pedaling away nerves on a bike or being glued to the television screen with anxious eyes, many students and staff members waited in apprehension for the 2020 U.S. presidential election ballots to be counted, hoping for the success of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Vice President Harris is a woman of many firsts: the first African American and the first South Asian American to hold the office of Attorney General of California as well as the first woman and woman of color to be nominated for—and become—vice president of the United States.

For Nueva, a school with a largely leftleaning population and a student body that is 57% non-white, Harris’ election struck almost every corner of the school as a glimpse into the future. Seeing Harris in such a prominent position of leadership made both students and faculty feel represented and inspired.

Maya C. ’21 described the election results as “a crazy moment to wake up to,” hearing that the U.S. has its first female vice president-elect.

Harris’ nomination as vice president is a milestone for women in America, especially women of color.

“The presidents have all been really old white guys, so being able to have at least a vice president who is

somewhat different was really nice,” said Mia T. ’23, who felt she could “finally see some representation.”

While Harris may be the first, she is an important role model.

“For young women to see that there’s an example out there definitely means a lot... [for] so many young women, whether you’re a senior or a pre-K student,” Maya said.

PreK–12 Equity & Social Justice Director Alegria Barclay was celebrating the election results at home with her family. For Barclay, it was most inspiring for her to witness the excitement of her 8-year-old daughter.

“Just thinking about what that means for her future was, in some ways, the thing that most moved me to tears more than even for myself,” Barclay said.

Although Harris’ victory is a huge breakthrough for America’s male-dominated political field, her political history has faced criticism across both progressive and conservative audiences for her role as a prosecutor. Barclay, however, points out that politics are never cut and dry.

“It always involves compromise [and] making your voice heard,” Barclay said.

There is still the opportunity to be engaged and to push for the belief systems that you want.”

Maya echoed Barclay’s thoughts, affirming that part of being in government and representing the country is “exhibiting growth.”

“You have to show that you can change and grow and receive feedback because you are a representative of everybody—and we’re constantly changing as a nation,” Maya said.

She believes that mistakes need to be called out while also using them as “opportunit[ies] for growth rather than a reason to hate.”

Harris still serves as an inspiration, especially in the Nueva community.

“The fact that [Harris] honors both parts of her identity, and has done so very visibly, validates other people who have complex, intersectional identities, and that’s powerful,” Barclay said. “And hopefully [that] just inspires Nueva kids who are here now to think that lots of things are possible.”

Upper school history teacher Chelsea Denlow added that she thinks Harris will “renew a lot of faith for people in our government.”

She also urges Nueva to continue creating space for civil discourse and “find opportunities for people who feel more conservative to also voice their opinions, because that is the foundation of democracy.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF CELESTE SLOMAN / REDUX

Uncertain Future for American Partisanship Online vitriol, counterpublics, and a Trump-shaped conundrum for the GOP WRITTEN BY WILLOW TAYLOR C. Y.

ILLUSTRATION BY ANISHA K.

P

arties will determine the future of the American political system. It was pronounced in the last election cycle—a united party not only elected a particularly galvanizing president but also formed strong, combative partisan identification among voters. Partisanship, according to a 2019 Pew Research study, was the leading indicator of political stances.

Now that President Joe Biden has assumed office, it seems that the surfacelevel vitriol between Republicans and Democrats has evolved into something closer to cooperation, though the parties remain staunchly divided on the chamber floor. Yet, one of the biggest questions in the political field is where the American political parties will go from here.

The answer is uncertain but appears to significantly hinge upon the future of the Republican Party and its relationship to farright extremists, according to Jonas Kaiser, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and Assistant Professor at Suffolk University who specializes in online misinformation, political communication, and fringe extremism.

The tension between the conservative mainstream and the fringe, he says, is not a new phenomenon. He refers to the Tea Party’s integration into and subsequent radicalization of the Republican Party in the early 2000s as a possible outcome of the farright’s attempted popularization.

“We don’t know if that’s going to happen again. There are indicators, but that also depends on what the Republican Party will do.” He said that, should the GOP accept the fringe crowd, there is a possibility that conspiracies will become more mainstream.

As far-right extremism bleeds into the conservative canon with vocal support from Trump and politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), characterizations of the far-right as outsiders to the political process are being called into question.

“There are several scarily competent Republican office holders who seem very eager to follow the Trump playbook. I’m thinking of Tom Cotton of Arkansas and a few others,” upper school debate and American Government teacher Les Phillips said, noting that even if Trump decides not to run in 2024 another Trump-like figure could take his place.

The American conservative movement has long been considered fringe in its efforts against establishment Democrats and the GOP alike. Particularly with its shunned QAnon predecessors like the John Birch Society in the late 20th century, the conservative movement could’ve been considered a counterpublic—a community where those who feel they have been excluded from the mainstream gather to form a collective identity. The critical issue of the Republican Party in the modern era, Kaiser said, is whether it can even be considered a counterpublic anymore.

“We wouldn’t consider people that are in power to be alternative or counter. Generally speaking, you can’t be a counterpublic if you’re in charge,” Kaiser said.

In many ways, the axis of the future once again revolves around Trump. The 2016 election popularized voices from QAnon- and Ben Shapiro-like figures; the pronouncement of Trump as the Republican nominee united disparate brands of conservatives and gave radicalized groups the platform they needed to become entrenched within the lives of a general audience, particularly with the steadfast support of news outlets, like Fox News, which straddled the line between “alternative” media and the mainstream.

The internet has also played a crucial role in determining the partisan make-up of the U.S. in the Trump era. Online blogs, forums, and messengers have allowed for previously disconnected susceptible voters to become radicalized. Kaiser, who focuses on these extremist parts of the web, says these spaces have been breeding grounds for intentional disinformation and unintentional misinformation that contributes to radicalization.

Should Twitter, Facebook, and even Fox News leave Trump behind, the far-right may still tear itself even further into extremism and away from moderacy by frequenting platforms like Gab and Parler, which Kaiser says “see themselves as havens of free speech.” Even so, the lesser capabilities of these sites and the effort it takes to transition to them limits the growth and audience of radical, deplatformed users. Again, the longevity and future of the online far-right communities is murky.

As long as people are scared of Trump, the ideology is Trump.

LES PHILLIPS

Debate and American Goverment Teacher

Looking at partisanship from the lens of lawmakers is no clearer. Phillips says that the onus is on the Republican officeholders to accept or reject the version of the GOP that Trump has rendered over the past four years.

“As long as people are scared of Trump, the ideology is Trump,” Phillips said.

Those who aren’t so quick to turn their backs on Trump are in limbo.

“People like McConnell and even [Lindsey] Graham are trying to figure out a continuing balancing act between keeping the Trump energy and still appealing to people who aren’t in the cult,” he explained.

“Similar to the Republicans’ alliance under the Trump banner in the early days of his candidacy, the Democrats, Phillips says, were held in a “fairly desperate marriage of convenience.”

“The divide between moderates and progressives is pretty damn real. The question is whether the Democratic Party can continue to function as a governing majority party and manage to modulate those differences enough to do it,” he said.

Even though Phillips himself identifies as a progressive, he said he thinks “progressives and leftists need to lay low for now. The seats that Democrats lost in the house were in these very centrist districts where people were afraid of the left.”

It remains unclear, however, whether the Democrats will continue to unite or split along the progressive and moderate lines that have threatened cohesion.

“In 2020, the left in all of its permutations just held its breath because they couldn’t fight the notion that it was imperative to get rid of Trump,” Phillips said. If Trump runs again in 2024 and the Republicans back him, Phillips said, the cohesion might stay; if Trump doesn’t, other liberal parties may surface.

Through this era of partisanship and polarization, however, some positives have come to light, most notably high turnout and increased civic participation. In the 2020 election, two-thirds of eligible Americans cast their ballots, the highest percentage since 1900.

“At the end of the day, I’m always hopeful.

So many people have never voted in this country before and that is great. That is a good sign for democracy no matter who they cast their vote for,” Kaiser said. “I choose to rather hope that they’re going to be better.”

PAGE 10 / FEATURES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

Senior seeks to redefine health and wellness on social media Vienna G. provides recipes, tips, inspiring messages on Instagram account @flourishwithvivi to encourage young girls WRITTEN BY AMANDA W. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

For the girls varsity cross country team captain, social media also presents an issue on portrayals of reality. Social media can often be a “highlight reel,” as Vienna put it—it is a carefully curated album of someone’s moments.

“I don’t think that completely distorting what life is like on social media is productive for anyone, including myself,” she said. “It’s not in my best interest to portray a life that isn't mine. But there is this subconscious part of me that still wants to make it look good. And I actually try to tone that down a lot. I just try to make it more accurate and more inspiring and more realistic than a lot of other accounts.”

A lot of this honest content comes in the form of habit and fitness updates or a new recipe she has developed. To stay grounded in her fitness progress and routine, Vienna likes to connect her mind, body, and spirit, with running, strength training, and yoga respectively. She finds that running, something she only picked up in freshman year, is a mental challenge. Strength training allows her to tangibly feel development in her muscles and body. And yoga, which Vienna practices every morning, is a healing, spiritual activity, which allows her to both stretch and connect with her soul.

“I wasn’t a natural-born runner, and I wasn’t the fastest person in the world,” Vienna said. “But I do have a very special relationship to these health and wellness aspects of my life. And I think that as I grow as a person, [@flourishwithvivi] can just be another way for me to reflect that.”

Vienna wants to bring this message into other people’s lives, especially that of

young girls. Her platform is a way for her to reach members of the community who may have had similar mindsets to her in the past, but are now seeking growth.

Though @flourishwithvivi is instrumental in her own progress and peace, she also recognizes the importance of putting it away and detaching from technology every once in a while. Every morning, Vienna starts her day with yoga, journaling, and breakfast without her phone.

“The relationship I ultimately want to have with social media is something that complements my life and not something that takes over my life,” Vienna said. “This account is definitely meant to be an online diary for my growth, hopefully for me to continue engaging in a community that I enjoy being a part of.”

Through her time on social media, Vienna has seen a tricky definition of health and fitness. She sees the modernday shift from a more quantitative perspective to one that is more qualitative.

For her, health and wellness is a time to “work on herself.”

“It’s important when I use the words health and fitness, because I want to be actually redefining those words. I use it very strategically,” Vienna said. “I don't say I’m healthy because I only eat certain foods. That’s not the reason someone is healthy. I like to consistently use those words to continue to reinforce what other aspects of my life make that true. I call myself healthy because today I needed a rest day, or I call myself healthy because I also do self care. I call myself healthy, not in order to fit a specific definition, but to be a part of how we slowly redefine that word.”

EAT WELL • Vienna G. ’21 shares wellness tips and healthy eating recipes on her Instagram. PHOTOS PROVIDED BY VIENNA G. / @FLOURISHWITHVIVI

Students reshape eating habits at home Pandemic provides opportunity to redefine relationship with food WRITTEN BY MIRABELLA K.

I

t has been over a year since schools and (most) restaurants closed in quick succession, sending students to quarantine in their homes and forcing—or, perhaps, allowing—them to adapt what, when, and how they eat.

For Christine Z. ’24, the lack of a prepared school lunch has made it hard for her to eat a full meal. With the new schedule, clashing priorities have left her with a 15-minute time constraint—only enough time to heat something up and swallow it down.

While Christine misses school lunch, however, the newfound flexibility has given some students the opportunity to positively remake an eating schedule or adjust their eating habits.

A month after the start of quarantine, Samara B. ’24 stopped eating dairy in an attempt to figure out what was causing her stomach pain and irritation. During quarantine, she has become more aware of how the food she eats makes her feel, which led to her realizing that she was lactose intolerant.

From there, she decided to cut out eggs, then meat. She made the decision to go vegan, something she’d wanted to do for a while but hadn’t been able to achieve prior to lockdown due to logistical constraints on making her own food.

Now, Samara has been able to do more

of her own cooking, something she loves.

She has also been able to adjust her meal schedule to better fit her needs, snacking throughout the day and eating lunch later.

During quarantine, Lucy K. ’24 has been enjoying frequent family dinners— something she hopes will still continue at least a couple times a week, even as she resumes evening lacrosse practices and outings.

Lucy also made the decision to begin intermittent fasting, which has become a positive eating habit she intends to carry forward. She and her dad eat only from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., fasting for the other 16 hours. For her, breakfast was the most unhealthy meal of the day, consisting of foods like sugary cereal, pancakes, and toast.

“Cutting that out of my everyday life has made me feel a lot cleaner,” Lucy said.

While Lucy’s new eating habits remove breakfast, no longer having a commute convinced others to add breakfast to their schedule.

Bainton shifted from eating nothing or gulping down a cup of coffee to making herself a matcha latte every morning; Christine, who used to eat a lot of cereal because of how quickly she could prepare it, has been making more elaborate breakfasts: sliced fruit, congee, crepes, eggs cooked every which way, buns, and smoothies.

“The only good eating habit that

came out of COVID is longer breakfasts [and] more breakfast,” Christine said.

Ayla d.-J. ’22 has also started making herself breakfast, but later in the day— it’s more like brunch—and also cooking more of her own food in general. While the adapting restaurant restrictions didn’t greatly impact the others, who rarely ate out before the pandemic, Ayla was heavily reliant on outside food sources.

She said that her frequent excursions to Whole Foods and the mall during lunch or after school “were really expensive.”

While she still occasionally grabs a bite to eat from the mall in the evenings with a group of friends, she goes out significantly less now.

Through having to make her own lunches and after-school snacks, she has become more familiar with cooking, and

ILLUSTRATION BY EUGENIA X.

now has meals that she’s learned how to make that she enjoys cooking.

“I like that I’ve learned to make more healthy foods, like salads and certain types of meals. It’s really nice to be able to make those on my own without having to go buy something good or have a parent make something,” Ayla said. “It gives me more power over my eating.”

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / PAGE 11

Exploring identity through affinity groups

ILLUSTRATION BY ALYSSA L.

THRIVE, affinity clubs continue discussions around identity through remote learning WRITTEN BY SAMI K.

T

he Zoom room is filled with scrunched eyebrows and excited chatter about current events that impact the students and their communities. At a time with so many pivotal events taking place, finding identity and a sense of community are more important than ever.

Equity and Inclusion Representative Fiona T. ’22 has been organizing events and projects for the upper school structured around learning from current events and movements, including Stop Asian Hate and Black Lives Matter.

These new initiatives, first announced in February’s All Hands Meeting, will continue next year to encourage current and new members of the community to engage with them.

The Equity and Inclusion Club, Black Lives Matter mural, Cross Cultural Conference, and Maverick Unraveled podcast are aimed at both fostering cross-cultural communication and WRITTEN BY GRACE H. helping students connect with others with similar experiences.

These initiatives tie into the school’s broader push for social She recalls staying on campus with Sandell until CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 justice and equity. Throughout the year, Head of School Lee midnight that first year, the two of them working to Fertig has continued affirming our need to create a “beloved mount hundreds of envelopes overnight—a process “One of the things that we wanted to do was preserve community”—a term coined by the civil rights and liberation Barclay described as “insanely time-consuming.” The a tribute to her,” said Gavi G. ’21, the current leader of leader Martin Luther King, Jr. which the school has used to next morning, “it was like a gift” to the community, Kindness Club. “The main things that we want to focus describe its vision of a more equitable community. In a recent “magical” in its unexpectedness. on were things that Anna was very proud of, so the wall email, Fertig emphasized the importance of “commiting to Since then, the element of surprise has faded, but of appreciation was the biggest thing.” belonging” the community-building resonance of the week remains.

Sandell had also emphasized collaboration with That commitment is reflected not only in these new “I think that it does help people feel more connected other student groups, particularly social justice clubs, additions but also in the school’s longer-standing programs, to each other and more in community. Some of my but those connections were difficult to foster within the including THRIVE and an array of affinity clubs. THRIVE, which favorite appreciations that I’ve had in the past have restrictions of remote learning. supports students and families who have been historically been from someone anonymous,” Gavi said. “I don’t In order to pay homage to Sandell, the Kindness underrepresented in the independent school community through need to know who it is. And I don’t need to be friends Club added a virtual mailbox for her to the appreciation advocacy, mentoring, and resourcing, has been part of the school with them. But like, somebody notices I’m doing form. “I didn’t know you, but I’ve seen your impact since 2018. whatever it is, and that’s nice.” throughout the Nueva community,” read one “[The students] show up and support one another in such Barclay sees that sense of connectedness as critical, appreciation submitted for Sandell. “Your impact has profound and beautiful ways,” said THRIVE Coordinator Alison with its importance extending to facilitating learning and resonated directly with a culture that goes far to define Williams. “Luckily, remote [learning] hasn’t impacted our ability action around difficult topics. what Nueva is.” to engage in meaningful conversation.”

“It’s important to be connected because the more To Barclay, PreK–12 Equity & Social Justice Director and In addition to THRIVE, there are six affinity clubs: connected you are, I think, the more capable you advisor to Kindness Club, that defining culture is one of love.

Feminism Club, Filipino Club, Gender & Sexuality are of diving into some of these harder things “Kindness Week does set Nueva apart from a lot of Alliance, Hapa Club, Judaism Club, and Muslim Student and harder conversations and changes that need other high schools,” Barclay said. “There’s a belief that Alliance. Through these clubs, students find a coalition to happen,” Barclay said. “I think [the week] is we love each other and care for each other, and it kind of peers with whom they feel comfortable sharing their very much about inclusivity, so it communicates of came into fruition with the first Kindness Week.” experiences with identity. some other values around not only what we That first iteration was, according to Barclay, driven In Feminism Club, the focus has evolved to include care about but who we care about. There’s these almost entirely by Sandell’s “sheer force of will.” what friends would typically discuss but with the added deeper-seated messages that continue throughout “Anna just was such a such a beautiful person in perspectives of students from different grades. the community, even beyond the week.” terms of her capacity to be like, yes, let’s do it, let’s make Since the switch to remote learning, attendance has this beautiful week where people feel loved,” Barclay said. dwindled significantly. Yet the smaller numbers have not discouraged conversations—instead, co-lead Lucy ILLUSTRATION BY SUSHU XIA B. ’21 says they’ve brought attention to perspectives that may have otherwise been overshadowed by a larger and louder crowd.

“There is a value in a more tight-knit Zoom group,” Lucy said. “When we have discussions, typically almost everyone participates because there’s only five-ish club members there at a time usually.”

One of the new affinity clubs this year, Filipino Club, has adapted its club meeting style to entice members to join more WRITTEN BY ELLIE K. dance parties, Maverick Mornings bring unity to a frequently. distanced community,” Holtzman explained.

Co-lead Jonathan T. ’22 said he is n a year of remote and hybrid learning, many of the Many aspects of Maverick Mornings contribute to trying to garner more consistent classes, assemblies, advisories, clubs, and tutorials the “giant family” Nueva has created while apart. members through hands-on activities have migrated with varying degrees of success to Zoom.

“It feels very naturally Nueva,” said 12th-grade relating to Filipino heritage, like And as more students return to campus for Nueva Flex, dean Brian Cropper, who led the Halloween Maverick working on traditional Filipino crafts, they get to see each other and their teachers face to Morning with Anna K. ’24. “I’ve seen my colleagues in learning to make Filipino food, or face again. However, one vital component of school ways and different classmates in ways that make me feel learning Tagalog. remains missing. In this space, laughter is echoing, like I belong to them more.”

Next year, Jonathan hopes to host conversations are endless, and the shuffle of footsteps Most of the regular Maverick Morning attendees are more events during October, which is complete the cacophony of student life. This place is the freshmen.

Filipino Month, and to share Filipino hallway.

“I am ridiculously proud of this ninth grade...for food with the upper school.

While students continue to make academic gains really busting through the awkwardness of the screen No matter the specific activities or through Zoom, they lack the opportunity to strengthen and the fact that they couldn’t be on campus,” Holtzman attendance, there’s an agreement on the social skills that enhance an education. A year ago, said. “[They’re] taking all opportunities to get to know each the power and light the discussions when the Class of 2020 was asked what they would miss other.” have brought everyone this year. most about Nueva, a number of them mentioned the Teachers and students from other grades are also “Even with all the hardships of this “hallway conversations.” taking advantage of the space. year, it has been such a gift to end my week checking in with The grade-level deans concocted a socially distanced “I do look forward to Maverick Mornings because THRIVE students,” Williams said. “Being in community and solution to retaining some aspects of community. They it's always a surprise and usually extremely fun and finding moments of levity has been my saving grace through this were initially inspired by the University of Chicago’s delightful,” said Charlotte A. ’23, an avid Maverick very hard year.” winter ritual called Kuvia or Kuviasungnerk/Kangeiko.

Morning participant.

The program was named after the Inuit word meaning The majority of meetings are led by Holtzman, with “pursuit of happiness.” During the cold winter months, students and teachers engaging with their UChicago’s students wake at dawn for yoga, s’mores, peers. In the fall, Anna and Cropper coEARLY BIRDS or various activities to revive their spirits during the led a Halloween-themed activity, where Students and teachers stressful season. participants enjoyed Halloween jokes Lee Holtzman, ninth-grade co-dean and and created Tableaux Vivants, or living toast each other’s Interdisciplinary Studies of Science teacher, begins each pictures. attendance at the first Friday morning in a Zoom meeting open to students and “These Maverick Mornings allow Maverick Morning, teachers alike, called Maverick Mornings. the ability to open up the conversation which took place on “If you aren’t going directly to a class, it is hard to get to more realms,” Anna said. “It is more Sept. 18. up and get motivated, and that desire to help people get permanent than a virtual hallway in that up and get motivated also aligns with the desire to make you do not just pass through it—you stay sure there is enough space for casual community on there for a while.”

Zoom,” Holtzman said.

The pandemic will eventually end and To Holtzman, it’s intended to be a “half hour that is hallway chatter will return. Until then, either fun or centering.”

Maverick Mornings create a space and “From Social Emotional Learning (SEL) inspired time for people to feel seen and heard, SCREENSHOT BY TIDAL YEARBOOK STAFF lessons, to drawing animals in five seconds, to rainbow and to begin one’s day with joy.

Fostering kindness, year after year Kindness Week strengthens community, pays special tribute to alumna

The “Virtual Hallway”

The Friday Maverick Morning’s impact on remote students and fostering community

I

PAGE 12 / FEATURES

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE W.

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How family con students proce occurring over WRITTEN BY ANOUSCHKA B.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

FEATURES / PAGE 13

Ask Yourself: Thinking about issues as human issues rather than partisan issues or bipartisan issues is something that’s really helpful because it takes the label off of them and it makes it more into a genuine conversation.

Are you trying to gain understanding or just

The best way to bridge the divide between teens and parents reading different news sources is to come to the conversation

PREPARED TO LEARN

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rather than teach.

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THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 14 / FEATURES

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

New SEC building presents school-wide opportunities within Environmental Citizenship program Upper school students will have the chance to learn and research in the Science and Environmental Center WRITTEN BY EMMA Z. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Following the building’s official opening in January, Walker and Sarah Koning, the new Director of Environmental Citizenship, are now crafting a plan to integrate the upper school students into the environmental sciences program within the SEC. Outside of the current pandemic restrictions the “campus-divide” is the biggest hurdle, but Koning is enthusiastic.

“Building a bridge between the upper school and the SEC is a very exciting puzzle and an opportunity to think creatively about how to build this relationship,” Koning said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Since joining the community in late January, Koning has been learning everything there is to learn about Nueva, as she strongly believes that it’s important to understand a community’s culture before jumping in. Because of this easing in, she explained that organizing the integration’s logistics is “still an ongoing process.”

However, Koning stressed her value of upper school engagement and input throughout the process, and shared her belief that “the students are the experts.”

Walker shares Koning’s sentiment and has wholeheartedly spoken on the importance of “creative and thoughtful” upper schooler input. He believes that

LEARNING WITH A VIEW • The new science and environmental center was built in just over a year on the Hillsborough campus. Located on the hill below the Café, it has expansive views of the bay. PHOTOS BY W. H. BUTLER the cross-division interaction presents opportunities to benefit both the students as well as their research. While lower and middle school students reside permanently at the field site, the upper schoolers have the expertise to provide statistical analysis of the data that the younger students collect. He also says that the collaboration is also incredibly helpful to developing the skills that make great scientists and changemakers.

“I think that so much of good scientific work is about communicating. It’s one thing to understand something, but it's another thing to tell someone in a way that’s compelling,” he said. “Working with an audience of different ages provides a very natural way to appropriately challenge students to become great communicators of environmental ideas.”

The possibilities are endless and exciting.

The building and its program reflect the school’s commitment to environmental citizenship and the efforts to further the whole-school connection between the three divisions. The vision for the program is massive, and both Koning and Walker

“Helping someone through anything really adds to your own joy” School nurse Saskia Chan brings her deep care to the community, as the students and faculty navigate a return to campus WRITTEN BY AMANDA W.

T

ucked away in the back corner of the second floor hallway, school nurse Saskia Chan is up early in her office, often arriving hours before school begins each day. These days, Chan misses the sound of students chattering and laughing on their way to class. The building is quieter now as she works away, attending to the needs and concerns of students and faculty in all three divisions. She leaves past 5:30, often being teased by the security team as the last person to depart, her work continues at home, at every hour of the day, and every day of the week.

During the pandemic, Chan is updating and informing the students, faculty, staff, and their families, responding to inquisitive calls and emails and updating documentation.

“With the pandemic, I am constantly checking emails. It’s totally become a sevenday-a-week job—and that’s okay,” Chan said.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY SASKIA CHAN

“Because if someone wants to get the test results at five o’clock in the morning, so they can be here on Monday morning, I’m okay with that. It's worth it.”

But Chan’s late nights and tireless hours are driven from within—from an innate genuine and deep care for those in her community.

“You get these embarrassing moments, right? They are very intimate and you need to have someone there who isn’t going to judge and just help you through. We all need that,” Chan said. “That’s what nursing really taught me. It’s so humbling to be there when people are really hurting or going through something.”

Before coming to Nueva in June of 2019, Chan worked as a pediatric intensive care nurse for 25 years, facing the sickest of patients. She would often become a part of these patients’ families, comforting them and teaching and explaining the complex medical information.

Chan didn’t always aspire to be a nurse, however, as she had dreamed of becoming

are thrilled about the doors that it opens, especially for the younger generation.

“We are at an extraordinary and critical time in the Anthropocene; it’s a pivotal moment in how we choose to engage with the future of the climate crisis,” Koning said.

“This is the most pressing problem for the new generation, but rather than positioning it as an uncertainty or anxiety, I see the role of the center as to bring about a sense of optimism and resilience to students.”

Walker envisions activities such as nighttime astronomy observations, a writing rotation, new elective possibilities, and an education course for students to partake in teaching and observe what happens in the classrooms. Koning hopes for the program to expand beyond Nueva students and faculty to the community at large.

“I hope that this becomes a location for students, faculty, and administration, but also the parents, and the extended community outside, that is used to dig deep into these issues,” she says. “And what does that look like? There are so many options— the sky’s the limit.”

a doctor and had started on the pre-med track at Tulane. But after changing her major and going on a brief foray into the music industry, she returned to medicine, but with an “old-school concern” that she had seen in her nurse-like pediatrician.

Chan described how in pediatrics, the state of the parents and guardians are often overlooked. Her mindfulness in looking after the parents as well is reflective of her deep compassion. She would simply ask if they needed showers, or if she could hold the baby for them, in an effort to give the parents space and permission to “have a moment.” This is a lesson she has carried with her, beyond the hospital and has found extremely important to remember during the pandemic.

“When you do feel tired or rundown, sometimes it’s okay to just take that pause, and take care of yourself, because we can’t take care of others if we don’t take care of ourselves,” Chan said.

However, this strong desire to help others created a sense of guilt as the pandemic began. Hearing her colleagues’ stories about the troubling days in the hospitals caused her to question her role as a school nurse.

“Am I missing out on being able to use my skills in a certain way?” Chan asked herself.

“It wasn’t going to be over in two weeks, like we all thought. I had a lot of guilt, because I felt like, wait a minute, am I just being safe? Am I avoiding it when I could be in the hospital?”

Though Chan felt that “stay[ing] put” and “sit[ing] back” from the front line was challenging, she quickly realized that her expertise in infectious diseases would benefit Nueva’s own struggles as an educational institution. As the cases grew, Chan saw the return to campus as a huge hurdle that she could lend her experience to.

Since the beginning of the reopening plan, Chan has played an integral role in drafting the various health procedures and policies that have facilitated a smooth transition back to hybrid and in-person learning. On a daily basis, she meets with the Facilities and Operations Team and administrators to ensure everyone’s safety.

To run a smooth day of in-person learning with social distancing and masks takes cooperation and collaboration from every aspect of the campus, creating a “team sport,” as Chan put it.

“This pandemic… is really helping us get to that idea or concept of one school, where we don’t think of it as the Hillsborough campus or the San Mateo campus,” Chan described. “And we don’t just think of like, students and staff, we think of it as one community. I think in some ways, it’s just going to make us stronger… and better prepared for the future.”

With the pandemic’s challenges, Chan has sometimes had to reluctantly use her “mean, nurse voice,” in order to answer tough questions. Especially with subjects like travelling, Chan has often felt like a “gatekeeper,” which has been important in her role as a nurse.

Most importantly, Chan has enjoyed giving back to her community. Her true care for the wellbeing of the community have made events in the pre-pandemic era, such as trips, run smoothly, and in the post-pandemic era, Chan has supported each member of the community to re-fill our campus buildings.

“Helping someone through anything really adds to your own joy, or it also teaches you [that] sometimes people just need a little help, and it’s okay to do that,” Chan said.

“And if anything, hopefully it will just make us all realize that we’re all in this together.”

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / PAGE 15

Quest as a journey through the pandemic COVID throws wrenches into project plans WRITTEN BY SAMI K.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY KATE BEDFORD

“She makes a radical impact on who you are as a person” Get to know alumna Kate Bedford ’92, who now teaches sex education at Nueva WRITTEN BY ANISHA K.

K

ate Bedford said to her daughter, bending over so her curly red hair filled the screen, “Oh no, what are you gonna do?”

Her young daughter tried to shield the bandage on her forehead from her mother’s love with a plaintive “noooo.”

“I teach consent and you tell me not to kiss you! But I keep kissing you!”

Even at home, Bedford shows a true interest in and dedication to what she teaches, which is just part of why her classes are so memorable to her upper school students. There’s something about how open, direct, and honest she is that puts people at ease and drives away discomfort around traditionally taboo topics. Shame and embarrassment melt in the face of her unrelenting energy and comfort with a subject high schoolers may struggle to navigate.

Many students have left Bedford’s classes with their shoulders lighter, worries assuaged, and fewer pressing questions about contraceptives on their minds.

“I’ve always been interested in… what it means to be female in this world and all of the ‘-isms’ that get in the way of people being able to have healthy, happy sex,” Bedford said. “Apparently, when I was in second grade and my parents let me watch Dirty Dancing—the first thing I said was, ‘I hope she has her contraceptives!’”

Bedford, who has taught Sexual Health and Puberty Education at Nueva since 2007, grew up in San Francisco and attended Nueva as a lifer, graduating from eighth grade in 1992. She then went to Lick-Wilmerding High School, where she started and ran the feminist club and volunteered for the peer health education program.

“When I was [in high school], AIDS was ripping through San Francisco. That was what was going on in the world,” Bedford said. “And so there was this push to talk to kids about sex. Because it was HIV prevention.”

The AIDS pandemic and subsequent increase in sexual health awareness shaped and influenced Bedford. In her senior year, she interned at a film company producing documentaries about the LGBTQ+ experience, which was “formative in [her] understanding of LGBTQ+ history in America.”

Bedford pursued her interests throughout her higher education. After attending Stanford University, where she majored in feminist studies and minored in pyschology and African studies, Bedford got a master’s degree in Public

Health from UC Berkeley while TA-ing “Kate makes change at a human-tothe graduate program. human level, which radically changes “I would have a big Berkeley class people’s lives,” said Upper School with a couple hundred kids, and I would Division Head Liza Raynal. “She makes go and sit on the desk,” Bedford said. “I a radical impact on who you are as a called it ‘Seventh Grade Sex Ed: What person.”

You Should Have Learned But Probably Raynal and Bedford attended Didn’t.’” both Nueva and Lick-Wilmerding Bedford recalled being shocked at together after growing up in the same how little undergraduate students taking neighborhood, graduating just a a public health course knew about few years apart. As a senior, Raynal sexual health. remembered looking up to Bedford in a “My supervisor told me, ‘I don’t think lot of ways, even leading the feminism they know how contraception works,’” club Bedford had founded.

Bedford said. “I was like, ‘Fantastic!’ So I Raynal recalled talking to Bedford taught them.” about learning to drive on treacherous While educating the current San Francisco streets, and how Bedford generation is crucial, had confessed to Bedford also focuses sweating nervously on breaking down the while driving up and culture of silence and over hills. shame surrounding “I thought, oh, it’s “My goal is for my sex and puberty that okay to have moments students to grow up many now-adults grew where you don’t up in, which in turn know how to do it, to be sexually healthy affects how they talk and it’s hard. And so adults who have a to and support their I love that about her,” good relationship with growing children.

Raynal said. “She’s “Most adults, when real, she’s honest, and their sexuality, who feel they were little, if they she’s smart… She just confident to make good asked a question about meets you right where decisions, who know how you are and makes sex or bodies, their to be in relationships parents tensed up. you feel better.”

They got stressed, their that are healthy.”

Bedford has voices got pained,” still been able to Bedford said. “And offer comfort to KATE BEDFORD ’92 maybe they answered students during the question, or maybe Sex Education Teacher remote learning, they said, ‘Oh, we don’t though it’s required talk about that.’” switching gears and, Bedford places a unfortunately, having unique emphasis on to drop the condom communicating with parents through demonstration, where students learn to information sessions and one-on-one apply a condom to a banana. conversations, helping them understand “The good news is, puberty ed is what parts of their experience with easier, because I have a mute button,” sexual health education they want to Bedford said, laughing. Still, the lack of pass on to their children and what parts face-to-face interaction makes it difficult they want to revise. to connect with students on a personal “Parents are trying to do better for level, though anonymity can make it their kids than what was done for them,” easier to ask questions.

Bedford said. “So I do workshops at Despite these setbacks, Bedford schools for parents of littles, where we remains undeterred. start with really basic stuff, like saying “My goal is for my students to grow all the bits and parts without having up to be sexually healthy adults who your whole body tense up. Working with have a good relationship with their them is like a lever for change.” sexuality, who feel confident to make Even the smallest of techniques good decisions, who know how to be Bedford teaches, like “learning how to in relationships that are healthy. That’s breathe” when a child asks a difficult the goal,” Bedford said. “Sex ed, puberty question, can prevent the panicked ed, working with parents, working dismissal of an important learning with teachers, all of that is, ultimately, opportunity. working toward that goal.”

Quest co-directors, Angi Chau and John Feland, have been innovating on how to run the program this year, through all of the challenges that have arisen with the pandemic.

“We’ve done a lot of soul-searching to try to understand what’s core Quest,” Feland said. Part of the challenge is understanding what things have been done in the past that don’t work once moved to Zoom.

“I’m not asking that students create a whole new mathematical language,” Feland said, “but I am asking them to realize that innovation loves constraints and that creativity is what drives a lot of our actions.”

Quest Expo this year has expanded to include a Zoom celebration on Friday, April 23, 2021, for students who want to share more with the community than they can in a Flipgrid video.

Ninth-grade students who have’t yet experienced an in-person Quest journey have had a vastly different view than their upperclassmen counterparts.

Sava I. ’24 is learning Python to code his favorite board games. Like many of his peers, he has had challenges too, but his revolved around his computer’s ability to function. When Sava’s computer was updated, it went through a hard restart deleting all of his work.

“I dealt with losing all my progress just by giving it a laugh and starting over,” Sava said.

“Everybody was kinda shocked at my reaction to what happened but I figured that since it was in the past, there was no point worrying about it now.”

The pandemic has afforded all of us to take a break and focus on what matters, and what matters to Sava is moving forward.

Similarly, Dominic L. ’23 has gone through a Quest challenge. Dominic has aspirations of becoming a pilot one day, but with the COVID-19 restrictions he pivoted the angle of his project multiple times.

SCREENSHOT BY QUEST TEAM

“I’m someone who likes a good bit of everything, but also nothing a lot so it is hard for me to pursue a passion,” Dominic said. “I end up committing to something right before the deadline.”

He worked with Quest coaches Feland and Sushu Xia to find a solution. He has focused his project on both general research of the aviation industry and what the future may look like for it.

Students overcame the obstacles that were both a result of the pandemic and general Quest’s struggles with both new and old strategies.

“I knew that I was going to have difficulty continuing to work when roadblocks came up, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to do a group Quest,” said David C. ’22.

He and Hope H. ’22 are working together to create and design sustainable instant ramen cups that are still efficient and cost-effective.

One of the main challenges that many students including Hope and David have faced is the lack of access to the I-Lab where students prototype their Quests. Both students have had video chats while they prototype each week.

“I think having a partner allows us to have less of a workload,” Hope said. “While he focuses on material for insulation, I can focus on environmentally friendly packaging.”

Feland hoped for students to find different ways to achieve their goals in Quest, and Hope and David have done just that in reorienting their Quest to focus on the research they did instead of a ready to go product.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve learned from having less access to resources is that there’s always more resources that you can use, even if you don’t know about them yet,” David said.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 16 / FEATURES

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

A Day in the Life: Student & Faculty Edition Take a look at a typical day for freshman Meher B. and I-Lab Engineer and Quest Co-Director John Feland STORY & ART BY ANISHA K.

MEHER: After history, we get dismissed and go to carpool, and that’s the end of the day. I’m normally very, very cold.

History is freezing most of the time.

Overall, though, I feel content. I feel satisfied with what I’ve been able to do during the day and it’s just so good to get to see people that I feel really satisfied and happy when I get in the car to go home at around 2:30 p.m.

JOHN: My hybrid schedule is a little bit wonky compared to most people because I teach hybrid every day of the week, and then I teach a studio class.

So Monday and Wednesdays I teach the ninth-graders Design With Impact.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach the advanced mechanical engineering class.

And then Friday is my remote studio class, Introduction to Mechatronics.

MEHER: Currently, I’m on campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I get there anywhere between 8:45 and 9 a.m.

JOHN: After that, we hang out and clean up, do a little course prep for the next day. The first few weeks, at the end of the day, I was exhausted. I went home and took a two-hour nap. It's because you're trying to, as a hybrid teacher, make sure that the people here feel as engaged as people remote. You want the students to feel that they’re getting what they need to have the experience that they signed up for.

JOHN: My day starts! I get up around 5:30 a.m. to do some exercise, because even being on campus we don’t move as much as we used to. In case I remember, I do a little bit of meditation and eat breakfast with the fam.

MEHER: I go to my history class at 12:15 p.m. It goes until 2:30 p.m., so it’s a long chunk of time. It’s taken a little bit of adjustment, but I have Sushu for history, and she’s been really good about giving us brain breaks, and having a good balance of lecturing, watching videos, and breakout room activities.

MEHER: I live in San Francisco, so the commute was initially a bit of a problem.

Currently, I just drive to school. Originally when I applied to Nueva, we were thinking of me taking the Caltrain… but we did have to change our plans a bit.

JOHN: I’ve got two daughters in Nueva, and that governs our schedule a little bit. On Monday and Wednesday, Anna, my ninth grader, she’s got to be there for English class starting at nine. So I go in early to greet and do questionnaire-checking. That’s a lot of fun, actually, because I get to wave to everybody and see how they’re doing and make sure they’ve done their COVID survey. Because I'm not teaching on zoom as much anymore, I don’t do the costumes as much, but I do occasionally dress up for the greeter duty just to kind of keep things interesting.

JOHN: I’ve got my own hybrid class, Design With Impact. I go pick up my students at 1:15 p.m., we go hang out on the turf a little bit because it’s nice outside, and then we start our DWI class. We’ve been working on distributed Rube Goldberg machines, where students build a chapter of any story they decide to tell.

MEHER: At 11:45 a.m., there’s an announcement that goes out for clubs time, normally by John yelling into a megaphone. He arrives in a new outfit every day.

I think last time I saw him, he was a chef, he had a wooden spoon and everything. Definitely something you have to see. Like every day, if John’s not there in a new outfit, something is wrong.

JOHN: I sort of eat lunch outside with everybody else. Then I’ll do some more tutorials or meetings with the juniors and seniors, who are off campus that day.

MEHER: We have a passing period where we head up to lunch. That’s really been my favorite part of the day, because they have the entirety of the Rosenberg courtyard set up with hula hoops everywhere, all distanced, and you can get your lunch and go over to a hoop. Starting off the year, I wasn’t super close with a lot of the people in my cohort because I hadn’t been in classes with them or anything before, but I love getting to have conversations during lunch and just getting to know people.

MEHER: I get to school early, around 8:30 a.m. There’s a couple other kids who come to school early, too, so I talk to them. In fact, recently, my friends and I have set up a little 10-minute time to get a conversation in before school. It’s just 10 minutes but it always makes my day so much better.

JOHN: I help herd the cats at lunch. Jo Newman is the lunch captain du jour, she helps orchestrate all that kind of stuff. She taps me on the shoulder— ”John!” “Yes?” “You’re loud.” “Yes, yes, Jo, I am.” “Okay, can you let everyone know that it’s time to clean up?”

MEHER: I have a 15-minute break before I go to SoM at 10 a.m.

This term, we talked about health and wellness, then about race, then we had drug ed for a few weeks. And now we’ve shifted back to a more general topic of “identity.”

JOHN: On Mondays and Wendesdays, my class isn’t until the afternoon, but I go help out with Rob and Matt’s classes at 9 and 10:15 a.m. We’re doing some new and different things, and some things are new to Rob, some things are new to Matt, and some things are new to me. So it’s all about, how do we come together as teachers to make sure all the ninth graders are moving together at the same time?

MEHER: At 9 a.m. I have Design With Impact with Rob. We’re working on Rube Goldberg machines and trying to trigger those with microbot signals that are getting sent to a server so that we can do it collaboratively with people who are remote. I’ve never done anything like it.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

OPINION / PAGE 17

Dear Readers, THE NUEVA CURRENT Student Newspaper of The Nueva School 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

Editorial Team Willow Taylor C. Y. ’21 Editor-in-Chief

Jordan M. ’21

Design, Social Media, and Web Editor

Grace H. ’21

News and Opinions Editor

Amanda W. ’21 Features Editor

LiAnn Yim

Faculty Advisor

Staff Anouschka B. ’22 Grace F. ’23 Jack F. ’23 Aliya G. ’21 Ellie K. ’24 Sami K. ’23 Kaden K. ’24 Anisha K. ’22 Mirabella K. ’24 Serena S. ’23 Isabelle S. ’23 Alice T. ’24 Sofia T. ’24 Emma Z. ’23

The Nueva Current strives to provide informative and impactful articles for our community. Our issues cover stories related to our school, the Bay Area, California, and other relevant spheres. We are dedicated to helping readers understand the ways in which we can all make a difference in the world around us.

Questions, comments, or submissions? We welcome your voices. We accept photographs, illustrations, articles, and other pieces of work. Please email us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org.

The opinions expressed in The Nueva Current belong solely to the writers and are not a reflection or representation of the opinions of the school or administrators.

700 print copies are distributed for free to students and faculty members in all three of Nueva's divisions.

The Nueva Current is a member of the NSPA and CSPA.

A year-long hiatus was never a part of the plan but, like many others in the beginning of 2020, we found remote learning threw some very heavy, industrial-grade wrenches into our publication process.

As the pandemic forced schools around the world to close their campuses and transition onto Zoom, student newspapers found ourselves bereft—not only of the physical sheafs of paper but also of the communal work space, the late nights at school working on deadline, and the availability of interviews and sources.

We are fortunate to be back now, with a paper copy we can hold and flip open and mark up in red pen. Sharing student and teacher voices— publicizing the issues and events that matter to us—is more important than ever. We always welcome your feedback and ideas

on the issues we print—you can reach us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org This issue is a long time coming. Our staff and editors have worked through the normal blood, sweat, and tears as well as crying emojis, chat commiserations, and dozens of internet connectivity problems.

We’ve also celebrated with Zoom reaction hearts and party poppers, explored the wonders of screen sharing, and pushed through on spring-break video meetings.

We’re proud of our new staffers and old

hands alike, who have tried to navigate the already difficult obstacles of journalism with the added stickiness of remote learning.

Thank you for pulling through with us this past year and for picking up a copy of our latest issue. We hope you enjoy this culmination of a year of thwarted plans and unexpected joys.

Best wishes, The Editorial Team of The Nueva Current

GRAPHIC BY PIKISUPERSTAR / FREEPIK

To those who choose to vacation

Vacationing for pleasure during the pandemic is indefensible WRITTEN BY GRACE H.

I

miss vacations. I wish my Instagram grid was, like those of so many other students, vibrant beach sunsets and ski slopes filled with friends in addition to the weary, solitary sourdough and embroidery. I wish I could visit my young cousins, wish I could set foot on college campuses before I decide which to attend, and wish I was looking forward to school trips rather than dreading yet another week of disjointed Zoom calls masquerading as a week of travel.

But, alas, vacationing during the coronavirus pandemic is a morally abhorrent act.

There are plenty of cases where travel is essential. It’s the vacations, the decisions to prioritize one’s own enjoyment over other people’s lives, that are unjustifiable.

Even with precautions in place, there’s no guarantee that you’re not endangering yourself, the people you live with, and those you interact with

Online Viewing Each issue published in the past is available on our newspaper's website, www.thenuevacurrent. com. Archived PDFs are also available at www.issuu.com/ thenuevacurrent.

Stay Connected Website: www.thenuevacurrent.com Instagram: @thenuevacurrent Twitter: @thenuevacurrent ILLUSTRATION BY SUSHU XIA

during a vacation. COVID tests aren’t 100% reliable; false negatives happen, and you can get infected at any point in the hours after being tested and before you reach your destination.

If you aren’t planning to interact with anyone other than the people you live with during your vacation—meaning no grocery stores, ski slopes, or restaurants— you still put the residents of the place you’re visiting at risk. Hospitals are easily overloaded in rural communities and vacation towns, which often aren’t set up to accommodate surges. This means that if you do come down with COVID (or any hospital-worthy ailment or injury) while visiting, you risk adding to the strain felt by these facilities. For example, the Tahoe Forest Hospital, which services Truckee, has only six ICU beds. During the December skiing surge, every bed was filled for weeks, with ICU capacity peaking at 116%—in other words, overwhelmed.

Even staying in your own vacation home or that of a friend, you’re increasing

the risk of resource shortages for the surrounding community.

If you’re going somewhere you feel is safe because it has a low caseload, you risk bringing the virus to that area, a proposition that has become even more dangerous with the advent of fasterspreading and more deadly virus variants.

If you’re going to a more high-risk area, you’re endangering yourself, your family, and everyone you spend time with once you return.

As vaccines roll out, the moral calculus still shouldn’t change—at least, not until we have a better understanding of the type of protection they confer. The vaccines currently available don’t necessarily prevent you from carrying the virus, meaning that even if you are vaccinated, it’s possible that you could infect others around you.

Ultimately, when you vacation, you’re using the privilege you hold to improve your own life in a nonessential way and, in the process, endangering others and slowing the overall effort to prevent the spread of the virus. Of course, we The vaccines would all rather look at something other than our bedroom walls. Of currently available course, over a year after stay-at-home don’t necessarily orders were put into place, everyone wants to experience something novel. prevent you from And we will get there eventually.

Vaccines are being distributed, and carrying the virus, are underway to determine meaning that even if studies whether they prevent immunized you are vaccinated, individuals from carrying the virus.

The massive winter surge is gradually it’s possible that fading. But vacationing right now, as COVID continues to ravage the you could infect country, is a dangerous, self-serving— others around you. and, yes, morally indefensible—choice.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 18 / OPINION

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

It’s time to address sexism against Asian women The blatant and widespread hypersexualization of Asian women cannot be differentiated from the larger issue of racism against Asians WRITTEN BY WILLOW TAYLOR C. Y.

T

here is no way to separate discrimination against Asian Americans and the sexism against Asian American women. “How obvious,” you might think. “Of course any flawed representation of Asian Americans, no matter the gender, would be connected to racism against Asian Americans.” You would be right. It is obvious.

And yet here we are, a month after the Atlanta shooting that killed eight, six of whom were Asian women, and still a large part of the country refuses to acknowledge the consequences of the reductionist, objectifying rape culture that has built around the fantasy of the Asian woman.

I’m frustrated and bitter and angry, but I am also utterly unsurprised. The culture of Asian female fetishization is not new; something was bound to break during this pressure-cooked age of the formerly named “Wuhan” coronavirus.

Let us begin, perhaps, with the idea of the Asian woman the cultural forces that be have exploited with nearly surgical precision: the “perfect” feminine form— neither novel nor unique in and of itself — made that much more enticing by docility of its manner, its delicate exoticism, its refusal or inability to fight or talk back.

It is characterized by its smallness — sexualized weakness is no stranger to the world of fetishization and here, in the idea of the Asian woman, it is the defining characterization, the specialty to those who seek it.

I use “it” and not “she” to describe this form because the point of such a representation of Asian women is not to illuminate a real person at all; instead,

such a representation is made to provide a manifestation of a few or even a singular trait as a good and/or service — barely even a conception of a person.

The representation is an object without agency, a conscious, or animation: an “it.”

We’ve recognized that there’s a connection between Asian American hatred and Asian American female fetishization — obviously, the implications are many. But the biggest one, at least in this current era, brings it all back to the Atlanta shooter.

To be frank, mainstream culture has made women both the object of sexual fascination and the enemy. The former is perhaps obvious (the entire industry thrives off of the exploitation of femalepresenting people) but the latter is where the malice comes in. It contextualizes the shooter’s claims that his rampage was not specifically racially motivated and that instead he was attempting to destroy the pornography industry by “eliminating his temptations” — a horrifying comment at face value, but one that requires an extra moment to fully appreciate its entitlement and dehumanization.

So take that moment, now, and fully process what he’s saying: “eliminating temptations” should be a phrase reserved for throwing out junk food, for locking up a video game console, for objects after realizing unhealthy habits—but he’s using it to refer to people, women, whom he wants to and did kill. Women are not people, to him; women are objects, tools, things that serve and have no other purpose than to serve. They are “it”s.

Treatment of objects is not bound by the

68% of hate crimes in the past year against Asian Americans were reported by women DATA FROM STOP AAPI HATE NATIONAL REPORT

same moral or legal codes as treatment of other human beings. The Atlanta shooter, at the very least on a subconscious level, did not believe he was killing people; no, he believed he was doing the equivalent of throwing out junk food, locking up a gaming console — he believed he was “eliminating his temptations.”

Whether the shooter had explicit racial motivations no longer truly matters. The problem remains pertinent — sexism against and fetishization of Asian women remain in the terrifying, and deadly, embrace of Asian American hatred.

ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE G.

Schools need more education on Asian American history The #StopAsianHate hashtag on social media should not be the primary source of AAPI education

ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE G.

WRITTEN BY JORDAN M.

G

rowing up in a traditional Catholic school, I never received the education around Asian American history I had hoped for. In history classes, we studied the rise and fall of western civilizations, learned about the founding of America and its centuries of slavery, and memorized the list of presidents.

Throughout the years, we were given lessons on white, Black, Latinx, and Native American history—both ancient and modern—but not once did my elementary or middle school curriculum touch on Asian American history besides a few quick notes about Chinese laborers working on the transcontinental railroad.

While learning about World War II in seventh grade, my teacher assigned groups for a research project that would culminate in an hour-long presentation to the rest of the class. My group happened to have all Asian kids, and so we decided to look into Japanese internment camps.

That presentation my group gave was the only history lesson our class ever received on Asian American history.

Transitioning to Nueva, I thought that this progressive school might be more inclusive of Asian perspectives and experiences than my previous one.

However, even at a decidedly “untraditional” high school, I found myself learning and studying more traditional subject areas.

In my first three years of high school, we tracked China’s growth from the Tang dynasty until more recent years. However, it wasn't really until two research projects

towards the end of junior year that I was able to truly study Asian American history, and even then, it was only because I chose to look into Asian immigration to Angel Island and the creation of Chinese gangs in San Francisco.

There is not enough education about Asian Americans in this country.

Throughout my education, I have listened to received numerous lectures and completed several projects based around other groups’ histories in this country, and yet the Asian experience seems to be left out every year. We should not have to wait until a large movement like #StopAsianHate rolls around for people to learn about it. The legal and social discrimination Asians have faced in America is as much a part of this country’s history as anything else. In an area as diverse as the Bay Area, schools should be educating kids about the culture of a quarter of the population (2010 Bay Area Census).

The recent special programming led by PreK–12 Equity & Social Justice Director Alegria Barclay that brought attention to the recent hate crimes against Asians and provided a space for Asian students to digest the events was powerful for me, and I found myself wishing that the programming had been adapted into lesson plans. Whether it’s an examination of Asian immigration in history class or an analysis of texts written about those experiences, any content would have been helpful for me to not only learn about my culture but also expand my understanding of global issues and tie different historical events together.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

OPINION / PAGE 19

Social media doesn’t have to be toxic

How we all can change our relationships with social media WRITTEN BY ALICE T.

I

once had an addiction to social media.

Every hour, I’d pick up my phone, scroll through Instagram, like every post. I compared myself: my friends complained about getting 2,000 likes instead of their usual 6,000… but my posts never passed 100 likes. I would put my self-worth in numbers—likes, comments, followers— counting and comparing for hours on end. I’d waste my time admiring someone else’s life, and I couldn’t put down my phone—it was like I was being mind controlled. I’d stay up scrolling past 4 a.m., envying celebrities’ lives—I admired Oprah Winfrey’s confidence under the gaze of millions, wished for Elon Musk’s superhuman work ethic, and hoped for Valkyrae’s stability in life. I’d end up putting myself down for not having the same success.

My friend, Ani W. ’24, has had similar experiences with social media. As a musician, she’d often watch clips of kids on America’s Got Talent winning golden buzzers for their music. And as inspiring as the music was, it also made her feel discouraged in her own musical pursuits.

She found herself wondering, “What’s the point? I can never be as successful as them. I’ll never sing as [well] as they do.”

As she spent more time scrutinizing herself and pitting herself against her favorite singers, newfound insecurities haunted her mind. Her love for music

144

minutes per day were spent using social media for the average user in 2020 DATA FROM MEDIAPOST

became a burden. She pressured herself to her own life instead of copying the life of a perform perfectly, setting impossibly high social media star. standards for herself. The only constant Talking about the toxicity of social in her life was Instagram, where she’d media with her led me to believe that watch other people succeed, and wish, it was simply intrinsically harmful. But wish, wish. Her mental health crumbled talking with Director of Counseling as Instagram became more and more Services Carmen Chow made me addicting. question that belief. She said that social “Social media makes you really media is really just another form of compare every communication. aspect of yourself to It’s easy to others,” she said. compare lives on Sometimes social media, but it takes a rough “comparison isn’t moment to step out something new.” of a daze. For me, Even before social that was receiving an media, everyone English essay I had would compare spent approximately themself to people two hours writing they knew. And even and two months though comparison procrastinating can come from on, spiraling social media, in down ice-creamchanging how we making TikToks use social media, or day-dreaming we can make it a about YouTubers’ positive and nonvacation vlogs. For toxic space for us. those two months, With social I felt in control of media, people CARMEN CHOW my life because can see and Director of Counseling Services I had filled every compare themself waking moment to multifarious with scrolling and celebrities and tapping, tapping icons. However, by and scrolling. But recognizing when eventually, the reality of a failed grade we make these unfair comparisons, hit. And that failing grade gave me we can minimize the impacts on the momentum to finally change this our mental health. unhealthy relationship I had with social “You can always change media. It felt impossible at first, but, with something about [your report cards looming, I had the motivation situation] to make social to cut off social media completely. media more healthy for Last summer, Ani also deleted you,” Chow said.

Instagram from her phone. Her mental This conversation health improved as she started accepting opened my eyes to a her growth areas rather than tearing world where social herself down for them; she could focus on media wasn’t 100%

You can always change something about [your situation] to make social media more healthy for you.

Cancel culture shouldn’t be driven by fear

41%

of teenagers have reported negative experiences after using social media DATA FROM GUARDCHILD

bad. From then, it took several tries to reintroduce social media to my life and figure out what works for me. I’ve tried to only look at posts of inspirational quotes or limit Instagram use to five minutes a day. I’ve found what works for me is not checking social media in the first and last hour of my day—though this can be difficult—and spending less than 30 minutes on all social platforms.

In my journey to foster a healthy relationship with social media, I’ve come to understand and appreciate that what’s right for one person might not be right for someone else. However, all people can work in their own ways to make social media safe and beneficial.

ILLUSTRATION BY ANISHA K.

Political correctness and awareness may be better achieved by acts of counseling rather than canceling WRITTEN BY ANISHA K.

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new high-profile cancellation takes the Internet by storm at least once a week. It goes like this: someone relatively famous says or does something offensive, or something from their past is dredged up and re-examined.

They are called out, people pile on, Notes-app apologies are released, hashtags scale Twitter’s trending page, and discourse breeds in Instagram comments sections and Reddit threads. If the celebrity in question is lucky, they’ll slink away into the shadows unscathed. If they’re unlucky, their career hits a wall as they get blacklisted or dropped from projects. Rinse and repeat.

I think cancel culture is indicative of a shift toward people being held accountable for hurtful comments.

The true benefits of the boycott-discourse cycle are, to me, redeeming: increased awareness of injustice, breaking silence on taboo topics, and creating a space for marginalized voices to speak. In an open letter denouncing aspects of cancel culture published in Harper’s Bazaar in 2020, 153 well-known authors, historians, and reporters called for an end to “the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.” Intolerance against what? Racism? Sexism? Other harmful, institutionalized ideologies? That doesn’t sound too bad to me.

But I am often shocked at the way cancel culture blazes intensely in and out of existence like a struck match.

Seeing fans turning against their idols in a heartbeat, people who have never heard of the cancelee joining on the

bandwagon with no less fervor, commenters spewing vitriol, and news of celebrities receiving death threats in the aftermath of a cancellation, I wonder what about cancel culture quickens people to such a drastic, abrupt crackdown.

Fear, I think, is the fuel for the extremes of cancel culture, especially among younger generations who have grown up with an increasing awareness of what speech could be offensive. Fear of espousing intolerant ideas, fear of appearing insensitive, and fear of revealing ignorance have combined to set many teens and young adults on tenterhooks. It’s a fear that flares white-hot when someone sees their favorite celebrity criticized for being insensitive and doesn’t want to be caught supporting them. It’s that fear that makes me lash out at people who have said something I deemed ignorant, which ultimately deters them from speaking at all.

The phrase cancel culture carries that fear, an abrupt and absolute shutdown spurred by panic. (Not to mention that the term is nearly meaningless, having been politicized, exaggerated, scorned, and stigmatized until it evokes nothing but the image of vengeful young people inflicting death-by-woke on unsuspecting victims for fun.)

Efforts at “political correctness” should be motivated by a true desire to fight against one’s inner biases, not fearful concerns of public perception. It’s much, much easier said than done, but counseling people toward positive change—counsel culture instead of cancel culture—may soften the knee-jerk uproar we see so often.

Efforts at “political correctness” should be motivated by a true desire to fight against one’s inner biases, not fearful concerns of public perception.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 20 / OPINION

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

The Problem With Performative Diversity Hollywood’s attempt at presenting as socially aware is a shallow imitation of the representation minorities want ILLUSTRATION BY ALYSSA L.

WRITTEN BY GRACE F.

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lthough I am a fierce movie lover, measures film studios are really taking my largest problem with Hollywood to look good while still telling stories is that, far too often, I’ve seen films about majorities—it was a baseless featuring a cast of mostly people in the attempt at looking decent and was in no majority with a token POC. Tokenism, way a reflection of the experiences of queerbaiting, and “colorblind” gay people. casting all fall under the umbrella of I’m not saying that it’s better to not Hollywood’s quest to seem socially include diversity at all. Though these aware. In these scenarios, minorities characters are shallow, they are, at such as POC (in examples like Frozen times, the only sort of representation 2), LGBTQ+ people (in examples like we have in certain mediums. While The Kissing Booth 2), and others are I do appreciate that Hollywood is placed into supporting roles in stories making some sort of effort, it’s still that are about cisgender, heterosexual, disheartening to see a minority white characters to try and be diverse. represented in this manner. The fact In a modern world where political is, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people, correctness is essential to not fall disabled people, and other marginalized prey to accusations of discrimination, groups are more than just that. They Hollywood has attempted to clean have real identities other than being a up its act by shoving minority. in uninteresting One of my favorite diverse films that shows characters. an accurate Growing portrayal of a up East Asian minority was and biracial, The Half of It. I rarely saw Although the characters protagonist of on screen this film is a who queer Asian PHOTO COURTESY OF DISNEY accurately woman, portrayed these my life identities experiences. are merely Most East the surface Asian level of who characters she is. She were is a fully paper-thin realized stereotypes teenager involving the with “Asian nerd” thoughts, trope or emotions, the “model and minority” opinions. myth.

It’s not Although enough to my personal have just position movies that living in feature a an area with many other Asian people mainly white cast with a token POC. has given me a semblance of the Not every film needs to have someone representation that I’ve always craved, I in a marginalized group as a principal always felt as if I could never see myself character, but I can only hope that the as part of the larger media. films that do decide to feature someone Media like films and television often who doesn’t fit the mold of white, have larger influence than the general heterosexual, and able-bodied do so in population gives them credit for. a way tells their authentic story, and not While the purpose of most films is to just what would be presumed from their create an illusion of a parallel universe place in society. to our own, our human brains will comprehend these universes through the lens of our lives. This makes the problem of misrepresentation much larger than most would assume. It creates a psychological disconnect between our own universe and that of the film, which takes away from our viewing experience.

Sitting in my room watching The Kissing Booth 2 shoehorn in a random gay couple left me wondering what

Tokenism, queerbaiting, and “colorblind” casting all fall under the umbrella of Hollywood’s quest to seem socially aware.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Renaming of San Francisco schools is tokenizing The effort to address historic racism in school names does more harm than good WRITTEN BY SERENA S.

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f you were to listen in on my dinner table conversations on Jan. 26, you would’ve mistaken them for debates. That was the day the San Francisco Board of Education announced their decision to rename 44 of San Francisco’s schools whose original names referenced racist, white supremacist, or controversial historical figures. These included Abraham Lincoln because of the president's treatment of American Indians during the Civil War, George Washington for owning enslaved people, Paul Revere due to his role in the Penobscot Expedition in 1779, and Dianne Feinstein for replacing a Confederate flag with another after the first was vandalized.

Out of the 125 schools in the San Francisco school district, over a third of them appeared on the board’s objectionable list. Major backlash to the announcement pushed for recalls of the members of the Board of Education for prioritizing renaming over reopening. So adamant were the efforts that the city of San Francisco sued the board as well as the unified school district.

I fully support having conversations around racism in American history and believe that we should not stand for those who were involved in unjust offenses. In most cases, I would applaud the board for working so diligently and efficiently to move forward, but when it comes to renaming 44 schools during the pandemic, the timing is wrong and the methodology poorly thought out and executed. The board should have been focusing its resources and attention on more pressing priorities.

With schools already struggling financially due to the pandemic, having to spend funds on rebranding would only inflame the situation.

The board has yet to announce a successful plan to reopen schools in the first place; it’s been a year since the pandemic started and, while I can now attend Nueva for a full day twice a week, students who attend schools in San Francisco still do not have the opportunity to walk through school doors.

When the announcement to

rename was first proposed, the board defended the decision by arguing they could work on multiple projects at a time and could balance different priorities, but it was clear to me that the renaming plan had progressed much further than the reopening in a shorter amount of time.

Board members believe the renaming of schools is timely as the country is going through a racial reckoning, but this evaluation should not be a one-time occurrence—rather, a continuous conversation. The discourse surrounding racism will not stop and thus, renaming schools will be as relevant in the future as it is now.

It also comes down to who made the original decision to rename 44 schools and what the criteria were for the schools deemed objectionable.

As a Nueva student, I have been taught to gather multiple perspectives and engage with various viewpoints before making a decision. It is now apparent that not everyone got that lesson.

San Francisco’s Board of Education current renaming committee consists of only seven members who all came to a consensus that a myriad of schools should be renamed. It was a decision that should have been made with the entire community present including students and families. The original process should have been more inclusive, taking into account specific community values and representation.

Gabriela Lopez, the president of the board of education, announced on Feb. 21 that the board was shifting its focus back to reopening schools and that they are putting the renaming on hold. She declared that the renaming of school would not move forward until students are back in school and that the renaming process in the future would be more deliberative. It seems they came to the same conclusion as myself and the over 1,200 San Francisco residents who signed a petition to recall three members of the board: that yes, the renaming of schools is an important conversation to have and pursue but, no, it is not one that we should be prioritizing right now.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

OPINION / PAGE 21

There’s nothing like an immaculate workspace and the feeling of being prepared to set the stage for your class.

ILLUSTRATION BY ANISHA K.

Tips for the Second Term Lessons learned from the first term that I’ll be taking with me into this one WRITTEN BY ANOUSCHKA B.

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’ve learned several key lessons from the inaugural winter term that I’ll be putting into practice—and that I’d recommend you do, too—as the second term picks up steam.

First, I’ve learned how to best increase my attention span and avoid the infamous Zoom-fatigue of two-hourlong classes: a drink, a clean desk, minimal distractions, and careful utilization of the 10- to 15-minute breaks between classes. I’m by no means a naturally organized person—after a day of school, I’m already on the hunt for pencils and papers—but it’s become a useful habit for me to organize my workspace before a long class. I’ll have all of my supplies and books ready to go, a beverage, and wherever I’m working will be free of clutter. Most importantly, I’ll take any distractions away from myself.

I’ve found that this helps free my mind of clutter and fatigue; there’s nothing like an immaculate workspace and the feeling of being prepared to set the stage for your class. And while I used to spend the in-class breaks increasing my screen time, the past three months have taught me the importance of utilizing those breaks well.

I’ll get a cup of tea, stretch my legs, or take a breath of fresh air—anything besides remaining in the same spot.

Well-used breaks are key to giving your mind a reset before the next chunk of class.

With the term schedule, students can definitely feel overwhelmed by classes. Whereas before, hourlong classes felt more like a series of appetizers, contentpacked two-hour classes often feel like a heavy main course. Though it may seem daunting, I’ve learned that it’s crucial to let teachers know how you’re handling material and the pace of their class. When I’ve reached out about a class moving too fast, teachers have always been understanding and receptive to change. Whether you need to meet with them or have feedback about their class, building an open-communication relationship with your teachers is something I’d highly recommend.

Ultimately, the first term has led all of us into unexplored scheduling terrain, and I would encourage you to put these tips, as well as anything else that has worked for you, into practice for the best second-term experience.

Wives don’t need to take their husbands’ last names For women today, changing surname shouldn't be the default expectation WRITTEN BY ALIYA G.

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n the summer of 2019, I attended the wedding of my aunt to a Mr. Hardon. While she was keen on Hardon, she wasn’t too keen on his surname.

Her jokes leading up to the wedding consisted primarily of surname puns: “These shoes are too ‘Hardon’ my feet,” and, “Being called Mrs. Hardon is going to be ‘Hardon’ me.”

Her comments were all playful and in good fun. I didn’t think anything of them at the time.

But as my aunt went from Ms. George to Mrs. Hardon, the jokes kept up; both her and the Mr. would poke fun at the struggles resulting from their name. I found myself questioning whether their predicament was self-inflicted.

Ultimately, there is no real obligation for wives to adopt their spouse’s family name. Even Mr. Hardon himself is technically free to switch things up. So why even be the Hardons? Why not be the Georges? Or even create a new surname for their similarly new family? There are so many innovative alternatives out there. But it seemed none of those alternatives were on the table. My aunt and uncle were fixed on the name Hardon. Fixed on it, perhaps, because taking the husband’s surname is the expected choice, and a decision that remains the overwhelming norm for married couples.

According to the Social Security Administration on name changes, roughly 70% of women will alter their surname after marriage (this statistic includes hyphenating the name). I find this an unsurprising statistic, but one that seems to clash with the rough 70% of women under 30 that consider themselves feminists.

Taking your husband’s name is a tradition

with a patriarchal history, one intertwined with the concept of “owning” wives. Yet it is also a tradition that is accepted by couples without much resistance. Even under circumstances as dire as the name Hardon, wives will accept their husband’s names. Isn’t this practice entitled to a little more pushback?

Long standing norms are rarely changed with ease, but the benefits to changing surname traditions are abundant. In the case of the Hardon’s, my aunt came into that relationship bearing a more favorable last name (in my humble opinion). It would be in the

best interest of that couple (and any potential offspring they might have) to adopt her more favorable name. In other cases, women who want to maintain the part of their identity that is their maiden name can hold onto that significance. Some couples might also be interested in hyphenation. Hyphenating would mean everybody gaining a name, not one person losing theirs. Not to mention, normalizing other naming practices would be more inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community.

But while creative naming choices are available today, there are many pressures for couples not to make them. Whether it be that men whose wives don’t take their surname are seen as less masculine, that a “good family” is expected to have one family name, or that passing down a name appeases older generations, taking the man’s surname is seen as “normal.”

It definitely isn’t wrong to take your husband’s last name, and it can be a gratifying decision for many couples. But such pressures make tradition feel like the only appropriate option when—for some— there are better ones out there.

ILLUSTRATION BY TANISHA D.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

PAGE 22 / ENTERTAINMENT

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

Quarantine Essentials A few of the artifacts that we’ll always associate with helping us survive the pandemic in isolation WRITTEN BY SERENA S.

A A. NINTENDO SWITCH Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a staple since it was released at the beginning of quarantine. The Switch has been an escape from the pandemic and a vital source of entertainment for all ages.

B. YOGA MAT Wellness and at-home fitness became more important than ever when we couldn’t leave the house like we used to.

C. GOOD MUG / WATER BOTTLE Having a beverage ready in preparation during awkward breakout room situations is essential.

Staying hydrated was key to feeling refreshed during hours of online Zoom classes.

D. PLANNER OR JOURNAL Having a planner or journal by our side was super helpful for when the days seemed endless and minds were constantly straying from what we were tasked with.

G. PUZZLES There was a huge puzzle boom during the pandemic. Companies like Eeboo—woman-owned and sustainably sourced—offer a wide range of puzzle themes and difficulties.

E. BLENDER Make sure that you’re maintaining your health through both exercise and having a balanced diet. Simple smoothies and veggie drinks were everyone’s best friend; delicious and nutritious recipes are only a Google search away.

H. WEIGHTED BLANKET They keep you warm and hug you when there’s no one else to—no social distancing restrictions required.

What more is there to say?

F. HEADPHONES With many working and learning from the comfort of their homes, we spent more time this year than ever with headphones or earbuds connected.

I. TV/MOVIE STREAMING SERVICE Where would you have been without having watched Avatar: The Last Airbender or Bridgerton? These streaming services provided the much needed entertainment while we were cooped up in our houses.

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J. BOARD GAMES Whether they were physical board games played with family members or digital games that could be played virtually with friends, board games saw a huge resurgence. Codenames was so fun and easier to play online; we might never go back to playing the physical version.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

THE NUEVA CURRENT

SPORTS / PAGE 23

Girls tennis kicks off return of athletics A new practice venue, health and safety guidelines shape shortened season WRITTEN BY ELLIE K.

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o sports fans, the year 2020 may always be remembered as the year of lost sports. According to ESPN, there were over 400 canceled competitions, including the infamous postponing of the Tokyo Olympics. The coronavirus emerged as the championship victor, sending all teams home to a quarantined bubble.

At Nueva, sports were momentarily forgotten as schools shut down. Finally, in 2021, the girls tennis team was the first to resume practice and the semblance of a spring season.

In previous years, the team practiced on the indoor courts of the Bay Club in Burlingame. This year, they’re using the outdoor courts at Los Prados Park, just two miles from campus. They’ve been practicing every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, preparing for matches against other schools.

Led by Coltrane Hunt, Jennifer Perry, and Chris Wade, the team works to create a feeling of normalcy during the school’s sports season.

To Hunt, finishing his last season and year at Nueva, the season has “been relatively seamless.”

“It appears as though players have put in some time to train and play matches outside of the season,” Hunt said. “Of course, we are still coming together as a group. I’d say we are still getting to the swing of it”—no pun intended.

With fewer courts and limited playing time, this season will be memorable for its challenges. However, it will also be remembered for the perseverance and positivity the players and coaches share.

“We are still competitive—maybe not quite as competitive as we were last year, but the enthusiasm is there,” Hunt said. “The desire to play for one another is as high as it has ever been.”

The girls definitely feel that enthusiasm, taking difficulties such as mask-wearing in stride and striving to see the silver linings on the adjustments they’ve had to make to their play.

“It has been much harder to run in masks, but has also helped us improve our athleticism,” Mira D. ’22 said.

The students and coaches have been careful to observe all COVID safety protocols.

“I haven’t felt unsafe at any of our practices. We have to all show our questionnaire responses, get tested, and have our temperature taken before playing,” said Adrienne P. ’22.

Mira agrees that Nueva is doing “a great job making students and athletes feel comfortable.”

Following the safety protocols has resulted in some lost rituals. For example, the team is unable to drive to practice together in the vans, where in the past the rides to practice were a time to play music and foster team spirit.

Missing these team bonding opportunities has required a greater effort from the older players to include the new ninth graders and allow them to feel connected to their teammates.

As a freshman, Sophie D.’s first season has been quite unusual.

Even while distanced, she has felt embraced by the team thanks to their support and welcoming spirit.

“They have been great. People have been super friendly... and there has never been a moment where it has felt like exclusion,” Sophie said. “We’re doing great, and I’m really happy to be a part of this.”

Mira, a two-year veteran player who worked to establish the team, also feels the team has done a “great job” of supporting each other and offering encouragement.

“I am very proud of how far our team has come,” Mira said.

“I hope next season we are able to feel more like a team with inperson team bonding events, regular practices, van rides, and all of the other fun traditions.”

A NEW BEGINNING • The team has been using the outdoor courts at Los Prados Park, practicing every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday to prepare for matches. PHOTO BY MALLORY CELAYA

GETTING OUTSIDE • The team has been practicing in the Bay Meadows Park twice a week since March, one year after the pandemic prematurely cut their season. PHOTO BY FRANCISCO BECERRA-HERNANDEZ

Boys volleyball sets up for spring Outdoor practices prepare team for first official season next year WRITTEN BY GRACE H. & WILLOW TAYLOR C. Y.

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rass isn’t normal volleyball court material, but the boys volleyball team is making it work.

The 10-player team has been practicing in the Bay Meadows Park twice a week since March, one year after the pandemic prematurely cut their season.

Now in their second year, though the court looks different and COVID safety precautions—distancing, hand sanitizer, and health questionnaires among them—have altered the logistics, they’ve taken the opportunity to get some much-missed outdoor activity.

“Having practice outdoors after all this time staying at home is a phenomenal sensation,” coach Francisco Becerra-Hernandez said.

This change of venue isn’t without its challenges, but the team has taken them in stride.

“We cannot control natural elements like the rain or the wind, but the team always has a positive

attitude,” Becerra said.

The COVID restrictions have precluded the team from participating in games against other schools, so Becerra is treating this year as a “prep season”—their Monday and Wednesday practices focus on developing skills and bonding as a team rather than preparing for competitions. Next year, however, the team will join an official league for the first time since its inception three years ago.

In the meantime, Becerra says the team “always enjoys” scrimmages with the more established girls volleyball team, which has been unable to practice this year due to COVID concerns and scheduling difficulties. As yet, there have been no scrimmages this season, but Becerra looks forward to meeting them again across the net.

Season-less, girls volleyball looks to sandy alternative

Players seek last year’s “community and spirit” of playing on school team WRITTEN BY WILLOW TAYLOR C. Y.

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second year of beach volleyball has been offered to players in lieu of the traditional fall girls volleyball season. Practices are set to begin on April 26 on the Notre Dame beach courts in Belmont, according to an email from Chris Wade sent to former Nueva girls volleyball families. So far, seven players have committed to playing.

Cate L. ’22, who has played varsity court volleyball since freshman year and is helping coach and organize the beach program, says that she’s excited for the upcoming season.

“I think school sports are a perfect opportunity to make those social connections with new students that share similar interests,” said Care, who started the beach team last year. “I am also just really excited to see where this program goes because it looked really promising in our first season.”

Care also said she misses the “community and spirit” of playing at Nueva and that she hopes to regain some of that through the beach team.

Paige M. ’21, who was varsity team captain for three years and has been playing on varsity for four, also misses the community of playing for Nueva; however, she is still deciding whether to join the practices.

She says that the beach volleyball program is still “pretty young,” and, given ongoing concerns with the pandemic, thinks it would be difficult to have the cohesive team experience that she misses.

“If I do play, I hope we just get to spend time together in an athletic setting and maybe, for us seniors, end our Nueva volleyball experience in a fun way,” she said.

Traditional volleyball has been offered since the beginning of the upper school six years ago but was unable to run this year due to conflicts with club

seasons and practice scheduling. Last year’s varsity girls team made it to the finals of the California Interscholastic Federation’s northern California competition, where they narrowly lost in five sets to the team that would go on to win states. Those recent victories are a nostalgic point for the team.

“I think [beach] might look very different than our last season which was extremely successful. It’s disappointing that Nueva girls volleyball is [one of] the only Nueva sports which didn’t have a modified season this year,” Paige said, adding that while she understands the conflicts, “I wish it could be different and we could’ve had a [girls volleyball] season.”

Arielle C. ’22, who has played varsity since freshman year, also feels nostalgia for last year’s team.

“The thing I miss most were those days where we would get dinner from the Whole Foods hot bar and sit around a table and watch replays of other teams’ games and discuss them,” said Arielle, who will not be playing beach. “This team was one of the most fun and best teams to play with and I’m really disappointed that we didn’t get to state together, but still really grateful I got to meet everyone and play with them.”

Even though players have come to different decisions regarding the beach program, they all agree that the community that comes with playing team volleyball is something that they enjoyed and still hope to experience.

“There is definitely something really special about playing with such a great group of girls and feeling the support from the whole school,” Cate said. “I think volleyball was a really great activity that helped bring together upperclassmen and lowerclassmen and I’m excited to get back on the court next semester hopefully to meet some of the new players.”

PAGE 24 / SPORTS

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

March Madness Off the Court The disappointment and chaos of this year’s secondary storylines WRITTEN BY MIRIELLE W.

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here was cheering in the stands, in-person announcing, and real basketball being played. There were also masks, and social distancing was required for everyone not on the basketball court and each tournament held games in a single state rather than a set of arenas scattered across the country.

Still, March Madness made a triumphant return from a one-year COVID-19-induced hiatus this past month. The men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments were centered in Indianapolis and San Antonio, respectively, and gifted us with an embarrassment of storylines, surprises, and, of course, upsets. Here are some perspectives on three prominent off-court storylines.

NCAA’S ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENCE To nobody’s surprise, the NCAA displayed its incompetence once again, this time through an inexcusable disparity between facilities at the men’s and women’s tournaments. Said disparity was evident in everything from the weight rack to the food to the amenities to the swag provided.

Compounding that disparity was a laughable attempt to dismiss concerns, citing a lack of space at the women’s San Antonio site. This alleged lack of space was soon proved false by videos from players showing huge, empty hotel ballrooms that only served to emphasize a single paltry rack of weights with nothing heavier than 30 pounds. Not only was the entire fiasco an overt display of sexism, it was an exceptional PR disaster, even for an association with a history of exceptional PR disasters.

#NOTNCAAPROPERTY

To nobody’s surprise, the NCAA displayed its incompetence once again, this time through an inexcusable disparity between facilities at the men’s and women’s tournaments.

#NotNCAAProperty— spearheaded

by Iowa’s Jordan Bohannon, Michigan’s Isaiah Livers, and Rutgers’ Geo Baker— was a concerted effort by players to bring awareness to the debate surrounding college student-athletes’ inability to profit off their name, image, and likeness in Indianapolis this week. Primarily, players wore #NotNCAAProperty shirts and spoke out about the issue on social media, and, though an admirable effort to use the March Madness platform for good, the movement seemed to lack staying power. Yes, the visibility of #NotNCAAProperty was impacted by early exits for eight of nine Big Ten teams, but more importantly, only Livers responded to media inquiries about the movement.

That being said, NCAA president Mark Emmert did meet with the three players on April 1. Initial reports seem to indicate that, unsurprisingly, Emmert pointed to the NCAA’s current hearing before the Supreme Court as the deciding factor. Ultimately, the #NotNCAAProperty movement’s biggest effect would have been to bring media attention to the issue, and in that regard, it feels like a bit of a letdown.

MARCH MADNESS BROADCASTS These days, there’s enough sports media news to fill 10 columns. That being said, one of the more visible sports media changes for March Madness was the fact that camera angles on this year’s games were quite different. If you caught any of the games this year, you may have noticed significantly lower camera angles that seemed to focus on the per-player scale rather than the entire court. You can thank COVID-19 for these new angles— the stands were only filled to 25% capacity during March Madness this year, allowing cameras to be placed in different locations than usual. It was a different look, and quite honestly one I’m not sure I want to see again. With the way most basketball arena seating is elevated, most fans are used to a top-down angle of the court both at the game and on TV. It will be interesting to see if this is the prevailing opinion, or if the lower camera angles are incorporated into broadcasts with full spectator capacity.

[T]he #NotNCAAProperty movement’s biggest effect would have been to bring media attention to the issue, and in that regard, it feels like a bit of a letdown.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRIAN RAY / HAWKEYESPORTS.COM RICH GRAESSLE / ICON SPORTSWIRE TONY DING / ASSOCIATED PRESS