THE PENGUIN TIDE - WINTER EDITION
Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to International Movement The Big Debate: Identity Politics Guided Home Learning
History Department Interview Letters From Lockdown
letter from the editors Dear Reader, The Penguin is back again, this time with a brand new team in tow. It’s been a frantic issue this year - even more so than usual! Eager to impart our knowledge, we've loved the bustle of this issue's meetings: there has been so much refreshing enthusiasm among the younger years and we've really appreciated how they've livened up the discussion. This time, we chose the theme 'Tide', to represent the tides of change on the horizon: with articles like the timeline of BLM protests and last summer's exam injustice, it's clear this issue has certainly focused on some challenging themes. However, we have some light contributions too! While flicking through, you'll be greeted with the 'What Book Should You Read' quiz and the newly added Small Debate (a Sydney Robinson brainchild). Of course, our usual suspects are back too: the infamous satire penned as wittily as always - is tackling the topic of Guided Home Learning, while the Big Debate is covering the pertinent issue of identity politics. So, although the 'Tide' issue has - at times - felt more like a tsunami, we're glad to say that we've managed to compile a magazine that we're proud of and that we hope you enjoy you reading!
Sonja Belkin, Sydney Robinson, Liana Lewis, Megan SzĂŠll, Penelope Toong
We'd like to give a big thank you to Ms Wrigglesworth for all her help with the magazine throughout all these years! Also, thank you to Sara Bell, who has kindly accommodated our many printing needs, and to all our contributors who have worked so hard on this issue!
contents Front & Back Cover | Nikki Ivanova The Covid Game | Sydney Robinson Overheard @ SHHS Recommendation Corner Letter from Departing Editors Hidden London | Sarah Mitchinson Learning in the Time of Covid | Megan SzĂŠll History Department Interview Interview with Suzy Klein | Zara Simpson Creative Writing | Penelope Toong, Tasneem Jodiyawalla The Small Debate | The Senior Editing Team How to Keep Up with the School Tide | Clarissa Carrasquero Photography | Millie Slade Big Debate | Sonja Belkin, Lucia Henwood The Power of Young People & the Exams Fiasco | Tasneem Jodiyawalla Letters from Lockdown | Sonja Belkin, Tasneem Jodiyawalla, Penelope Toong Agony Aunt | Sonja Belkin, Sydney Robinson Loneliness in Today's World | Anisia Said Photography | Nikki Ivanova Black Lives Matter Timeline | Ahaana Manglani The Supreme Court; America Divided | Auhona Majumdar In Defence of 100 gecs | Natasha Arakcheeva Feminism: The Latest Tide | Lola Greenway Book Rant & Rave | Elenor Robins, Emily Man Book Quiz | Zeynep Kilic Photography | Isabella Levitt Robots in the Sea | Scarlett Knight Tide Pods | Talia Davis The Moon & Sleep Cycle | Lucia Immordino Year Seven Photography Competition
THE COVID GAME How to play: 1. Cut out the game pieces (or use your own - make sure they stand out on Zoom) and find a die 2. Gather 1-3 friends (follow social distancing guidelines) 3. The person who hasn't gone outside the longest goes first
Lockdown! Skip a turn
4. On each turn, roll the die and move that many spaces 5. Follow the instructions on each space 6. The first person to reach the end wins!
Hybrid learning! Switch positions with the nearest player
Negative covid test! Advance to the other end of the test swab
Government U-turn: Roll again
Positive covid test! Go back to the other end of the test swab
Social distancing: If you are within 2 spaces of another player, go back 3 spaces
Lockdown! Skip a turn
Guided home learning: the lie-in gives you the energy to power through the day. Advance 2 spaces Negative covid test! Advance to the other end of the test swab
Positive covid test! Go back to the other end of the test swab You missed a guided home learning lesson because you were waiting in the wrong Teams channel. Return to where you started your turn
Oh no! You got caught in an anti-masker protest. Move only one space next turn.
You got vaccinated! Advance 2 spaces
Overheard @ SHHS GDST: Girls Do Suffer Together
If they still did free school milk, it would have to be oat milk
Hey - weird question which teachers do you think are Marxists?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so I'm just gonna consume it all
Look at this pimple - it's so painful, and I can't even pout
I think I might just send my homework to my dad's PA
God, I hate 17th century French people!
Tide & Tested This autobiographical series of graphic novels, chronicling the life of Marjane Satrapi, is a fascinating look at the way Iranians were impacted by the Islamic Revolution. The memoir follows her transition from a child into an adult, and the emotional turmoil she experiences as a result of having to move from Iran to Austria alone.
While not suitable for all ages due to portraying sexual assault, Grand Army is potentially one of the most pertinent TV shows. It depicts the lives of many teenagers at a high school with an incredibly diverse cast and range of characters.
Matt Haig’s novel is one of love and loss; Tom Hazard, though appearing like a 41 year old, has actually been alive for centuries. Yet, despite the excitement of performing with Shakespeare and meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald, he’s tired of living this secret immortal life, and just wants to live in the present.
This limited series is a must-watch! Set during the Cold War, it depicts Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy, as she navigates a world stacked against her. It deals with complicated themes such as addiction, the historical treatment of orphans, and excelling in a male-dominated society.
BATTLEFIELD COR It has come time to say goodbye to your favourite magazine team - we know you are all, of course, deeply upset. For the past three years, we've shuffled around in the shadows, making sure everything runs like a well-oiled machine. We thought that we would take this opportunity to make it ardently clear: this is not a magazine; this is a battleground.
ORGANISATION Organising the school magazine, also known as yelling until your voice hurts, is a deeply rewarding job. I remember the first day I saw a poster advertising the roles in the new school magazine. There were many jobs on the list advertised, but my tunnel-vision engaged and all I could focus on were the sections advertising leadership positions. I have in the past been called ‘bossy and overbearing’ but I think that that claim is entirely unfounded. Anyway, I emailed in saying I was interested in one of the jobs, only to be told that, to my complete Year 9 shock, the Sixth Formers were going to take charge. However, I was allowed to write an article - how generous. Hah! Write, who did they think I was? I accepted this, or at least appeared to, and wrote an article. I think it was about cake; a clever ruse. Biding my time, I prepared my forces. Soon, the Sixth Formers had to leave for exams and I knew it was time for my hostile take-over. A revolution was Sparked. In the months following, I imposed my regime, coronated myself, and solidified my cabinet. It was the Dawn of a new era… Many years have passed since the fateful take-over. To the outside world we presented a unified front, but, constantly, we had to fend off new forces of leadership, attempting to take the magazine in a more ‘sustainable fashion’ focused direction. Now, it has come time to pass the torch, and I wish luck to the Neo team that follows. Yet, heed our warning, follow the structure we have set for you, otherwise, our sources will let us know. We will know. We will always know.
An ode to our time VISUALS Behind every strong regime, there is an even stronger propaganda department. As head of visuals – and writer, and illustrator, and editor – my sphere of influence stretches far. I came to the magazine boasting one core talent; the ability to bite off more than I can chew. Desperate to be a jack of all trades, I doomed myself to a lifetime of writing articles on my iPad mid-Year 10 biology lesson and hounding after heads-of-department to organise department interviews. For my efforts, I was awarded the role of Head of Visuals – or burdened with it, to be precise. You may peruse through the pages, but stop to consider that every colour choice and every font is a conscious decision, designed to promote our core value: good journalism. Or, journalism at the very least. All warfare is based on deception, and at the end of the day, what is journalism, but ornamented lying? In a world plagued with fake news and slander, we have dispelled the myths and illusions of a prePenguin society. There is only one truth; we have created that truth; The Penguin is the truth. And yet we are tossed aside, thrown into the bins, and discarded in classrooms without a second thought. Every crumpled copy is felt like a physical wound. Though those copies may be left, bleeding on the battlefields throughout the school, it is comforting to know our influence will outlive us. The tides are changing, but The Penguin remains constant.
EDITING
We, the editors, are the barrier; the sole defence line between you, the innocent reader, and the unforgiving onslaught of unpolished content. Caught on the battlefield, fighting off the litany of run-on sentences, our mission has always been to protect the noble institution of the English Language itself.
RESPONDENCE: e in the magazine We joined the school magazine in Year 10, and now fondly recall our plucky, nerdy younger selves eagerly signing up for the coveted role of editor, starry-eyed at the prospect of having such an integral role to the publication, only to be demoted to the position of aspiring foot-soldiers - lowly contributors - by the Sixth Form team. Yet, despite this obstacle, we were unfazed and knew our time would come. As Liana’s undercover agents, we assisted her coup, and pledged our loyalty to her regime, earning us the role of Co-Editors. This role, though it might not appear as glamorous as being an Editor-in-Chief, has been fraught with danger; during our first publication, we placed ourselves directly into the line of fire and ventured into haunted confines of Oakwood to unearth the secret of the abandoned Sweetlovian penguins in the attic. Our investigative forays did not end there, however - for the rest of the issues we have gone undercover in the trenches of South Hampstead to collate the much-loved (at least by us) Overheard section. The role requires immense patience - it begins with weeks of silence and siege, a true war of attrition, until the floodgates open and we struggle to not become overwhelmed by the massive influx of articles. As editors, we have also contributed content to the Penguin - intellectual, highbrow pieces such as the Horoscope and Recommendations Corner, as well as the Editors’ Letter, which is definitely not hastily written on the eve of every publication. Our greatest challenge, though, lies in our hesitancy to kill our darlings - one of us ended up breaking the record for longest Penguin article with her Stanford Prison Experiment exposé, and regularly causes pain for whichever poor soul (Megan) is enlisted in the formatting of the Big Debate, which seems to grow exponentially each issue.
Having sacrificed our inboxes to collect all the contributions, we are then entrusted with the strategic deployment of articles in a sensible running order - the order of battle. Then, just as we think our work on the issue is done, our responsibilities double in size as we’re roped into the frantic flurry of formatting each article. And, regardless of how many times we have claimed that this is definitely the last time we are ever doing the layout, thank you very much, it has almost become a ritual of being conscripted to the Design troop to face the tribulations of InDesign and Canva warfare. The art of war is one thing; the art of editing is a whole other beast. We’ve been relentless, navigating the perils of moles, infiltrators, backstabbers, and worst of all - people who don’t reply to our emails. Strict on deadlines, stricter on content, we alone have enforced the party line. As we’ve grown, climbing the ranks, we’ve become grander, our ambitions loftier - the avant-garde of innovation (you know the Big Debate? Now get ready for the Small Debate). We pursue greatness, sowing the potential in our comrades, and watching their contributions bloom. Though often hidden behind the scenes, left unappreciated henchmen, the knowledge that we are upholding our publication’s values is thanks enough. And, though we must now retire from this ceaseless effort, our spirit will continue to live on through the pages of The Penguin. Let us take a break from this very extended war/regime metaphor to just say that we as a team have had the most amazing time organising this magazine. Though we may joke and seem bitter, we have loved every late night, every revised draft and drawn out colour scheme discussion. We have all learnt so much from this publication, and we would like to think the publication has learnt a little from us too.
We will miss you dearly, Your Senior Editing Team, Liana, Megan, Sonja and Sydney
London's Hidden Cafés London is a city renowned for its magnificent buildings, rich culture and beautiful landscapes, but another key joy of London is the cuisine. All sorts of food and drink can be found wherever you are, but it is often the experience of being in a particular space that makes a visit truly memorable. To prove this, I visited four completely contrasting cafés that, for me, capture the essence of London.
Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium On a Friday evening, we almost walked past this shopfront on the Bethnal Green Road when two little cats in the window caught our eye. This was no ordinary shop; in fact, it was a cat café. It aims to bring in rescue cats and adopt them - a beautiful concept. We arrived at a lavishly decorated bar where a lady took our drinks order and led us to a bright pink waiting area filled with mirrors. She asked us to wash our hands and explained how we could keep ourselves and the cats safe. We then discussed the pioneering venue itself, the first cat café in the UK when it opened six years ago. It is currently home to fourteen adopted rescue cats, who are ‘retired’ and re-homed once they reach a certain age. When we entered, there were clocks on the wall and a huge dangling Mad Hatter's hat (in which some cats had decided to sleep); this is called the "Wonderland" tearoom. It was filled with an array of baskets, scratching trees and high shelves, complete with cats snoozing and playing around. Downstairs, there was what could have been a traditional dining area – except that it was filled with cat-wheels and beds made up inside a fake treetrunk centrepiece. We sat at our table and watched a lady playing with a cat called Salome, who started running on a cat wheel very quickly before deciding to take a rest on a sheepskin rug. I ordered a melted cheese and pesto sandwich, which a black cat with a white moustache promptly tried to steal a bite from, before being deterred by our hostess. I would recommend this café if you like cats and enjoy mischief. It seemed that every time I tried to take a photograph a cat photobombed it! Shoreditch, Bethnal Green Road
Look Mum No Hands We were walking along Old Street on a crisp Saturday morning when I noticed a courtyard full of bamboo and the odd bike and decided to take a closer look. We were welcomed at the door by a very enthusiastic man who ushered us to a table. I soon realised that LMNH was both a bike repair station and a café. The colour scheme was bright and cheerful, with lush plants and plenty of merchandise scattered around the walls. On the ceiling were ribbons, baskets, bunting, lanterns and bike wheels, adding to the flamboyant theme of the venue. The café is COVID-safe, so I scanned a QR code and checked the menu on my phone. After some thought, I decided to opt for a bacon bun and a limonata. The food was brunch-style, with many herbs and spices. A scent of coffee, aloe vera and citrus was accompanied by upbeat instrumental music in the background whilst various customers worked on laptops or met with family. Like Lady Dinah's, LMNH was a pioneer: it's been around since 2010 and was one of the UK's first cycle cafés. This café is not only a good shout for brunch but also contains a bike workshop in the basement. Whilst having a lovely meal, you can get your bike fixed at the same time so it's two birds with one stone. Clerkenwell, Old Street
The Crypt The Attendant While out on a family walk in the West End, we stumbled across what looked like an old-fashioned subway entrance on the pavement, so decorative that it would not be out of place on the streets of Paris. In fact, this was the entrance to a small café called The Attendant. Downstairs, the manager explained to us that it was formerly a Victorian Gentleman's toilet, which surprised us, until we took a closer look. The tables and counter were traditionally styled, with a tiled floor and walls and low lighting. One seating area was moulded from what looked like original (male) toilet fittings, with green velvet stools to go with them. I never imagined that the selling point of a café might be that it used to be a toilet! The manager then pointed out an information board that showcased a collection of pictures about the Attendant’s history. Before the venue’s restoration in 2013, the steps were litter-strewn, leading down from the street to nowhere. Now, they lead to a hub of colour, coffee and cake.
The Crypt is a beautiful cavernous cafe completely underground, with the intricacies of church architecture which makes sense when you realise it is actually below St Martin's Church! The interior is absolutely massive and contains both the café itself and a gift shop. It is located next to Trafalgar Square, but is easily missed, as the entrance looks just like a small lift set into the pavement. The café has secret passageways leading to various seating areas with lots of choices of tables from high bar stools to long canteen-style arrangements for larger gatherings. Like all the cafés I have visited, the Crypt's customers were a great blend of people: families, office and home workers and tourists. One of the main things I like about The Crypt is their focus on sustainability, whilst ensuring the food is still delicious. They serve a variety of tasty meals, including sandwiches, soup, salad, cakes, the list is endless! I would describe the overall feel of the Crypt as more of a formal eatery than a place for brunch. I would recommend it for a proper meal, though it can also be a nice place to shelter from the rain and enjoy a good coffee. West End, St Martin's Lane
This café was as unique as a café gets, and the reason I liked it so much was not the concept, nor the design (though that was fantastic!), it was the incredible staff who were both considerate and whipped up a delicious coffee in under 30 seconds. I would recommend this café to students who need a quick coffee and would prefer to take away, as the service is exceptional. Fitzrovia, Foley Street Words by Sarah Mitchinson Illustrations by Lara Economakis
Learning in the time of
COVID The year is 2102. A student at South Hampstead High School is sitting the future equivalent of History A-Level. The clock starts. They open the paper. On the first page, question number one reads: ‘Young people’s education was heavily impacted by the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic.’ Assess the validity of this view. [30] Panic. They were too busy cram revising the impact on world relations, the race for the vaccine,
the socioeconomic implications – They didn’t revise anything about young people! Who cares about young people? Well, my dear hypothetical future SHHS pupil, you wouldn’t be in this hypothetical future situation if you had read this magazine article. When there are textbooks written about us, they are going to need material to draw from. We are living through history, people, (a phrase that sounded much more appealing before it became reality), and so I feel it is my journalistic duty to document this experience from an SHHS point of view. After a week of speculation and mysterious after-school teacher meetings, South Hampstead
announced they would be closing their doors, and opening their teams channels. Boris must have been on the parents’ mailing list, because England followed suit just a day later. But, you know. We did it before it was cool. School was out, remote learning was in. This was soon changed to ‘Guided Home Learning’ – the name was changed because the former felt too distant, apparently. I would argue that distance should be the whole point, but what would I know? And so began an era of waking up at 8:27, eating Weetabix during assemblies, and regular paranoiainduced checks that your microphone and camera were actually off. There is no greater horror one’s mind can conjure when Slav-squatting on your desk chair in pyjama bottoms and a hoodie, loudly dining on coco pops, than the idea that the entire cohort is witnessing you in all your morning glory. Of course, learning from home brought its own ups and downs. Oh, that empty void of silence after being asked, “Any thoughts, girls?”, broken by the spoken-word equivalent of that side-to-side shuffle when you try to get past someone in the street and you both each move the same way, as two people, having waited the customary eight seconds of awkwardness to pass, unmute at the same time. “Oh. You go.” “No, no – You go.” This is supposing, of course, that people in the lesson are speaking at all. Now, I don’t want to be making any accusations here. I am sure there are people out there whose microphones are genuinely
broken. Whose internet has genuinely cut out. Whose cameras are genuinely non-functioning. But I will say this much – pressing on and off the ‘mute’ button as you speak in an attempt to imitate a bad Wi-Fi connection doesn’t work when people can see the icon flashing in the corner. Just a tip.
down the only place in London left that would sell me flour, because everyone and their cat decided they were taking this time to train for the Great British Bake Off, and had raided my local Tesco in the process. Every time someone mentions the words “sourdough starter”, I move closer and closer towards insanity.
Time, it seems, went through a mid-life crisis around March, and hasn’t recovered since. The five minutes it would take for a teacher to start the meeting for the lesson somehow dragged on for an eternity when you were sitting alone, barely awake, empty word document searing white into your sleep-deprived retinas. You knew if the teacher was late, because you would have 43 new notifications on the class group chat, in some variation of:
The term, odd as it was, crawled to a close. Summer offered a brief reprieve from the madness, and when we returned in September, it was physically. I wish I could say it was like we never left, but alas, my body clock did not agree. There were many negatives of online learning, I remember thinking, walking to school on the first day back, but an extra 30 minutes sleep was not one of them. I was then instantly punished for my foolishness. It hadn’t taken long for my glasses to go rose tinted, so the universe provided me with a new prescription, in the form of a fun week of hybrid learning.
8:55: where is she 8:55: Wait whats the team channel called again??? 8:56: maybe she’s not in today… 8:58: guys can we leave shes clearly not coming so theres no point being here ugh Before every lesson. Every day. How joyous. Speaking of incessant notifications – online clubs! In all honesty, South Hampstead’s commitment to extra curriculars was truly admirable in this time. We ran online debates, we had online concerts. Online sports day was something to behold, and only involved a trifle more sitting around doing nothing than the regular deal. One might argue we needed these to fill the empty void of time (ha) we had now that school days were shorter, but I needed that time. I had to track
I am not a ghost, nor have I any experience in haunting. However, being the only non-physical entity in a lesson has given me an insight into what life must be like from the other side. You become a disembodied voice, reaching out beyond the screen to a world long since lost to you. It is easy to forget a hybrid lesson is happening when you’re in school – that is, until a distorted garble of sound suddenly booms through the silence, asking for the worksheets to be upload to teams. Meanwhile, from the afflicted’s end, the faint echoes of conversation and laughter sound through tinny headphones. There is no good way to ask, “Could you move the laptop to the middle of the classroom?” when the justification
is, “I’m missing out on valuable gossip, here.” Back at school, surprisingly little had changed. Face masks in the corridors, wiping desks down after lessons, hand sanitiser as you walk in – the usual suspects, but nothing all that invasive. Yes, I may have gotten close to hypothermia mid-Maths lesson with all the windows open for ventilation, but thanks to our wonderful heating system, that is nothing new. We quickly got back into the swing of things – just in time to return for two days of retro home learning before we broke up for the winter holidays. It was the first final assembly I’ve attended with a cup of tea and a plate of toast, and I personally believe that from now on, all assemblies should be accompanied by an all-you-can-eat buffet. Or perhaps we could get the younger years to pass around hors d'oeuvres as part of their volunteering for DofE… As I mentioned, we are witnessing history in the making. And I would like to stress the in the making part of that, and admit that, as of writing this article, I had no idea how much more guided home learning we would be put through. Foolishly, I thought that might be the end of it, and that this article could encapsulate a nice little retrospective of the whole experience. But no. Here I am, frantically editing my article to account for our renewed acquaintance with home learning as of January 2021. I can't tell you how long this will last, or how it will affect the education system in the years to come. But I can tell you this: If/when the zombie apocalypse hits, your lessons will still go ahead. Written & illustrated by Megan Széll
A Parley with the History Department nce more, we at the Penguin deployed our investigative team to explore yet unexplored depths at the heart of South Hampstead. One cold Thursday morning, we forced the history department to forgo whatever they would prefer to be doing on a Thursday morning, and instead answer our enquiries. So, for your general reading pleasure, we present: An interview with the History Department... What’s your favourite period of history to teach? Miss Murphy (Mu): Well, I haven’t been able to teach much yet, so I’ll just go for what I’ve done… The Renaissance? You just show them a couple of pictures, find out how many of the class have been to Italy, and the job’s kind of done. Ms Morgan (Mo): I love teaching Russia to the Sixth form. Dr Egan (E): My favourite period of History is the 17th century, but I actually don’t like teaching it, because you have to simplify it in a way that means it’s no longer as interesting. Ms McDougall (MD): I did really like teaching the Tudors. The main theme of it is religion, which I’m very interested in, but I’m not sure the students are necessarily as interested... Miss Knowles (K): I’m enjoying teaching the witch craze for [A-Level] coursework at the moment, but I do really like teaching Year 7 all of the medieval stuff - but I think that’s just because they’re so excited about it. Ms Boyarsky (B): Currently, I suppose the Angevins, but I have to say the funnest thing ever was the Italian
Reunification, because it’s just full of romance, great food… and clothes! Who bought jeans and ponchos to Europe? Garibaldi. Mo: My hairdresser is descended from one of the followers of Garibaldi… So, what’s your least favourite period of history to teach? K: I think probably the English Civil War stuff in Year 8, just because we do it at the very end of the year, we only have a few lessons, and I don’t think I teach it very well, so I don’t think they understand it at all afterwards. MD: Also, anything to do with the economy. So basically all the bits I really love teaching about the British Empire, but there’s like four bits of it where you have to teach loads of stuff about the economy, and I have to pretend that I know more about economics than I really do. What is the funniest thing you’ve ever read in an essay? K: A girl in Year 7 a few years ago decided to make the title of her first essay ‘Ye Olde Battle of Hastings’. She’s still in the school, and I still have it, and every time I see her in the corridor I think of that and laugh a little bit inside.
MD: It was basically written as a poem as well. And also, anything that’s tea-stained, in Year 7, is really very funny.
MD: Is that true? When? When did they become orange?
Who is the historical figure you most identify with?
E: Well, after William of Orange overthrew Spanish rule, in the Netherlands.
B: Eleanor of Aquitane? MD: You don’t hate your husband though. B: No. I don’t often cause my sons to rebel against me. And I’m not on my second husband. Mo: But anyways. B: Otherwise, obviously it would be Garibaldi. MD: I always really like Anne Boleyn. Just because she has a mind of her own, and is interesting, and much maligned for being outspoken. But also she was married to Henry VIII, so I wouldn’t necessarily be doing that. Mu: Margarey Kemp. She was just this woman who cried the whole time. But she was actually quite cool, and challenged a lot of people’s opinions about religion, just by weeping 24/7.
Mu: So they made carrots orange now, otherwise they would all be purple? E: Yeah, they made carrots orange. What should Ms McDougall name her baby? Extra points if it’s history related. B: Well obviously, I mean it’s just clear, and it’s not really historical, but it should be Dougall McDougall. MD: There are quite a lot of good Scottish historical names. Like, well I don’t know, Duncan, Macbeth, others…
MD: Obviously Miss Knowles would be Louis XIV.
E: If we’re going for history themed, I think it should be something like Hardrada or, um… Plantagenet…
K: Yes, well we have the same hair, so…
Mu: Definitely.
What’s your favourite historical fun fact?
B: Agincourt is a good name.
E: That the Dutch genetically modified carrots to make them orange because it’s their national colour.
M: Like just after battles? Like, Waterloo or something? (enter Mr White)
Mr White, do you have any opinions about what Ms McDougall should name her baby?
B: History of Art. Oh, and I would sneak lots of History of Architecture in there.
Mr White (W): Yeah, absolutely. Pebble. There’s a good name.
K: Probably English for me. Half of my degree was English, so it would be good to put that to use.
Horrible Histories. Thoughts?
E: I mean no-one else has said Politics.
MD: I love it.
MD: Well, we do also teach Politics.
K: I mean the younger years know all the songs, so when we’re teaching anything they’re already experts in the period of the song, and they always end up requesting to listen to it.
E: My second subject when I trained was RS, so…
MD: It’s a great way to fill time at the end of the term. But also the one thing about Horrible Histories I object to; I really like the TV programme, but when I was a child I read all the Horrible Histories books, and the author, Terry Deary, hates history teachers. At the beginning of all the Horrible History books there’s this introduction which is just like, “All the History you were taught at school was RUBBISH! And BORING! And this is the REAL History!” So I slightly object to Terry Deary’s view of history teachers, although I accept that it may be accurate based on when he was taught in the 1950s. But that’s my only objection to it. I was very, very excited about the Horrible Histories House Lip Sync. If you weren’t teaching History, what would you teach? W: P.E. MD: Yeah, I am also definitely a frustrated P.E. teacher. But just the shouting and the P.E. kit, not the actual skill in P.E.
W: I used to teach bottom set RS, which was basically just naughty boys in my first year of teaching on Friday at the end of the day. It was just ‘keep them in a room for an hour and try not to cause any trouble.’ Bless ‘em. One of them sat the exam at the end of the year. If you could only wear clothes from one historical period, which would it be? MD: Well, I think for us corsets are an issue, so for me it would be any era without corsets.
Mu: They’ve come back into fashion now. Not with the actual restrictiveness, but they are there.
MD: Even though three of you [the interviewers] don’t take History. Sorry!
B: I think the Wild West, personally. W: We forgive you. Nobody’s perfect. Mo: I think I’d like flapper’s dresses. K: Yeah, 1940’s. B: Oh yes, that would be fun. If the History Department had a slogan, what would it be?
MD: Yes, well, people always regret not taking History. It’s possible to teach History in an extremely boring way, I think, like any other subject. W: I remember learning a lot about the Agricultural Revolution and the steam train when I was at school.
MD: Add more detail. E: Maybe something about reading? MD: Or like, ‘yes I am going to set you some reading, no it shouldn’t take you five hours, please don’t write everything down.’ Any final messages to the school as a whole? B: History is the best subject. It’s an amazing subject. But that just goes without saying.
MD: Yeah, me too. I spent like the whole of my Year 8 history lessons at school just watching a documentary called ‘The Way We Live Now’, or like, ‘The Way We Used to Live’, or something... E: I think I watched the same thing when I was at school. MD: And they would like, wheel the television in, because we didn’t have the Internet E: And they had to close the curtains! MD: - And then put the video in. K: You did always get so excited when you saw the TV cabinet rolling into the classroom. M: So, as enjoying as it is that the History Department and many of your other teachers spend half the lessons trying to make the smartboards work… at least you’re not waiting for someone to roll out a TV.
Reported by Sonja Belkin, Liana Lewis, Sydney Robinson, & Megan Széll | Illustrated by Megan Széll
My Sit-in with Suzy Klein
Zara Simpson takes a look inside It was the typical mid-December morning chill that fuelled our speed-walk towards the BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, Marylebone. The Grade II listed main building was built in 1928, and is composed of a rather chic Art Deco exterior, which currently houses all 11 of the BBC radio and television stations. We were met with a frenzied hum and buzz as we slipped past its marble reception into the main network of the building. I remember my awe as we marched (well, realistically speaking, tiptoed) through a never-ending maze of corridors, past various studios and meeting rooms, occasionally glancing through the gaps in their frosted panelling to stare, gapmouthed at their interior. The atmosphere felt distinctly like that of a secret network- maybe not dissimilar to the involvement the MI5 had in the building in the 1980s. We eventually made the stop at one of Radio 3 control rooms. We were greeted by the producer and broadcast engineers with quick smiles, brief whispers and frantic gestures towards the recording room that was on the other side of a large glass panelling. As we waited for Suzy to go off air, I marvelled at the complexity of the room. I might as well have popped out of the screen from a Guardians of the Galaxy film; computers, mixing consoles, recorders, reference monitors, effects units, a digital audio workstation - I don’t even know what half these devices are, let’s be realistic here. Every so often we would get to chat with the producer, who kindly answered our questions and explained logistics; we were handed thick, heavy scripts for the show, just for the three hour period Suzy was hosting. Like everything else, every element of the show was so strategically and meticulously planned out; pieces of music -interspaced with talking, by Suzy- were timed down to the minute, so everybody had an equally important role in ensuring everything went to plan.
During one particularly long piece (15 minutes, something by Schubert) we had a chance to pop into the recording studio itself, and talk to Suzy for what would be the first time that day. She talked about the set up of the studio, taking us through the layout from the velvety acoustic walling, to the tower of old record tapes kept in the corner of the studio for sentimentality, that were long retired and had the inch of dust to prove it. We frenzied her with all the obvious questions; what day-to-day work entailed, online presence, different parts of the
the world of an SHHS alumna An hour or so after, once Suzy had finished hosting in the studio for the day, we left the block and entered into the ‘new’eastern wing of the Broadcasting House. We snuck down the main stairs; a rather daunting spiral staircase, that stretches almost the entire way down the building. As we toured the premises (including the mouth-gapingly large, very snazzy newsroom) we continued littering her with questions in true SHHS-style; on women in the industry. She talked very distinctly about the importance of confidence, and passion, and drive, and ambition, and she heavily accentuated the role schools have to play in this, particularly in fostering girls’ talents and aiding them in their own path of discovery when it comes to career choice. She gave great credit to South Hampstead for helping her find herself and her interests throughout her years there.
show, if anything had ever gone wrong live on air, how she got into radio and journaling in the first place. With each intriguing explanation came various anecdotes. The most peculiar ones were based on various messages people would send in; some heart-warming, some with eye-rolling critiques on the show, some hilarious, some down-right infuriating. It really opened up my eyes to the sheer enormity of public response we never see on the receiving end of radio.
Reflecting on the experience now, almost a year later and in totally different circumstances, I’m very grateful to both South Hampstead and Suzy for giving me the opportunity to gain such an interesting and educating experience that day. Especially now, radio, and its hosts like Suzy, can be that one thing that connects us all and gives us something upbeat and engaging to grasp onto and be a part of, that I think we’re all thankful for.
Written by Zara Simpson
Perspectives You were up and gone. Insufferable You with your cereal and coffee up with the birds Well not exactly but something like that. Six thirty gone the bed is cold now and You are working, typing away the chiming Of freshly unpackaged email echoing the clink Of unwashed dishes you’ve gifted to me. You only arrive as I’m preparing for work, Dishevelled, disoriented, lost as per usual, Shuffling in, with an aura of grievance, This time about the two plates in the sink, ‘Not your responsibility’ – it seems nothing is, Yet you try and accuse me of being self-serving. You sit in silence, surrounded by books, well, Haloed by neat rows of virtual background. You Glare at me as I try to find space in your order, Though the space given is too tight. Claustrophobic. I want to leave, I think, but your neatly rowed pens May as well be a cage, your laptop wires pin me To my seat and I stay to watch you work, ignoring... Your incessant shuffling and sighing distracts me, Increasingly gnawing away at my patience, Just like your possessions, recklessly strewn about, Like parasites feeding on my systematic order, Which relentlessly multiply, invading my space, And If left unchecked, you’ll be set to conquer. You finish. Blank screen, blank silence, blank face As you stumble to the kitchen, eat dinner (Left on the stove, guess by whom?) and you Fall into your seat clutching your book with All its numbingly numbered pages. You focus then, One chapter upon another, and I try to imitate you But the paper simply rustles and does not speak.
Illustrations by Penelope Toong
As I finally attempt to achieve some respite, Away from exertion, your clutter and whines, Of course you succeed in consuming that too, With the agonising laugh track from your soap Overpowering all coherent thought as I try to Comprehend the words on the page I glare at. You must have had a good day, I think, as I lie In silence, because you are not making any sound and Neither am I because we’re both tired but then why Am I so aware of your presence as though you too lie Still awake? You are there, and I am here, and the night Has come and is washing over us both along with the sleep We crave as the stars emerge, hesitant behind the curtains. You are finally tactful as you emerge through the darkness, I try to feign sleep but your gaze whispers wordlessly, And with the shared knowledge that the other is conscious, We allow the moonlight, unfailingly behind the clouds, Despite the weather, season, year, country, to wash away All the scattered remnants left of the day.
From a distant promontory If I once stood above and saw the waves crash on the seafront, broken debris swept up: those long wasted days Shattered. Did I once see you wave from that same high rock, forlorn like some scrawny tree, left behind and leaving? If I was brave Maybe I would have returned to save you from that drowning, from becoming just debris forever floating (consummate traveller), grave Less and unbreathing. If I once saw waves break at the tideline, the fury of that chained sea spent fruitlessly destroying for all its days I once stood above and saw the waves calm, and gently kneel to offer repentance along the quay: the glass, now smooth and the other debris, once claimed, now returned by a dream-lit sea.
Lost Dominion Your sailing is smooth, undeterred from Your goal. Purpose awaits you as you savour Control. Your vessel’s deep medium encourages it Shoreward, as aid from the winds reliably Delivers. A slight blotch, an error of grey, Blemishes the blue canvas you gaze upon — Insignificant, before it begins to subtly prey, Furtively polluting the vivid colour, Then the source of the world’s light and Your only source of bearings. And then it descends upon you, obscuring your gaze, your view of the world, and as you call for help, No sounds escape from the overpowering cacophony. You can only attempt to navigate blindly, desperate for an end, Nowhere in sight, and pray that your ship lasts long enough To dock somewhere, anywhere, As the tide has irrevocably turned.
Written by Tasneem Jodiyawalla & Penelope Toong
GEOGRAPHY IS NOT JUST COLOURING IN: Stereotypes surround every subject at school; however, I believe that Geography faces some of the harshest critiques. Contrary to popular belief, South Hampstead High School does not in fact have a whole subject dedicated to ‘colouring in’. Yes, I admit that in Year 7 we may have indulged in a relaxing lesson, colouring waterfalls and rivers. Nevertheless, this was only one lesson and is thus not representative of the subject. We do not critique any other subject in the same way based on a single lesson in Year 7, so why does Geography endure so much perpetual taunting?
SM DEB TRUST ME; THERE'S NO SPACE UPSTAIRS! There are few things as irritating as the dismissive bus passenger who, upon encountering you standing guard to the upstairs section, refuses to take the hint that no, sorry, there’s no space upstairs. Do they think I’m standing here for fun? Do they think I like being the Charon to the top floor of the bus? Is it not obvious that I am standing here, staking my claim over whichever seat is first freed up? Ultimately, though, I get the satisfaction I need - when I watch them do their walk of shame back down after checking that a seat hasn't magically materialised upstairs.
ALL ATE
MAYO MANIA: So, let me get this straight: I have nothing against mayonnaise — that is, when it’s used in certain contexts. Yet scan the sandwich options in any supermarket, and I guarantee almost every option available will contain a variant of the rich, creamy sauce. However, aside from being completely unfair to anyone with an egg allergy, mayonnaise just isn’t that nice. Sure, it may help moisturise an otherwise dry and unappealing sandwich. Sure, it may add another textural and tasty element to your £3 meal deal. Sure, it may be traditionally incorporated in certain combinations of sandwich fillings. But does it really need to be plastered all over everything? So often, mayonnaise is only present to disguise what would otherwise be a fairly awful filling. I believe it’s time to question what is truly required from a sandwich, and whether we need to ditch the mayo in favour of more simple, flavourful fare. Oh, and don’t even let me get started on mustard. That truly belongs on a level of its own.
TAKING ACTIVISM TOO FAR? Activism and advocacy for the acceptance of non-airbrushed, natural bodies is of course much needed and has changed the lives of many women for the better in terms of their selfimage. But when an innocent fan commented on Jameela Jamil’s Instagram post praising her clear skin, surely there wasn’t a need for her to reply with a long paragraph about her beauty being a result of her privilege – which could be interpreted as her boasting about the glamourous nature of her life? I understand the point she was trying to make about how her lifestyle being conducive to maintaining clear skin, but was there really a need to act so condescending to the poor girl who was simply paying her a compliment?
How To Keep Up Wi It is important to remember that we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day, 168 hours in a week and 8,760 hours in a year. Despite our wishes, time isn’t something you can buy more of, but you can control the way you use it. It is important to remember that if you are truly committed to something you will find a way to make time for it.
In this article, I will be giving some tips and tricks on how to not only balance schoolwork with extracurricular activities, but most importantly, I will provide you with advice on how to find time for yourself to just pause and relax. It is important to remember that there will be periods where there is a lot on your plate, and you may feel overwhelmed. But the important thing that I hope you take away from this article is how to stay on top of your work in these situations and to prioritise your mental health while doing so. As Paul J. Meyer said: ‘Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.’
2. Creating Categories The next step is to split up all those commitments into three categories: Necessities, Wants and Bonuses. Necessities: these are all the things you need to do such as schoolwork, sport, religious commitments, chores and anything else that you consider is essential (or at least a requirement) in your life. Wants: these are the things that you really want to do but you may not always have time for, such as a hobby or a fitness class. Usually, necessities should be a priority, but you do have to make sure that you are not constantly saying no to plans/invitations. Bonuses: this is a hard category, but in short it is all the things that didn’t fit into the other two categories. I advise adding a few things that you would love to do like going to your favourite places. Remember to not add too many activities in each column, if that is the case ask yourself these three questions “Why am I making time for this? Do I truly enjoy it? Is it necessary?”
1. Making a List
3. Making the Schedule
The first thing that you have to do is write a long list of all the things you want to commit to. This can include school, social, religious, volunteering, extracurricular commitments and most importantly time for yourself.
After you have split up all your commitments into those three columns, you should now implement them into your schedule. Put the hours on the left side, from when you wake up to when you go to bed, ensure that you get enough sleep. At the top, add the days of the week. Then look at your first category:
th the School Tide ‘Necessities’. Colour code and group commitments. For example, school could be blue, clubs are purple and then you are going to then begin to time block all your commitments into your schedule. Do the same thing for all your categories until you pretty much have your whole life on your schedule. This schedule only shows you all your main commitments and the things you want to make time for. I wouldn’t add the activities in the “Bonuses” column to my schedule as there isn’t any specific time for them; this is where the blank spaces on our schedule comes in. Remember to be realistic and always plan for the worst-case scenario! Something else to take into consideration when you are time blocking all your commitments into your schedule is to think about when you are most productive. Is that in the morning, before school or in the evening? Test it out and maybe leave evenings for homework and lunch times for extracurriculars!
4. Keeping Organised By using this guide, you can now make these schedules every week, keeping all your main commitments the same and adding new ones or other specific events. If you don’t want to make a schedule each week, I recommend making 'homework session' a single commitment and just time blocking it into your
one main schedule. This is your schedule so you can adapt it however you want. Remember that flexibility is key, so you don’t end up stressing when things don’t go to plan. Prior to making this schedule, I used to waste time figuring out when to do these tasks and how long they would take...but with this schedule it has pretty much planned everything out for me, and it shows me an entire week all together! By following this guide, you will be able to stay on top of your commitments and responsibilities. It will help you keep organised and will prevent procrastination. It is important to remember that schedules don’t work for everyone, as we are all different and work in different ways. So, whether it is using this schedule or planning in a different way, find what’s best for you! Make sure you check your planner regularly to stay on top of things, so you don’t risk forgetting them, and use your schedule to see when those tasks should be completed. One of the best things about having a schedule is that it gives you an idea of all the things you have to do in that week and not just homework tasks but extracurriculars too! Hopefully, by following these tips and doing this exercise you will be back on track and ahead of the school tide! But remember:
Planning means YOU master YOUR agenda, and not the other way round.
Written by Clarissa Carrasquero
ICELANDIC TIDES MILLIE SLADE
THE BIG DEBATE
Should 'lived experience' elevate your opinion?
In recent years, ‘lived experiences’ have seemingly come to dominate political conversations. The idea behind them is that the voices of people who have directly experienced an issue should be amplified in political debates and that there is a greater value to their opinions as a result. While some of these ideas have long existed, for example in the view that only people coming from a certain oppressed group can define what bigotry towards them looks like, the weight given to them within politics as a whole has grown. To some, this development is a positive one, shedding a light on issues too long ignored and offering a voice to people with a genuine stake in issues being discussed. To others, it represents a worrying shift away from reasoned and empirical democratic debates towards a political discourse where emotionalism, individual identities, and subjectivity dominate.
YES: Lived experiences bring necessary urgency to debates Critics of the increasing focus on ‘lived experience’ argue that political discourse should be focused on ‘solidarity that 1 transcends identity attachments’, such as citizenship, in order to reduce unnecessary divisiveness. However, while there is no denying that there are people of all identities who believe in increased equality irrespective of race, gender, sexuality, etc., this criticism ignores the fundamental difference between those with lived experience and those without: urgency. The nebulous belief that, at some undefined point in the future progress will be made, is not enough for those suffering the consequences of discrimination today. A bitter truth we must face is that those most affected by social injustice are also most incentivised to fight for their cause; other groups, while sympathetic, have often shown complacency in the face of oppression. In the UK, for instance, while some white abolitionists were content with the slow movement away from slave ownership, the persistence of Black campaigners, many former slaves
themselves, encouraged far speedier progress than might otherwise have occurred. It is women who keenly feel the impact of having no reproductive rights, and Black people who have to live with the experience of being disproportionately targeted by police, and this means those with lived experience are far more invested in ensuring equality as quickly as possible. Moreover, those who are directly affected tend to be the ones bringing issues to the forefront of the conversation, as they recognise the necessity for certain behaviours or situations to change. While – for instance – white people can be educated on issues experienced by people of colour, it is unlikely that they will recognise a problem before people of colour do, given that this doesn’t affect their daily lives. As a result, those with their own well-being at stake are necessarily at the centre of the conversation – only they can articulate how best to meet their needs.
YES: Intersectionality & the white standard
Progress in today’s world is measured by the white standard. In discourse surrounding the gender pay gap, for example, the commonly repeated phrase is that women earn 85 cents on the dollar. However, this ignores the vast disparity between white women and women of colour (Black women, for instance, earn 65.3 cents to every dollar a white man makes, and 89 cents to every dollar a Black man makes). Lived experience allows an emphasis on intersectionality – the idea that intersecting identities result increased discrimination. The result of measuring progress in the gender pay gap by white women is the erasure of issues faced by women of colour, leading to a debate centred only on achieving progress for white women. Different communities of women are affected by the same issue in vastly disproportionate ways – there are, for instance, more barriers preventing Indigenous victims of gender violence from accessing resources, though Indigenous women in Canada are murdered at seven times the rate of non-Indigenous women. Similarly, Stonewall reported in 2018 that 12% of BAME LGBTQ+ employees had lost their job due to being LGBTQ+, compared to 3% of non-BAME LGBTQ+ employees. These statistics show the stark inequality affecting those with multiple minority identities, inequality which may not have been reported if those with lived experience didn’t come forward to describe their circumstances.
YES: Lived experience provides exclusive insight
Whilst valuing lived experience has been called divisive, as each person’s complex intersection of identities is unique to them, it is important to note that allowing those without lived experience to define the conversation actively halts progress. Currently, political issues – such as the #BlackLivesMatter movement – are portrayed to the average member of the public primarily through news sources. In the UK, newsrooms are incredibly unrepresentative (for instance, despite making up 3% of the population, only 0.2% of journalists are Black). As a result, a significant amount of the coverage on the BLM protests considered whether the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was alienating, arguing instead that the movement should use ‘All Lives Matter’ as a slogan. Instead of arguing on the same turf as those heading the movement, news coverage transformed the conversation into a far more simplified argument focused on semantics. This highlights the necessity for the exclusivity lived experience offers; the alternative is a world where political discourse is dominated by those unaffected, and consequently distorted into discussion lacking nuance. Moreover, lived experience’s exclusivity prevents the dilution of movements – for instance, the strength of the message ‘abolish the police’ was reduced to ‘reform the police’ in order to make the notion more palatable. In the process, though, the true meaning of the statement was lost. Rather than shifting funds to mental health providers and welfare programs to prevent crimes from taking place, the extent of the change made was to introduce unconscious bias training which, while important, arguably undermined the power of the movement.
NO: Focusing on lived experiences is divisive The idea that lived experiences should elevate your opinion rests on the assumption that to fully understand an issue you have to have experienced it yourself. Taken to its logical conclusion, the argument is that only people who have directly experienced something, for example prejudice or poverty, have the right to speak about it or at the very least that the opinions of those who have not will always carry less weight than those who have. This idea is not only misguided but it is also divisive and counterproductive for the very movements it seeks to benefit. Firstly, it is misguided because it involves denying the power of empathy, education, and rational thought, all important ingredients of nuanced democratic debate. To argue that lived experiences are uniquely important is to suggest, to a lesser or greater extent, that we are incapable of understanding the lives of others by sympathising with their problems or of working out solutions to political debates by reasoning through them or learning about them. It is also divisive and counterproductive because it means giving up on assembling broad coalitions around important campaigns. If people are only encouraged to speak on issues which directly affect them, political campaigns quickly fragment into collections of individual interest groups, making it difficult for anyone to see the bigger picture. Important social reform, from Roosevelt’s New Deal to the creation of the welfare state in postwar Britain, have involved appealing to a collective sense of solidarity and have had wide-reaching instead of narrow aims. Focusing on lived experiences also prevents campaigns from achieving their goals. As David Runciman, a political
scientist, has pointed out, some of the most effective political movements succeed because they raise awareness and appeal to an audience without direct experience of an issue and encourage them to act. Movements which fail to win over and provide a role for this group – the unaffected but interested general public – are far less likely to effect change.
NO: Narrowness of lived experiences Every human life is different, and people’s experiences of the world are endlessly varied. While any individual may share aspects of their life with others, there are so many factors which shape them that no two lives are identical. Despite this, when lived experiences are invoked in arguments, they tend to involve individuals claiming the right to speak on behalf of their broader group, often in relatively crude demographic or social terms. After all, political debates rarely only affect one person, so talking about lived experiences within them tend to imply that the speaker’s personal experiences should inform policy or the outlook of others on an issue which extends far beyond their own life. This is especially concerning because those with the loudest voices, whose lived experiences get considered the most as a result, have not always had a typical experience of an issue: any individual subjective experience is not necessarily the average one. Identities are too ‘multiple and complex’ 2 for that to be the case. Using data and evidence to approach problems and form opinions, however cold it may seem, is more valuable because it aggregates the lived experiences of a broader number of people, providing us with a more complete picture of the world around us. an audience without direct experience of an issue and encourage them
to act.3 Movements which fail to win over and provide a role for this group – the unaffected but interested general public – are far less likely to effect change.
NO: Bringing in personal biases In normal life, being described as anecdotal in your arguments is seen as an insult, an example of lazy reasoning and familiarity bias - where we reach for what is closest to us, not most useful or relevant. The limits of lived experiences are usually widely acknowledged. Yet recent trends have flipped this hierarchy of knowledge on its head by suggesting that lived experiences are not just a legitimate form of knowledge, but a higher one. Arguably, the appeal of lived experience comes from the fact that it is unfalsifiable - seemingly impossible to contradict. Short of factually disproving the story someone tells about their life, it is
nearly impossible to deny someone’s experience of the world, given how deeply subjective it is. As a result, the biases which come with it go uninterrogated, something which is worrying as it is a form of knowledge with especially strong ones. People are often inclined to prioritise their own interests and this tendency is only heightened if basing one’s opinions off personal experience is encouraged. As well as this, the opinions which result from lived experiences are not as indisputable as some would suggest. The same lived experiences can produce very different outlooks from different people. A background of poverty, for example, can lead both to an emphasis on personal ambition and individual effort, and to support for redistributing wealth and social intervention, suggesting lived experiences do not lend ‘unappealable authority’ 4 to any particular view they claim to support.
CONCLUSION: There’s no denying that the debate surrounding lived experience is a flawed one; there is a serious amount of misrepresentation and straw-manning on both sides. Indeed, in today’s world there is a dearth of facts, and the increased focus on subjectivism has huge ramifications on the way political issues are discussed. While it is true that identity politics (the movement largely blamed for centring lived experience) may present a skewed version of progress by focusing on negative anecdotal experiences of a minority, it is equally true to realise that people respond better to ‘stories’ than to cold, hard facts, and that such an approach may be more constructive to create change. Making sure that people with lived experience get the opportunity to voice issues which affect them is just one step towards representative institutions and the ultimate goal: equality. References: 1. Mark Lilla, professor, 'The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics', August 15, 2017 2. Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher, The Guardian, 14th November 2020 3. Talking Politics podcast, The History of Ideas, Gandhi on Self-rule 4. Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher, The Guardian, 14th November 2020
By Sonja Belkin and Lucia Henwood
If you were one of the unfortunate Year 11s or Year 13s waiting to receive results for non-existent exams this summer, you probably spent the days leading up to results day scrutinising the news for each perplexing update from the government or Ofqual as to how grades would be allocated.
It is likely that you will have shared in the national outrage when it was revealed that Ofqual’s algorithm was irrefutably flawed by favouring students at private schools and in more economically privileged areas, by simply basing predictions off the achievements of previous cohorts' predictions, despite Gavin Williamson’s vow to not discard the algorithm. Ofqual’s algorithm was flawed in numerous ways. It would have exacerbated educational inequality, unduly punishing those from lower income households, many deserving students would have been hindered from accessing higher education by missing out on a grade simply due to the historic performance of their school, and there wasn’t even a robust appeals system after A-Level results day. The public’s role in highlighting these injustices was integral in forcing the government to act. This took a great deal of campaigning, protesting and raising awareness, mainly from young people and those who supported them. The main and most accessible form of campaigning was signing petitions. One of the most signed and notable petitions was one created by Curtis Parfitt-Ford, an ALevel student campaigning for more weight to be placed on teacher assessments and for a free appeals system.
The A-Level and injustice - and people turned it This gained an immense amount of support, receiving over a quarter of a million signatures in just a few days. This petition was supported by the organisation Foxglove, a non-profit organisation dedicated to filing lawsuits against governments and companies which misuse digital tools (in this case the algorithm). They created a robust lawsuit against the government with the aid of lawyers for the unfair distribution of grades and discrimination against those from lowerincome backgrounds. It is likely that the real threat of legal action from organisations such as this one was one of the main factors in the government stepping down and changing its position. Many of these petitions were publicised through social media, in particular Twitter. In addition to petitions, several people shared their own or others’ experiences of being downgraded unfairly, posting their official results in contrast to their mock exam results or predicted grades. For example, an aspiring medicine student, Amy Turnbull, shared her experience of being predicted two As and an A* to being awarded three Cs on results day and therefore being rejected from her university as well as not being able to apply through clearing. Her tweet gained thousands of retweets and likes in just a few days.
GCSE results how young the tide against
There were also several journalists committed to amplifying these students’ experiences such as Lewis Goodall, who posted a thread on Twitter sharing the results of students who had contacted him and explaining their situations. He also gave updates on the students’ situations after the government’s U-turn. Seeing individual real-life examples of such unjust downgrading and how much this affected students’ futures provoked outrage from both fellow students and other members of the public. These posts gained many retweets and shares, and many were then publicised in news articles. Lastly, many students took to the streets for socially distanced protests, often supported by older members of the public. The majority took place after ALevel results day, with one of the most popular being the protests held in London on the 14th and 15th of August, organised by Ophelia Gregory, a student in Kent, and gaining traction through social media. She expressed that her aim was to force the government to follow Scotland’s lead in reverting to centreassessed grades as the only alternative for students who felt that they did not deserve their grades was to go through a lengthy appeals process, which could take many weeks and lead to students missing out on university places.
The protests were significantly impactful in raising awareness about the issues created by the algorithm’s distribution of grades, mainly because of the media attention they received. Students’ outrage was publicised by many news outlets as main headlines in addition to social media through protestors’ stories or posts, prompting many to read articles about the issue, which in turn led to more people campaigning by signing petitions, emailing their MPs or attending the protests themselves. The lead-up to and aftermath of results for both GCSE and A-Level students was immensely stressful, and many students’ futures have still been negatively affected even after the U-turn due to universities now being oversubscribed, as well as private candidates having been neglected throughout this process and being forced to retake exams next year – it seems young people are far from the forefront of the government’s priorities. However, the one benefit from this issue has been that with protests being organised in just thirty-six hours, and students being dedicated to signing petitions and raising awareness through social media, it is evident that young people aided by the public have the power to fight against injustice.
Written by Tasneem Jodiyawalla
Letters From Lockdown Letter 1: As a Year Twelve, stress seems to come with the territory - there’s the stress over one’s future, that we will have to make petrifying Life-Changing Decisions in only a few months’ time, the stress of oncoming exams, so quickly after GCSEs have erased any work ethic we may ever have had, and the stress of what it means to be slowly becoming a fullyfledged adult with responsibilities. Maybe that’s why, when corona-virus invaded our lives, we found it so oxymoronically freeing to be locked up inside our homes, with no end in sight.
Initially, coronavirus seemed like a fever dream - we imagined we’d wake up one morning, thrashing, our pillow on the floor and our duvets tangled, to the familiar beep of our alarm clock, knowing it was just another normal day. Yet, as news reports became ever more cautious, and reports of schools closing and exams being postponed became more than just whispers, the dream solidified into something more concrete; the very real possibility of months of lockdown. And that realisation gave us all pause.
Why pause? Because in the flurry of stress from UCAS, teachers, parents, and peers, we had never once just taken the time to exhale. Sure, there’d been the few mental health weeks encouraging ‘healthy eating! And lots of sleep! And make sure that you spend time meditating!’, but nothing that had required such a significant change in routine.
So, while we were coping with school being moved online, and keeping up with the ever-growing count of corona-virus related deaths, this one thought about freedom kept pushing itself to the front of our minds. For the first time, it seemed, we had the opportunity to do something we may not have been able to dedicate our time to before.
It wasn’t long before the sourdough obsession came along, followed in hot pursuit by tie-dying, baking, and gardening, among countless other ‘quarantine trends’. There was something so uncanny about the way creativity took control. I say uncanny because it felt almost like it had been lying dormant in our brains, a remnant from childhood. In all honesty, I couldn’t remember the last time I had written something just for myself, rather than for some task related to A-Levels, or the last time I had genuinely just enjoyed attempting to do something artistic, like up-cycling some clothing.
I don’t mean to blame anybody - I know exactly why the stress is necessary, and how working hard is beneficial to our futures. I know that being able to attend a school where teachers care enough to push us into working harder and being better is making me a more conscientious and passionate student - I am incredibly grateful for that.
Yet, at the same time, I don’t want this creativity to vanish again when life returns to usual (no matter how long that takes). I don’t want to keep watching generations of teenagers lose interest in life and feel apathetic to the idea of hobbies unless they can help with university applications. I don’t want to feel the exhaustion hanging over our heads as we trudge to school each morning or see the lack of joy on our faces as we mumble our way through lessons.
Russian (which I have not managed to keep up). I felt like I had almost unlimited time to read, which had been something I had struggled to do during the last few months of Year 11.But there came a point where I inexplicably started to burn out and feel unmotivated, despite getting more sleep than I had for the past three years and experiencing relatively little stress. My free time no longer felt like an asset; it simply prolonged monotony.
I’m not saying we should just turn our backs on society completely and go live in a small commune with nothing more than a ukulele and a thriving vegetable garden, without a care in the world. I am not advocating for manically ripping up the A-Level Maths textbook and dancing around a bonfire made up solely of English essays. No - what I want is a way for students to have this feeling that their worth isn’t made up solely of the successes they produce. I think that coronavirus isn’t unique necessarily because it has allowed us to pursue hobbies - many of us have opportunities to attend plenty of clubs at school. What lockdown has done, however, is removed this feeling of guilt at not excelling in something you are interested in. It’s stopped us from feeling that picking up an activity is pointless unless it serves some kind of purpose (though doing it solely for pleasure has never seemed to be a valid reason).
Letter 2 At first, ironically, the confinement of lockdown seemed like the epitome of freedom. This isolated period of time came with protection from the stress of deadlines and expectations, and most of my commitments were put to a standstill. The constraints of revision timetables were abolished, there was no structure imposed on my life except for online school, and I’d finally have time to do the things I had been longing to do (without feeling guilty that I wasn’t revising). The future was rich with possibilities and opportunities for selfimprovement. The first few weeks of lockdown were quite successful in terms of productivity. I spent many hours improving my baking skills (after many burnt batches of cookies), and started to teach myself
Perhaps it was the lack of variety in my routine – the only places I could visit were my local area for a walk or Sainsbury’s for groceries, and Sainsbury’s new assortment of pizzas was not enough to provide me with a sense of excitement. This was on top of the fact that I attended all my lessons from the desk in my bedroom (or occasionally from my bed). Maybe the exhaustion with my environment somehow manifested itself physically
It wasn’t long before I unexpectedly began to yearn for some kind of routine or structure, and most importantly some kind of social contact. Despite Houseparty having some interesting games to play whilst on calls and the pure enjoyment of changing my background on Zoom to embarrassing photos of friends from my camera roll, this was, of course, no match for face-to-face conversation.
Year 12 is by no means easy, but the experience of emptiness and a lack of purpose during lockdown has strangely forced me to appreciate having external motivation such as deadlines and timetables to add structure to my days. School has also allowed me to see many of my friends daily, which is something most people not in education were not able to do over the November lockdown so, as students, we have a lifestyle which is perhaps most similar to pre-COVID days. Whenever we do return to complete normality, I think the newfound appreciation for structure, socialising, and purpose I have gained over the past few months will be something that will not change – perhaps ever.
Letter 3 I vividly remember when I found out GCSEs were cancelled in the leadup to lockdown. I was in the art department screen-printing and stressing out at around 5.30 in the evening, when suddenly WhatsApp exploded. There was relief, I think – finally the news we had all been expecting had arrived – but it was also followed with a sense of ‘what do I work for now?’ Then lockdown came, and the feelings only intensified. I found myself in a strange limbo where there would be flashes of manic activity, during which I read, I sewed, I played piano more than I’d had time to for the whole of Year 11. Then, there were all the times I sat, staring at my laptop or out the window at an unchanging view, wishing for a concrete goal to move towards. Lockdown forced me to confront the fact that without external pressures, I struggle to motivate myself. I tried. I practiced for a piano exam, sewed a top, helped finish off last summer’s issue of the school magazine. When my sister was allowed back into school to finish Year 6, I ‘borrowed’ her iPad and began working on architectural forms in
Minecraft. I managed to create a theatre with working lights and a rooftop terrace – using it to stage Macbeth’s soliloquy: ‘Is this a dagger I see before me?’ – before she realised it had mysteriously vanished. If that was my greatest lockdown achievement, I don’t regret a thing. That being said, the isolation began to get to me. I began going for long walks alone just to get out of the house. I would stare at my phone for hours, watching YouTube or listening to old movie soundtracks. Fun fact: there are French radio stations that play an endless reel of classic movie music. But despite all this, part of me longed for a routine that didn’t involve waking up at midday. Being back in school has definitely given me the structure and deadlines I was missing – in spades. But I almost welcome the pressure of being back, because after so many months spent doing virtually nothing, I finally have something I can work towards.
Letters by Sonja Belkin, Tasneem Jodiyawalla & Penelope Toong
agony Dear Jamie, I’m stretched too thin. I’ve been caught between four demanding friends - Physics, History, Biology, and Economics - and it feels like I have no time to myself. I feel like I’m expending too much emotional labour, dealing with their osmoregulations and Saladin tithes, instead of focusing on my own issues. I think, if I decreased my emotional workload, I’d feel a bit better. How do I let them down gently?
Let’s metaphorically walk and talk our way through the situation. You may feel that, since you’ve known Economics the shortest, your friendship with them is the least valuable. However, the truth is that you have a commitment to all those friends of yours, and you should stick with them a while longer.
It seems all of these friends can offer you something helpful and I’m positive the different perspectives they give you will stand you in good stead for the future. Indeed, I would even advise expanding your friendship group as it’ll provide an extended support system.
So, in fact, I’d strongly advise against letting any of your friends down gently – you may actually gain something by bolstering your friendship group. Besides, having four close friends will help you in the future. Prestigious educational institutions like it when you have four close friends.
Chat message
aunt Dear Jamie, I have been trying to break up with Maths, but every time I try, they tell me that just one more chapter will make me love them again. I always end up staying with them out of pity. I don't know what to do - please help.
Ah, a classic problem that has plagued many a generation of A level students. The relationship begins with a childlike naïveté - your friendship has had enough time to blossom through GCSEs, and you feel it's time to take it one step further. Slowly, over the course of your developing romance, Maths begins demanding more of your time. It's the case of the clingy partner...you have different goals for your relationship - a recipe for disaster.
I think your best plan of action would be to drop them. Your relationship has become toxic, and I think it is time to move onto a healthier lifestyle. I wouldn't normally recommend this, but considering the circumstances, I think it would be perfectly justified to ghost Maths. Maybe you could try cultivating a friendship with English? I've heard that they’ve recently been dropped by someone else...
Chat message
Technology and Isolation: Is It Worth It? Today in the UK a quarter of people suffer from loneliness, and this figure is continuously rising. This was taking place even before terms like ‘social distancing’ became commonplace, as Noreena Hertz explains in her new book ‘The Lonely Century’. Isolation is a health problem as well as a social one. According to one study, loneliness can be as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Many scientists believe the rise of technology and increased use of social media is to blame. It is debatable whether social media helps reduce or increase isolation. On one hand, frequent use of social media decreases the number of face-toface interactions that people have. Studies have found that adolescents with higher social media usage report more loneliness than their peers. I surveyed my year and asked them if social media makes them feel lonelier. 59% said that it did increase loneliness, while 21% said it made them feel less lonely and 21% said that it doesn’t affect their loneliness. However, when asked if they wish they lived in an era before social media, 72% would. This shows how increased use of social media can cause increased isolation. However, social media can also connect people and reduce loneliness. During lockdown, technology and social media were the only ways many could interact with others. This kind of interaction, whilst not perfect, was crucial for many people’s mental health. Many of us will have used Zoom or FaceTime to try and replace the social interactions we were lacking. Advancements in AI technology are arguably also reducing loneliness in our society. Countless people feel a strange connection to the Alexa ‘smart speakers’ in their homes. People with extreme social anxiety or autism have been shown to benefit from robots as a result of their predictability and the fact they don’t cast any social judgement. Although it seems eerily dystopian, perhaps technological devices will serve as friends in the future and reduce some people’s sense of isolation. Finally, it is important to mention that there are many things that we can do in our everyday lives to decrease loneliness in our society. We should strive to be more empathetic, especially online, so friends don’t feel left out. We should also strive to have more face-to-face conversations with people, whilst maintaining social distancing, and make a conscious effort to reach out to those who may be feeling even more isolated during this challenging time.
Written by Anisa Said Illustration by Harriet Arnautovic
Nikki Ivanova: Sea Cyanotypes Over the summer, I created a Sea Cyanotype project, in which I explored how I could make art in collaboration with the natural world, in this case, the sea and the sun. I had previously experimented with cyanotype photographic printing, but I wanted to experience a more unpredictable process and allow nature to have the final say on my pieces.
I painted large sheets of watercolour paper with a light-sensitive cyanotype solution and packed them in a large black folder to block out the light. With this precious package, I headed to a small town, Swanage, on the Dorset Jurassic coast in southern England. When I arrived on that sunny summer’s day, the beach was full of people sunbathing and eating ice creams, and children running around and shrieking. I, with my large black folder, was quite an unusual appearance on the beach. I created an even bigger stir when I started taking out my enormous cyanotype paper sheets and placing them, one by one, on the shoreline for the waves to wash onto them. Coming out of the sea, adults and children would stop by in wonder and observe the transformation of the sheet with the formation of shapes and the migration of colour from dark blue to pale green and yellow.
#BLACKLIV How did a single hashtag in 2013 become what is now - 2013 26 February - Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American, is fatally shot by George Zimmerman in Florida. The ease at which Zimmerman is acquitted provokes three black women to set up a campaign in response to the unjust and discriminatory murders of Black people. Alicia Garza, one of the founders, introduces the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) on Facebook, initiating the launch of the movement.
1 May - A study reveals that the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter.
- 2013-2016 The subsequent years bring increasing public attention to the movement following the death of Eric Garner, Walter Scott and many others who were denied justice. The campaigners also strive to bring to light the injustices faced by Black women and transgender women.
-2016 -
-2020-
July - There are one hundred protests in America. In the same month, several NBA players (including LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade and Chris Paul) open an awards ceremony, with these four men giving a powerful speech about the disgraceful deaths of Black people, giving BLM an enormous amount of media coverage.
13 March - Louisville police officers break down the apartment door of the 26-year-old AfricanAmerican nurse Breonna Taylor, suspecting her of drug possession. Police fire several shots during the encounter which lead to her death. Taylor is one of many killed by police in 2020 and her death provokes outrage both on social media and in protests.
- 2018 9 August - In an interview, Alicia Garza expresses BLM’s goal as “to build the kind of society where black people can live with dignity and respect."
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” - Maya Angelou
25 May - In Minneapolis, a 46-year-old Black man, George Floyd, dies while in custody of a white police officer, Derek Chauvin. Chauvin had knelt on Floyd's neck while Floyd was handcuffed, killing him due to asphyxia (lack of oxygen), whilst George Floyd’s last words “I can’t breathe” become a new slogan for the BLM movement in the protests to follow. 26 May - Protests begin in Minneapolis, with people marching towards the police station demanding justice. All the officers involved are fired. Weeks of mass protests strike the USA and Fort Collins, with the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct being burnt down.
ESMATTER an international movement striving for global change? 28 May - The first international protests start in Liberia and Nigeria. 29 May - Chauvin is charged with third degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. May 30 - As protests grew larger and more widespread (often incorporating rubber bullets and tear gas in both peaceful and more aggressive protests), state officials impose a curfew in Denver in a bid to control them.
May 22 – August 22 - There are more than 10,600 BLM protest events in the United States and thousands more across the globe. To this day, the movement and protests continue to grow. 2020, a year full of hardships and change, has revealed the extent of issues present in our world today and long preceding this generation.
May 31 - In London, two Black activists (Aima, 18, and Tash, 21) organise a rally at Trafalgar Square, which is attended by thousands. This is one of many protests in the UK and generates much publicity. June 1 - President Trump tweets about deploying military force against protesters, sparking outrage across the world.
June 3 - Three more officers are held accountable for the death of George Floyd. Senate Bill 217 is created in an effort to hold police accountable for their actions by forcing officers and stations to release footage of events, and to repeal the right for police officers to use chokeholds. June 4 - Protesters file a lawsuit against Denver police, claiming their actions violate protesters’ constitutional rights. June 5 - The U.S. District Court orders Denver police to stop the use of tear gas, plastic bullets and flash grenades. Washington D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser announces that part of the street outside of the White House has been officially renamed to ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza’ signposted with a street sign. June 11 - A petition to open up the investigation of the death of Elijah McClain reaches a million signatures. McClain was a 23-year-old man who died in August 2019 because police used a chokehold on him and injected him with ketamine, which forced him into cardiac arrest.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama Written by Ahaana Manglani Illustrations by Lara Economakis
The Supreme Court; America Divided
The U.S Supreme Court is the cornerstone of American politics and as such its role is, in the words of Harvard Law Professor Mark Tushnet, “to police the boundaries of our political system”, which means “sometimes […] rejecting conservative
policies
and
sometimes
[…]
rejecting liberal policies”. However, if the Supreme Court no longer reacts equally to conservative and liberal policies, then this throws the whole of the American Political
The Supreme Court; the paradigm of justice; the protector of the everyman. Supposedly. President Trump’s recent appointment of Amy Coney Barret, a staunchly religious professor of Law, as the latest addition to the U.S Supreme
system off kilter and encourages political polarisation and disenfranchisement; when half the population feels underrepresented by the ultimate administers of justice, it is unlikely that peaceful collaboration will ensue.
Court has once again brought the American The Supreme Court, historically, has followed
political system into the limelight.
public opinion in making their rulings. This Built up of nine judges, each appointed for life, the Court is now split 6-3 in favour of the Republican
Party.
Barret’s
appointment
coincides at a time already saturated with concern over civil rights and conservative radicalism. Unlike the UK, American judges can express
extreme
political
bias
without
repercussions, hence why this recent addition to the Court has caused so much anxiety over how far Barret’s views may impact any future decisions made by the Supreme Court. Especially fraught is the issue of how Barret will impact Abortion Laws within the U.S, and whether she might succeed in completely outlawing it. Furthermore, there is the question of how she will react to the transfer of power from Republican Trump to Democratic Biden.
means that, if the majority of the public shows a particularly strong desire for a certain ruling, the Supreme Court will generally adhere to this. This would usually occur over issues of Civil Rights, or where there is a particularly heightened public awareness of an issue.
An example of this was the ruling to legally
desegregate
schools,
which
followed a period of civil rights activism. Even in recent years, the Supreme Court has pursued a surprisingly liberal agenda, despite the Republican majority. For example, in June 2020 the Court made it illegal
for
employers
to
discriminate
against workers based on gender identity and sexuality. The issue of mail-in ballots, too, had been cause for concern amongst the public. Yet even with Barret’s nomination and the Republican majority, the Supreme Court still allowed mail in ballots to be counted up
to
9
days
after
election
night
(something which Trump was steadfastly against). This suggests that, even with a Supreme Court commanded by strong conservatism,
liberal
reform
is
still
possible. However, Barret’s appointment and the increasingly dominating voice of the Republicans on the Supreme Court still leaves a large window of uncertainty as to which direction America will be steered in next. This becomes especially important when it comes to contemporary issues
such
as
climate
change
and
abortion laws. This raises the question of whether the level of power that the Supreme Court holds can be justified by the amount it
Certainly, multiple critics have exposed flaws within the system, such as how the Court can overturn legislation, and how, as each member is appointed by the president at the time, this can lead to an unfair division of power between the two major parties in America. However, we have also seen that progressive reform is still possible and furthermore, a more conservative Supreme Court has coincided with the future ushering in of Biden’s more Democratic government. Therefore, perhaps in this generation championing tolerance and progress we can still hope for a future that is less divided, more balanced, and open to necessary change.
benefits the American political system. Written by Auhona Majumdar Illustrations by Thea Janowski
IN DEFENSE OF 100 gecs are the best and worst band of 2020, and I know this because I have spent all of the latter half of quarantine trying (in vain) to convince myself that I do not enjoy their music. It’s a peculiar mix of dubstep, synth wave, post pop, nightcore, and pretty much every other genre under the sun. A significant portion of their first album, 1000 gecs, is composed entirely out of dog sounds. And yet, it sounds So Good. For those of you with friends, nightcore is a genre of electronic music in which an already existing song is sped up so the entire song is a higher pitch, sort of like listening to a caffeinated pixie screaming. 100 gecs use this style incessantly, even with the rest of their instruments, loud and varied and all screeching, layered beyond comprehension. Their songs sound like the musical equivalent of zalgo text. Laura Les and Dylan Brady have an unusually introverted writing process. Rather than meeting up, they circumvent even living in the same state by sending sound files to each other over email, adding more tracks and ideas each time. The influence of telecommunications and social media on this undertaking is clear.
1000 gecs, 100 gecs For example, just as technology evolves by the second, their songs transition through genres instantaneously. 745 sticky starts as a hyperpop tune and ends up as dubstep. Stupid horse is a ridiculous mesh of ska and electropop, with guitar solos thrown in for good measure. But what’s the point of this ridiculous mishmash of genres? What’s the point of 100 gecs? Evidently, there’s pain behind it.
100 gecs
745 sticky, 100 gecs The tree on the album cover, located in Illinois, has pilgrimages made to it by teenagers on the daily. They leave litter there, and it's so personal that you can tell exactly what kind of people they are. You see the bottle caps, Pokemon cards, and cans of monster energy strewn on the grass, and immediately get an accurate picture of these teens (dyed hair, silly bandz, ripped jeans). It's clear that 100 gecs is for this generation of teenagers. Their breakout show was played during quarantine, on Minecraft of all platforms. They’ve recognised current teenage culture and reflected it through their music. Maybe that’s why people still leave offerings by that tree, even though it’s located in a private parking complex. The company that owns it has refused to let people in to take photos, claiming it as trespassing, even threatening to cut the tree down. And yet, echoing the famous sentiment of teenage rebellion, the visits continue. Especially after the election, it is clear that younger people tend to have more liberal political views. 100 gecs too appreciates the concept of intersectionality, which is perhaps why so many people resonate with them.
stupid horse, 100 gecs
Laura Les herself is trans, hence the augmentation of her vocal parts to be high pitched. Laura and Dylan are only in their mid-20s (the same age as Mr Willett!) so their lyrics feel relatable too. The childish tone of “I’ve got a little crush or something” versus the desperation of “dishes are piling up but that’s cool cus at least we’ve got food”. The self-deprecation of “Feel like I’m not good enough” versus that childish arrogance of “you can’t do anything even if you wanted to”. 100 gecs are two adults who remember so clearly what it was like to be a teenager, because they’re still suffering, they’re still starving, they’re still in that same headspace of feeling abandoned. Their idealisation of the past plays an important role in this too. The idea that cultural trends move in patterns of 30 years is often referred to as the thirty-year cycle. Movements resurface at these intervals and nostalgia dominates our collective psyche. Think of Stranger Things, built off aesthetics from the eighties. Think of every "only nineties kids remember this" post that you've seen. It's been shown that cultural shifts are happening more and more rapidly since the advent of the internet. Memes from two years ago are unrecognisable to those of today, and the internet influences popular culture in a permanent positive feedback loop. Hence, 100 gecs’ nostalgic inspiration lies in the late 2000s to the early 2010s. Much like Hamilton mostly glossed over the misogyny and racism of the 1700s in America, 100 gecs gloss over the problematic nature of early scene culture. For example, where Mindless Self Indulgence's first album is riddled with slurs, 100 gecs remain (mostly) family friendly. Ringtone is a clear cut love song, but not from the modern day. Let’s be real, when was the last time any teenager had their phone on anything other than vibrate? They’re tapping into something from a while ago. We don’t do this stuff anymore, but we romanticise it, because we were “born in the wrong generation”.
ringtone, 100 gecs
xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx, 100 gecs You can see this idea everywhere in their music. The title xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx mirrors usernames that were popular on websites such as MySpace in the early days of social media. Over time, this has been abandoned and labelled as cringeworthy, as we delete photos of ourselves wearing kandi bracelets and sporting fringes longer than the rest of our hair. 100 gecs is the first time this has been romanticised in popular culture. They even featured famously emo band Fall Out Boy on one of their remixes. There is a rift between younger and older people, and it is perfectly expressed when people say they “don’t get” 100 gecs. They really just don’t understand youth culture. Millennials lost hope, being the generation to suffer through economic recession after economic recession. Gen Z on the other hand, starting out with 9 minutes left on the doomsday clock, slowly creeping forward to the mere 100 seconds we have today, never had any hope to begin with. We’re making our way through life with bad news at every turn, especially evident in 2020. We already know it’s the end of the world, we’ve known since we were kids. From an early age, we’ve all had to come to terms with the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a global pandemic, political conflict, rampant fake news, widespread corruption, and the list goes on.
Where earlier nihilism (the sort of stuff you see on “im fourteen and this is deep”) recognised that there is no meaning to life and wallowed in it, much like Nietzsche did, 100 gecs preach something more free. They’ve gone past it, turned to optimistic nihilism. They’ve realised that because there’s no point to existence, we might as well have a good time. It’s hedonistic. The belief that all of life is meaningless gives us the opportunity to find our own meaning, in the things we enjoy. They are making the most of the last bit of time we have left, living each day as if it’s their last. “Cringe culture” is dead and 100 gecs are thriving. So in their spirit, in the name of this new age optimistic nihilism, do the things you enjoy while you’ve got the option. And if you didn’t like 100 gecs on the first try, give them a second listen. They’re like a cast iron skillet; they get better the more you use them.
Written by Natasha Arakcheeva
Opinion: The Latest Tide of Feminism and The Issues It Faces Ribbons of white, purple and green. Smiling women adorned with aprons, high heels and oven gloves. Man-haters. Skyscrapers, graphs and pencil skirts. Newspaper articles from the 2010s with glaring headlines on sexual discrimination and the gender pay gap. When I first hear the word ‘Feminism’, these images are what come to mind, as well as relief. Overwhelming relief that I no longer have to deal with this struggle of the past. I don’t need to fight for my rights anymore, I have them! I’m a young woman at a leading, all-girls school. Yet to hold this view is to be naïve. As Gloria Steinem once said, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.” While we may think that society has come a long way, the only thing that has changed is that sexist behaviour is rarely seen on the surface now, deciding to reveal itself in the subtlest of ways. I’m going to focus on three areas relating to modern feminism: portrayal of it in the media, misleading displays of feminism, and its general demonization. To begin, I’d like to share a bit of information about my current favourite celebrity, Jameela Jamil. She does not only bring Tahani from The Good Place to life as an incredible actress, but also uses her platform and voice to share her invaluable messages and experiences. Recently she has been calling out newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, for writing about her in a negative light due to her gender. On one occasion, she was taken out of context by the Daily
equal e m # rights o o t
equa pay l
Mail when she joked on her Instagram that she had been compared to a ‘memory foam mattress’ due to her lack of muscles. Despite her explanation, they interpreted that this had happened because of her lack of passion and innovation with lovers. She took to social media to break this down to a tactic of overexposure. To put it simply, a woman is built-up, over-congratulated and over-exposed until people become sick of her face. As a result, when spreading rumours, it is easier to drag her name through the mud and end her positive influence. But why does this happen? When we see successful women living their best lives, surely, we should want to support them, not tear them down? The reaction of humiliating and degrading such women stems from such a deep-rooted issue that the authors of these articles may not realise what they’re doing. They see an opportunity to sell more and seize it. In the controversial Blurred Lines music video, by Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and T.I. in 2013, Emily Ratajkowski and two other girls can be seen comfidently dancing around, scantily clad. For some the song is objectifying and the lyrics are barely on the border of consent, whilst for others it gives power to women through the use of their bodies. This is one of the main factors that drew people to the music video, which kickstarted Emily’s career. There is no doubt that the way in which women are portrayed in the media subconsciously affects the public’s perception of them, and so it is important before spreading a message to consider why you are doing so.
Patriarchal structures have ingrained so many dangerous values into us such as jealousy, body dysmorphia and self-consciousness. We focus on our own ‘shortcomings’, finding faults in ourselves and tearing each other down so that we have no time to positively impact the world. A system has been designed to keep putting us down. I believe that the use of media is one of the biggest problems modern feminism has, and that it must be tackled by communication and the circulation of eye, and mindopening ideas.
Secondly, I would love to bring to attention a piece of news that I found troubling. On the 26th October 2020, Amy Coney Barrett was sworn into the Supreme Court of the United States of America for life, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon. Normally, it would bring me great joy to see a woman taking on such a job, but for some reason this doesn’t as it is arguably a step back for modern feminism. Barrett is an originalist, conservative, Catholic motherof-seven who poses a great threat to women’s rights as she is anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ and a member of the organisation People of Praise, a group that believes women should submit to male ‘leads.’ Trump’s move cements a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and contradicts Ginsburg’s dying wish to not be replaced before America has a new President. It is also shocking, because it draws focus to the fact that not every woman is what we would define as a ‘feminist’. Barrett is Ginsburg’s opposite, and so despite Trump promising to replace Ginsburg with another woman, he glazed over the fact that it wouldn’t be a woman with the same political stance or views. While everyone has a different definition of feminism and what it means to them, Coney Barrett’s new position seeks to undermine all of the
progressive work that has taken place to ensure women’s rights. As a result, I would argue that this is a key example of trophy feminism, claiming to be progressive due to the promotion of another woman, but having it all be a façade. Of course, this is an opinion piece, and you don’t have to take my views as facts, but I think that this is an eye-opener for the world. We’re not as advanced as we think we are. There has not been enough uproar at this subtle political move, right before the upcoming US election.
Finally, I am going to write about the demonization of feminism. Feminism is too broad a topic to give one simple definition but nevertheless, Google defines it as ‘the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes’. Feminism has many branches, and over the years some types of feminism have acted out in ways that have given it a bad name. For example, ‘elite feminists’ that go around emphasising the exclusivity of feminism as a movement purely for and by cisgender women are partly responsible for the claims to do with manhating and about women being superior. As Nina Gibson, a teenage feminist from Cape Town, said in her TEDx Youth talk, ‘feminism is changing…for the worse.’ Still, it is important to remember that the essence and end goal of feminism is equal rights, and anything that seeks to detract from this has most likely been created by the concept of the patriarchy to put a women’s movement down. As a result, if you tell someone you are a feminist, they will often withdraw from interaction with you. Consequently, one is advised to keep such information to themselves. According to a study conducted by Hope not Hate, one third of young, British people are antifeminist, because they have been led to believe that it marginalises and shames men, when this is not an accurate reflection of the movement.
One theory for feminism’s bad PR is that it has been blamed for when men feel emasculated and unhappy with their lives, but this is not the sole reason. It has become divided, a shadow of what it once was. The breakdown of communication is again, another crucial problem that modern feminism has to tackle in order to help change come around across the world.There is an urgent need for feminism to gather itself back up again, to find unity and a common goal. Overall, feminism needs a makeover. I believe I have made it clear that there are still issues that need to be tackled by fourth wave feminists, and that feminism is alive and kicking. If you need more convincing, simply search, ‘Do women have equality?’ and start to read about all the ways in which you are disadvantaged as a young woman. Additionally, a good introductory book to the topic of feminism is Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies by Scarlett Curtis. It features contributions from a few familiar faces and celebrities, such as Jameela Jamil, Emma Watson and Adwoa Aboah. I read it at the start of lockdown and ever since I’ve slowly been expanding my knowledge and getting involved, and you can too! Seek to educate, but also listen, learn, and grow.
Written by Lola Greenway Illustrations by Lita Segal
BOOK RANT. For those of you who do not know, Pat Barker’s ‘The Silence of the Girls’ is a feminist retelling of ‘The Iliad’, shifting the perspective to that of Briseis, the enslaved war-captive whose taking from Achilles initiates the plot of ‘The Iliad’. You see, I like old books. Out of all the old books I like, ‘The Iliad’ is one my favourites. I also really like adaptations of old books. Any adaptation - films, novels, series, *ahem* feminist retellings, all of this stuff is my vibe. So! When I found out there was a feminist retelling of ‘The Iliad’, I was excited. Well, until I read it. I. Have. So. Many. Complaints. The whole thing is chock-full of the kind of slang you would expect to hear in a pub rather than the battleplain at Troy. We hear the mighty Achilles saying ‘C’mon’ and ‘bloody’ as if he’s some weird ancient warrior version of Ron Weasley. Another major character, Patroclus, accuses Achilles of thinking he’s ‘rubbish’. ‘Rubbish’. To clarify - both these men are GROWN ADULTS. Even this old lady at one point talks about ‘me mam’ like she’s on flipping Geordie Shore. It utterly ruined immersion. Y’all. You know, I’m no perfectionist, I understand that Barker isn’t Homer reborn, I enjoy pretty much everything, but when you are expecting a heart-wrenching retelling of one of the most famous poems in the world, and are instead faced with whiny teen atrocities like this – “I don’t think I’d ever seen a more wretched boy – well, except when I looked in the mirror.”
You realise that even the most relaxed still have standards. I’m not here for some YA fan fiction of ‘The Twilight Saga’. Here is a fact: half the people who actually spent money on this drivel only bought it because they thought it was by Madeleine Miller, who wrote the acclaimed retellings of Homer, ‘The Song of Achilles’ and ‘Circe’. Just to sum up, the whole thing ends with Briseis saying ‘now my own story can begin’. What?! Most of this worddetritus excuse for literature was written in her first-person perspective! How is that in any way not her story? That being said, there are some good lines, but it is drowned in unending cringey dialogue, repeated comparisons of characters to babies and other frankly embarrassing nonsense not worth putting here. I have much more stuff I could rant about, but the book is not 100% PG and I don’t want Ms Bingham on my back. Oh, and guess what: I now have to study it! Written by Elenor Robins
BOOK RAVE.
The world in which these characters must face their worst fears, test the strength of their loyalty and their trust, and discover what it means to be human is rich with detailed history. Underwater exploration, divine relics, deicide and steampunk technology combine in a brilliantly written story that explores the ideas of love and friendship to the point of destructive instability and that the truth can sometimes be far worse than any deception.
In a world where the gods roamed the seas until only a generation ago, truth is in short supply. Set across an archipelago of islands, this unusual fantasy novel follows Hark, an orphaned scavenger and scammer. His unhealthy friendship with the complicated yet cool Jelt develops into something far darker and more dangerous when the pair become entangled with the old religion (literally). Hark is torn between people whose trustworthiness is unclear and people who definitely want him dead, yet may be his only chance of survival, while Jelt transforms into something else altogether. Hark’s journey sees him involved with a priest who may be the only one who truly knows what happened during the cataclysm thirty years ago, a mysterious and slightly rogue military scientist, and the deaf daughter of the matriarch of a pirate smuggling gang who will stop at nothing to ensure his death. Written by Emily Man
The world and every part of its customs are deftly woven into the narrative, and as the story progresses, different elements of the history and culture slot into the mysteries of the plot like pieces in a puzzle. The author crafts the characters in such a way that no matter how complex, we are made to sympathise with and understand them, as well as injecting humour and wit into the narrative. It is a book worth reading for every aspect; the setting, characters and plot all make this a dark, thought-provoking and enjoyable read.
Which book shou The scrape of chairs, the squeak of a pen on a whiteboard, the indignant cry of ‘my Teams isn’t loading’! All sounds we hear too often! If you want to escape the dreary humble and bumble of every-day life, why not take this quiz to see which book you should read next? Now that we can’t go anywhere anyways, the best way to treat yourself to a little escapism is to read something new! All related to the deep-blue tide in some way, reading any one of these books should be a fun way to alleviate life in lockdown.
Which Hogwarts house are you in? A B C D
Gryffindor Ravenclaw Hufflepuff Slytherin
How would your friends describe you? A B C D
Feisty Kind Funny Quiet
What’s your favourite canteen dessert? A B C D
Jelly Banoffee pie Rocky Road Crumble
What would you love doing on the weekend? A B C D
Paintballing Going to the cinema Seeing friends Sleeping
Would you rather have a pet… A B C D
Dog Cat Frog Hedgehog
What’s your weakness? A B C D
Stubborn Disorganised Bad listener I have no weaknesses
What’s your favourite season? A B C D
Summer Winter Spring Autumn
Pick an element: A B C D
Fire Water Earth Air
ld you read next? You don’t know where your next lesson is, and you… A B C D
Check your homework diary Ask the group Skip the lesson Hang around till someone you know comes along
MOSTLY A's:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Herman Melville’s Ishmael narrates the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the whale Moby Dick, which had bitten his leg at the knee on a previous voyage. ‘Intense’ is the word you’re looking for! Don’t be put off by this seemingly insurmountable classic, though; take a chance at this plunge into the deep sea and, once you lift your defences, the novel will serve as interestingly subversive escapism, and a genuinely engaging read.
MOSTLY B's: Wholesome and adventurous, this book will definitely life your spirits in transporting you to the wild Amazon of Brazil and making its charming and compelling heroine Maia and her unusual friends come to life. It’s mysterious, thrilling, and brilliantly light to read- it’s also set in the early 1900’s and centres around an orphan, making it satisfyingly reminiscent of Cinderella, Journey to the River Sea but way more cool. by Eva Ibbotson
MOSTLY C's:
Wake (A Watersong Novel)
by Amanda Hocking
Mermaids! A small North American town! Gals and boys falling in love! Instead of starting yet another teen high school series on Netflix, why not give Amanda Hocking’s dramatic and gloriously indulgent YA novel a chance? The book follows Gemma, a beautiful but carefree girl, whose average life turns upside down after she wakes up one morning not in her bed but on the beach… (gasp!) Really fun and easy to dive into, this story will put you under a spell of its own. It’s also part of a series of 4, so when one’s done, you can move straight on to the next!
MOSTLY D's: Venice’s future looks bleak. By day people worry about flooding, but at night something more strange and sinister is at work. Twelve-year-old Teodora is visiting Venice for the first time and, within days of her arrival, is subsumed into the city’s secret magical life. This book has a distinct love of words (it’s a book - duh - but it The Undrowned really does!), so, ‘Mostly D’, if Child you’re a passionate bookworm, by Michelle Lovric this one’s for you. It features two awesome protagonists and, between them, an innocent romance, which is bound to make you smile. This book reminds me of concepts in the movie Coraline and the epic series Northern Lights and, if that isn’t enough to convince you to read it, it’s one of my personal favourites.
Written by Zeynep Kilic
TIDE 2020
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ISABELLA LEVITT
Robots & Water: Robots are becoming a more and more integral part of our lives, whether for daily tasks such as vacuuming or for accelerating scientific developments. One less wellknown but vital use of robots is the role of robots in underwater exploration. Here are 5 examples of robots used for this purpose, which have a broad range of abilities.
2) SoFi ‘SoFi’ is a small, soft-bodied robotic fish developed by MIT used to observe how fish respond to different stimuli in their environment. Unlike many other robots on this list, it is completely controlled by a human diver who instructs SoFi's movements, using commands to carry out actions such as changing its direction, speed or angle. Its fish-like appearance also enables it to interact with and observe marine life without creating disturbance.
1) Robo-Shark The Chinese military unveiled the ‘Robo-Shark’ in 2019, with its functions being intelligence, surveillance and reconnaisance missions (also known as ISR), which includes communication and viewing the ocean floor. The designers of the Robo-Shark studied the characteristics and adaptations of sharks which give them such speed and stealth, and then implemented these features into the robot itself to optimise these characteristics.
an unlikely pairing? 3) GhostSwimmer The American military has a robot similar to the 'Robo-Shark' called 'GhostSwimmer' which mimics the characteristics of a large fish. It was developed by Boston Engineering as part of the project known as 'Silent NEMO'. Unveiled in 2014, it is capable of being used for ISR, much like its Chinese-developed counterpart. However, at the present moment, it is instead being used for more innocuous tasks such as spotting underwater mines, recovering equipment and hull inspections.
5) Oceans One Finally, ‘Oceans One’ is a humanoid robot diver created by Stanford University. It is used to explore the ocean in places inaccessible to human divers and recover submerged items, with the most notable example being treasures from a ship that belonged to King Louis XIV. Its developers hope that in the future it can be sent to areas deemed too dangerous for human divers and deepen our understanding of what, exactly, lies hidden beneath the waves.
4) BioSwimmer The GhostSwimmer also has a ‘brother’: BioSwimmer. BioSwimmer has a much friendlier design based on bluefin tuna fish, known for their agility and ability to turn in extremely confined areas. The BioSwimmer is used for security reasons such as inspecting boats crossing borders for contraband, due to its ability to scan even the most remote areas of these ships.
Robots are used for such a diverse range of roles for humanity, with the functions of underwater robots being incredibly varied themselves. It will be fascinating to see what kinds of discoveries these robots will uncover and what other purposes they will be able to fulfil in the future.
Written by Scarlett Knight
THE TIDE POD CHALLENGE I don’t know how many of you remember the Tide Pod challenge. Honestly, I don’t remember the Tide Pod challenge, or at least not beyond a vague feeling of ‘did I make this up?’. So, if like me, you lived under a rock when it came to news, here’s what happened… In 2012, Tide released a brand-new laundry detergent: Tide Pods! Exciting, right? Tide Pods are small capsules, with three main sections, each a different colour. They were meant to be easy and effective – you just put one in the machine with your washing, instead of messing around with powders and liquids. Unfortunately, the problem with the jovial, squishy packets was that, as @annhlmao tweeted, ‘if we aren’t supposed to eat tide pods why do they look so good?’ There were numerous jokes and memes on social media about how tasty the pods looked, and how users wanted to eat them. In 2017 several tweets went viral, causing the meme’s popularity to explode. In addition, a comment appeared on the subreddit ‘intrusive thoughts’, saying ‘Bite into one of those Tide Pods. Do it.’ Around January 2018, the Tide Pod challenge began. People videoed themselves attempting to eat the Tide Pods and posted the videos on sites like Facebook and YouTube urging others to try the challenge. Some tried cooking the Tide Pods before eating them, which unfortunately didn’t do much good. Famous YouTuber Logan Paul tweeted ‘swallowing 1 tide pod per retweet’, which certainly didn’t help calm the craze.
Tide itself was very much against the challenge – they tweeted about how their products were not edible and started modifying the pods to make them taste worse and look less appealing. Facebook and YouTube also began taking down videos in mid-January. So why is eating Tide Pods such a bad idea? Obviously eating random laundry detergents is never smart, no matter how good they look. I researched what was in a Tide Pod, and here are the results: Polyvinyl alcohol. This is the smooth, shiny outside that keeps all the chemicals in place until you want to do the washing, at which point it dissolves in the washing machine. Then there is denatonium benzoate, which was added by Tide to deter people from eating the pods. According to Guinness World Records, it’s the most bitter substance known to man, which will probably do the trick keeping Tide Pods out of people’s mouths. Furthermore, there is soap and alcohol ethoxy sulphate, which acts as a stain remover. I found evidence of it having a low level of toxicity in rats, but apparently it doesn’t affect humans. Finally, there is disodium distyrylbiphenyl disulphonate, which helps make clothes look whiter and brighter by absorbing ultraviolet light and then emitting it in a range we can see, and mannanase, an enzyme that can break apart guar gum, which is used as a thickener in ice cream and salad dressing and can be hard to remove. Obviously, like all other laundry detergents, Tide Pods are also slightly toxic. Even outside of crazy internet challenges, there are thousands of calls to poison control related to cleaning products per year in the USA alone.
Written by Talia Davis Illustrations by Lara Economakis
The moral of the story? Don’t eat laundry detergent. Not even if it looks like sweets.
THE MOON AND OUR SLEEP CYCLE From werewolves to synched up periods, the moon has long been a source of spooky stories and unexplained phenomena. Among these is of course the enduring superstition that our sleep is somehow, inexplicably, affected by the phases of the moon. In recent years, there have been increasingly frequent studies conducted that show a correlation between the phases of the moon and the quality of our sleep. Interestingly, both hospitals and prisons also report increased criminal activity around the time of the full moon, suggesting a connection between the moon and our actions that runs even more deeply than simply the impact on our sleep. Here are the main phases of the moon and their impact on sleep: The new moon is when there is no moon visible in the sky. During the new moon, there is not a lot of light at night which often makes people feel tired (due to increased melatonin levels) or less sociable. Then comes the waxing crescent, the first quarter, and the waxing gibbous. People appear to sleep more deeply during these periods, resulting in higher energy levels.
Next comes the full moon, which has the greatest impact on our sleep. The full moon seems to make sleep more difficult and even seems to have an impact on the intensity and frequency of dreams. A study conducted by Switzerland’s University of Basel showed that people, around the time of the full moon, took an average of 5 minutes longer to fall asleep and slept for about 20 minutes less. Lastly are the periods of the waning gibbous, the last quarter and the waning crescent. People tend to once again sleep better during these periods. Ultimately, we still don’t know why the moon appears to affect our sleep. Some researchers suggest that we have an internal biological rhythm that links to the lunar cycle; an overarching “Circalunar Rhythm” in a similar way to how we have a circadian rhythm. At any rate, there is still a lot to be discovered about us and our mysterious connection to the moon. Written by Lucia Immordino Illustrations by Lita Segal
YEAR 7 PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION After the success of the last Year 7 photography competition, The Penguin decided to run the course again. During the course girls from Year 7 learn about different types of cameras, lining up photos and editing. After the course is finished the girls turn in their photos and a runner up and winner are selected. Thank you again to our brilliant Head of Photography, Millie Slade for teaching the girls and organising the competition once again!
RUNNER UP - AMALYA BOZ
WINNER - MABEL ASKEW
Front and back cover work by Nikki Ivanova