Issue 6 - May/June 2019

the Standard May/June 2019 | Volume 44, Issue 6

The American School in London | One Waverley Place | London NW8 0NP U.K. | standard.asl.org

News 3-5

Pod renovations An update on the progress made on STUCO’s renovation of the English and Social Studies pods.

PAGE 3

Opinions 6-9

Editorial: Importance of leadership With the turnover of this year’s staff, the Editorial Board explores the necessity of student leadership, and how it impacts others’ experiences and successes.

PAGE 6

Features 10-16 When open minds are closed

As the global political and social climates constantly shifts, the term “political correctness” and what falls under it, is more ambiguous than ever.

PAGES 14-15

Culture 17-21

Maintaining connections through music

Principal Devan Ganeshananthan, who plays the tenor saxophone, and College Counselor Nicole Thompson, who sings, are amongst the many teachers who consider music a passion.

PAGES 18-19

Sports 22-24

Recruited athletes

With seniors heading to college next year, recruited athletes discuss their recruitment process and their anticipation for the coming year.

PAGE 23

The climate debate Increased political and social discussion surrounding climate change has led to disagreement on the severity of the issue, both on an international and local level.

Isabelle Lhuilier | Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Print

Story on pages 10-11

Online

CULTURE

-What’s unspoken about summer festivals

FEATURES

-Exploring the pressure leading up to ASL Prom

-Designer of Dreams, Christian Dior dazzles audiences

-Learning Specialist Heather Statz shares her favorite high school memory PHOTO BY JONATHAN NOVAK

Alex Dowd (’20) promposes to Lily Ferragamo (’20).

PHOTO BY IZZY HARRIS

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition closes on September 1.

Read online exclusive content... standard.asl.org OPINIONS

NEWS

-Mueller Report highlights flawed attempts to end Trump presidency

-Learning Commons food ban hopes to promote cleanliness -Music Tour moved to coincide with AlternativesExcess food and trash led to the new food ban. and Ecology trips

PHOTO BY LENA LEVEY

Subscribe to The Standard’s bi-monthly newsletter for notifications about online exclusive articles and media.

SPORTS

-Go to eaglesclaw. asl.org for spring ISST results

PHOTO BY EMILY FORGASH

Varsity baseball won their fourth ISST gold in a row at Canons Park.

@TheStandardASL

2 Online

The Standard

Following discussion from members of the administration and the Student Council, the Social Studies and English Pods will be redone over the summer to provide a better atmosphere for students.

Jonathan Novak Deputy Editor-inChief: Online When students return from their summer break, the school will have brand new Social Studies and English Pods. It is hoped that the renovations create two different spaces for students to use for both academic purposes and as a social place to go during free time.

The Social Studies Pod is planned to have more of a work, ‘cafe style’ environment, closed off from the rest of the hallway. It will include couches, a high seating bench area and other tables for doing work.

Designs for the English pod have bleacher-like seating that feels more connected to the hallway than the social studies pod. There will be less furniture in the space, as well as tiered seating along the wall, similar to the seating at Bottom Orange, to create an almost mini-amphitheater.

Preliminary planning stages for this project began toward the end of the 2017-18 school year when representatives of the Student Council approached former Principal Jack Phillips with an idea to renovate the pods. Student Council representative Micaella Lavi (’21) said that the original plan was just to buy some new furniture for the space. However, Phillips wanted to completely remodel the area, so he was able to earmark £54,00 for the renovation.

Another reason for the renovation was simply to keep improving the general quality of the building. The pods were last renovated in 2000, so it was considered to be time for a change. Principal Devan Ganeshananthan explained that the school places importance on maintaining facilities and having the building regularly renovated in order to meet health and safety and “decoration standards.”

The official planning did not begin until the 2018-19 school year when Ganeshananthan took over the project from Phillips. After money was set aside, Student Council, English Teacher Mark Mazzenga, English Department Head Alissa Mears, Social Studies Teacher Duncan Pringle and Social Studies Department Head Natalie Jaworski started talking to the community and the teachers in their respective departments to get an idea about what the best use of the space could be.

Mazzenga led the faculty discussions for the English pod and was a part of the space committee, which

May/June 2019

received student opinions, to renovate the area. He said that original plans were for a much greater renovation; but the structural integrity of the area did not allow for large-scale renovations, causing them to center their attention specifically on the pod itself.

Ed Toovey Architects was hired to come up with physical plans. The first drafts, however, had the two pods looking completely identical, which motivated the English department to make major revisions to the plan. “We just saw the intent of the pod of being very different than the social studies pod. Kids have made it very clear that they wanted those two

“

People don’t really stay in the pods now.

We wanted to offer people that space.

Micaella Lavi (’21) pod places to be very distinct from one another,” Mazzenga said.

Because the Harkness tables in English classrooms allow for so little adaptation, Ganeshananthan said the English pod will look like a “modified amphitheater with different gradations and different levels of seating,” in order to provide a widely usable and versatile space for different types of English activities.

Although the English pod isn’t a specialized place for schoolwork, Lavi said that generally people complain about insufficient study space.

Therefore, the best way to combat that issue was to renovate old spaces that are rundown and not used as often. “We can remodel the spaces and make those new areas, [so] there doesn’t have to [be] this complaint of lack of space all the time,” Lavi said.

Mazzenga believes the renovations could also improve the atmosphere of the building. “There is a sterility to the pods [currently],” he said. “[The renovated] pods are supposed to have some personality– huge graphic details on the wall and paint/color, so I do hope that those have, even on a subconscious level, a knock off effect on how we just feel when we’re in school.”

Along with the goal to improve the study spaces around the school, the renovation is meant to provide spaces for students to be during free time. During the renovation planning, the needs of the entire build-

News

New study spaces coming next year

ing and the students were taken into consideration. “The big question, which is a very simple one, is where can students go in this school?

There’s not a lot of answers,” Mazzenga said. “We are trying to take into account the greater needs and lack of space in this school, so hopefully this is just another space to be.”

Lavi feels similarly to Mazzenga, and she hopes for the renovation to encourage students to use the pod.

“People don’t really stay [in the pods] now,” she said. “We wanted to offer people that space.”

As well as simply providing the space to students, Ganeshananthan is curious to see which age groups populate them. “I observed over my year here that there are particular areas of the school that every grade kind of ‘claims’ for themselves,” he said. “It’ll be interesting once these spaces are finished ... to see is there any gravitation from particular grades there.”

Ganeshananthan looks forward to seeing how the student body reacts to these new spaces once the pods are unveiled. “I think our kids here at ASL are very resourceful and even if we gave them an empty room, they’re going to use it to study or collaborate or hang out,” he said. “Whatever the case is, it’s going to be a huge benefit, and hopefully, the kids will really enjoy it.”

IMAGES FROM STUDENT COUNCIL

Top: A more complete design of the floor plan for the renovated Social Studies pod featuring more seating, boards, artwork and graphics. Bottom: A rudimentary sketch planning what one of the pods will look like. ASL has been working with Ed Toovey Architects to design the new spaces.

News 3

Fresh perspectives on Science 9 Since its implementation in the ’17-’18 school year, the Science 9 course has yielded mixed reactions from the student body.

Labeena Hanif Staff Writer Last year, a change in the high school science curriculum was met with polarized feelings. Diverging from the more traditional progression of Biology and Chemistry, underclassmen are now taught integrated sciences with Science 9 and 10.

The novelty of Science 9, now in its second year, seems to have faded in comparison to the frenzy it caused with last year’s freshmen, as covered in the “Science 9: Year in review” article in the May/June 2018 issue of The Standard.

This sentiment holds true with students’ attitudes towards the content of the course as well. Carrie Kim (’22) feels Science 9 evenly spreads the content throughout the year. “The course does a good job of introducing different areas of science and giving us a taste of what different aspects could be,” she said.

While Kim believes that the course does not go in-depth into a particular topic, she appreciates the way it’s been organized. She thinks that the pacing and content of the course are manageable, but she has noticed a pattern across the science classes. “Depending on how your teacher explains a certain topic, you have a different understanding of it,” Kim said. “I’ve talked to stu-

dents in classes with different teachers, and they’ve been explained things in different ways, and they have a different understanding than I do.”

Claire Heskett (’22) agrees. She believes that the pacing was mostly fine, with the exception of a few units that went faster, but she does not share the same opinion as Kim. “The teachers gave a lot of thought to how they were teaching us,” Heskett said. “I had a hard time with [the course], but it was interesting to try and overcome the difficulties I was having.”

“

The course does a good job of introducing different areas of science and giving us a taste of what different aspects could be.

Carrie Kim (’22) Both Kim and Heskett have noticed that many of their peers get nervous and worked up about tests for the class.

Naveer Asnani (’22) believes from his experiences that the course is too

rushed, and that the pace affects students’ learning. “It’s doable, but it’s also kind of hard, because I feel like we’re all still figuring stuff out the last night before our test,” Asnani said. “It causes a lot of cram studying.”

Asnani also thinks that the way the course approaches new concepts is confusing. “A lot of the time, we do activities and then we learn about them. So we’re going blindly into activities and don’t really gain much from them.

Whereas if we learned a concept and then applied it, we [would] gain more from the activities,” he said.

Sloane Yanicelli (’22) found that the course got harder and harder as the year progressed, but that it was manageable with a strong foundation in earlier concepts. “We need to know the easy parts first to make it harder. Once it’s harder, then we can keep pressing in there,” she said.

While Yanicelli and Asnani don’t feel the same way about how effective the class is, they do agree that students are responding better to the course this year compared to the cur-

rent sophomores. “I don’t really know about everyone, but I would probably say that this year [Science 9] got a bit easier,” Yanicelli said. She mentioned

25% Space Sciences 25% Chemistry 25% Physics / Motion 25% Life Science

that this might be on account of the changes made to the grading system, which is now a nine-point system, in contrast to the more arbitrary grading system of the past. “[The workload] is a lot less from what I’ve heard last year,”

Asnani said. “But a lot of people are still struggling and finding it hard to make a good GPA.” A complaint from the previous year was that the course was overwhelming, and freshmen continue to find Science 9 challenging. Although, Science Teacher Bill Kenney believes students are beginning to better adapt to the course’s content now that teachers have had some time to work out issues in the course. “We’ve taken what we developed last year and refined that,” Kenney said. “Last year we effectively were building the plane as it was taking off and starting to fly. This year we were able to kind of work on that a bit.”

Kenney believes that the difficulty in the course lies in the high standards that students are held to in their work. He thinks that this difficulty will remain, but that they will continue to work on the course with student feedback. Some changes to the curriculum itself were that time devoted to Earth Science and Weather units were cut back while there was more of a focus on Biology in order to tie Science 9 to Science 10. Still, the heart of the course focuses on the integration of many different sciences.

Transitioning from PowerSchool to Schoology Next school year, ASL will have a new learning management system in place of PowerSchool, introduced in all divisions.

Isabel Link News Editor: Print “PowerSchool will be down for maintenance” is a common notification sent out by the school’s learning management system. However, the K-12 Technology, Information, Literacy and Media (TILM) department recently assessed alternatives to PowerSchool.

The team selected a new program called Schoology to replace Powerschool. Currently, it has already been trialed in certain French classes and the Technology and Culture elective, but all divisions of the school will start using it in the 2019-2020 school year.

Students experienced continual problems with PowerSchool, including Student Council representative Raquel Dawson (’22). “There’s been a lot of issues, and there’s always a shutdown,” she said. Dawson also remembers these shutdowns taking place in particular over weekends, which can be inconvenient when trying to complete work.

4 News

Conversely, Can Suyur (’20) believes the main issues surrounding PowerSchool are to do with the operation of the website. “Some teachers don’t really use it to its full potential,” Suyur said. This leads to difficulty for students in trying to find assignments and resources as well as complete work.

Principal Devan Ganeshananthan believes the new program is much improved from PowerSchool, as it’s easier to operate, intuitive to work with and a useful tool for students and teachers alike. “It’s pretty straightforward to pick up, even for people who may not necessarily be that techsavvy. And that’s always one of the challenges in introducing a new tech platform in the school environment,” Ganeshananthan said.

Technology Coordinator Mariam Mathew, who is a part of the TILM department, has implemented the entire program into her own Technology and Culture class. “After using it with my class, I’m finding it a much smoother system to use, [with]

fewer issues [and a] good gradebook system,” she said.

When using Schoology in the classroom, Mathew feels that the website is straightforward to teach and learn about. “There are little things that I just kind of point out because they are different. But I find the students pick it up pretty quickly,” she said.

One major difference between the two learning management systems is in website design. Ganeshananthan and others who have viewed the site notice the look and feel of the Schoology website are comparable to Facebook, mainly because of the blue and white coloring.

Additionally, Schoology is laid out differently than PowerSchool, with a variety of tools and ways of navigating content for classes. As opposed to having a list of courses and individual pages, there are folders in which teachers can post similar information along with assessment dates and resources.

There is also a feature known as “Workload Planning” used in conjunc-

tion with the calendar. A teacher from any particular course may access information about when the students in their class have assessments. Then, they can plan accordingly to avoid extra assessments or due dates being on the same day as students have another test or assignment to turn in.

Although having the Workload Planning feature was not one of the main goals for the TILM department when looking into a replacement for PowerSchool, Ganeshananthan believes it is an added benefit for students. “When you have five or six assessments or projects on the same day, that can sometimes take away from the validity of that assessment, not to mention create new stress for the student,” he said.

Aside from having multiple due dates and tests on the same day, Suyur finds that teachers can struggle to use the PowerSchool calendar

LEFT: help.powerschool.com RIGHT: kisspng.com

feature. “I feel like some teachers just don’t post homework on time,” he said.

Similar to Suyur, Dawson feels that teachers do not have the same method to posting homework, meaning some assign homework from their class pages and some on the calendar, with others forgetting to put it online altogether. But next year, with the full implementation of Schoology, Dawson anticipates a more unified approach. “I hope that there’ll be more similarities across the boards for all the departments.”

The Standard

Taking steps toward sustainable energy The Sustainability Council has been researching alternative forms of energy for ASL to use, and solar panels will soon be installed at Canons Park, moving the school even closer to having cleaner, greener energy.

Labeena Hanif Staff Writer Two million kilowatt hours per year.

That’s how much energy ASL uses. It makes sense; within the school’s walls, the energy needs of nearly 2,000 people must be met every school day—not to mention the Community Arts Building and the Aquatics and Fitness Center.

Co-president of the Sustainability Council (SusCo), Kenzie Morris (’20), believes this was an important issue for the council to tackle. “The Sustainability Council as a whole this year has been focusing on energy usage and how we can reduce energy usage at ASL,” she said.

Most of the energy in the school is directed toward temperature control. The air conditioning initially comes from the science classrooms before filtering into the rest of the school, and heating comes from all around the school.

The windows are the main reason why so much energy is required for the cooling and heating system to function. “[Our windows] are single-paned and have aluminum framings, so they’re not retaining that much heat,” Dom Alberts (’20), co-president of the Sustainability Council, said. “We’re pumping all this heat into our building and a lot of it is escaping.”

There is a plan aiming to completely replace the existing windows with more insulative material, a few of which have already been replaced.

“The building itself is relatively poor in terms of thermal efficiency performance,” Facilities Manager Kevin Moffat said.

“The walls

are not thermally protected. There’s no insulation in them … In the near future, probably somewhere in the next five to ten years, we will have to replace the windows.”

Other than heating, a major use for energy at the school is the lighting.

Most of the school’s traditional light bulbs have been switched out for LED lights, which use substantially less energy. The Lower School almost exclusively uses LED lights, and a large part of the Middle School’s lighting system is expected to be replaced over the summer.

“

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be making strides towards having a greener school.

Dom Alberts (’20) In addition to these transitions towards using less energy, SusCo has put a plan into action to install solar panels at Canons Park this year, which will help to source more of the school’s energy sustainably. “It would be a really good opportunity for the school to demonstrate how they’re moving forward as a green-conscious school,” Morris said.

The number of panels estimated to go up is 12 to 16. Though energy will largely have to switch back to its usual setup during the evening, the panels will allow for significant energy savings during the day.

Alberts sees this as a step in the right direction for the school becom-

ing more sustainable. “We have so many resources available to us that there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be making strides towards having a greener school and making London a greener environment,” Alberts said.

Another facet of this project is the learning opportunity that these panels present. “A goal for our council moving forward next year, especially with Dom and I as the new co-presidents, was to try to integrate sustainability more into the curriculum at ASL,” Morris said. “We do feel that the solar panels are a perfect way to do this…having a source of green energy on the facility that you can go visit.”

According to Moffat, the solar panels will provide an example of how this kind of panel system, known as a photovoltaic panel system, works. And it will demonstrate the effects of factors such as change in seasons or weather on energy usage. With a final unit of climate change in Science 10, AP Environmental Science and AP Biology, this is a particularly relevant demonstration project for students.

Though the council is still waiting on the government’s approval of their proposal, the installation of the solar panels will most likely occur over the summer. “I’m really glad that we’re moving to green energy, at least partially, in Canons Park,” Alberts said. “It’s absolutely something that needs to be done …

If we set this trend, a lot of schools will follow.”

The school uses 2,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year.

May/June 2019

News 5

EDITORIAL

Cartoon by Gaby Iwegbue

Learning to lead ourselves and others One inevitable part of working in a group is taking on certain positions or roles. The Standard experiences this in distinguished editor roles. Yet it is not just The Standard where there are different roles: students experience them in all academic or social settings where there is collaboration.

As The Standard is currently undergoing changes in roles for the new (’19-’20) staff, and also with a change in advisor, there has been frequent discussion about how to be effective in taking on new positions. The Editorial Board believes that it is through applying qualties of leaderhsip that people can fully capitalize on the positions that are presented and experienced when working with others.

Leadership is a heavily stereotyped idea, and often viewed as someone at the forefront of a group, decisive and

powerful. However, that image does not encompass the idea that leadership is present in the smallest of roles, and is a term to describe the way in which people can inspire others and take ownership and pride in their work and interactions.

Leadership is the person taking on their own position in stride, foregoing the distinguish of being “at the front” to effectively work their part and inspire others to follow suit. It is the person enabling others to feel confident in themselves. It is the person who inspires others to take ownership of their own work.

As new roles are being changed on The Standard’s editorial board, we are experiencing first-hand the initiative people can take in determining how they would like to go about their work.

In learning how to lead both in

our new positions, but also our lives, the Editorial Board finds it helpful to look to Journalism Teacher Shannon Miller. Miller has been an adult within the community that has exemplified leadership in its truest form of selfless collaboration and support of others.

She is one person who has not failed to put action behind the words of being a leader in all parts of life.

She can be both authoritative and understanding. She can command respect, yet also know when to sit back and take a gentler approach. She unifies those she leads, yet still respect and recognize different opinions.

In Miller’s departure, the Editorial Board finds it particularly impactful to reflect on her relations with those around her to understand how to be leaders in our own right.

Members of the student body out-

side of the Editorial Board can attest to Miller’s grace as an educator and leader. She is someone who fosters genuine passion for work and creates space for people to grow. Her legacy of leadership will leave traces in the journalsim room long after her goodbye.

As students go through high school, their involvement and interaction in society deepens. It is indisputable that people take on more responsibility as they grow older. The Editorial Board believes that a person’s ability to lead others is intertwined with this growth and added responsibility. If people take time to engage in their everyday positions or roles in and out of school, there is opportunity to lead ourselves others toward feeling a sense of clarity and direction.

The best kinds of leaders are also the ones able to see a broader scope

on their own position, and be the one who is able to make the hard decisions to inspire others. In Miller’s goodbye, the editorial board applauds her leadership for making the hard decision, and paving the way for new faces to be a part of the paper as she enjoys life beyond ASL. The school year is coming to a close. The class of 2019 has just graduated. It is in these times where people ultimately embark on their journeys into summer, and as everyone leaves their groups, it helps to think about how they can lead themselves forward.

Not just for The Standard, but for the entire student body, it is a period of major change. The Editorial Board encourages everyone to think about what new positions they’ll find themselves in coming months, and how they choose to lead those around them.

Standard JOHN TOWFIGHI Editor-in-Chief ISABELLE LHUILIER Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Print JONATHAN NOVAK Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Online CAMERON SPURR News Editor: Print ISABEL LINK News Editor: Print LUCAS ROMUALDO News Editor: Online ALLEGRA ALBANESE Opinions Editor: Print SAL CERRELL Opinions Editor: Online LEA GEORGE Lead Features Editor ZAINAB ADIL Features Editor: Print HELEN ROTH Features Editor: Online EMILY FORGASH Culture Editor: Print RAUNAK LALLY Culture Editor: Online LILY WHITMAN Sports Editor: Print MICHAEL FLAHERTY Sports Editor: Online IMOGEN WEISS Media Director MADDY WHITMAN Media Editor ROHAN HAARMANN Video Editor ANANYA PRAKASH Editor-in-Chief Emeritus PHAEDRA LETROU Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Print Emeritus ALEXANDRA GERS Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Online Emeritus JONATHAN PHILLIPS Opinions Editor Emeritus MARTHA DUFF Features Editor Emeritus NAZ OZTURK Culture Editor: Print Emeritus QUINN WHITMAN Media Director Emeritus CHRISTINA LEONARD Online Director Emeritus SOPHIE ASHLEY Lead News Editor Emeritus SHANNON MILLER Adviser

6 Editorial

STAFF WRITERS Taylor Anderson, Houdah Daniels, Anna Duffy, Izzy Harris, Estee Jorgensen, Lena Levey, Anastasia Ruimy, Zarina Choudhari-Stewart, Polina Dashevsky, Vicky del Balzo, Labeena Hanif, Gabriel Menzies, Jasmin Taylor.

CARTOONIST Gaby Iwegbue MISSION STATEMENT The Standard staff and adviser are dedicated to creating a collaborative, open forum that cultivates productive dialogue within the School community by publishing exemplary student news media according to the strictest standards of journalistic integrity.

CONTENT The Standard covers news related, but not limited, to the School community. Issues-driven coverage that aims to explore ideas, themes, concepts, trends and recent developments beyond the campus that are relevant to members of the community are also included.

GUEST WRITERS & LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send submissions to the journalism lab, room P-101, or to the_standard@asl.org. These must adhere to the same set of ethical guidelines that all staff content is held to, and will only be published at the discretion of the editorial board and the adviser. The Standard retains the right to edit letters or articles for length and

AP/Standard style. All letters must be signed in order to be considered for publication.

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The Standard

HELEN ROTH helen_roth@asl.org

“

In every field, for men and women who were occupying the same exact job, men were paid more than women. This is not merely unfair, it’s illegal.

Passively scrolling through BBC News, I spotted an interesting headline: “Gender pay gap grows at hundreds of big firms”. I sat up a little straighter in my chair, intrigued by the article. Surely this wasn’t the case.

I then clicked on the article to discover a graph which depicted the gender pay gap in all 17 fields in the U.K. Construction, finance, education, retail—you name it. In every field, for men and women who were occupying the same exact job, men were paid more than women. This is not merely unfair, it’s illegal.

The most drastic gap is in the construction field, in which there was about a 26 percent pay gap in favor of men.

The most minor gap was the arts and entertainment field, which was less than five percent. The median gap was about eight percent in the manufacturing field.

Of course, many firms are making progress in terms of narrowing the gender pay gap. In the same article, it was reported that out of the 1,146 companies that submitted their latest figures, the median hourly pay gap was 8.4 percent in favor of men. This is an improvement from last year’s gap of 9.7 percent. However, there is still substantial progress to be made.

Recently, the World Economic Forum announced that it would take about 118 years for the gender pay gap to go extinct. That’s 118 years of inequality between men and women. More than a million hours. More than 40,000 days of unequal pay in the workplace, no matter if men and women are occupying the same job.

Those 118 years can, and should be shortened. So what constitutes this gap? Is the gap purely due to the ingrained stereotypes of men and women? Or is there something else?

A Forbes article published in

2019 is consistent with was research has shown. Women have been described as “inept, selfish and frivolous” while men are seen to be “analytical, competent and athletic” in the workplace.

According to another article published in the Harvard Business Review in 2018, research shows that women are less likely to negotiate their salaries than men. For instance, one study found that half of the graduating MBA students who are men had negotiated their job offers, while only an eighth of graduating women had. Women who negotiate their salaries are still five percent less likely to receive a raise than their male counterparts, who recieve one in twenty percent of cases.

Based solely on this study, one could simply blame the gap on women being too “afraid” to ask. One could also blame the gap on the ingrained, sexist ideology that women have less experience, have a worse education, or are paid less because of their marital status. Doing so would fail to provide the much-needed justice and clarity to the issue.

Another major reason as to why the pay gap is so vast, is purely due to employees not knowing each other’s salary, at least in relation to theirs. This lack of transparency results in a sense

OPINIONS

The pay gap problem

of obscurity revolving around the pay gap. Not many people truly know about what they are being paid in comparison to their co-workers who are working the same job.

If more transparency was implemented, due to the illegality of paying workers different amounts for the same job, more clarity around payments would arise, and in doing so, hopefully narrow the pay gap.

Furthermore, as gender plays a role in the negotiation of salary, negotiations should only be allowed under certain conditions. If negotiations are in full force, the difference of just one negotiation can actually have an immense impact on someone’s economic status for the rest of their life.

Picture this: A female worker gets denied a pay raise, while her male coworker, occupying the same job, is successful in getting one. Every single year they receive the same pay raise, but the male, starting with a greater income, therefore walks away with the bigger bank account. Years and years later, the female and male walk away with as big of a pay difference as $20,000. That’s a pretty big difference.

LGBTQ+ rights need attention IZZY HARRIS izzy_harris@asl.org

“

I could sense how this one decision affected my friend, as well as thousands of others who previously couldn’t legally be wed, who then had the chance to be validated and recognized.

May/June 2019

In the 14 years in which I lived in the U.S. it wasn’t until the morning of June 26, 2015, that I truly understood the importance of LGBTQ+ legislation. The ruling of the Obergefell v.

Hodges case became a landmark which legalized same-sex marriage. Prior to that day, I had presumed that people were allowed to marry whomever they wished, no questions asked. I didn’t know people who were passionate about LGBTQ+ issues, until a friend FaceTimed me that morning, crying tears of joy.

I could sense how this one decision affected my friend, as well as thousands of others who previously couldn’t legally be wed, who now had the chance to be validated and recognized. In her eyes, I saw pure sincerity and felt a deep sense of pride, one which I had never before felt. From then on, I vowed to never stop fighting for the justice and equality of others. Though that wasn’t the first social justice mission I had taken on, this one in particular is personal for both myself and those around me.

One of the most prominent forms of equality is through representation, which is typically achieved through mainstream media like movies and TV shows. The media portrayal of LGBTQ+ people has been a source of controversy for quite some time. When I first wrote an article on “Love, Simon” last spring, I was excited to see a feature-length film about a person from a marginalized group in media.

However, I was not aware of the negative backlash the movie produced, largely from the LGBTQ+ community.

The persistent issue was that Simon was a “straight passing”, seemingly-average

white teen. This is detrimental to the gay youth who don’t identify with Simon’s character, which only fits a small percentage of the LGBTQ+ community.

More recently, a series of movies have come out depicting true stories of conversion therapy. Both original books, Boy Erased and “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”, paved the way for a mainstream understanding of the detrimental effects of conversion therapy on minors in today’s world. After reading them, I do believe that these movies were an adequate means of portraying the dangers of the practice.

The presence of progressive movies like Boy Erased and Cameron Post create spaces for discussion around conversion therapy. By doing so, we are facilitating an educated conversation that encourages progression and further acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.

One such discussion led to the passing of multiple bills in the U.S. Over the summer, New York State’s Albany County announced they would be ending conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that the entire state passed legislation banning the practice. As a New Yorker, this legislation was a huge milestone in the struggle for equality, and it made me proud to think that my home state championed the cause. There are still currently 35 U.S. States that do not have any legislation regarding conversion therapy for minors.

However, the progression of equality for LGBT+ individuals also has drawbacks, which manifest themselves in the form of homophobic hate crimes and anti-LGBT+ legislation, like the transgender military ban passed on Janu-

ary 22. It’s these actions that crush my hopes of the total equality and justice that the United States Constitution provides us with.

The passing of Bathroom Bills constitutes a form of “Trans Bashing,” I’ve noticed that groups of power in the U.S. especially Republicans, tend to take hardline positions, such as this, to take the pressure off of another issue. Although not specifically aimed at trans people, these acts of transphobia act as “liberal bombs”, meaning they are thrown out when congress-people or senators want to draw attention away from other controversial issues.

On January 29, a notification popped up on my phone regarding a homophobic attack against Jussie Smollet, a gay, African-American actor. I was shocked and heartbroken, at both the initial report of his apparent assault , and it’s apparent falsification by Smollet himself. It is massively detrimental to the credibility of LGBTQ+ lives when fake attacks occur. Not only does it discredit the occurrence of hate crimes, but it also demoralizes LGBTQ+ people who have faced acts of hate specifically due to their sexuality and/or gender.

Last year, students in the Human Rights Seminar studied Article 5 of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, which states “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” I couldn’t help but recall the session I attended about the homophobic crack-

Photos from IMDb

down which focused on the lives of gay men in Chechnya. The men were abducted, beaten and tortured. More recently, the actions taken in Brunei have created unsettlement in my heart and in the hearts of people around me who also care deeply about these issues. By implementing a death penalty for gay individuals, the Brunei government is condemning them to the cruellest of punishments, even if it was stated to be a measure of “prevention”. All this time I felt like the world was becoming more accepting.

However, this movement has not seen instances of regression on May 17, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise gay marriage. Within the country, this is not a large step, as samesex relationships have been recognised by the government since 2015, when the district of Kaohsiung allowed samesex couples to apply for remarks of partnership. I don’t think there will ever be a time where everyone can live as equals, but I hope for a more optimistic future where anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes and homophobia don’t exist.

Opinions 7

Fostering lackluster social skills POLINA DASHEVSKY polina_dashevsky@asl.org

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This vain and pathetic manner in which Gen Z and Millennials communicate has harmed our interactions and directly impacted social skills.

Communication in the modern age is facing a new obstacle—the threat of being left on “read,” or socalled being “aired.” These new terms imply the act of having a message you sent being viewed by the recipient, but left without a reply. In other words, being ignored. The symbolism behind the two blue check marks on Whatsapp or open triangle on Snapchat that indicate you were “left on read” carry varying meanings to different people.

When deciphering the importance of the two blue check marks, I and many of my friends almost feel threatened by this meaningless sign.

There appears to be a trend of “airing” messages that nearly became a race of who can “air” who first.

This vain and pathetic manner in which Generation Z and Millennials communicate has harmed our interactions and directly impacted social skills.

I do not ignore my friends in person, so what justifies doing so online? Why do I feel threatened when someone else does it first? Looking at this phenomenon from a birds-eye view, I can better understand the difficulties behind communication in our century.

I’ll admit, I have been an occasional culprit of this trend, purposefully leaving messages unanswered, and I have also experienced others leaving me on “read”. Having gone through this, I now understand that often people can’t directly answer

the message due to a variety of constraints. For instance, not having time to respond for any given reason.

While keeping this in mind, one’s business does not always interfere with our texting habits, as I have noticed an increase in people unapologetically ignoring each other on social media. The pathetic manner of purposely ignoring messages reflects upon the more significant problems of the new generation.

Being left on read” frustrates me, regardless of how vain and absurd it is. I would love for our generation to laugh at this stupidity. However, many of us aren’t laughing.

A rise in “how-to” websites dealing with being left on “read” indicate the serious approach of “Gen Z’s”. For instance, an article titled “Where Did They Go? How To Deal When You’ve Been Left “On Read” published by Essence as a guide on how to act when facing being left on “read,” and it focuses on helping the senders stay calm upon discovering that they were ignored. Personally, it’s only horrifying knowing that there are many more articles.

The notification indicating your message was “aired” is aided by the feature “last online,” which illustrates the time when the user was last online. This is installed to inform the users when other users are ignoring you.

Both the creation and usage of the app underscores not only the fright

of read receipts, but the extent to which people will go to avoid them.

For instance, according to The Guardian’s article, “I know they’ve seen my message—so why haven’t they replied?” claims that registered users of Snapchat and Facebook have specific strategies to avoid being exposed as having been “read,” but not replied to a message. People would download the text, and as soon as that was done, they would turn on

flight mode (airplane mode), and open it then. This mechanism is used to prevent the message from registering as opened. This allows people to view the message and ignore them, without the other user knowing.

Many might think that being left on “read” is a pointless topic for conversation. However, this seemingly simple occurrence points to a much larger complication in our generation, which needs discussion and fixing. While the poor social skills of this generation have already been acknowl-

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edged by the inability to communicate in-person, the younger generation is already moving from traditional communication means to the digital world.

Now, we ignore each other even there.

How is that possible?

It’s not only the lack of social skills in younger generations, but it is also the constant obsession with things that do not have any value or impact on our lives. This can be expressed through the excessive focus on social media trends and fear of missing out, fueled by our Instagram feed. I am a human being, and it is in my nature to hyperfocus on useless things. However, we, as a generation, need to think about the future.

How are we going to remember each other and what memories are we going to make? We already mostly communicate through social media outlets. Twenty years from now, I do not want to remember people by who left me on read, or remember people based on who I texted the most. I want to make more reallife connections and memories and live life without the constant stress fuelled by my phone.

Spending our time hyper-focusing on being “aired,” or “airing” people on purpose, is a useless waste of time. If your friend is ignoring you, call them and ask them to hang-out.

Tell them how you feel. Life holds greater meaning than worrying about who is leaving us on “read.”

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5 The Editorial Board gives the final Progress Report of the school year.

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Reading Day (A+) All day study hall is pretty clutch. Cameron 4. ISSTs: (A-) Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold...Sixth Place. Sal Cerrell 1. Spurr Summer Vacation: (A++) Hang in there everyone! Almost SAT subject tests: (D-) I thought I was done with testing after 2. there!

5. APs Lea George . Isabelle Lhuilier Report: (B) Not enough collusion-I don’t have Econ Projects: (C+)Refreshments were nice, but I 3. Mueller 6. appreciate time to read a 448 page report. Lucas Romualdo being harassed for my money. Zainab Adil

don’t

Post Scriptum: Missing Jonny <3

8 Opinions

The Standard

The F-word: real vs radical feminsm BELLA MURI isabella_muri@asl.org

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Despite the convoluted understanding of feminism being all about women, it is actually about equal rights between men and women.

“I am a feminist.” The stickers handed out on International Women’s Day had this precise phrase printed on them. I wore mine with pride, yet as I walked through our halls, I saw that many had been stuck on trash cans.

In the same way that a tomato is really a fruit, but confused to be a vegetable, feminism is really the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of equality, and yet there is the common misconception that it is used to validate man-hating. With the warped belief that feminism is about women and inflicting matriarchy, the word itself has become misrepresented as a curse-word.

In its true self, feminism initially appeared in the 1880s and focused on abolishing restrictive propertyownership laws, the lack of legal protection against sexual violence and the discrimination that women face in the workplace: from the denying of promotions to limitations of job opportunities. A second wave of feminism reignited in the 1960s, where the word shifted to working towards equal representation and rights. The term feminism was interpreted through a new lens in the 1990s, where many essentialists wanted to dismantle the feminine stereotypes of a woman. This last wave is the foundation of many prejudices that seem to be intertwined with this so-called curse word: man-hater,

angry, bra-burner, female.

However, observing the progression of feminism, it becomes evident that none of the feminist movements had anything to do with hating or oppressing men, but condemning the inequality that women face on a daily basis. For example, the current movement against the gender pay gap. Regardless of the logical fallacy that, “if the pay gap existed, it would

Dictionary

also show that almost four in every 10 Americans believe that the gender pay gap is not real, and is made to serve a political purpose. The same group of people were asked what contributing factors could perpetuate the wage gap, more men pointed to reasons including, “women are generally in careers that don’t pay as much” and “women work fewer hours than men.”

This is heavily contrasted by the

feminism noun

1. Equality for the sexes 2. Man-hating

be deemed illegal,” it is very much real and prevalent today.

In the most recent study conducted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in 2014, women were paid 79 cents for every $1 the average male worker was paid, for the same job and results.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau

majority of women’s belief which looks to the unconscious bias, sexism that is entrenched in societal norms, as well as the lack of women in leadership roles.

Despite our indirect relationship to the pay gap, it will affect us all and we should fight for a world where the value of our work is not determined by our sex, but by its quality.

Perhaps we can more directly empathize with an issue that we are exposed to every day: the rape culture. You hear it when people win video games: “Bruh I just got raped last round.” You hear it when you’re lectured on the basics of covering up our bodies in order not to “ask for it” from boys.

If rape and sexual assault were truly connected to clothing choices, the rate of rapes would multiply during the summer, but they don’t. We choose to cultivate a society where women and girls are raised with precautions concerning how to act and compose themselves, instead of educating all people about treating people of all sexes with respect.

The stigma that surrounds calling oneself a feminist is one that must be demolished, because it is perpetuating a false understanding of what it means to be a true feminist: We cannot base the foundation of a feminist on the few radical feminists who’s views contradict feminist values: EQUALITY. Perhaps, at this point the term feminist has become so convoluted because of modern perception, that we should find a new word for this movement that is still crucial to the egalitarian society we should strive to achieve.

However, it is essential that we stop labelling and condemning feminism if we have not educated ourselves of its true meaning.

Trump admin violates press freedom TAYLOR ANDERSON taylor_anderson@asl.org

“

The Trump administration’s perspective on journalism is skewed, unfair and is unsupportive of the work news organizations conduct.

May/June 2019

During the summit between President Trump and leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un held in Vietnam in February, aides from Trump’s communication team barred four American journalists after reporters called out questions that were deemed disruptive and inappropriate during Trump’s appearance. The White House initially was not going to allow any reporters into the dinner that followed, only photographers and cameramen. They eventually allowed just one reporter into the dinner from the Wall Street Journal, a somewhat conservative-leaning news organization.

In the U.S, news organizations quickly denounced this action, with a spokeswoman from the Associated Press stating, “it is critically important that any president uphold American press freedom standards, not only at home but especially while abroad.”

This critique was backed by the United Nations (UN), who took the forceful step of officially condemning Trump’s frequent media criticism. With phrases like “enemy of the people” and “fake news” being thrown around over the past three years. The Trump administration has enforced and amplified

Photo from Flickr

anti-press sentiment. On the campaign trail and through the course of his term in office, he and those who represent him have not minced words about journalists who write negatively about the President. The implications of these unprecedented actions have the potential to yield serious and destructive results.

In October, a series of bombs were mailed to frequent critics of the president, one of which was shipped to CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.

Though the bombs were intercepted and destroyed by law enforcement, it underscores a necessary message, especially in our current political climate: words matter.

Rarely have we seen a president create clear, publicized enemies among the media and go as far as suspending particular reporter’s White House press passes, such as CNN reporter Jim Acosta in November. The words the president uses and his direct actions not only enforce clear bias but also limit the credibility of well-known news organizations. Preventing Acosta from attending press conferences is a form of press censorship and therefore violating the First Amendment, where freedom of the press is guaranteed.

In a recent meeting with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Trump admitted that although he takes credit for the term “fake news,” he does not acknowledge the consequences this has on freedom of the press in the U.S. or any other country. There have been claims made by Sulzberger and other

press advocates that Trump’s coining of this phrase has pushed other foreign diplomats to use the term “fake news” to justify their unlawful actions towards journalists, such as imprisonment or assault. Press advocates such as Sulzberger and Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists Joel Simon have spoken about trends in foreign governments limiting press freedom and justifying it with the term “fake news.” Countries such as Egypt, Belarus and Malaysia have implemented recent legislation permitting the blocking of websites and prosecution of journalists or new organizations that spread “false news.” Many of the laws do not define or specify “false news.”

In October, more than 200 retired journalists signed a letter to Trump claiming that his frequent use of phrases like “enemy of the people” and, in particular, “fake news,” has incited violence in the U.S. and around the world towards members of the press. The letter specifically states that “Trump’s condoning of political violence is part of a sustained pattern of attack on a free press.”

The letter came as a result of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, which Trump turned a blind eye to even though it was clearly an act of violence towards free speech and an assault on a Guardian reporter that Trump seemingly condoned.

Historically, the U.S government, judicial system and the public have generally sided with freedom of the press in

accordance with the First Amendment.

We’ve seen this with events such as the Watergate scandal after Washington Post writers released key information or the release of the Pentagon Papers.

Yes, there may have been controversy at the time, but ultimately these journalists are seen as heroes and have promoted the ideas of free speech within the United States. The Trump administration’s perspective on journalism is skewed, unfair and is not supporting the work of news organizations in a way that other presidents have in the past.

Trump and all of his predecessors took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Making aggressive and generalized claims against journalists and news organizations is not holding up the First Amendment. It is clear that Trump’s encouragement of dangerous supporters at rallies, his neglect to condemn of violent actions towards journalists in foreign countries, and his verbal attacks on the press have incited violence around the country and limited the freedom of the press. In my eyes, this is a form of press censorship that inhibits the integrity of reputable journalism in the U.S.

Photo from Quartz

Opinions 9

FEATURES

A heated debate

Climate change: a term causing increasing debate. Some feel passionately that it is currently the most pressing world issue, while others believe the danger is overblown.

Isabelle Lhuilier | Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Print

Cartoon by Isabelle Lhuilier

10 Features

The Standard

“IT’S NO LONGER ABOUT LOSING NICE SPECIES THAT ARE CUDDLY, IT’S LITERALLY ABOUT THE COLLAPSE OF OUR SOCIETY.” JACOB NATHAN (‘19)

W

hen considering the problems currently faced by the human race, Jacob Nathan (’19) believes climate change is the most terrifying one. “It is arguably the most important issue that we face as our generation and, frankly, as humans,” he said. “We are at the first time in human history where in the future, if we continue down the path we are going down, we will become extinct.”

Likewise, Natalia Smith (’21) believes climate change is no longer just a long-term issue, but rather its impacts will be life-altering. “Climate change will eventually, even if not now, affect our lives,” she said. “I think that’s what makes it hard to deal with. It feels so distant but so many things, so many simple things about our lives will change.”

Although climate change is often associated with species going extinct, Nathan feels that it is no longer the limit to the problems that will be faced. He emphasized the urgency of the situation, claiming that without action, food production will diminish, the economy will collapse and global conflict will dramatically increase. “By the end of the century, the global GDP [Gross Domestic Product] is set to be 30 % lower than what it would have been,” he said. “For every 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming the incidence of war increases twice. So based on that we should also see two major wars by the end of the century.”

Nathan also believes that climate change will force many to flee their homes, and that by 2040 there is predicted to be 140 million climate refugees. “One million refugees came to Europe from the Syrian civil war,” he said. “If we think about how that has destabilized European politics, how do we think that 140 million is going to affect politics around the world?”

Furthermore, a shift in global temperature would allow tropical insects that carry diseases to become more prevalent in new areas.

“We will see malaria as far north as Chicago and, considering that it is one of the largest killers in the world today, that's quite worrying,” Nathan said.

Although Yaniv Regev (’20) believes climate change exists, he feels it is often exaggerated. “I believe that it's very overblown, a lot of people saying that the world’s going to end in 12 years is just not true, and I don't think that's helpful.

I think it's a very slow process,” he said.

Regev feels that the issue of climate change has become very politicized, with politicians using “fearmongering” tactics in order to incite worry and convince more people to believe their stance. “They want people on their side. If people are scared or are led to believe that something is worse than it actually is, they are more likely to support their cause,” he said. “It's wrong because [over exaggerating] can be a very scary thing to a lot of people and [politicians] are misleading those people.”

For example, Regev references a MLK Now interview with congress woman

81.5% of students believe climate change is the most important world issue

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Alexandria Cortez said that climate change is our world war two. I feel like that’s fear mongering, that’s taking it to the extreme.

Are there not bigger things to focus on?” he said.

However, Nathan believes climate change concern is warranted and that immediate action by world governments is necessary in order to combat it. He proposes changes including tax-

ing unsustainable practices, such as oil fracking, investing in public transport and providing subsidies for renewable energy. “[England] has recently gone a week without coal but actually all we have done is transitioned to natural gas which burns cleaner but is still a fossil fuel,” he said. “We don't have time anymore for an energy transition.

We have 12 years, 11 years, to cut our global emission by 50% then we need to be at 0% by 2050 and then we need to be negative after that.”

Similarly, Smith feels that climate change action should not be viewed as optional, and if a practice is unsustainable, such as using palm oil or certain packaging, it should be automatically “off the table.” “Governments need to realize that it's not just another agreement, it's not just a piece of paper. Climate change defines our entire world and I think it should be prioritized as the biggest issue because everything, literally every problem that we face, circles around climate change,” she said.

In response to concerns about the economic impacts of heavy taxation, Nathan believes that taxes should be raised in some areas and removed in others.

“I don’t believe fossil fuel companies should be able to operate in a really damaging way without some kind of taxation,” he said.

On the other hand, Regev believes that instead of limiting the production and efficiency of certain companies, which he sees as unrealistic, efforts to combat climate change should revolve around renewable energy. “We cannot live without fossil fuels,” he said. “People need to drive to work, people fly everywhere. You have to ask yourself are you willing to give those things up?”

He also feels that such regulations will not be effective as although they may decrease the gases produced it is not possible to fully eliminate them.“Even limiting those companies is only going to delay what you are already fearing,” he said. “The best solution is investing in green energy so you can produce a whole new solution. Nuclear energy is a lot more efficient.”

Conversely, Nathan does not view nuclear power as an effective option as building reactors is an expensive and

lengthy process and feels there is public distrust in the energy resulting from previous disasters. “I would have said 20 years ago that would be a fantastic option but we just don't have the time now for transition energy,” he said.

Regev also believes that instead of working to alter the climate, the most effective way to cope with climate change is to adapt living conditions and promote stronger infrastructure. “If you look at the early 1900s and you look at how many people died from natural disasters, the number is over 100 per one million and that number has decreased to four in 2010,” he said. “The reason for that is because the world has developed more. The best way to deal with [climate change] is to build accordingly.”

When thinking about how the average person can help, Smith believes the first step is to recognize that they are adding to climate change. “You can't

71.2% of students are

strongly concerned for the future of the planet say just because you feel as though your life hasn't been changed by [it] it's not a big issue,” she said. “I think that people need to accept that what they do contributes to climate change and the ideology that we don't make a big difference is just destroying the planet.”

Although she understands those who don’t want to devote their entire life to sustainability, Smith feels that climate change is so vast everyone can

find something to contribute to. “If you’re an actor you can put on shows where the tickets’ proceeds go to sustainability. The whole idea that being sustainable is just sacrificing your whole life and living in a straw hut for the rest of your life is [false]. It can fit to your life,” she said.

Nathan believes some drastic effects of climate change are already visible, mentioning two recent cyclones in southern Africa and a surge in dangerous hurricanes hitting the U.S.. He believes that, although climate change does not cause hurricanes, it can make them become more destructive. “It makes it more likely for them to be category five when naturally they wouldn't have been,” he said. “The first [U.S.] climate change refugees in Louisiana are losing many football fields of land a day just from sea level rise.”

Nathan feels that without immediate action, when current Grade one students graduate, climate change will be irreversible. He believes that if global temperatures increase by another four degrees, “we will not be able to recognize the society that we live in.”

However, Regev does not believe the effects of climate change will be as extreme as many say and that it is important to take everything in perspective. “It's not the end of the world. It's predicted that in 20 years temperatures will increase by two degrees. It's only two degrees. The world is going to be slightly warmer.

Yes the climate as a whole is going to get more extreme but the likelihood of that affecting you majorly is not really [high],” he said “It's definitely real and should be dealt with. I just don’t think it's as big of a deal as people say. The fear mongering of people saying the world is going to end in 12 years is not helpful and is not true.”

For Nathan, however, the issue of climate change isn’t just pressing, it's a matter of life and death. “It's no longer about losing nice species that are cuddly, it's literally about the collapse of our society,” he said. “I don't believe what I say is fear mongering I think I am a realist and I think we need to be real with ourselves and understand where we are headed… we don't have time for inaction.”

“WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT FOSSIL FUELS. PEOPLE NEED TO DRIVE TO WORK. PEOPLE FLY EVERYWHERE. YOU HAVE TO ASK YOURSELF, ‘ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE THOSE THINGS UP?’” YANIV REGEV (‘20) * Survey of 222 ASL students taken by the Sustainability Council

May/June 2019

Features 11

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Experiences of students of color

onely is the word Gaby Iwegbue ('19) uses to describe her experience as a racial minority at ASL. Prior to London, Iwegbue lived im Charleston, South Carolina, where she attended a school that was mainly white, and, after coming to ASL at the start of Sophomore year, she feels nothing has changed.

Iwegbue has only ever experienced being a minority, and she feels that “it would be nice to have a friend who’s black too” as her friends are mainly white or other people of color, but not black.

Iwegbue feels that being one of three black kids in her grade means that it’s impossible to find many friends of the same race.

Regarding racial diversity at ASL, Bissan Kablawi ('22), who is Palestinian, believes that it is not as prevalent as it is said to be. " I always get told that the school is very diverse, but when I look around I see it’s actually not," she said.

Aziz Ahmed ('21 who is from Pakistan and the Dominican Republic, believes that a lack of racial diversity at ASL has impacted him socially. “I want to find people I can relate to, and it’s really hard to relate to people who don’t really understand where you’re coming from,”he said.

Piya Garg ('20), who is Indian, thinks that because the majority of her friends are Caucasian, it’s not as easy to express her identity and culture, such as food and entertainment, which sometimes leads to “culture clashes.”

Compared to the past, Rhea Aaditya ('22) believes that ASL has become more racially diverse since she first started attending in Grade 2, so she now knows people from many more places around the world than she did years ago.

Kieron Windless ('22) who identifies as blackBritish agrees that ASL is more diverse than it used to be, but thinks that it is still lacking black students, especially since he is one of few black people in his grade.. "I believe that the school is racially diverse, we just don’t have many of the black race," he said.

As a minority, Windless has experienced forms of racism and microaggressions. For example, he has witnessed people saying, “oh, he’s black so he does this,” and “he’s black so he does that,” often associated with negative actions and aspects.

Kablawi said she has also been told both to her face and behind her back, that because she is Palestinian she’s a terrorist, or that because she’s Muslim she’s a terrorist. However, it is the response Kablawi uses that allow her to properly refute such judgements.“It doesn’t feel good in the moment, but as a non-white person in this school I feel like I should try and educate people. I don’t try and take it too personally. I try and tell them the right things and not overcomplicate things by getting mad,” she said.

Sam Habib ('21) has also been called a terrorist, but he says the phrase that affects him more is being called a “fake Arab." Habib is half-British and half-Lebanese, and identifies as Arab, but due to his skin color being white and his British accent, he finds it hard to convince people that he’s Middle Eastern. “When I tell people that I am Arab there's an instant feeling of disbelief. There’s a stereotype in people's minds that if you're not European or American, you must be brown or something,” he said.

Garg believes that ASL is welcoming towards people of color. “People are quite genuine, of course there is a long way to go, but I think in general ASL is good at incorporating people of color,” Garg said.

Both Aaditya and Kablawi agree, however Ahmed believes that ASL flaunts diversity of

thought and speech even though he feels that is not the case at the school.

Similarly to Habib, as Ahmed is also from two different countries, he finds that being a person of color at ASL entails that he must act as a representative of where his nationalities as there aren’t many other student to do so. Additionally, due to there being such little representation of people of color at ASL, it ultimately impacts a student of color’s academic experiences.

Ahmed finds that although race isn’t as important in science and math classes, when looking at current events in class, it’s hard for people outside of the “dominant American culture” to speak up about what they think. “There’s so little diversity of thought because everyone’s coming from the same type of places, everyone thinks the same, kids feel like they have to fit in, [which means] they end up erasing everything [ASL] should be promoting,” Ahmed said.

On the other hand, Aaditya is appreciative that her culture is represented in her classes through the Indian history curriculum in Grades 7 and 9.

For Iwegbue when the topic of race comes up in class, she feels that “people are uncomfortable discussing race issues whenever I’m present, especially in English class.” This is mostly due to the controversy of including the use of the N-word in classroom literature, and whether or not people should say the it when it’s included in writing. Iwegbue finds this to be a problem that the school doesn’t confront, especially when in the past, some teachers found it acceptable to use the N-word in class for reading purposes.

"That’s something that’s always kind of bothered me, that’s a real problem that they don’t really address," she said.

The English department have in fact implemented a policy surrounding the utterance of the N-word in class. In a statement for the American Literature class, which covers novels that use the Nword, it is explained that it is not to be said in the classroom. "When we come across the word ... we have a shared agreement: we will not read it aloud in the classroom out of respect for one another."

Photo of Kablawi by Maddy Whitman, all others by Imogen Weiss

Features

May/Jun

as a minority

hasized part of ASL's diversity statement. feel that the racial diversity of the school to what it strives to be.

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“I ALWAYS GET TOLD THAT THE SCHOOL IS VERY DIVERSE, BUT WHEN I LOOK AROUND, I SEE IT’S ACTUALLY NOT.”

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aditya believes that diversity, racial or otherwise, is essential for a school. "It’s just nice to have different opinions and different views from different places around the world," she said.

Garg agrees that racial or even ethnic diversity is important, and also thinks having people of different backgrounds come together is important for a school that prides itself on a global perspective.

Additionally, Windless believes that if someone is exposed to different races and backgrounds in school, then later in life when they’re in an environment where they’re the minority it will be easier to adapt.

However, Iwegbue thinks that ASL having diversity as a forefront for the school is “misleading” as she believes the school isn’t racially diverse at all, and using race as “a marketing strategy.”

For example, Iwegbue and some of her friends, who are also people of color, have been posted on

the website multiple times and Iwebgue feels like “they take pictures of us whenever [they] can see us.”

According to a statement from the Communications Department, the "main aim is to choose the very best photographs. Utilizing top-quality photography to portray students happy in their learning is our number one goal. We strive to present a realistic portrait of life at ASL and to represent our student body, while showing a balanced view of the K-12 program and the richness of activities that take place in our School."

Aside from representation on the website, Ahmed agrees that ASL isn’t racially diverse, and thinks that the lack of diversity at ASL doesn’t reflect the “mixing pot of cultures” that is London.

Windless attributes this to ASL being located in an area that has more white residents, whereas there are other schools in places with more black or Asian populations, so the racial makeup of those schools would indicate that.

Garg believes that in order to combat the issue of racial diversity at ASL, the administration should take applicants' backgrounds into consideration when admitting new students. "I do think that’s important for the faculty and administration to take into account people’s backgrounds and see if they could provide a different perspective and also be valuable member to the community rather than just on race," she said.

The Standard

When open minds are closed A rise in a politically correct culture has induced a variety of opinions regarding the importance and necessity of employing such form of speech in daily life.

Isabelle Lhuilier | Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Print

Lea George | Lead Features Editor

“WITH USING POLITICALLY CORRECT TERMS YOU DON’T HAVE THE RISK OF OFFENDING PEOPLE WITH YOUR RHETORIC. BUT, I THINK THAT A DISADVANTAGE IS [THAT] WE GIVE WORDS TOO MUCH POWER.” MARGOT LANGMAN (’22) 14 Features

The Standard

DEFINITION A

ccording to the Cambridge dictionary, the term to be “politically correct” is defined as, “a politically correct word or expression is used instead of another one to avoid being offensive.” Society has formulated what is considered acceptable to say based on a number of reasons which all contribute to that society’s values at the time. However, since political correctness is ever-changing as it depends on the current climate of society, people have different ideas of what the words “politically correct” really mean.

Jeh Vandrevala (’21) believes that current political correctness differs slightly, as he defines it as “the idea that you have to say what is accepted by the society that you live in, and the idea that you can only go within

the means of what society defines you can go in the means of.”

Similarly, Margot Langman (’22) defines political correctness as “using the terminology that is modernly accepted and not deemed as offensive by the majority.” She believes that regardless of its dictionary definition, the phrase “political correctness” and what it entails evolves with time.

She feels that older generations used phrases that now are deemed as not politically correct. “It’s not because they’re trying to be offensive it’s because that’s what was politically correct,” she said.

Isabel Rosen (’19) defines political correctness as, “a culture of trying to exclude overtly or not overtly racist and sexist and other ‘...ist’ things” from your language

“IT’S A PERSONAL CHOICE TO BE POLITICALLY INCORRECT OR CORRECT.” ISABEL ROSEN (’19)

AT ASL angman feels that at ASL there is a Llitically strong emphasis placed on being pocorrect. “I think [ASL] tries

very hard because the different cultures and communities that it caters to create an environment that’s very modern and, I would say, liberal,” she said.

Although Langman believes individuals should be allowed to express a range of viewpoints, she understands that as ASL is a private institution and students are required to abide by the rules. “I believe 100 percent in the freedom of speech, however, when you go to a private school and you sign a contract and pay tuition, you essentially sign [part of ] your freedom of speech away to the school,” she said.

May/June 2019

However Langman also believes that given the schools emphasis on diversity and acceptance, such rules should allow for diversity of opinion. “I think that [ASL] should accept different viewpoints and not deem it [wrong] just because it’s not what everybody considers correct,” she said.

Although Rosen feels as though some students do call others out for using politically incorrect language, she does not believe that the administration acts frequently to “punish” political incorrectness. She does, however, acknowledge the fact that the use of offensive language is prohibited in the Code of Conduct.

POSITIVES & NEGATIVES believes that political corLit angman rectness can have disadvantages as gives words too much of an emo-

tional value. “With using politically correct terms you don’t have the risk of offending people with your rhetoric. But, I think that a disadvantage is [that] we give words too much power,” she said. “The way we speak becomes too much of a touchy subject and I think it ends up diminishing the freedom of speech.”

Similarly to Langman, Vandrevala feels that extensive political correctness can be problematic as it does not allow people to discredit certain ideas. “If an idea that could be very bad is out in the open, it’s more likely it will be [attacked] or restricted. If someone says an offensive message like Nazism is the right way, it’s just going to stay in the minds of people if it’s not being shared in the public,” he said.

Cameron Lynch (’19) believes that the constant pressure of being politically correct may hinder the speech and ideas of individuals who may not feel as though their viewpoints count as being politically correct. “I think sometimes for people who don’t have opinions that fall within that, [they] can feel outcasted or feel like their opinions aren’t valid or aren’t seen as important,” she said.

On the other hand, Lynch believes that promoting political correctness creates a more “open environment,” which is especially important in a school setting. “It makes all viewpoints valid, instead of just focusing on one or the other,” she said. “I went to a school before, this in the South [of the U.S.] where there wasn’t a focus on being politically correct all the time and a lot of offensive things were said

or peoples’ feelings got hurt often in discussions[...]the pros outweigh the cons,” she said.

Similarly, Rosen feels that the promotion of political correctness is beneficial as it creates a community that values respect. Regarding politically incorrect jokes, Rosen recommends students “avoid” them. “If people think you’re a jerk because of [the joke made] you have to deal with those consequences; it’s a personal choice to be politically incorrect or correct. You can do anything if you don’t care about the consequences,” she said.

However, Rosen does feel that there are certain spaces carved out for debate where political correctness is not a requirement. “I tend to think that political correctness is just another form of being kind to the people around you [...] so I’m generally for it,” she said.

“But if you’re actively sitting down to have a conversation about a controversial topic and you happen to have an idea [that] isn’t traditionally PC[...] that’s the space to talk about it.”

Although political correctness calls for more acceptance, Langman believes that the current movement does not include more conservative views.

“We’re quite aware of this liberal politically correct bubble that it is,” she said. “Despite this movement being about tolerating everybody, there’s not a lot of tolerance when it comes to people who don’t subscribe to the same super politically correct and super liberal values.”

Furthermore, Lynch believes that the constant pressure of being politically correct may hinder the speech and ideas of individuals who may not feel as though their viewpoints count as being politically correct.

POPULARITY believes there is curVcalandrevala rently a strong emphasis on politicorrectness in the western world,

with many more liberal institutions blocking opinions they deem offensive. “The focus is based on the fact that people don’t want to hear some opinions, and often they squash some opinions by saying they’re not politically correct,” he said.

Rosen feels as though the reason for people to possibly be attracted to political incorrectness is due to the appearance of this form of speech on several media platforms. “There [are] a lot of politically incorrect holdovers from the past that we enjoy. Friends, for example, the TV show, is deeply

problematic [regarding political correctness] and yet people enjoy it,” she said.

Langman feels as though political correctness has become more of a trend than a form of speech. “You have public figures, you have celebrities, the social media and all these movements that push this super liberal message of accepting everyone,” she said. However, Langman feels as though such movements have begun to contradict themselves. “When [the movements] hear rhetoric or terms that they don’t deem as politically correct, they don’t accept them at all and then it diminishes all of the talk,” she said.

Features 15

Popping the St. John’s Wood bubble Students who live outside of St. John’s Wood share their experiences residing farther away.

Zarina Choudhari-Stewart | Staff Writer

W

hen ASL students think of home, many tend to picture St. John’s Wood with Panzers and Beatles at the heart of it all.

However, for some, that’s not what home looks like. Kleidi Likola (’21) was born and raised in Wembley, with the center of her home being Wembley Stadium.

Similarly, Olivia Benjamin-McDonald (’21) lives in Hackney and it takes her anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour to get home. She often takes the tube to West Hampstead and changes to the Overground until Homerton.

“It’s really annoying to travel sometimes: either I’m tired, or I don’t have the time to waste. However, it’s nice to remove myself from the school atmosphere - which is St. John’s Wood.”

“What I like about living away from school is that I don’t have to worry about bumping into people from school if I don’t want to.”

Kleidi Likola (’21) Likewise, Likola said that she enjoys living out St. John’s Wood, as she prefers being farther away from the “little bubble” created by

the community. “St. John’s Wood is different from Wembley because it’s closer to school and most people are predominantly Americans,” Likola said. “What I like about living away from school is that I don’t have to worry about bumping into people from school if I don’t want to.”

Similarly, George Quillen (‘21), who lives in Sloane Square, enjoys his distance from St. John’s Wood, as “I don’t run into anyone I know in the street,” he said.

Benjamin-McDonald and Likola agree that St. John’s Wood has a unique atmosphere that is different from their homes. “It feels different because of the people who are in it and the vibe which is modern, expensive, central, but quiet. Obviously there are a lot of middle and upper class Americans so the types of people you see are quite different in terms of behavior and appearance,” BenjaminMcDonald said.

Takako Chisaka (’20) also lives further than the majority of the students at ASL. She lives in Hendon, in the borough of Barnet in northwest London.

Echoing Benjamin-McDonald, Chisaka also dislikes her journey into school. “It sucks that I have to leave my house at 7a.m. instead of 7:30 even though it only

takes 25 minutes, but the traffic gets terrible around 7:30,” she said. “When I first came to ASL I hated the fact that I lived so far and I had no one around me as all my friends live very close to each other,” Chisaka said.

Photo from London360

When friends heard where she lived they would often ask her why she doesn’t just move.

However, Benjamin-McDonald realizes that there is another side to the situation. “There is also a financial side, whereas St. John’s Wood, the houses are very big, the location is quite central and it’s a nice neighbourhood, and extremely expensive.

My family doesn’t have the money to

just move house to accommodate the fact that I don’t like the commute that much,” she said.

In addition to the expenses, Benjamin-McDonald has lived in her house for her entire life and there are memories in her home. Likola doesn’t feel like she is missing out by living outside of SJW. Her train ride takes on average 30 minutes and she doesn’t find it that much of a hassle. She doesn’t want to move to St. John’s Wood, but believes “it would probably make getting to school easier since it’s much closer to where I live.”

Chisaka also feels like she still gets to experience the things students do while living in St. John’s Wood, “I don’t feel that left out, I just think it would be easier to live closer to my friends,” she said.

However, similar to Likola and Benjamin-McDonald, Chisaka said, “It’s kinda nice because there’s no way I’ll see someone from ASL when I’m walking in town.”

Benjamin-McDonald explained

that Hackney is in the process of becoming a gentrified neighborhood, like many others in London. “There are still areas where there are council estates and betting shops where the demographic is mainly black people, however there is an increasing amount of white people moving into the area,” she said.

Benjamin-McDonald believes that students who live in St. John’s Wood aren’t exposed to what other Londoners are. “I travel across London and I have lived here my whole life so I am exposed to the diversity and have a very different perspective about the demographic composition of London than most students,” Benjamin-McDonald said.

Echoing Benjamin-McDonald, Likola believes the neighborhood is sectioned off from its surrounding areas. “I hear a lot that St. John’s Wood is a like a small bubble, and I do agree that it’s different from other places,” she said. “The people you find there represent that.”

“My friends they never ask to come to my house, so I always make the long journey,” Benjamin-Mcdonald said. “There aren’t any bad intentions, it’s just interesting to think about how their choices come across.”

Understanding the WCII grading system

At the start of the year, World Civilizations ll teachers moved from assessing work from letter grades to a master rubric. Students and teachers analyze the change.

T

Izzy Harris | Staff Writer

his year, World Civilizations II teachHowever, Ezra* (’20) thinks that ers are using a different grading sys- there wasn’t a problem with the origitem. Instead of a letter grade, work nal grading scale. “It was like any is graded based on other class,” he said. a mastery rubric He thinks the WCII where students reteachers should have ceive a Lacking, Apexplained the reaproaching, Meeting sons for the change or Exceeding mark, of grading systems rather than a letto the students. ter grade for their However, Social work. Teachers have Studies Teacher Sana made all classwork Shafqat having all summative, each aswork be summative is sessment acting as a better than the origidata point leading The semester one criteria for nal one as it doesn’t up to a final grade achieving an A in the course. penalize students in the class. At the for one bad grade. end of each semester these data points Shafqat sees it as an opportunity for are counted and a discussion between students to really understand what they the student and teacher takes place to are being graded on. “My students are figure out what grade best represents understanding what work is required of their work. them, and what they can do to learn that Social Studies Teacher Christin Put- skill to show that they are able to get the nam believes grading with a mastery grade,” she said. rubric is fairer, as it shows everything as However, Oriana Natsis (’21) bethat same data point, which allows for lieves that the outlier system doesn’t outliers to be explained and not counted work as well as it was intended to, “I can toward a student’s final grade. see how the system can be good if you’re

16 Features

Estee Jorgensen | Staff Writer

consistently doing well and then have a bad grade but getting up to that point is very difficult,” she said.

Natsis also dislikes the rubric change that happened in the second semester. She has found it challenging to see her growth as the expectations for each grade have become harder, “my grade looks like I haven’t improved at all when in fact I really have improved,” She said. Natsis thinks the grading system would be better if the rubrics did not become more challenging halfway through the year.

“[The new system] really pushed me to think ‘OK, I’m approaching here and I need to bring that up” Nico Schmidt (’21) Furthermore, Ezra believes that if the rubrics were made more quantitative, it would leave less room for bias when grading. “The more qualitative the rubric is, the more room there is for bias

and for teachers to give different grades this grading system has been great, as for the same paper,” he said. it has, “enriched a conversation about Putnam feels that this system, when the learning for a lot of parents with used with good communication, allows their children.” for the student to understand what they Echoing Shafqat, Nico Schmidt (’21) need to improve on in the future. “Both believes the change has allowed him to the student and I can be really clear on be accountable for his own grades. “It what [I’m assessing them on] because [the new system] really pushed me to it’s right there stated in think ‘OK, I’m the rubric,” she said. This approaching allows teachers to explain here and I need the reasoning behind to bring that up, the grade to the student. so I’m going to ”What I like about gradprepare a page ing with rubrics is that it of text referencgives consistent feedback es so I can get to the students.” that to Meets’,” Moreover, Shafqat Schmidt said. believes this system enaHe believes this bles students to take has forced him responsibility for earn- The semester two criteria for to analyze the ing a grade they think achieving an A in the course. rubic even more, that they deserve. “From my own view, “[The new system] really causes you to it’s not like ‘Ms. Shafqat is not giving me look at the rubric and see ‘OK this is this grade’, it’s more like ‘I still haven’t what they want. This is what I missed’.” figured out how to write a topic sentence, or a thesis that is just one sentence * Editors note: names have been that is comprehensive’,” she said. changed to protect the identity of Shafqat thinks the feedback from certain students

The Standard

CULTURE

Pivoting through the decades

Though its final episode aired in 2004, “Friends” has grown even more popular with its addition to Netflix in 2015. Former writer of the show, Andrew Reich, comments on how “Friends” developed over time and its impact on our society.

Emily Forgash | Culture Editor: Print

F

or Andrew Reich, who was a writer of the TV show “Friends” for seven years, one of the most memorable moments was filming in 1997 at the end of season four. “We had come up with the idea that Monica and Chandler would sleep together at the wedding, and we really were thinking that would just be a three or four episode arc that we would do in[to] the beginning of the fifth season,” Reich said.

However, the fans in London ended up changing the course of Monica and Chandler’s relationship for the rest of the show. “When we had that reveal when they pulled the covers back and we showed that Monica and Chandler were in bed together, it was the most deafening audience reaction that we had ever heard, then or since,” Reich said. “I just remember the writers, all of us looking at each other and just being like, ‘this is bigger than we thought, this is more than a four-episode arc.’”

The last episode of “Friends” was aired 15 years ago. Regardless of its age, according to The Vulture, Netflix paid $80 million to keep the show on the streaming website throughout 2019.

“Friends” has proved itself timeless, as Netflix executives make such decisions based on what subscribers watch.

Olivia Campili (’19) said that she likes “Friends” because it’s “really funny. For some reason I always feel very comfortable watching it, I like watching it before I go to bed or when I’m bored because I feel like I know the characters really well.”

In addition, Reich believes there are two main reasons for “Friends” still being an integral part of the television world today. First, the inclusive dynamics between different genders in the friend group in terms of discussion topics and second, changes in the way we spend time with our friends.

Prior to “Friends,” Reich believes that there were stereotypes about what men discussed amongst themselves and what women would talk about.

“If there was anything sort of revolutionary about [“Friends”] at the time, it was that I think we were used to, in movies and sitcoms, seeing guys sort

of locker room talk about sex among themselves, and maybe women would in their way, but it was separate, divided by gender,” he said.

In Reich’s eyes, these stereotypes began to deteriorate around the time that “Friends” was released. “For me, as a Gen X young person, that was changing. We all talked about all of these things together on equal footing, and “Friends” was really reflecting that,” he said. “I think that that was a great thing for female and for male viewers to see, that men and women could have these very frank and open friendships.”

However, Olivia Campili (’19) thinks that if this show were created now, it would not be widely accepted, especially by women. “A big thing about “Friends” is that because it was created so long ago, it’s a lot less politically correct,” she said. “A lot of what the boys say is really sexist. I think if that kind of dynamic happened now, girls would not be OK with what the guys were saying.”

On the other hand, Malakai Spencer (’21) is an enthusiastic “Friends” fan, and recently finished the show for the first time. Spencer agrees with Reich, and adds that he likes how the plot “shifts between friends and enemies, and dating and not dating.”

Similarly, Campili believes that the gender dynamics within the show make it appealing to students.

“I think it has relevance at ASL ... in the aspect that people, especially in my grade, don’t really interact boy and girl as much as we would all like to or should,” she said.

In addition, Reich sees “Friends” as an illusion that really drew people in. “It was a fantasy of having a group of friends that physically hung out together as much as they did, and had this place in Central Perk and they could just show up and their friends would be there,” he said. “When we were making it, that was an exaggeration of how anyone was actually living, but the appealing fantasy was ‘oh, I’ll just show up, my friends will be here, they’ll have fun things going on that we can talk about.’”

Reich believes “Friends” has become more attractive as the world has progressed. “I think that fantasy has only grown much more appealing in today’s world where people are hanging out in real life so much less and so much of friendships and experiences are virtual,” he said. “This idea of these friendships that are unmediated by phones and technology, everyone craves it, everyone just wants that so badly.”

To Spencer, the feel of the show is what is so appealing to a high school audience 15 years later. “It has an old feel to it, a little bit of a retro vibe that people like,” he said.

Math Teacher Peggy Stetsko relates to the style at the time, as it was something many of her friends tried to mimic when the show first aired in 1994. “When I was in high school, we would go out of our way to try and dress like Rachel, and so many girls I knew tried to get their hair cut like Rachel’s hair,” she wrote in an email.

Stetsko credits where she lived during high school for her love of the show. She lived in Lima, Ohio.

“The other reason I liked it is because I lived in a small town and it was following the lives of people living in a big city, [which] seemed so different than my world,” she wrote.

Although the show attracts a wide audience and holds a special place in many people’s hearts, one misinterpretation Reich often sees with TV shows and movies is how the public perceives the importance of writers versus actors.

Reich acknowledges that arranging an interview with him is much easier than interviewing Jennifer Aniston, which is why he is a passionate advocate for drawing attention to the people behind the scenes of famous television shows.

“I’m a big proponent of people understanding the importance of the people you don’t see who were there. Obviously, without that cast it wouldn’t be what it was, but you had this team of writers ... killing themselves to make that show as good as it was,” he said. “It’s a blank page until we start working.”

From left to right the writers of Friends: Andrew Reich, Robert Carlock, Ted Cohen, and Dana Klein.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Reich

Andrew Reich and Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel Green Photo courtesy of Andrew Reich

Monica and Chandler’s relationship reveal in season four, episode 24. Andrew Reich said that this scene prompted the loudest audience reaction he’s ever heard.

Photo from YouTube channel peggin169

May/June 2019

Culture 17

Maintaining connections with music For these three faculty members, different mediums of music have been present throughout their lives, shaping parts of their professional and personal outlook.

John Towfighi | Editor-in-Chief

“IT REALLY CHANGED FROM AN ACTIVITY TO A PRIMARY CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH FRIENDSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS WERE CREATED.” PRINCIPAL DEVAN GANESHANANTHAN

S

ometime ago, an old brown upright piano was being carried to Waverley to be taken out with the trash. It had lost its use in the music department, yet wouldn’t end up reaching its planned place in the junkyard. Seeing the men moving it out, Admin Software Project Manager Danny Dawson offered to buy it. Dawson is a jazz pianist, and one of many adults in the school that are musically involved. Dawson walked away with the piano for £50. It was a

perfect replacement for the keyboard he’d been using.

When not practicing on the upright or working in the Tech Department, Dawson plays in a jazz quartet and regularly attends jams and workshops around London. He explained that in recent years, he’s taken the hobby in particular stride. “I’m really much more into [it] nowadays than I was sometime ago, I’ve gotten much more determined to try and develop and improve,” he

said. “And maybe become a bit more disciplined in putting in some time trying to do it.”

Like Dawson, High School Principal Devan Ganeshananthan is also a faculty jazz musician and has played tenor saxophone since he was in high school, picking the woodwind instrument after playing the piano from a young age. For Ganeshananthan, his saxophone playing progressed most notably in his years after high school, developing into a pas-

18 Culture

Photo from Danny Dawson

Admin Software Project Manager Danny Dawson playing piano during a concert in London

sion that branched into his social life.

“It really changed and evolved from my high school time, going from an activity that I was engaged with to a primary channel through which friendships and relationships were created,” he said.

Echoing Ganeshananthan, College Counselor Nicole Thompson has found that her passion for singing has been a means of connection building throughout her life. “It’s a social thing, but also a creative outlet,” she said.

This social side of music became particularly important during Thompson’s time at Georgetown University.

Joining an all-female a capella group, Thompson found it enhanced her university experience as she sang with women who “became as close to a sorority” as could be.

Singing in the a capella group ‘let me connect to my college community, because that is definitely how I became known,” she said. “I sang to the public and so it connected me to the college in ways I wouldn’t have been otherwise ... [The people in the group were] really great friends. Women that I’m still in touch with today.”

Ganeshanathan also recalled his time in university as enabling him to take his love for saxophone to another level. “I played lead tenor saxophone in the Brown University Big Band jazz ensemble,” he said. “It was an awesome, unbelievable place to explore, learn and be supported as a young musician and I’m tremendously fortunate to have had that experience.”

Playing regularly with other London jazz musicians, Dawson has also felt the power of music in forging his connections with others. “I’ve made a lot of new friends and there’s quite a little community in the places I go,” he said. “You tend to see the same people in different places.”

Apart from a social outlet, musicianship has also offered guidance for Ganeshanathan in a practical sense. In his current role at the school, Ganeshananthan has seen links between his time as a musician and his job, and expressed the way in which the values of musical collaboration are applicable to the work space. “All of the work that I’ve done professionally in education has always been in a team […] I’m never thinking about things by myself, so in many ways it’s like playing music in a group,” he said. “Leading a music group has many direct and applicable analogs to leading a professional team: making sure everyone feels valued, feels included, making sure to take people’s pulse about how things are going.”

Similar to Ganeshananthan, Dawson thinks that music has offered him support and guidance in his life, recalling an experience when he turned to music following a period of unrest in his personal life. “When life was changing and my social life was changing, somehow I felt the need to get out more and re-engage with other people, and music became very much a part of doing that,” he said. “Going out to workshops, going out to jams, it kind of gave you a way of connecting socially, and also reconnecting with your creative side.”

Dawson likens this ability to always connect with music as a result of it “always being there.”

Thompson agrees, feeling that music has been something constant throughout her life. “[My parents] like to tell the story about how I got up and volunteered at a friend’s wedding when I was five to sing ‘Tomorrow’ from Annie,” she said.

Nowadays, Thompson performs at different social events, whether that is Late Café at school or at friends’ weddings like she did when she was younger.

The Standard

Photo from Devan Ganeshanthan

Principal Devan Ganeshananthan playing tenor saxophone in a trio at Brown University in 1996 .

May/June 2019

I first moved to New York, I did play across as musicians. There was this that he actually prefers it now that it Thompson is no different in her jam sessions at Small’s Nightclub, small woman, who was probably 4’9 is a hobby. “When I do it now I play admiration for the casual joy it brings. from 12 until five in the morning,” or 4’10 and had a small appearance, because I enjoy it. Occasionally I do a Whether through formal or informal he said. “I held my own and it was yet she was [an] international classi- gig and earn a bit of money, but that’s activities, music is something that fantastic for me to do that. It was a cal caliber alto saxophonist and bari- not really why I do it,” he said. “Do- grows with her. “I’m still thinking huge stage proverbially speaking and tone saxophonist,” he said. “It was ing it just for the sheer enjoyment of about it and wanting to find ways to do it was tremendous reflecting on that.” eye-opening.” doing it is better than doing it for a it … it’s something that I can’t imagine Thompson has also had particuThese kind of unexpected experienc- living, but on the other hand, if you’re not doing at all, I might go months or larly memorable moments in her life es have been just as constant as music good at it, go for it, but, I would say even years without performing in front as a singer, recalling a performance itself for Dawson. Having pursued that that part of it that’s been a rev- of people, but it’s something that never she did of Deniece Williams’ “Let’s a career in music earlier in his life, elation for me, that I actually enjoy quite goes away,” she said. “It’s probHear It For the Boys.” “I’m not sure even having a contract with Warner music more now than when I took it ably the one thing that I feel that sort why I chose it because her range is Brothers at one point, Dawson feels more seriously.” of bone deep passion about.” not my range, she has a ridiculous range, and there’s this part in the song where she goes falsetto and it’s crazy high,” she said. “Even as I was approaching that point and I thought I’m going to crash and burn, but somehow ...

I hit that note, and I [still] don’t know how to this day, but afterwards I was just kind of blown away.”

While performing has offered moments of joy for the three, Ganeshananthan also noted that some of the most meaningful experiences came from listening.

At an audition for the Brown University Big Band, he remembered thinking about how music offered a way for people to be judged solely on their work, and not on their appearance or personalCollege Counselor Nicole Thompson (second from left) singing in her college a capalla group, the ity. “You really have Georgetown Gracenotes, in 1993. no basis on which to evaluate people except how they’re coming Photo from Niole Thompson

The nature of music being consistent throughout families is present not only in Thompson’s anecdote, but in Dawson’s life as well. Dawson actually originally purchased the Steinway piano for his daughters to use, yet admitted jokingly that he “ended up spending the most time playing around with it.”

This sentiment of parental-child connection formed through music is also felt by Ganeshananthan, who is now involved more with music through his children. “My relationship with music in general has changed, now just seeing it through the lens of my daughters,” he said. “When we moved here […] I had my saxophone, and we have a keyboard, and my daughters are both learning to play. We were very interested to see if my daughters would have a musical ear, ear for language, ear for art, it’s all usually kind of related, and they both are very musical.”

Dawson’s father is a pianist himself, and Dawson echoes the children’s perspective of Ganeshananthan’s notion in looking up to parents for musical inspiration. “You see your dad playing, and [a] part of you wants to emulate that to a certain extent,” he said.

In regards to building his own identity as a musician, becoming proficient in group playing, particularly jam sessions, has been a focal point for Dawson. Jam sessions are a rite of passage for jazz musicians, where a song is thrown out moments before playing and musicians are expected to sight read and solo over potentially unknown chord changes. “I started getting up and going out to jams, and just about managing to survive the experience,” he said. “My goal was: could I go to a jam and hold my own?

So it’s nice being able to do that.”

Similarly, Ganeshananthan felt the same experience during his time living in New York after college. “When

Culture 19

Marvel comics create captivating universe The Marvel Cinematic Universe released its first movie in 2008. Those who have been following the story discuss the Universe and how it has since progressed.

Zainab Adil | Features Editor: Print

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“ t just opened my eyes, like a whole other universe. It was so nice,” Harrison Cutler (’22) reminisces over his time watching movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (M.C.U), a collection of superhero movies and television shows created

by Marvel Studios.

The M.C.U. franchise began in 2008, with the arrival of the movie Iron Man, which featured one of Marvel Comics’ superheroes, Tony Stark, a genius and billionaire who created an iron suit to protect people.

The franchise’s movies are grouped together in ‘phases’, and Iron Man marked the beginning of ‘phase one.’

The rest of phase one includes The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and to tie them all together, Marvel’s The Avengers (2012).

However, the list doesn’t stop there. The M.C.U. franchise has grown to have a total of 22 films and three phases, with its movies including comic book characters such as Doctor Strange, Black Panther and its newest arrival, Captain Marvel.

Each new movie is connected to the previous ones, creating a universe of unique superheroes that each have their own story.

For Cutler, the experience of watching the universe unfold is one of the main reasons he watches M.C.U. movies. “[The M.C.U. movies] built a story every time, so I wanted to keep on knowing what happened after,” he said.

Similarly, David Hastings (’22) believes that the continuation of the universe is the backbone of the movies’ “interesting stories.” “They’re all interconnected. There are a lot of references in other movies to some of the other movies in the past in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And those add to the story ... It’s just fun to see that build up over the years,” he said.

However, the idea of the interconnected universe of movies isn’t the only reason that students enjoy watching films from the M.C.U. Suzanna Semerjian (’22) watches the movies for their “outrageousness.”

She enjoys the way the events are depicted as if they are occuring in real life. Because of this, the movies act as a getaway for Semerjian. “It’s sort of a way to escape the real world once in a while,” she said.

Semerjian believes that watching the M.C.U. movies has also broadened the horizons of her own imagination, as she thinks the movies depict superheroes in a non-traditional way. “A lot of the superheroes in the M.C.U., they aren’t your typical flying, cape wearing, superhero,” she said. “I think it’s cool that any type of person can be a superhero.”

Interestingly, Science Teacher Bill Kenney watches Marvel movies because his daughter, Eilís Kenney (’22), enjoys them. Though Kenney doesn’t consider himself a fan, he still describes the movies as “good escapism ... like watching a comic book.”

“The M.C.U. movies built a story every time, so I wanted to keep on knowing what happened after. ” Harrison Cutler (’22)

Kenney’s favorite M.C.U. movie is Guardians of the Galaxy. He particularly likes Peter Quill, a man who was taken to space when he was a child.

Having not visited Earth since his abduction, Quill is often seen dancing to music on his Walkman. Kenney relates to this as he said, “1970s man, it’s like me in high school.” However, despite enjoying them, for him, they’re just “mildly diverting amusement” and hold no deeper meaning.

Due to the vast number of M.C.U. films, fans have been able to

witness changes in the movies over the years. As some students explained their fascination of watching the creation of a universe unfold throughout the making of the movies, Evan Van Jaarsveld (’21) has observed the M.C.U.’s inclusion of themes that relate to social justice. Van Jaarsveld explains that he believes the reason for the M.C.U.’s shift toward including social justice themes is because “society as a whole has been going that way, and the M.C.U. has been tailored to reflect that.”

Van Jaarsveld, who self-identifies as always having been “fairly liberal” feels that the change is a positive one, and that he enjoys watching Marvel incorporate these themes into the movies.

The newest movie, Avengers: Endgame, was released on April 25, and broke box office records by making a total of $1.2 billion in global ticket sales in its opening run. It has now become the fastest movie to reach the $1 billion mark, as it did so in a matter of five days. Though Endgame doesn’t mark the end of the M.C.U.’s three phase “Infinity Saga,” its release was highly anticipated by students at ASL. Kenney enjoyed Endgame, but admits that it was “very formulaic.”

Though many were moved by the film, Kenney was not. “Was I emotional? No. Did it have any deeper meaning that has changed the way I view my life and cosmos? No,” he said.

However, Kenney did like the characters in the movie, particularly Captain Marvel. “I like her because she’s very impervious ... and she’s strong.”

Unlike Kenney, Cutler enjoyed the movie, and eagerly anticipates the next film. “I’m actually eager to see what’s going to happen now, I mean that was such an incredible movie,” he said.

Hastings, who has already watched Endgame three times, holds similar views. He enjoyed the movie, and is excited to see the upcoming M.C.U. movie, Spiderman: Far From Home.

“It’s going to be exciting,” he said.

“IT’S A WAY TO ESCAPE THE REAL WORLD ONCE IN A WHILE.” Photos from Marvel.com

20 Culture

SUZANNA SEMERJIAN (’22) The Standard

Daisy Jones teaches lessons through Rock ‘n’ Roll Taylor Jenkin Reid encapsulates numerous life lessons in her riveting and realistic book that is as raw as rock ‘n’ roll itself.

Emily Forgash | Culture Editor: Print

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fter the first 40 pages of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and The Six, I impatiently reached for my phone to look up the infatuating band that the book follows. My disappointment was poignant when I figured out that the book is fictional.

However, after reading the book and contemplating its quality, I feel confident that it is one of the most realistic books ever written thanks to Reid’s ability to articulate emotions through character development.

The dozen or so main characters come alive on the pages, each enticing and impossible not to care about. Daisy Jones, singer and protagonist of the novel, is a firecracker. She displays independence and undeniable musical talent. She stands up for herself and does everything on her own accord. She is the embodiment of rock ‘n’ roll.

The Six is a band of talented individuals led by Billy Dunne, a natural born leader, incredible father and drug addict. His wife, Camilla, is an enigma, although all the characters could be characterized as such. She always gets what she wants, is usually right and can be credited to fixing Billy once his life in the band threatened to break him.

When Daisy Jones collaborates with The Six, the speed of the book changes and the success of the band is addicting to read about. The characters’ emotions become even more heightened. Love complications tie together with hostility and pride to form a tension that can be felt throughout the book. Daisy Jones and Billy are both fireballs of passion, and together they set the book ablaze.

After years of rising in fame and selling out stadiums, the band falls apart. The book explores their jour-

“

Daisy Jones and Billy are both fireballs of passion, and together they set the book ablaze. ney, which was full of sex, drugs, music, money and fame, in an attempt to discover why its end came so abruptly. As the jacket of the book cover will tell you, one thing that all of the characters would never deny is that the addition of Daisy Jones to the band changed its course forever.

Music redefined

As music evolves through technology, genre definitions have become more fluid.

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Imogen Weiss | Media Director

t its fundamental level, Performing Arts Department Head Gordon Graham believes “[music] is just sound and how you harness and tame it is part of the universe.”

However, Graham has noticed a shift in both the creative and business aspects of the music industry, which is in turn redefining music. “In the ’60s or the ’70s, if you were a vocalist or played an instrument you were unlikely to be heavily involved in music production.

Now, someone with even a moderate understanding of technology can produce something that sounds really, really good,” he said.

Graham believes that the evolution in technology has made making music more accessible, and in turn created a ‘fusion’ between genres which is partly responsible for redefining the landscape of music. “Someone can take a riff that was sung by a soul singer in the 1960s and they can then add it to something that sounds more Bollywood, and then rap on top of that,” he said.

May/June 2019

Dylan Moran (’21) also believes that technology has played an integral role in redefining the music industry as “being able to connect with more people has allowed for genres to be redefined.”

As a result, “genres collide.”

Moran noted that the typical expectations of what makes a song fit a certain genre, and even genres themselves are being questioned. “There’s not as much of a barrier between genres as there was,” he said.

Moran cites Lil Nas X’s song “Old Town Road” and Charlie Puth’s album Notes as two examples of artists breaking down the barriers between music. “[Charlie Puth’s] album was heavily inspired by ’70s funk and soul, but it was still pop music,” he said.

Moran has also noticed that now more artists are not adhering to any genre, but instead trying to create a completely unique sound. “Due to the cost in production going down, it’s a lot more individual than it has been in the past. With less restrictive boundaries, people are free to create more,” he said.

This incredibly relatable yet unbelievable story bleeds rock and roll, and goes into intense detail about one of the more famous time periods in American history: the ’70s. Reid captured the rawness and emotiveness that comes with this time period with grace and skill. In addition, the way it’s told adds a plethora of layers to the story.

The front cover of my copy of the book reads: “Everyone was there. Everyone remembers it differently.” To address this, Reid chooses to jump between characters; each excerpt from the characters can be a few words to multiple paragraphs long before switching to the point of view of another person to highlight the multiple perspectives of the band’s journey. Also, the book is written through an interview: the characters are virtually testifying to their lives in the band. This writing style tells the story in an interesting, unique and eloquent way.

Not only that, but this writing style also demonstrates that one cannot understand the whole story until you hear it from everyone. This is demonstrated when the characters completely contradict each other with their versions of the story, which

displays that people tend to choose what they remember and what they don’t. For example, one might be talking about how they don’t believe they ever did cocaine on tour, which is artfully contradicted when Reid switches to another character claiming that they saw the cocaine everywhere.

This style of writing allows the reader to better understand why the characters did what they did, what they were thinking and how their actions ended up being perceived by others around them.

A drug addiction might seem obvious to someone else, but might not have been so obvious to the addict at the time. In this way, Daisy Jones and The Six masterfully teaches lesson after lesson about human nature, what we would do for love and how emotions can best be expressed through music.

Toward the culmination of the book, Billy explains the power of music as an art form, and how Daisy was able to write down uncapturable feelings in

her songs. “She had written something that felt like I could have written it, except I knew I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that. Which is what we all want from art, isn’t it? When someone pins down something that feels like it lives inside us? Takes a piece of your heart and shows it to you?” Billy said.

In my eyes, that is exactly what Reid has done with her book: used rock and roll in America as a medium of showing us the parts of us we know exist but haven’t been Photo from Amazon UK able to think about.

It is because of this unique method of storytelling that I strongly believe that even the most avid rock and roll hater would still love this book. On the surface, the book is electric in the readers’ hands, just as rock and roll makes speakers buzz.

However, on a deeper level, Daisy Jones and The Six has the ability to teach people what they do not understand about their own humanity.

Moran also added that artists like Billie Eilish are creating their own styles of music as opposed to conforming to traditional genres. “[She’s] definitely hit on something which nobody else has done and because of that she’s created her own particular lane,” he said. “Her music does not conform [to] a genre.”

Although Talia De Beer (’20) agrees with Moran and Graham that the landscape of music is being redefined, she worries a potential outcome of blurring the lines of genres is cultural appropriation, especially in rap. “I don’t know now with the merging of genres how an artist defines what’s appropriating another’s culture and merging genres,” she said.

“It’s a fine line.”

Graham believes that if artists delve into different genres “in a sincere way and it’s not belittling or making fun of a particular culture,” then it is OK. “Inevitably artists will always steal because they think [a style] is cool or there’s a little idea there that gives them a spark,” he said. “Generally my experience is that the mixture of musical ideas has been done with mostly respect.”

De Beer also remarked how even though music is being redefined, it is harder for more established artists to change their sounds. “With [artists] like Taylor Swift, no matter how many edgy albums she puts out, people still will always associate her as a pop-y country singer,” she said.

Performing Arts Teacher Carolyn Stock-Chapin thinks that the accessibility of music thanks to technology has created a saturated market. “When I was in middle school and high school, there was one popular strand

date with the trends and pop culture.”

Even though she listens to the current most popular music, De Beer enjoys “branching off and looking at different artists and genres. It can [become] boring listening to the same artists and songs that sound pretty similar over and over again,” she said.

As a result of the increasing accessibility and variety of music, Graham argues that the industry has become more competitive, leading to an emphasis on building an artist’s brand to stand out. “The industry has become very image-driven as it sells to a particular type of audience,” he said.

De Beer adds that with the rise of social media platforms such as Instagram, there is more of an importance on the artist’s aesthetic. “If you look up to a certain singer, you might follow their Instagram, but people often present themselves a certain way on social media that isn’t completely accurate,” she said.

Graham believes that “you connect with music because it just makes you feel something. It has a human quality.

Music that feels very superficial, elevator music, will always be there, but it won’t last.”

However, Graham wonders in an ever-changing and increasingly brandfocused industry, “what will still be on someone’s playlist in 2025 from 2019?

What’s here today and gone tomorrow, and what’s here to stay?”

of artists that were at the top of their genre and everyone listened to them. Now, that’s not the case,” she said. “You could ask one class of high school students what their playlists consist of and the songs can differ so massively because there is so much more to listen to.”

While De Beer believes there is more variety with music now, she also thinks that “people are still, at least from my generation, listening to more or less the same artists just to keep up to

Culture 21

Sports

Balancing sports with school As more students participate in athletics, there is a growing concern surrounding how sports commitments affects athletes’ abilities to strive in classes.

Didi Akintemi | Staff Writer

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our days a week, a bus ride to Paddington Recreation for a two-hour practice session and back, is the commitment that varsity tennis player Jake Fellows (’21) and many other varsity athletes make through the course of the year.

Varsity and JV athletes put in hours of practice and game time during the season, all leading up to the most anticipated tournament of the competitive season, The International Schools Sports Tournament (ISST). ISSTs are tournaments arranged by an organization that services a number of international students across Europe in competitive athletic championships for the 23 schools involved.

do homework after coming home from practice and the ISST tournament and as a result felt like she was behind. She expressed that she “had no time to do homework, and neither did any of my teammates, then we’d end up being set back,” she said.

Cascarino understands the importance of staying on top of homework while away, though believes it is often difficult to do so.

Furthermore, the vigorously competitive game schedule of tournaments such as ISSTs ultimately affects many athletes’ sleep schedules. Cascarino explained how she would feel

Alex Demetris (’22) was shocked by the increase of commitment, now playing varsity baseball in comparison to the JV team during Grade 8, which was only a three-day commitment during the regular season. He found the four-day-a-week practice schedule manageable but challenging as returning late from practices later took a toll on his academics. “The sleepless nights are the sacrifice I made for the sport,” he said.

Varsity players understand the degree of commitment they make when joining a team, and how essential practices and game time can

and always gives them suggestions on how stay on top of workload at the start of a new season. “I give the same advice every teacher does, do homework on the day it’s actually assigned, it’s a very smart and obvious piece of advice,” she said. “Having been a student …

I understand that it is a slippery slope, especially when you’re adding extracurriculars such as athletics.” Nuchereno enjoys being apart of the team and doing something outside of the classroom, though admits the long game days can be especially tiring, and straining on even her own workload.

“I HAD NO TIME TO DO HOMEWORK, AND NEITHER DID ANY OF MY TEAMMATES, THEN WE’D END UP BEING SET BACK.” KIRA CASCARINO (’20) ISSTs usually take place over the course of three days, with days differing depending on the sport and where it’s hosted.

It’s been a common theme that returning athletes have find it hard to stay on top of work while participating in ISSTs, feeling behind once they returned to school.

For example, varsity soccer player Kira Cascarino (’20) finds it difficult to make time to

22 Sports

completely drained by the end of the day sometimes having to wake up early in the morning to complete homework, thus limiting her time to sleep.

Fellows agrees with Cascarino. “I don’t think I got over eight hours of sleep during that season,” Fellows said. Regardless, “even though everyone complains and stresses over how much homework they have, they continue to play the sport,” he said.

be to building that team. Players are also informed about game and practice times before the start of each athletic season.

However, they are expected to stay on top of their academics and teachers are often quite understandable in helping athletes catch up to speed.

JV Tennis Coach and World Languages and Culture Teacher Whitney Nuchereno, is aware of how much her athletes have on their plates

Varsity baseball coach and Social Studies teacher Terry Gladis, heavily advocates studentteacher communication, believing that those who budget their time efficiently can excel in both academics and athletics. “As a teacher who is a coach and absolutely loves athletics, the bottom line is that athletics should take a back seat to academic work, and that is up to the student to make those tough decisions,” he said.

The Standard

ASL’s newest recruits

Three students from the class of 2019, who have been recruited for collegiate level sports, describe their recruitment processes and plans for the future.

Tucker Moran

Lily Whitman | Sports Editor: Print

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PHOTO FROM @ASLCREWTEAM ON INSTAGRAM

Tucker Moran (’19) rowing at the National Schools Regatta in May 2018. The boys quad consisting of Nick Mannhardt (’18), Nick Kuenstler (’18), Jack Wilkin (’20) and Moran, came second in their final for the boys’ junior 18 category.

ucker Moran (’19) Tucker Moran (’19) will be a member of the Syracuse University rowing team for the 2019-20 school year. The Syracuse rowing team is a Division I program that competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

Moran started rowing during the spring season of his sophomore year and started his recruitment process when he was in February. “I contacted about 15 coaches in early February, because I felt like then I had just done some good tests on the erg,” he said. “It was a pretty long process, and I ended up waiting until April 30 to make my decision … I ended up getting recruited by four programs, and I [committed to] Syracuse.”

To prepare for the upcoming seasons, Moran will row through the summer. “Right now I am going to continue to row with ASL, and then this summer I’m going to row in a quad, and the Henley Regatta in the fall, the Challenge Cup.” Recently, Moran raced in the National Schools Regatta, a race consisting of over 5,000 competitors from 158 clubs. During the week-

end of May 25, Moran competed in a time trial race, placing 26th.

Moran is ready to train with his new teammates and coaches with a new rowing style. “I’m rowing in an eight. It will be a completely new learning curve for me, a completely new experience, but one I’m excited to be part of,” he said.

Looking forward, Moran is excited to keep rowing and being part of a team. “[My goal] is just to do my best to put Syracuse in the top six in the country. That’s been their goal for a little while. My individual goal is to bring myself up as an oarsman, but ultimately, I want to be somebody who puts the program on another level.”

Going into next year, Moran is looking forward to getting on rowing on the team. “There’s about 45 kids on the team, so I’m gonna have to do a little bit of work to make myself noticed and put myself in a good position,” he said. “I’m excited to have a new start and meet a whole bunch of new people who are just as interested as me in the same sport.”

Ally Larson

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lly Larson (’19) will be a member of the Northwestern University swimming team going into the 2019-20 school year. The Northwestern swim team is a Division I program that competes in the Big 10 Conference.

Larson started her recruitment process in the beginning of her junior year. “I talked to some coaches online, using Skype and email. Then, during spring break of junior year, I did the normal college tours, and in the fall, really early in senior year, I took official visits out to a few schools,” she said. “In late September, I committed.”

During the summer, Larson has a program set up with her club team, Camden Swiss Cottage Swimming Club. “I’m swimming at Nationals in late July, and then I am going back to the U.S. in August, to hang out with friends and get ready for college,” she said.

Larson will continue training nine times a week throughout the summer. “I train four

mornings and then Monday through Friday [in the] evenings,” she said.

For the upcoming season, Larson is excited about her new training regiment and to improve her form. “I’m hoping to get a lot better, because I’ve never really used weights before, and it is a lot more intensive land work there,” she said.

In terms of campus life, Larson is looking forward to resources and meeting students at Northwestern. “I’m really looking forward to having a new group of people that I can get to know right away on campus, and having so many resources.

[Northwestern] has a lot more than what we have on the club team here. It will be really nice to have all the facilities ,” she said.

Overall, Larson is excited to be on a new team with new members, and wants to be able to compete. “Hopefully, I can compete at NCAA’s and contribute to the team.”

Aidan Norris

TUCKER FOR A ROWING PICTURE OF HIM PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLY LARSON

Ally Larson (’19) swimming in a race for Camden Swiss Cottage Swimming Club.

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PHOTO BY MADDY WHITMAN

Aidan Norris (’19) runs during the 1500 meter race at ISSTs on May 27. Norris placed first in both the 1500 meter race, 3000 meter race and 800 meter race.

May/June 2019

I HAVE REACHED OUT TO

idan Norris (’19) will be a member of the Boston University cross country team in the 2019-20 school year. The Boston University team is a Division I program that competes in the Patriot League.

Norris started his recruitment process after competing successfully in ISSTs during his High School running career. Norris has consistently finished as one of the top competitors for cross country and track and field ISSTs. Norris has been one of ASL’s fastest runners since he joined the Cross Country and Track and Field Teams in middle school.

In terms of the future, is attempting to join a strong Boston University team composed of 18 runners, and Head Coach Paul Spangler, with Assistant coaches Connor Oropeza and Rosa Moriello. Taking into account the change

in running facilities, competing in the Boston University program will be quite different for Norris. As the ASL facilities and program consist of cross country and track and field athletes running to and from Paddington Recreation Center, and stretching back at ASL. At Boston University, the facilities are quite different to that at ASL, with the teams practicing at the Boston University Track and Tennis Center.

Looking into the future, Norris has to adapt to a differing practice schedule than at ASL, and more rigorous training sessions.

In terms of adjustment, the training schedule will be similar for Norris. Going into a cross country season with Boston University, Norris will be training during the same time frame, from the end of August to early November, when the NCAA championships occur.

Sports 23

Sports

Spring ISST success V

arsity softball, varsity baseball, the JV and the varsity track and field team, and varsity tennis all won gold at ISSTs; and varsity golf placed sixth.

Track and field ended their season on a high at ISSTs, winning gold overall with the JV and varsity girls teams placing first, varsity boys team placing third and JV boys placing sixth. In addition, an ISST record was broken in the JV girls 3,000–meter race by Maddy Whitman (’22).

The team won 25 medals over the two day competition.

For more ISSTs coverage, visit eaglesclaw.asl.org and @thestandardasl on Twitter and Instagram

“

Our coaches were very encouraging and showed us that we had the power and the skill to take home the win.

“

JV track and field athlete Maddie Wilkin (’22)

Jay Heyman (’21) jumps over a hurdle during the 100–meter hurdle race at ISSTs on May 27. Heyman placed seventh in the 100–meter hurdles finals; boys varsity track and field finished third and the track and field team placed first overall.

24 Sports

Photo by Maddy Whitman

The Standard