Issue VI

Standard

the

June 2014 | Volume XXXIX, Issue VI

PHOTO BY MAYA JOTWANI

FACING DISCIPLINE

Senior Editor Gabriel Ruimy explores the successes, shortcomings and changes of the school’s disciplinary process The American School in London | One Waverley Place | London NW8 0NP U.K. | standard.asl.org

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William Vahey

Teachers leaving

THE STANDARD | June 2014

Robotics

CollegeBoard changes SAT CHARLOTTE YOUNG News Editor

being more centered on what is learned in the classroom, the scoring of the test will be changed as well. Currently, the SAT exam scores out of 2400, while the new test will return to the previous 1600 scale.

The CollegeBoard is now including extensive online SAT tutoring through Khan Academy, which is available to all students with the hope that it will create more equal test scores among all economic classes. More changes have also been listed on collegeboard.org, including making the essay portion of the test optional, and students will not lose points as a penalty on the test portion of the SAT if they choose the wrong answer.

Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Roberto d’Erizans believes that Khan Academy “has always been about addressing inequity because they provide a lot of lessons online that anyone can access for free,” he said.

However, while d’Erizans is hopeful that this will bridge the gap in test scores, he does see SAT preparation as being “a business in itself.”

When an ASL student makes the decision to apply to an American university, it comes with the requirements of standardized and subject test scores for most schools. The CollegeBoard announced on March 5 that the current SAT exam will be changed in Spring 2016 to better reflect what students are learning in school, the news was met with both positive and negative feedback.

Director of Academic Advising and College Counseling Patty Strohm sees the changes being made, while in her opinion not necessarily extensive, as a constructive decision. “It is my hope that if it is more closely aligned with the high school curriculum that the test will not require students to lead parallel lives. I’m very discouraged by the amount of time, effort, and dedication, that students take to master the [current SAT] test,” she said.

Along with the new model of the test

News Briefs Save the iMfolozi

Ecology students who visited South Africa over Spring Beak are asking all people to sign an online petition to save the first proclaimed wilderness area in Africa, the iMfolozi Wilderness Area.

The area, which was first named a wilderness area in 1958, is currently at risk of having a coal mine being created by Ibutho Coal, 40 meters away from the area’s border. Currently, it supports the densest population of rhinoceroses in the world. Sign the petition at: http:// tinyurl.com/kg2p59l

Summer checkout

For students who are interested in reading over the summer but would prefer not to spend money buying books, it is possible to check out titles from the library. Stop by now to stock up on summer books, starting June 2, book checkouts begin in the Mellon Library and continue through June 11, the final day of school.

Walking Tree program

For students who are still unsure of their summer plans, there is still time to apply to the Walking Tree program’s trip to Peru. The trip spans from June 29 to July 29 and is known as a Service Adventure, which combines community service with the chance to interact with a different area in the world. Part of the trip is spent in small villages living with local families where students will be working on service projects and travelling around Peru. For more information, go to walkingtree.org.

Westminster library

For students who have free time this summer and are interested in volunteering, local Westminster libraries are looking for people to work to help run the Summer Reading Challenge for children. The program encourages children to read six books this summer. There are no prerequisite’s necessary. Volunteer at your local Westminster library.

Because the SAT has not been updated recently, d’Erizans sees the CollegeBoard’s announcement as being valuable because school curriculum is constantly being revised. “I’m very hopeful, I think that change is good. If they’re going to be truly responsive to current research then fantastic,” he said. d’Erizans also sees the new SAT model as being beneficial for students if it’s more aligned with what they are learning in school. “If students can really understand better what is asked of them in data assessment then I’m all for it,” he said.

Emma Kollek (’15), who took the SAT this year, has experience with taking newly-changed standardized tests for the first time. This is due to the adjustments made to the AP Chemistry test this year.

“I think it’s always hard [for any standardized test] when they change things, just because [for] the people who take it the first year, it’s a bit unexpected for them,” she said.

While the ACT is based on material students learn in their classrooms, which

the SAT will be moving toward, Kollek still believes it’s beneficial for students to be able to choose between the two tests.

“I think it’s always nice to have a choice because then you can tailor it to what you’re good at and what you want to do,” she said.

Strohm hopes that with the SAT changes students will, “Go into it [the test] with more confidence,” she said.

“I’m in favor of anything that will pull students back to classroom learning and keep distractions at a minimum.”

ILLUSTRATION

BY CAROLINE TISDALE

Teacher photo in gallery CHARLOTTE YOUNG News Editor On May 20, HS/MS Visual Arts Teacher Jennifer Thomas got the chance of a lifetime when one of her photographs was picked out of “thousands” to be featured in a photography show. The gallery, which specializes in digital art and photography, included 75 black and white photographs in the show taken by finalists from around the world.

Thomas was in attendance at the show, titled “Shadow Stories: The Art of Mobile Black and White,” and was held at the Soho Arthouse in New York City.

Thomas originally took the featured photo in Venice, Italy during the Art Biennial last year.

She explained that when the photograph was originally taken, “The city was cloaked in a thick fog, making the whole abandoned dockyard area very atmospheric.” Because of this, she titled the piece, ‘Ephemera’ to reflect the fleeting nature of the mist that was rolling over the city of Venice.

Two days before the show in New York

Thomas’ photograph was featured in an art show in New York City.

PHOTO BY JENNIFER THOMAS City, Thomas’s photography was also featured on a multi media blog, the App Whisperer. On the website, Thomas was able to feature 21 of her photographs and discuss her approach to images and the visual world. All of Thomas’s photos on the website were taken with her phone. Through this, she used different applications on her phone to edit them.

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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News

Teachers moving on from ASL LEV COHEN Staff Writer

ANKIT MEHRA Online Editor 1. Greg Gerken English Teacher Greg Gerken will be leaving ASL at the end of this year, having spent five years working in the athletics and English departments, while also teaching Outdoor Leadership and being a grade level dean. Gerken will be moving to Claremont, California, where he will teach humanities and English at The Webb Schools.

“It was time for a new adventure,” he said. While he will miss living in London and the relationships he has forged at ASL, he is excited to move.

2. Michelle Gerken Social Studies Department Head Michelle Gerken will be moving to Claremont, California at the end of the academic year after teaching classes such as World Civilizations and AP United States History in her five years at ASL. She will be teaching history and humanities, which includes philosophy, at The Webb Schools. On her time at ASL, Gerken said her highlight was “accompanying [her students] on global partnership trips to South Africa and the Dominican Republic.”

3. Judy Kisor Social Studies Teacher Judy Kisor has been at ASL for 21 years, serving roles as both a World Civilizations teacher and an AP Art

History teacher. She will continue teaching at the Chadwick School outside Los Angeles, where she will be teaching Global Studies, World Religions, and U.S. History. “ASL has been a great place for me to grow and learn as a teacher,” Kisor said.

4. Meg Bailey Social Studies Teacher and Grade 11 Dean Meg Bailey has been at ASL for 26 years. She has also taught Human Geography, an 11th and 12th grade elective. Bailey will also be teaching at the Chadwick School.

5. Howie Powers Social Studies Teacher Howie Powers is leaving ASL after spending one year teaching social studies. Powers will be returning to teach at Princeton Day School in New Jersey after taking a year off.

When asked about what he will miss the most, Powers said “I will miss my students, colleagues in the social studies department, and living in London the most after my year in London.”

6. Geoff Richman Learning Specialist Geoff Richman has been at ASL for the past two years, having served in the SLD department. Richman will be moving from London to Atlanta to “administer a program at an independent school.” Richman will miss the “hard working and fun” students that he has worked with during his tenure at ASL. 7. Hilary McReynolds Computer Science and Math

Teacher Hilary McReynolds has been teaching at ASL for two years.

She also teaches in the math department as a teacher for Geometry with Proofs.

8. Ann Wade Learning Specialist Ann Wade has been teaching at ASL for the past 11 years. Wade also worked at ASL in the mid-90’s, acting as SLD Department Head. Wade plans to retire from teaching and move to Florida. She will miss her students as well as her “wonderful” colleagues.

9. Ouma Alemadi World Languages and Cultures Teacher Ouma Alemadi has been teaching Arabic at ASL for the past year. She will be staying in London for at least the coming year. “My contract with ASL was for one academic year, so I am leaving as it is not a decision,” she said. Alemadi said that she has enjoyed getting to know the students and staff.

10. Tamatha Bibbo K-12 Service Learning Director Tamatha Bibbo has been at ASL for the past three years. Bibbo has connected with students, building relationships among adults and students and helping ASL connect to its local community. She will be moving to Massachusetts, where she will be a Middle School principal. Bibbo said that she will miss the excitement for learning and the dedicated faculty and staff at ASL. 11. Peter Watson PE Teacher Peter Watson has been at ASL for seven years, teach-

ing both middle school and high school physical education. Watson will be moving to Shanghai, where he will teach physical education and act as assistant athletic and activities coordinator. Watson says that the worst part of leaving ASL is “leaving [the] teams that I’ve been coaching.”

12. Andrea Siaflas Social Studies Teacher Andrea Siaflas has taught classes ranging from World Civilizations to U.S. History during her time at ASL. She will be living and teaching in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

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PHOTOS 1, 2, 5, 6 BY YARRA ELMASRY; PHOTOS 3, 4, 9 BY ALEX LIEDERMAN; PHOTOS 7, 8, 11, 12 COURTESY OF THE SOJOURNER.

Robotics team reaches new heights MARIA TAVIERNE Staff Writer

As Jonathan Udow (’14) walked into the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, he was shocked by the sheer number of people that were there. This was the first time that ASL’s team (also including members from Quntin Kynaston) had made it to The FIRST Robotics Competition and seeing the amount of people was intimidating since many of them were well-known in the robotics world and would be competing against him.

From April 23-26, the robotics team competed in the na-

tional championships along with 399 other teams. This competition was split into four divisions, with 100 teams per division. Each of the divisions were named after a scientist: (Marie) Curie, Galileo (Galilei), Archimedes, and (Isaac) Newton. The ASL robotics team was placed into the Curie division.

The road towards championships for the robotics team began in New York City on April 4-6 at regionals. At regionals, there were 66 teams competing and ASL left victorious. This then allowed them to compete at championships.

Overall, championships was

a positive experience according to Udow. While it was their first year to compete there, they were able to place in the top half of their division. They were also the fourth ranked defensive robot out of the 100 in their division.

The team has six weeks to build their robot. During this time, the team had many trials and errors, including their robot breaking multiple times.

Team Captain Isaac Semaya (’14) describes the building of the robot as a “race against the clock.”

Everyone is given the same prompt for building their robot

but, Roxy Sammons (’17) said, “it is interesting to see how all of the robots are all so different.”

Although seeing one’s robot perform and compete against other robots is an achievement in itself. The greatest feature of the robotics team is how close everyone is, Sammons said. “It is like a mini family. You get really close to everyone on the team and the mentors,” she said.

Udow likes the robotics team because “[he works] as one part of a team to tackle countless problems and [they] come together to collectively produce a machine capable of playing a

sport.”

The team has grown in numbers since last year. This has helped them to be able to build more designs and to determine which one works best, Udow, said. “Individual team members were also a lot more skilled this year because they learned from previous years.”

Since there is no grade coming from how well the team does, all of the motivation comes from themselves. “We just really want to show the world our achievements and what we are capable of, despite the fact that we are high school students,” Semaya said.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

News

Southbank teacher accused of molestation Lead Features Editor Zack Longboy and News Editor Charlotte Young report on alleged crimes committed by William Vahey

When Kaia Skillman (’16) attended Southbank International School, she didn’t think much about the rumors she heard of incidents involving her male classmates on school trips. “I remember hearing jokes of kids waking [up] - then it all seemed normal - but kids waking up and being like, ‘It’s so weird that my underwear is on backwards,’” she said.

Now, in the wake of her former history teacher William Vahey’s suicide after allegations of child molesting, Skillman must revisit and piece together events that seemed unimportant to her at the time.

Vahey, who taught at Southbank from 2009-2013, was one of Skillman’s “favorite teachers” in what is a very small and tight-knit community. While mixed in gender, the school was personal due to a small class size, creating a net of safety and comfort for its students. This perception of safety was shattered for many, including Skillman, when the reasons for Vahey’s death and the FBI investigation against him were brought to light.

Vahey reportedly admitted to molesting over 90 12 to 14-year-old boys whom he taught at various international schools, dating from 2008 to 2012. The news of the allegations against Vahey shocked both the current students and alumni of the Southbank community. “I thought my brother was joking when he [told me] what happened especially because Vahey was such a beloved teacher,” Skillman said.

What is most perplexing about Vahey’s story was that in 1969 he was jailed for child molestation in California. Moving multiple times internationally, Vahey’s jail record was not communicated. He was soon able to re-enter the workforce, teaching at several prestigious international schools.

Vahey’s access to students ended when a housekeeper in his home in Nicaragua found a USB drive, which she gave to the administration of the American Nicaraguan School (ANS), where he was teaching, on March 11. The USB, which contained pornographic images of boys sleeping, had captions of the date and location where the photos were taken.

When Vahey was asked about the USB drive by ANS administration on March 11, he admitted to molesting the boys as well as to drugging them with sleeping pills so he could molest them. Eight days later, he committed suicide in Minnesota after learning of an FBI investigation into his actions.

Because Vahey drugged students with sleeping pills before molesting them, the unknown is what is most troubling for Southbank students. Counselor Stephanie Oliver has previous experience dealing with cases of sexual assault. Through practice, Oliver has come to find that sexual assault and the age when it occurs are inextricably intertwined. “There are signs when children are very young that you can

pick up on that indicate sexual abuse, but at this age- level people are verbal and insightful,” she said. “Usually we find out about sexual abuse at this age level because people said that [sexual abuse] happened to them,” Oliver said.

The sleeping pills given to the victims

by Vahey take away the process that normal sexual abuse victims go through, as described by Oliver. Usually, affected students can reveal to a trusted person that they have been taken advantage of.

Instead, victims are being told they have been molested. “I think what’s really scary about the drugs is that there are people wondering more if it happened to them, there’s this uncertainty,” Oliver said.

While some students were shocked after Vahey’s years of sexual abuse were uncovered, the joke between Maria-Jose Nebreda (’15) and her friends at Southbank was that their history teacher, Vahey, was a little “creepy.” “Everyone used to make jokes about him being creepy,” Nebreda said. “He was a really nice and a fun teacher, but no one ever stopped saying he was creepy.”

Doing the math, Nebreda realized that, her teacher had most likely assaulted many male members of her class. “Southbank is a really small school and to find out that he had around 90 pictures [total of students found on his USB]… that’s about 80 percent of the male population.”

With a school as small as Southbank,

which has just over 300 students, there is cause for worry that a serial child molester like Vahey was able to slip under the radar. However, in a 2010 assessment of Southbank by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, action points for the school to comply to, with regulatory requirements included, “An enhanced criminal record check is made by the proprietor in respect of any person employed at the school and that any enhanced criminal record certificate which is the subject of the application is obtained before or as soon as practicable after the appointment.”

The report also noted that, “Some staff recruitment procedures were not followed fully.”

Andrew Skow (’17), who attended Southbank from 2008 to 2010, believes that 100 percent of the blame should be placed on the school, citing what he sees as an improper background check on Vahey. “From my experience there, I personally didn’t think that, as a school, it was necessarily up to the educational standards which it should be. Especially when compared to other schools I’ve been to, such as ACS Hillingdon and ASL, the differences are astronomical,” Skow said. “If I were to expect one of the three schools [where this would have happened] it would definitely be Southbank.”

While Nebreda believes it is not Southbank’s fault that Vahey was able to commit these acts while teaching at the school,

“Unfortunately, the people who do these vile acts are often very good at disguising who they are”

“I personally didn’t think think that, as a school, it was necessarily up to the educational standards”

“There are signs when children are very young that you can pick up on that indicate sexual abuse”

“He was a really nice and fun teacher, but no one ever stopped saying he was creepy”

Coreen Hester, Head of School

Andrew Skow (’17)

Stephanie Oliver, Counselor

Maria-Jose Nebreda (’15)

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

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News

she does believe that the school is, “Not regulated at all. Anything could have happened at that school,” she said. “It could have been really obvious and they still wouldn’t have done anything about it.

They really don’t have any sense of structure in general.”

Before information as to why he died was uncovered, Vahey was so well-liked that a potential “Vahey Award” was dis-

whom she felt safe with, could have violated so many students. “He was such a charismatic, nice guy, so it’s hard because you think back and try to remember him as that guy, but then you have to realize there’s this other side of him,” she said.

Head of School Coreen Hester recognizes that people like Vahey are able to isolate a side of themselves and lead a completely normal life, with separate in-

ASL students. “You have to do your best to make sure you’re guarding the safety of every student in the school,” Hester said.

“This just represents a nightmarish violation of the expectation the parents have and a horrific realization that a school might have hired someone who could do this to children.”

In a report sent out to ASL parents following the incident, Hester affirmed that

PHOTO FROM WWW. FBI.GOV Vahey (above) reportedly admitted to molesting students at Southbank International School from 2009-2013, smongst others. so many instances where ASL would have stepped in and said something. For example, the teacher made someone sleep in the same room as him. There had been a parent who complained and then they didn’t

HE ADMITTED TO MOLESTING THE BOYS AS WELL AS TO DRUGGING THEM WITH SLEEPING PILLS SO HE COULD MOLEST THEM cussed; it would celebrate students of the highest academic calibre at Southbank.

“It’s kind of strange because the person that I met as a teacher seems completely different from this man who is the predator,” Skillman said. “He seems like the biggest predator of this century.”

Similarly, when Ariel Calver (’16), a former student of Vahey’s found out that he had been molesting Southbank boys, she felt “physically sick” with shock.

Because of the positive character that Vahey exuded in the classroom, Calver found it difficult to accept that a teacher,

tentions unknown to others. “Unfortunately, the people who do these vile acts are often very good at disguising who they are. My understanding is that they can also compartmentalize so they can have one identity and one role and behave differently in another role,” she said.

Hester found out about Vahey’s death through the Chairman of the Board of European Council of International Schools (ECIS), an organization that Vahey’s wife was the Executive Director of.

For Hester, Vahey’s case strikes home as she is responsible for the safety of all

ASL was doing all that it possibly could to prevent a similar situation. This includes “continually reviewing our policies and practice to ensure that we are doing everything we can to secure the welfare of our students” by “promot[ing] a culture of vigilance.”

Additionally, Hester cited a 2013 Ofsted report which praised ASL for its “very effective systems [that] are in place to ensure the suitability of staff.”

Some students, including Nebreda, believe a situation of this magnitude could never happen at ASL. “There [have] been

do anything about it,” Nebreda said. “ASL would never let this happen.”

However, in 2005 ASL dismissed a Lower School teacher after what Hester describes as “a very serious case of this kind of behavior which resulted in the teacher being fired, convicted, and serving a jail sentence.”

In response to Nebreda, Hester added, “A bad thing can happen in any school, you hope against hope that it never happens under your watch,” furthering the case that these situations are often impossible to predict.

Vahey’s teaching career: 1972-1973 Tehran American School (Iran)

1975-1976 American School in Madrid (Spain)

1973-1975 ACS Beirut (Lebanon)

1978-1980 ACS Athens (Greece)

1976-1978 Pasargad School (Iran)

1992-2002 Jakarta International School (Indonesia)

1980-1992 Saudia Armaco Schools (Saudi Arabia)

2009-2013 Southbank International School (London)

2002-2009 Escuela Campo Alegre (Venezuela)

2013-2014 American Nicaraguan School (Nicaragua)

Opinions •••

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Homeless

Welcome

THE STANDARD | June 2014

Censorship

Standard

the

IAN SCOVILLE Editor-in-Chief JAMES MALIN Issues Editor GABRIEL RUIMY Senior Editor CHARLOTTE YOUNG News Editor ZACK ASHLEY Opinions Editor ZACK LONGBOY Lead Features Editor TYLER SKOW Features Editor MAYA JOTWANI Culture Editor NADIA SAWIRIS Culture Editor NOAH ABRAMS Sports Editor SEBASTIAN MAYR Sports Editor YARRA ELMASRY Photo Editor ANKIT MEHRA Online Editor STAFF WRITERS Lev Cohen, Claudia Costa, Lorenzo Maglione, Max Roth, Varun Sarup, Maria Tavierne, Allie Zirinis CARTOONISTS Isabelle Preddy, Peter Ryan, Mickey Schulkes, Caroline Tisdale SHANNON MILLER Adviser

ILLUSTRATION BY MICKEY SCHULKES

Voices falling on deaf ears

There is a sense of exhilaration anyone will experience when they receive a position of power. However, there is as potent a crash when it is realized that this position of responsibility is merely a facade, another superficial accolade to add on to the schools outstanding resumé. We, speaking both as a paper and on the behalf of the student body, are jolted by the realization that much of we do is not of importance to the administration. Any call to action is a call to the deaf: We are seldom given the opportunity to realize our visions.

An email recently sent out by Principal Jack Phillips praised The Standard for being awarded a silver crown by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and for its role within the ASL community. In the email, Phillips used the word “voice” to describe The Standard’s role within our high school. Yet, when scouring for instances in which The Standard, or any other student group for that matter, has had its voice heard, scarcely any come to mind.

We have seen limited administrative response to any of our five editorials published this past year. If the administration genuinely believes The Standard is the High School community’s voice, why is that voice so naïvely, or perhaps autocratically, silenced? We have put forth ideas in consolidating our community – denied –, we have asked for a more level academic field at ASL – dismissed –, we made a clarion call to reconfigure our core values – has it even been given a proper obituary? In fact, the administration directly contradicted what we articulated in our March/April issue editorial: We logically and tangibly suggested a reconfiguration of the core values and yet, with no word or response from the administration regarding the editorial, the high school was shown a video in which students incessantly articulated their respect and love of the core values. The New Frontiers campaign video wasn’t necessarily a message to The Standard, but it certainly showed no regard to what had been written.

Additionally, the Student Council has blamed the majority of their faults on internal problems, such as dedication and work ethics of their constituent members; but this surely

cannot be the sole reason for their lack of productivity this year. It is no Newtonian claim to say that with more leeway or power from the administration, the Student Council would altogether have more impact on the high school. Spirit rallies and weenie roasts are a good step forward in community building, and so is the recent initiative spearheaded by Principal Jack Phillips and the Student Council – but this is not enough and must be built upon.

Almost alone in a category we shall label “Important Student Contributions” is the role students played in deciding new members of the faculty, which is one to praise; it is a risk to include student perspective in a decision that holds so much gravitas, yet the students demonstrated the maturity and intelligence to take on such a responsibility. But rather than cutting our stay short, so to say, let this exemplary illustration of student capability have a long-lived legacy rather than be a one-hit-wonder.

The administration has a consequential decision to make in the upcoming weeks, months, and years, in deciding whether their power will remain concentrated in the hands of a few administrators or whether it will trickle down to the students.

Along with this, the Student Council, Student Faculty Disciplinary Board, The Standard, and clubs, must unite to push for increased awareness and responsibility from the administration. Unless student groups are united together, the necessary progress will be impossible to achieve.

As the administration tries to create its own utopian community, it often oversteps itself. When this happens, and student voice is silenced, the administration denies the students the responsibility and power provided and promised in their organizations and positions. From this, the development of abilities of paramount importance to a student’s growth, in acting independently and thinking critically, are almost throttled. When the school silences this voice it can lead to a perilous path which would lead the school’s graduates hopelessly unprepared for life after ASL.

MISSION STATEMENT The Standard staff and adviser are dedicated to creating an open forum that strives to promote 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.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send submissions to the journalism lab, room O-329, 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 for length and AP/Standard style. All letters must be signed in order to be considered for publication.

EDITORIALS Articles published without a byline and presented in the same location issue-to-issue represent the majority opinion of the editorial board. They are unsigned.

COLUMNS Articles with a byline and a photo of the author in the Opinions section of the newspaper are opinions articles. They represent the view of the writer only, and not necessarily the staff of the newspaper or any other individual or group in the community.

ENGAGEMENT WITH READERSHIP The Standard encourages all readers to submit their thoughts through letters to the editor, guest columns, online comments, and story ideas. Contact the appropriate section editor(s) for submissions.

ONLINE VIEWING The Standard can be viewed online at standard.asl.org.

Printed by Mortons Print Limited, 01507 523456 Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheStandardASL Follow us on Twitter: @TheStandardASL Follow us on Instagram: @TheStandardASL

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Opinions

Reintroducing The Standard IAN SCOVILLE

ian_scoville@asl.org

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The new staff endeavors to build upon the work done this year, but more so than that, recognizes the huge successes of the previous editorial board.

I find it surprising, me, sitting at my desk writing this piece. Not because of where I am or why I am writing this piece, but because of how impossible it was for me just to write this lede. And that is, perhaps, because I am so incredibly excited to be the one writing this letter and to share what the 2014-2015 staff of The Standard has in store.

Since about the age of six, I’ve been reading The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker. My journalistic reading repertoire has expanded considerably since then, to say the least. Reading cutting-edge, objective journalism is something much of my life has been centered around, and it is that same passion for delivering the truth in the best manner that The Standard will continue to bring to you. We are serious when we say that we are striving to produce articles that will challenge the very best articles written in any publication.

Over the past year, The Standard has become known both within the school community and in the international high school journalistic community as a newspaper that is able to provide its readers

Progress Report PROM

SYNAGOGUE

FIRE DRILL

LIBRARY COUCHES

with challenging articles in a beautiful format. The Standard will continue with its hard-hitting journalism, as this issue should show, in every article. Every section, from News to Sports, is providing content that will not just inform you, but challenge your ideas and cause you to rethink them.

As always, the staff seeks submissions from the entire community: We are only a forum if members of the community submit content to the paper (submissions can be sent to The Standard email, the_standard@asl.org or to Opinions Editor Zack Ashley at zack_ashley@asl.org – submissions are not limited to the Opinions section, though).

We are working on truly groundbreaking content for our website (standard.asl. org); this is content that has the potential to revolutionize The Standard’s journalism. We hope to make The Standard’s website a place not just to get scores during ISSTs, but to read articles that we would otherwise be unable to show you in print.

The Standard is in an incredibly exciting place right now. The introduction of two new positions, the Issues Editor and the Senior Editor, represent a progression

and maturity of the staff not seen in many years. The selected staff are all talented, young, and passionate: A recipe for success.

The new staff endeavors to build upon the work done this year, and in addition recognizes the huge successes of the previous editorial board. We look forward to continuing in our growth of the past year.

We are approaching next year with a new zeal, one that is excited to prove to you all our ethics and excite you with our publication.

What’s most important to the 13 editors in O-329 is that we are able to provide a voice to the voiceless. As journalists, we take pride in the huge amount of responsibility granted to us by you, our reader. An example of the phrase that has come up in our editorial board meetings every day this week: “Students need and deserve to know this.” The articles we write are all about ensuring that you are all able to make informed decisions and stand up for yourselves. We are fighting for every student, every member of the community, for each word we write, each photo we publish, and each page we design.

PHOTOS 1, 5, AND 6 BY YARRA ELMASRY; PHOTO 2 FROM FLICKR/THEGLOBALPANORAMA; PHOTO 3 BY MAYA JOTWANI; PHOTO 4 BY LAURA JONSSON.

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Library Couches: (F) A terrible atrocity has been The new staff of The 1. No committed: The chairs in the library have been moved. 4.

How dare they? You broke my heart, Steve.

Standard give ASL its James Malin 5.

Eurovision: (A+) What’s better than listening to Grafinal year assessment 2. ham Norton for three hours making fun of embarrassing Danish hosts, oddly-dressed European television presenters and mediocre music? Probably a lot, but one night a year it’s the best thing in the world. Ian Scoville

School Hallways: (D) A hallway is for walking, 3. High not sitting. When I’m trying to make my way to class, 6. the last thing I want to do is tip-toe around the people barricading the hallway. Tyler Skow

Prom Season: (A-) Every year my heart flutters at the sight of promposals and dress decisions. T-1 Year till Char joins the game. Charlotte Young The AP Synagogue: (B-) At first you enter the spacious halls with those big desks that let you immerse yourself in those good morning APs, but then you feel a chill down your back. Yes, that’s the 50ºF air conditioning automatically turning on, and it’s not turning off anytime soon. Gabriel Ruimy 3:03 p.m. Fire Drills: (D-) Please make me miss a class instead of going home late. K thanks xo. Nadia Sawiris Post Scriptum: Ski trip = Community

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Opinions

Make athletics mandatory

ZACK ASHLEY

zack_ashley@asl.org

“

Being on a team, apart from helping one improve physically, teaches discipline and creates a bond that can’t be replicated via any other means.

The Grid Ian Scoville (’15)

Emmanuelle Gers (’16)

Alex Campili (’15)

Zack Ashley (’15)

Athletics are a big part of ASL’s culture and there is no changing that, nor is there anything wrong with it. The school’s athletic teams teach teamwork, discipline, and good fitness; that is why joining an athletic team should be mandatory.

I understand there will be a lot of critics to this request, but before the current nonathletes protest, let me explain myself.

As a freshman I joined the rugby team, having had zero experience playing rugby beforehand. Needless to say, I was awful.

But I had coaches who cared about me and helped me improve. I had people on the team, my age and older, who were invested in my progress along with the progress of the entire team.

A huge benefit to this would also be the fact that this would simply make ASL’s athletic program more competitive, not that we as a school are particularly poor athletically, but we don’t exactly bring home gold from every ISST. The implementation of this requirement will take away the need for High School Physical Education classes. The department would still exist at the Middle School and Lower School level, which is the majority of the departments classes anyway. Students would instead get their

enforced, and more effective, fitness and athletic requirements from being part of a team, while courses like Personal Fitness and Sports Leadership could still be available for students who want that credit. The removal of Physical Education classes also gives students more time to do work during school hours as they would have one less requirement to fulfill, and could replace that period with a free period.

Additionally, many students already play a sport, but many teachers don’t seem to realize that. This change would mean that teachers, knowing all students have practice requirements, would have to keep this in mind when giving out assignments.

Teachers would have to base the amount of work given to students knowing their practice and game schedules for sports, instead of assuming that all students have from 3:05 P.M after school to complete their work.

Of course, if everyone at the school was part of a team, coaches would have to make exceptions to less committed athletes who feel that they couldn’t attend practice before the day of a big test or project.

Agreements would also have to be made to allow time for other extracurriculars.

Also, this requirement would not be for the

whole year, it would be for one of the three athletic seasons.

However, the most important benefit that this reform would put forward is providing every student with the experience of being part of a team.

Being part of the rugby team taught me discipline and respect as well as creating a bond and brotherhood with everyone I stepped onto the field with in my three years of playing, which was completely unique. The team was there for me when no one else was, and I could resort to being one of them when I felt like nothing else was going for me.

I have had a similarly fantastic experience being part of the lacrosse team and know of countless others who have the same great experiences on teams like soccer, cross country, crew, and basketball.

Being on a team, apart from helping one improve physically, teaches discipline and creates a bond that cannot be replicated via any other means. Only people who have been part of a team can understand the depth of this experience and form of learning, which is the main reason I believe a semester, each year, of athletic participation should be mandatory for each and every high school student at ASL.

The administration recently released information regarding changes to next year’s Alternatives. These changes include making it mandatory for seniors to attend the trips as well as making all of the Alternatives overnight and outside of London. Four students provide their opinion on these new reforms.

I completely understand why the changes to Alternatives are being made, in fact, I agree with forcing Seniors to go on Alternatives, but the administration seems to have forgotten a key part of Alternatives: Experiential education. Alternatives are about building excellent relationships with your peers over new and interesting experiences.

In this respect, the abandonment of London-

based Alternatives is a shocking oversight by the administration. In my high school career, I’ve been on an Alternative in Shropshire for Creative Writing, and an Alternative in London (Ye Olde English Sports). In Shropshire, I was sharing a room with someone and spending most of the day with other people, and in London I was able to have a similar ex-

perience. Instead of working in creative writing seminars, though, I was riding the tube and playing sports with my peers. I understand how out-of-London trips are expected to build more “community,” but I have to admit, I see that logic as significantly flawed – I benefitted from “community” on both Alternatives , just in different environments.

Compared to last year, I think in many ways it is better to have the trips be outside of London. Last year I participated in the Tuscan Cooking Alternative in London. While I found that Alternative to be very fun, my friends, who had Alternatives in Italy, were doing culinary related activities and so by comparison, I felt left

out of a potential greater experience that I could have had. For the purpose of inclusivity and building stronger friendships, I think this new reform will be a good thing.

However, I know that around the time of Alternatives, many seniors will be filling out college applications and writing their

essays. So, Alternatives for them might feel like a wasted opportunity to be doing something more beneficial in terms of preparing for college. I think that the alternative that allowed seniors to go college touring could be a good solution to satisfy the new reform and the benefits of the seniors.

I don’t believe that Alternatives encompass the building of community aspect. I have on ly been on one formal Alternative, and while I found the concept of the trip interesting, overall group bonding was minimal and students generally didn’t seem devoted to the experience. During my freshman year I opted to go on a service trip. The difference between the

service trips, and Alternatives is that those who go on the service trips really want to be there; they’ve gone through an application process. The students on those trips share common goals regarding what they want to experience and take away from their travels. The same does not apply to the lottery-based. I believe there is an overnatives, the three days away from home shouldn’t really affect the application process too much. Although people like to act too cool for Alternatives I’ve actually had a fantastic time on both the Alternative trips I’ve been on. These trips are a great way to build community and having them in the

arching sentiment expressed amongst the high school student population that Alternatives are impractical and of little value.

Furthermore, since our school is so concerned about fitting in extra school time, does it not seem wasteful and hypocritical to devote an exorbitant amount of our schooling to these trips? first few weeks of school will only help that. I also really believe that the only way to gain a global perspective is via first hand experiences. In taking us to new countries to meet new people, it will cause the Alternative trips to encompass this ideal form of learning.

While many Senior’s first reaction to these new reforms may have been one of anger, I actually believe that these reforms are for the better. The new timing, now in the first few weeks of school, of the dates allows for seniors to still go college touring over October Break while, as they will not be assigned any work over Alter-

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Page 9

Opinions A closed minded educational system Culture Editor Nadia Sawiris questions the global perspective aspect of our mission statement as displayed in our education

A mission statement is defined as a formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual.

ASL’s mission statement is to “develop the intellect and character of each student by providing an outstanding American education with a global perspective.” Every word in a mission statement must earn its place: The “global perspective” described promises an international viewpoint, yet, is severely lacking both in practice and in theory within our community.

When thinking about opportunities or instances in which I felt exposed to such an environment, I was surprisingly

school should offer AP World History as a class, making it more accessible to a larger amount of students. Global students aren’t produced without compulsory exposure to global history; so why is there no effort being made at remediating this issue?

Global history isn’t the only thing lacking in our social education: Current events are something of a rarity in class discussions. The Social Studies curriculum encompasses every fact from Ancient Mesopotamia to Obama’s 2008 election; the last six years of global history and significant change, though, are weakly rep-

posed to information that is crucial for us to be conscious of. From the effects of the one-child policy in China, to the recent kidnapping of young females in Nigeria, this information is necessary in order for a person to be nationally and internationally aware, as we are currently living in an increasingly global world. However, a few weeks in tenth grade is practically nothing compared to four years of high school, each marked with overt global unawareness.

The solution is as evident as the fault: The Social Studies department should make a more proactive effort to incorpo-

students. The Middle East night - driven by mostly Middle Eastern students - continuously attempts to educate the student-body about the actions taking place in the region such as putting in place an Israeli-Palestinian debate. However, if it weren’t for clubs who create annual events portraying traditions and various cultural aspects, there would be barely any international presence within the High School community. This is why I encourage students to participate in active clubs – whether it be Right to Play or the South Asia Club – to bring a global perspective to this school; one that I believe is still

ILLUSTRATION BY PETER RYAN disappointed with the outcome; in fact, I was able to come up with more ways ASL didn’t offer a global perspective than ways it did.

As a prerequisite for graduation, every student must take United States History this course is typically taken by juniors.

This year, over 45 students chose to take on the challenging course load of AP United States History, most juniors and a senior took regular US history. This, in no way, is where the issue lies; in fact, this accomplishes the American education component of the mission statement.

The unsettling news, though, is that this trend wasn’t matched when addressing global history: Only one student took AP World History, a subject that is not offered as a part of the curriculum, but instead as an independent study. The

resented – seemingly taken as secondary, even though they might possibly be more important for students to be aware of. I am in complete agreement that it is fundamental for one to thoroughly be aware of the world’s history, however what has happened around the world in the last few years is imperative for one to understand as it directly affects what is happening around them.

Apart from my participation in the Model United Nations program, the last few weeks of my sophomore year, in my World Civilizations II class, have been the only time in which I was given the opportunity to partake in discussions about current global affairs. It was a time in which other students and myself were able to discuss pressing and emerging global affairs; a chance to open our minds and be ex-

rate current event news in their lessons.

Not only would students be able to draw insightful parallels between pasts and presents, but also the next time my father asks me where I thought the MH370 flight is, I wouldn’t have to awkwardly ask to go to the bathroom. To dedicate one class to current events every now and then would barely delay the curriculum all the while providing hugely important information to the classes; say every Wednesday that World Civilizations classes convene.

Another way to tackle our lack of globalism at school is by greater student participation and involvement in clubs and extra-scholar organisations. Although the presence of student-led clubs like the Middle-East club and the South Asia Club is pervasive throughout the High School, those clubs are led by small minorities of

sorely lacking.

It is imperative for us to make sure that no one in our community graduates from ASL having been promised an education with a global perspective without having received it. In order to develop and further immerse ourselves into the international community, whether it be remaining aware of current events or having a more racially and culturally diverse community, we must work together and find solutions for this complication. It is crucial for current events to be integrated within the curriculum to eradicate all casual ignorance that can often be seen within our community. Consequently, if we do not attempt to immerse ourselves in foreign affairs and global interest, then we are not prepared to face our future, wherever it may be.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Opinions

Endorsing an unhealthy mentality Issues Editor James Malin discusses recent events regarding censorship of reading material in two of ASL’s English classes

What’s worse: Consensual sex or flagrant racism? What about sex or cold-blooded murder? Simple answer, right? Apparently not.

The distinction between sex and various illegal acts should be a straightforward one, but recent events within the school have deemed it otherwise, much to my chagrin.

The teacher of an enlgish elective for grades 11 and 12 explained that he and the administration came to a joint decision to remove The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

by Milan Kundera from the class’ curriculum. The book was removed due to its explicit nature, particularly its graphic sexual scenes (see page 19).

An English 9 class’ reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg caused a backlash amongst a minority of the students’ parents. Following this reaction, the teacher, along with various members of the administration, revisited the English department’s policy regarding explicit material. Howl, like The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, features graphic sex scenes.

Why is it sex that the parents and the administration alike took offence to and deemed inappropriate for their children to read?

The English 9 curriculum, which includes Howl, also devotes units to To Kill A Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, and The Odyssey.

To Kill A Mockingbird’s plot revolves around an alleged rape; the parents in question had no problem with their children reading about these topics. It also includes racist language, most notably the phrase ‘n*****lover’, again, the parents had no qualms with this.

Onto Romeo and Juliet. The Shakespearean tragedy climaxes in a double suicide after a story ridden with murders. Once more, no concerns were raised about the material.

Need I even explain why The Odyssey may potentially lead to retroactive complaints?

In the Literature of Fact course, the book in question, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, includes a rape scene - a metaphoric reimagining of the Soviet Union’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. This scene is ultimately what led to the book’s censorship.

Themes of rape are neither uncommon nor are they particularly grave when contextualised with material that is usually considered appropriate for juniors and seniors. I myself have not taken the Literature of Fact course, but as a junior, and in my experience, sexual scenes as depicted in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting are relatively tame. This year, I’ve read about two cold blooded murders in Crime and Punishment in Russian Literature, as well as satanic pos-

ILLUSTRATION BY ISABELLE PREDDY session in The Master and Margarita. Both of these texts escaped censorship. I also took Narrative Essay, another english elective, and in this course one of the stand out essays we read, The Fourth State of Matter, details a mass homicide-suicide. Again, this was deemed appropriate for students.

I find the censoring of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and the backlash that followed the reading of Howl abhorrent.

Believe it or not: Sex is a real thing. By removing these pieces from the curriculum and indulging parents’ complaints, the school is merely obstructing students from discussing the matter in a mature learning environment. Not only that, but the school is also perpetuating and conforming to the alltoo-present and unhealthy mentality that sex is an illicit, deviant thing.

We live in a society absolutely laden with sex. It is hard to go 60 seconds these days without seeing some form of sexual reference or allusion. Surely it is incumbent on the school, as our educators, to provide students an open forum to discuss sex, or at least I would hope so. A Harkness discussion would be the perfect opportunity to do so, too.

Sex is, quite literally in ASL’s case, hidden in closets. The expectation for people to have the ability to deal with the matter in a mature manner is unfair given the limited opportunity to discuss sex in a learning environment.

These actions merely undermine the great

work done by High School Teacher Joy Marchese in the Health and Wellness course she teaches. It would be naive to limit sexual education to what is taught in the course though, because, while learning how to practice safe sex is undeniably of immeasurable importance, there is much more to learn about sex than safety.

The phenomena of “slut-shaming” is a contentious topic in the western world today. Slut-shaming is the act of making a person, typically women, feel as if they’ve done wrong for engaging in sexual behavior. This mentality is all too present within society, and the ASL community is not immune to its spread.

I am not advocating widespread censorship of English reading material. In fact, I would support the opposite. What seems to be the current set up -- free reign unless a parent complains -- is clearly erroneous and defunct. I believe that the English Department should either stick to its guns and not censor its material at all, or relinquish its pedagogical prerogative to the parents officially. The administration and the English Department should have stood firm, and stood behind the material, because by pulling the readings, they are endorsing this very problem.

The fact that the circumstances in these two incidents are different is irrelevant. No matter what sparked these decisions, the change has been made - neither The Book of Laughter and Forgetting or Howl are likely to

feature in these courses again.

If you asked any of the parents who complained what they’d rather their children engage in - murder or consensual sex as depicted in Howl - one would pray that the answer is the latter. Why is it then that they take greater offence to Howl than, say, To Kill A Mockingbird? Because, we as a society, are implicitly taught that sex is immoral and wrong. This belief is so commonplace that it subconsciously shapes how people, and in this case the parents, think. To me, this is extremely lamentable; though it would be naive for me, a 17 year old high school student, to attempt to offer the solution to remedy one of society’s greatest ills. While I may not be a well informed societal analyst, I am a high school student and the knock on effect of this mentality is worryingly visible amongst my peers.

If the school is committed to its goal of creating people who will change the world for the better, then more open discussion of sex is necessary. It would take a lot for these habits and subconscious tendencies to be reversed, and one would hope that a school as prestigious as ours would be doing all it could to create characters capable of instigating this change. Allowing sex to be discussed in a productive environment would be a huge step in the right direction, and one that I believe the school needs to take for the betterment of the student body’s character.

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Homeless

Page 11

Opinions

H

On May 16, at ASL’s Middle East Night, Senior Editor Gabriel Ruimy delivered the following speech regarding the concept of home and whether it is applicaple to all in light of his Judaic roots

ome is a strange concept. It was conceived by societies that lived with constants – whatever constants they might be. Perhaps the location of their abode was the notion of home, or perhaps who they shared it with, even maybe whether it was the setting to their most memorable memories. Today, in our contemporary reality, there are not many “homes” that confine to the idea of home.

I am Moroccan by origin, French by birth, English by residence, and Jewish by ethnicity. My parents tell me of their childhood in Morocco. My grandparents tell me of my roots in Spain or Italy, it var-

less of where we believe our identity to root from, we have opened our home to an ideal of coexistence, to an ideal of sharing.

Four years ago I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The pressure was soul-shattering: Decades and generations of religious orthodoxy had been continued in my family, and now, with the shrill voice of a mid-puberty teenager, I had to sing the holy scriptures passed on for millennia in front of family, friends, and absolute strangers. The summer heat stung, and my bowels churned out the symphony of stress, the smiles

are you crying?” I responded, “I have no clue.”

That is the experience that ties me to the Judaic community. With pride, I say I am Jewish, that my religion helps define my home and my identity. But unfortunately, in a misled world like the one we belong in today, mentioning my religious background can sometimes carry consequences – as if a crime committed by Jews long ago, or a crime committed maybe today, is a crime that I am at fault for. To say I am Jewish does not mean I am Israeli, and it does not mean I am Zionist: My

strom of ignorance and baseless hate. Yes, the home of Judaism is in Israel; but Israel isn’t only Judaism’s home. The home of the Palestinians is in Israel; but Israel isn’t only the Palestinians’ home. The home of Christianity is in Israel; but Israel isn’t only the Christians’ home. Today, we have the greatest wisdom any sage can endow us with: hindsight. We have understood the atrocity of slavery; we have seen the destruction of massacres; we have fought against the spread of diseases. Thousands and thousands of efforts have been coordinated in fighting what has plagued hu-

THE MIDDLE EAST, TO BE BLUNT, IS A MAELSTROM OF IGNORANCE AND BASELESS HATE. YES, THE HOME OF JUDAISM IS IN ISRAEL; BUT ISRAEL ISN’T ONLY JUDAISM’S HOME. THE HOME OF THE PALESTINIANS IS IN ISRAEL; BUT ISRAEL ISN’T ONLY THE PALESTINIANS’ HOME. THE HOME OF CHRISTIANITY IS IN ISRAEL; BUT ISRAEL ISN’T ONLY THE CHRISTIANS’ HOME. ies on the day. I, like many people in this room, like many individuals in our modern society, cannot describe my nationality in one grammatically correct sentence.

I, like many people in this room, like many individuals in our modern society, do not have a home.

But, bless modern society, that doesn’t make me a lonely vagabond. No, it allows me to participate in more communities, in more homes than if I had closed myself off to another constituent to my identity.

In fact, this very organization, the Middle East Club, is a testament that this societal dynamic isn’t only present in various cases like myself, but in entire communities.

Everyone here can identify with one community. For some it will be Judaism, for others it will be Islam, some it will be Israel, some it will be Palestine; but regard-

and encouragements from the crowd conveyed a sense of expectation rather than sympathy; failure would haunt me to the end of my days… and past that. I don’t remember how I read, I don’t believe I was present when I read – so I will spare you a falsely-inspiring, fabricated experience.

My memory returned when I looked away from the text and instinctively at my father. We grabbed each other and, forehead to forehead, laughed inexplicably. The audience was silent, they couldn’t partake in our absolute paroxysm, so they didn’t know how to react. Forehead-to-forehead still, we couldn’t care less about what was going on around us, and soon enough we were both in tears, heads nestled in each other’s shoulders. We cried for entire minutes like that, laughing then crying, laughing and crying. He asked me, “Why

community is part of my life, and for it I’d lay down my life; in no degree does this mean I condone West Bank settlements or massive missile retaliation. The beauty of the Middle East Club and other organizations of the like is that not only does the club embrace that fact – that the communities I belong to, my shared homes, aren’t in entirety who I am – but that it tries to communicate that to individuals and societies. Like parts to a whole, I belong in those communities, but in no way am I those communities; I do not represent every thing my community did 3000 years ago up to today. Ignorance is a damned thing that has created a perpetual hemorrhage for mankind, and it won’t be fixed unless in a mellow setting of experiencing and learning – a home of some sort.

The Middle East, to be blunt, is a mael-

manity for years.

And yet, with the wisdom of 70 damned years of hindsight, we haven’t understood the simple truth that the land – and not only the government – of Israel must embrace: coexistence. I, personally, have no home – because all my homes are shared with others; in truth, that is why it makes them my home. There is no happiness more virtuous than the one that is shared; and, similarly, there is no existence more beautiful than the one that is communal.

Israel isn’t yours, it isn’t mine, and it isn’t theirs: it’s ours – and anyone who can’t embrace that fact can find themselves another damn oasis in the desert.

PHOTO FROM FLORIDA

FLICKR/EPISCOPAL

Features •••

Page 12

Eating disorders

Testing anxiety

THE STANDARD | June 2014

Censorship

Outside perspectives

Opinions Editor Zack Ashley and Lead Features Editor Zack Longboy explore how ASL is perceived by other schools

W

hile the ASL community often formulates perceptions of other school populations, it is often overlooked that the very same people whom they generalize, students from The American School in England (TASIS), A.C.S Cobham, and Quintin Kynaston (QK) among many others, have their own feelings about ASL. This theme of distaste often stems from sports rivalries.

“Many of us don’t really know people from ASL, so our perceptions come from seeing how people act in sports,” Cobham student Johnny Fretheim (’16) said. “There is a strong dislike [amongst the Cobham community for ASL], for example, our varsity basketball coach will make the team run if someone wears ASL colors [to practice].”

Inigo Gonzales (’16), a TASIS student who plays soccer, basketball, and baseball for his school, has also noticed this.

“I have friends that have attended ASL, who are fun to hang out with outside of school,” he said. “However, the rivalry [between ASL and TASIS in sports] brings out my hate.”

Three TASIS students declined to comment citing fear of disciplinary issues as a result of expressing their dislike for ASL. Sporting rivalry is not the only contributing factor to perceptions of ASL students. For Fretheim, the generalizations about ASL at Cobham are “in short, preppy rich kids.”

This is not an anomaly. “[ASL] was known as a wealthy private school,” Houston Parke (’15) said regarding the perceptions of ASL students at his former school, Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle. This idea stems from the perception that all ASL students have wealthy parents and are very materialistic.

ILLUSTRATION BY CAROLINE TISDALE This view is also shared by those who attend British schools in the surrounding area. Andrew Lee (’15), a student at University College School, a British High School located in Hampstead, who has had many positive experiences with ASL students as a Cub Scout and in sports, was baffled by the perceptions at his school. “Generally, they think [ASL] is stereotypical American kids,” Lee said. “I don’t think anybody else really knows any kids themselves so they are just assuming they are ‘jocks’ and things of that nature.”

Sophie Clark (’16), an ASL student who previously attended Godolphin and Latymer, an all-girls British school, recalls her first impressions of students at ASL. “Their accents, the things they talked about, it seemed as if they were living more in America than they were living in London,” she said.

In addition, former QK student Emma Cox cites the media as the driving force in creating her perception of ASL. “I had imagined [ASL] as a stereotypically ‘American’ school, like in the media, with cheerleaders, cliques, etc.,” she said.

Despite the negative perceptions, Cox believes that the relationship between QK and ASL is currently one of a positive nature. “All of my experiences with ASL have been positive,” she said. “I was part of a branch of school council in Year 11, which arranged events with ASL, and the students were always welcoming, energetic and fun to work with.”

The issues regarding ASL’s reputation may simply stem from the fact that ASL is closed off and does not interact with many other schools. “I have a friend [from my old school] who I introduced to my friends [at ASL] and at first he hated them, but now they get along,” Parke said. “It was

different after he got to know them and gained a different perspective.”

Lee has also noticed that some perceptions at his school, such as “typical American kids,” “rich” and “arrogant,” could be a result of people simply not interacting with each other or ever getting to know students from another school.

“Only one other guy in my year actually knows some people [from ASL],” he said.

Gonzales also admits that when he finally got to know students at ASL, he enjoyed spending time with them.

This concept of inter-school connections has helped the relationship between ASL and QK. Cox notes that by working together, positive developments in this relationship have recently come to fruition. “There used to be a kind of rivalry towards ASL from QK students, because they had a prejudiced view of them as rich, very alien people,” Cox said. “But since QK and ASL have started working together, I think that view has been greatly diminished, if not toppled altogether.”

Acknowledging that interfacing with other schools could help negate the stereotypes, Clark is confused that the multiple American schools don’t interact on a regular basis. “[ASL, TASIS, Cobham] obviously are different schools, but they have the same systems and the same people,” Clark said. “It’s not really that different.”

This points to a possible solution to these negative generalizations that schools have of ASL. The majority of students who go to different schools feel that the student population of ASL needs to open up, interact more, and create relationships in order to eradicate negative perceptions.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

PHOTO BY TANIA VELTCHEV

Y

Page 13

Mind Blank

Features

Staff Writer Allie Zirinis explores the symptoms of testing anxiety, ASL students who suffer from this condition and how it can be prevented

our body temperature rises uncontrollably as sweat beads form at the back of your neck or you become so cold you suddenly start shaking and your heart races. Your mind blanks and you cannot concentrate. Some might think they are having a panic attack. In reality these are all symptoms of testing anxiety, a common condition among students.

Counselor Stephanie Oliver believes testing anxiety is a growing issue. “Testing anxiety is probably the number one problem that students come into my office and complain about. It needs to be addressed,” she said.

Some students complete all of their work, go to class, meet with teachers, and prepare as best as they can, but as soon as they sit down to take the test, their mind goes blank. Nicole Shishkhanova (’15) suffers from this exact symptom. “I study as much as possible for every test and pay attention in class, but when I am about to take a test I just have this overwhelming feeling that I did not prepare enough,” she said.

Ariel Calver (’16) also suffers from this overwhelming feeling. “I walk into a huge test thinking that I have not studied enough but then as soon as the test is over I realize that in reality I overstudied,” she said.

At times, the course material in Shishkhanova’s case, AP Environmental Studies can cause her so much stress that her hands begin to shake in anticipation of the test being handed out. “The moment I sit down to take the test is probably the most stressful part of the whole thing,” she said.

Lightheadedness Nausea

In some cases Shishkanova’s amxiety has led to poor testing results. Paola Kalb (’15) suffers another physical symptom of testing anxiety. “The few minutes before the test when I am sitting down waiting to take it I cannot sit still and I am very scared for what the near future will hold,” she said.

Oliver believes testing anxiety could be fueled by external and internal pressures. “It comes from the expectation to perform perfectly in every academic subject, even if it is not the student’s strength. It becomes ‘testing anxiety’ when it inhibits a student to do well,” she said.

English Teacher Lindsay Fairweather

is not given proper attention it can become a vicious cycle and prevent students from doing well. “It is scary for a student when he or she blanks out right before a test, so the next test they think to themselves, is that going to happen again? Am I going to get anxious again? And the cycle repeats itself,” she said.

Fairweather agrees that anxiety can prevent students from doing their best. “I have had my best students do badly on tests simply because they doubted themselves,” she said.

Fairweather finds it helpful to offer corrections on tests to alleviate unnecessary stress. “It is important that my students understand what they’re learning, but their

Your mind blanks and you cannot concentrate Some might think they are having a panic attack In reality these are all symptoms of testing anxiety a common condition among students has seen anxiety among her own students. “Students hold themselves to high standards and the thought that they could not fulfil these standards makes them doubt themselves,” she said.

Kalb concurs with this. “Eighth grade was the year I noticed the trend of sharing grades somewhat competitively.

The fact that it is junior year only raises the intensity of this action,” she said.

Oliver knows that when testing anxiety

Common symptoms Rapid heartbeat Inability to sit still

resilience is what I look for. It is not the end of the world if they do not understand it the first time because maybe they had a bad day or did not get enough sleep,” she said.

Science Teacher David Partridge also notices testing anxiety among his students.

“ASL is very competitive and students want to do their absolute best and go to prestigious universities, and sometimes this can be taken to an extreme,” he said.

However, Partridge has also seen stu-

dents overcome their anxiety by preparing early. “I tell the student who is nervous to come see me so I can get to the root of the problem, and usually this helps he or she feel more confident before the test,”he said.

Partridge suggests that giving the most advance notice possible to a student before a test, even up to a few weeks is a way to manage the fear because “the student feels more confident if they have more time to master the material,” he said.

Students who suffer from testing anxiety are not alone; Oliver says it is one of the most common problems at ASL. There are many supportive people in places such as the faculty, Oliver, and even a student’s peers that will help students get through it. Oliver also knows techniques to help deal with the anxiety as students begin to experience anxiety.

However, if none of these techniques seem to relieve the anxiety, Oliver suggests going to see her or another professional for help in dealing with this problem. The first step toward alleviating testing anxiety is for students to realize that they have supportive people who will help them deal with the problem.

Calver herself sought professional help, specifically Oliver’s, and she benefited from the techniques that Oliver taught her.

Through continuous use of these practices she saw an improvement. “Oliver’s advice really helped me get my anxiety under control during tests and because of that I do not get nearly as anxious for tests as I did in the beginning of the year,” she said.

Counselor Stephanie Oliver suggests Acknowledge your anxiety Change position; stretch

Name objects in the room to calm mind

sit up straight; breathe

STRIKING A HEALTHY BALANCE James Malin | Issues Editor Charlotte Young | News Editor *Editor’s note: All names that precede an asterisk are aliases used to protect sources’ anonymity *

K

ristina* (’14) sat composed in a classroom, almost used to talking about her past struggles with eating. There once was a time when she was secretive about her relationship with food. But now, following her recovery, she sat at attention, almost eager to share her unhealthy plight for others to understand what she went through.

Kristina suffered from orthorexia, a disorder that makes one obsessed with only eating foods they believe to be healthy. On days when she ate less than 800 calories, she considered it something to be proud of.

“In my mind I came up with my own definitions of what I perceived to be healthy,” she said. “What I’d do is I’d restrict myself to foods that I considered healthy and only in small amounts.” This restricted diet entailed completely avoiding starch-based carbohydrates and only allowing herself to eat fruits and vegetables.

Following her recovery from orthorexia, Kristina has taken an advisory role upon herself for some of her friends who also struggle in their relationships with food.

“I did a lot of research when I had an eating disorder about counting calories and proteins and general health so I know good things about it, not things that fuel an eating disorder,” she said.

Health and Wellness Teacher Joy Marchese shares Kristina’s opinion that education on nutrition is of paramount importance. Marchese’s Health and Wellness course does not focus specifically on eating disorders at any point, but nutrition is

heavily discussed. “I think focusing on the positive of nutrition is much more helpful than focusing on the negative of eating disorders,” Marchese said.

As some students try to be healthy, they turn towards group motivation, often in the form of friends, to achieve their goals.

Kristina notices a trend that the girls in the senior class make a group effort each year to lose weight. “I know last year the senior girls said ‘Ok we’re not going to eat together, we’re going to become anorexic together’.”

While dieting with friends provides motivation, Kristina saw that the diet “pact” was more detrimental than it was positive for their health. “I’ve noticed people at Bottom Orange with no food at lunch time and they’d be going to these intense workout classes after school together,” she said.

Diana* (’16) does not believe that there are many things she can regulate. Due to this perceived lack of control in her life, she holds onto that which she is able to take charge of - food is one of these things.

“It helps that there is something [food] I can control rather than things like my school and work and sleep, things that I

can’t control myself,” she said.

Diana believes that she is “a very controlling person and the fact that I can con-

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admit that ostensibly she could be perceived to have unhealthy eating habits. “To someone else they may think that I deprive

IN MY MIND I CAME UP WITH MY OWN DEFINITIONS ON WHAT I PERCEIVED TO BE HEALTHY KRISTINA* (’14)

‘‘

trol something so big in my life like food is really important to me.”

Though she does not believe she has ever suffered from an eating disorder, she does

myself because I don’t eat as much as the average 15-year-old should or does,” she said.

Diana explains that while she does eat, she only eats enough so she can function.

PHOTO BY YARRA ELMASRY

By the numbers

le in U.K. r from ating der

91% 10% of this 1.6 million are women

“There have been days where I have less energy, or I’m tired a lot of the time because I haven’t given myself what I need,” she said.

As Carla* (’16) continued to grow up, she found herself trying to find ways to be able to continue her love for food as she became increasingly worried about how it would have an effect on her body.

Carla took the matter in her own hands when she decided to irregularly make herself throw up as “an easy way to get rid of the fat I’ve eaten,” she said.

Carla believes that her infrequent habit of throwing up partially stems from her reluctance to commit to other weight loss regimes. “I think the idea came from that I felt too lazy to starve myself or go on any of these diets, and then it just kind of stuck with me,” she said.

Carla believes that typical eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, are not the only prevalent types of unhealthy relationships with food in the school.

“If you’re not someone who struggles with food, sometimes people will think you’re unhealthy, even though you just have a healthy relationship about food,” she said.

of females hospitalized in the U.K. for eating disorders are 15-yearold girls

For Carla and her friends, she sees their interest in each other’s health as sometimes being more detrimental than helpful due to the pressure to restrict certain foods from their diets. “I know a lot of friends of mine, we always send each other pictures of food, we encourage each other to lose weight and starve ourselves basically and say ‘its bad to eat these things,’ and ‘we should only eat vegetables or fruit.’”

Through Carla’s experience with food, she isn’t sure that there is one perfect model for people to follow with regards to their own health. “Everyone’s relationship with food is different. I don’t know if anyone’s relationship with food is healthy,” she said.

Due to the discrepancy in people’s health, it is difficult to have friends unite in the effort to maintain this aspect of their lives, she believes.

Carla explains that a large amount of how people interact with food is how they feel around others. “There’s slut shaming, and then there’s fat shaming where people make you feel bad about how much you eat,” she said.

The phenomena of “fat shaming” describes a societal prejudice toward over-

ALL STATISTICS FROM BBC.COM

1

For every person afflicted with an eating disorder in 1999, today there are

weight people, and then people’s eating habits as a whole. The stigmatization of weight and the constant attention paid to people’s eating habits leads to a judgemental environment in Kristina’s opinion.

The phrase ‘fat shaming’ is not new to Marchese, though its presence within the school is. “I think fat shaming happens in society, so it doesn’t surprise me that it takes place in the school. It really saddens me that people would be so cruel,” she said.

Marchese believes that as well as judgement, a lot of damage is done by subconscious messages that are sent to people, particularly girls, with regards to their self image. “I have to be careful about only complimenting girls on what they’re wearing, rather than their personality or intelligence,” she said. “Sometimes girls are almost trained to only focus on their looks because they only receive comments about their looks.”

Carla believes that being extremely thin is not necessarily better than being heavier. “I think we recognize overweight much more than underweight, there are a lot of people at our school who are underweight but we don’t recognize it because we think

970

that being overweight is the bad thing,” she said.

Kristina also identifies a problem in people’s approach to losing weight and living healthily. “People don’t remember that they need to be healthy for themselves rather than satisfy other people,” she said. “I have friends who have these habits only for other people; to make themselves look good for other people, instead of trying to feel good themselves.”

People’s thoughts on where the root of the problem lies differ: Some, like Kristina, attribute it to a judgemental environment; others, like Marchese, see a lack of education at fault; the existence of the problem, as certain individuals in the community would attest, is undeniable though.

Kristina believes that eating disorders should be at the forefront of the school’s discussion. “I don’t think the administration does enough to combat the problem.

I think when we have grade meetings, they could send out an email to all of the girls in each grade. They could have all-girl meetings where they talk about eating disorders and just extend their support to girls,” she said.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Features

THE Board and THE Disciplinary process

[The sfdb members] don’t really sympathize with the students. They’re supposed to be advocates of the - Harper* (’14) students Senior Editor Gabriel Ruimy explores the qualities and shortcoming of the disciplinary process A Bad experience *Editor’s Note: For the privacy of some of the individuals mentioned in this article, their names have been kept from publication and replaced with pseudonyms.

These names have been denoted with asterisks.* After going through the disciplinary process for a violation – which Harper (’14), as well as some faculty he spoke with, believes is minor – of the integrity component of the Code of Conduct, Harper has nothing to share but reproach for the procedures he underwent.

Harper found himself up late one night doing homework. Not a unique scenario for students in a high pressure high school, Harper – whether it be a result of laziness, exhaustion, or sheer fatigue – decided to plagiarize “a small portion of a larger essay verbatim using an online source.”

That night, Harper reflects in retrospect, would be the first for many days in which sleep wouldn’t come easy. “I was tossing and turning in bed. I would leave after first period because I couldn’t sit through class. I was filled with anxiety and stress.”

This ensuing insomnia was a result of the looming threat of suspension (which is accompanied, by protocol, with full disclosure to universities), closed-campus, as well as a deemed appropriate for Harper’s offense.

Harper received an email one afternoon, after handing in the essay, from his teacher asking for him to meet with him. When he came to see her, she asked him about the plagiarism, and Harper admitted it right away; “I was forthright from the very beginning [in the disciplinary process.” His teacher then told him to see Dean of Students Joe Chodl who then told him the next day he would be facing Student Faculty Disciplinary Board (SFDB).

Chodl did not hand out a punishment directly. Instead, as is procedure, Harper went to the SFDB, who would later provide a secret recommendation to the administration. The SFDB serves as a consequence-recommending body; they do not decide who is and who isn’t guilty. “A common misconception is that the SFDB tries you, as if we’re judges,” SFDB Co-President Omar Elmasry (’14) explained. “The only way you come in front of the Board, is if you’re already guilty; if you have already admitted to Dr. Chodl you have breached the Code of Conduct.”

Nonetheless, High School Principal Jack Phillips said, “Off the top of my head, in 90% of cases we have gone with the recommendation from the SFDB.” Elmasry emphasized that no administration is present at the case hearing. “Chodl will tell the Board what you have done, he’ll give them a full explanation. And then we will ask you if you agree with what he

says. This all takes 30 seconds and then he’ll leave the room.

“The Board will then ask you questions with no specific limit or restriction on time so that the Board can understand the situation, where you’re coming from, the pressures you were under, the circumstances, if there were any, the assignment, the case; lots of questions.”

The ultimate purpose, Elmasry said, is that the Board wants to create “a very safe environment, [the Board] wants to understand you, the Board wants you to feel comfortable in front of them.”

Phillips outlined his role and that of Chodl as a different entity altogether from the SFDB in the disciplinary process. Chodl takes care of “the front end of it.” In short, “he does the investigation, he presents the cases to SFDB, and brings the student [in question] forward,” Phillips said.

Phillips, on the other hand, takes care of the larger picture. “I have semi-regular meetings with the SFDB where I discuss the philosophical underpinnings of cases.”

In these meetings, he outlines general trends he sees and how the disciplinary process –both from the administration and the SFDB– should react to those.

The aforementioned empathy of the Board is why, as Elmasry believes, the SFDB exists. “The reason that the SFDB is there is so that students can judge [the situation and circumstances of the offense]

and help other students, help other people, to get out of the situation that they are in.”

Creating that empathetic link – understanding the students and deciding what is best for them – is a duty Elmasry thinks “the Board excels at.”

Yet, Harper, speaking from his experience, disagrees. “They don’t really sympathize with the students, which is their actual role.

They’re supposed to be advocates of the students, to see your problem through your eyes, through your lens, and I really didn’t get that perception from them.”

Harper’s opinions about his experience counter Elmasry’s, outlining a certain discrepancy within either the SFDB’s running itself or Harper’s specific case. Elmasry, when speaking of the basic purposes of the SFDB, explained that “a lot of what the Board does is try to help people. A lot of what the Board hands out is fundamentally good for a student, we offer them help.”

Nonetheless, Harper’s takeaway from the disciplinary process was, as he put it, “private despair and public shame”.

In the end, Harper did not face a suspension and his offense did not carry consequential ramifications on his college acceptance.

Who the board is Phillips has a very certain view of the Board. “The SFDB members

are wise beyond their years and they think about cases and their consequences with really both a nuanced perspective of an individual, but also a recognition of the larger community,” he said.

Though Harper’s case seems to point toward the idea that the SFDB does not excel at their job, it would be erroneous to base an entire trend on this one case. In fact, as Richie’s (’14) case illustrates, the SFDB has been conducive in cultivating personal growth in some violators of the Code of Conduct.

Richie was taking a higher-level math test earlier this year, but he didn’t take it like the other students did. “I cheated on a math test. There was a set of formulas I was instructed to memorize for the test, and instead I saved them on my calculator,” Richie explained.

A common offense (as he described it), his teacher caught him and reported him to Chodl. Although going through the same process as Harper, Richie’s experience was different.

“I received a one-day suspension, on the record. I had to inform potential colleges of that punishment and my [leadership position] was revoked and I was put on probation till the end of the year,” he said. Responses to applications hadn’t been received then, Richie explains, so it is hard to gauge the exact damage his punishment had. He believes, though, “that my potential list of colleges would

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Page 17

Features

have been far different if I hadn’t cheated.”

The infraction was minor but, as SFDB Co-President Elias VereNicoll (’14) explained, “cheating cases are punished completely differently every single time,” and the punishment is decided upon after a fair understanding of the situation.

Richie’s punishment for the cheating incident, he believes, and simultaneously clarifies to be understandable and fair, came in light of previous violations of the Code of Conduct as well as his holding a leadership role within the community. Richie said, “I think the punishment is a combination of both: If I had a clean slate, and had committed the act as a freshman, then my punishment would have been less severe.

“They made an example of me because they needed to, because I held a leadership position within

situation because I was applying to colleges but because I cheated – and that’s 100 percent true.”

In summary, Richie feels that he ,“betrayed the community more than the community betrayed me.”

Richie, though today possibly facing new prospects and opportunities in his university education because of the consequences of his punishment, has walked away from the disciplinary process with a positive outlook.

Looking forward The SFDB, in all proceedings, respects and cultivates a profound sense of anonymity in the sole effort to protect the students and various incidents that come before them. From this, it can be easy for students to speculate negatively on the actions and nature of the Board.

A negative reputation that has trailed the SFDB is that they are

ment in all student discipline matters is not a goal of the Board.

Current and future plans for the SFDB within the High School will be mainly centered around fighting against violations of academic integrity and cheating, Elmasry explained. Examples of this would be small-scale plagiarism, copying homework assignments, and cheating on tests.

“Last year we had a record number of cases [of cheating and other academic integrity offenses], we wanted to reduce the number of cases we had by letting kids know - continuously throughout the year – how the Code of Conduct works,” Elmasry explained.

Doing this was not a difficult task, but one that required steadfast attention throughout the year. The SFDB attended a few class meetings where they clearly delineated their purpose and how the Code of Conduct works. In summary, the SFDB

masry said that the SFDB often works with the National Honor Society (NHS) and other members of the community to help the students that come up before them.

“We assign [the student offender] to the NHS and offer them tutoring if they are having studying problems, or we give them more information to their dean so that their dean can help them.”

Sometimes the guidance the SFDB organizes isn’t solely academic, it can also be in the effort of redressing emotional imbalances or mental disquiets. “We send them to [High School Counselor] Oliver and have them have sessions with her to talk about problems they’re having,” Elmasry said.

Having said that, Elmasry believes that a shortcoming of the SFDB that is out of the SFDB’s hands is the ability to get feedback. The Board often reaches out to students who have come before

cess.”

Harper, reflecting on his experience through the disciplinary process, has a message to share with students in regards to cheating.

“It’s really not worth it. I had this small portion of an essay hanging over my head for two weeks.

It wasn’t worth it for something which would have taken me a few seconds. They could have had massive ramifications,” Harper said.

For Phillips, the vision he embraces for the SFDB is one suitable for a scholastic environment. “At the end of the day we are fundamentally interested in both learning, whether the students have learned from the [disciplinary] process they went through, and protecting the individuals that undergo that very process.”

Richie, though, speaks both to the process and the students.

He believes “that after a student has gone through a punishment,

The SFDB Members are wise beyond their years. they think about cases and their consequences with a nuanced perspective - High School Principal Jack Phillips the school. It was an important message to send to the community that leaders are held to a higher standard, even though they earned the positions they were given.”

The punishment possibly changed his post-graduation plans, but regardless of all emotional and personal implications, he looks at the SFDB ruling as “fully deserved, it was the correct punishment.”

At first Richie felt cheated by the school, but later “I told Phillips that I was in a fragile situation because I was applying to colleges; and he told me I wasn’t in a fragile

often bypassed in cases of more serious gravity because of the sole reason the administration want to handle it themselves. In fact, the Board is notified of most infractions of the Code of Conduct by the administration and the cases that do bypass the Board hold a legal implication.

“If a case might have some form of legal involvement further down the line, then [the administrators] don’t use the SFDB, the administrators deal with it using the precedent set by the SFDB,” Vere-Nicoll explained.

For this reason, SFDB involve-

Co-Presidents detailed that they would explain what constituted an offense of plagiarism or cheating, or anything of the sort for that matter, so that new members of the high school community would not fall prey to ignorance.

And the numbers show that this approach has been expedient in the goal of reducing the number of cases presented to the SFDB. “This seems to have worked since we’ve had a lot less cases this year than last,” Vere-Nicoll said.

Though visionary in essence, this plan seems to have already reached a form of tangibility. El-

them to ask, in an informal setting, how their punishment has affected them and for any feedback. Unfortunately, Elmasry explained, “we don’t get enough feedback, and the students who have had a negative experience are the best feedback we can get, but they very rarely respond to us.”

Phillips, too, wants to address this issue. “[A goal of ours is] getting larger student involvement in the process; whether would it be appropriate to have a kind of town hall or a regular standing feedback where students can give feedback and their perception about the pro-

and had time to reflect, he should be able to meet Chodl and inform him of the lessons he’s learned. The punishment can then be changed.”

For the students, on the other hand, he has advice inspired from his experience: Students progressing through high school should learn to appreciate and embody.

“My record was completely clean until senior year, and I think what students must take away is that you shouldn’t ever take your foot off from the pedal. That you are always held accountable for your actions, no matter what stage of high school you are in.”

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Features

Taking a break Photo Editor Yarra Elmasry sat down with some students who are planning to take gap years

to do something “a little more permanent or even just simply invest more time and I feel as though a gap year would be the perfect starting point to do that.”

During her gap year, Roedy is hoping to go to East Africa and continue teaching Math and English.

In her junior year, Roedy worked with MTV Staying Alive Foundation, an organization which promotes HIV prevention, as well as safe sex. Roedy hopes to work there again during her gap year in a “senior position” in order to make more of an impact.

Additionally, Roedy is hoping to work with Gavi Alliance, an organisation that focuses on providing vaccines and immunisations to children under 5 years old in underdeveloped and poor areas.

Sky Swanson (’14)

W

hile most of her current classmates will be purchasing a new duvet, school supplies and settling into their dorm rooms in September, Sky Swanson (’14) will be packing her bags for Rwanda in preparation for five months working for an NGO called Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE).

Swanson has been working with SHE for the past four years during her summers, and thought that this time would be a great opportunity to work more long term for an NGO. SHE works with menstrual and sexual education, and have products such as sanitary products made out of banana fibre.

In the past, Swanson worked on a lobbying effort with the East African legislation to pass a tax waiver on their products, through which she has created a relationship with the Department of Education in Rwanda.

Noting that gap years can be expensive depending on what you do, Swanson believes that they can be a great way to make

“A lot of people [after high school] have forgotten the reasons why they are learning and why they are studying. I think that a year off can let you see more value in your education” Sky Swanson (’14)

you remember why you go to school. “A lot of people are really burnt out by the time they finish high school, and have forgotten the reasons why they’re learning and why they’re studying,” Swanson said. “I think that a year off can let you see more value in your education,” At this point in her life, Swanson believes that it is the best time to take a gap year. She believes that after college people start to focus on accelerating in their fields and that it can be “hard to

Omar Elmasry (’14)

O

mar Elmasry (’14) has been toying with the idea of a gap year from a young age in order to fulfil his love for snowboarding. Elmasry will be working to achieve his snowboarding instructor license in New Zealand.

Having work experience before university is something he is looking forward to in his upcoming gap year. “I will get work

“I want to go places I haven’t been before... I want to be be able to come back with a lot of stories” Omar Elmasry (’14)

experience before university, I’ll be able to make money before going to university and have all the skills of being a snowboard instructor,” he said. “Also, for a lot of people college is the first time they live without their parents and I’ll get to do that before university, in a different environment.”

Elmasry sees this as real world experience which will benefit him when he goes to college, as well as an opportunity for adventure. “I want to go to places I haven’t been before,” he said. “I want to be able to come back with a lot of stories.” *Lead Features Editor Zack Longboy contributed to reporting.

ABOVE LEFT: Sky Swanson (’14) is planning to work in Rwanda during her gap year.

ABOVE RIGHT: Noa Roedy (’14) is planning to return to East Africa during her gap year.

ABOVE: Omar Elmasry (’14) is working toward his snowboarding instructor certificate.

ALL PHOTOS BY YARRA ELMASRY

Noa Roedy (’14)

O

n her last day working at a school in Tanzania during the summer of her junior year, Noa Roedy (‘14) had a shocking realization. “I noticed the lack of good shoes many of the kids had; almost all of their shoes were completely torn apart and breaking from the sole,” Roedy said. In order to provide them with new shoes, Roedy organized a shoe drive,

“I feel as though my experience in Tanzania also played a big role as to why I decided to take a gap year” Noa Roedy (’14)

measuring the feet of kids as young as two, and supplying them with new shoes.

After her first trip to Tanzania, Roedy felt drawn to go back and make a bigger impact. This year Roedy will return as part of her gap year. “I feel as though my experience in Tanzania also played a big role as to why I decided to take a gap year,” Roedy said. This time she wanted

M

aria Blesie (’13) was one of five students last year to take a gap year. Blesie hoped that a gap year could enhance her college experience. “I thought that maybe I wasn’t quite ready for college and taking [a] gap year would give me some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and what kind of things I was really passionate about,” she said.

Director of Academic Advising and College Counseling Patty Strohm believes that all students should consider taking a gap year as they are a good way to mature. “Students grow up. Most people learn by doing, and a gap year gives them a chance to learn through their experiences. They go to university much more mature,” Strohm said.

In all of the years Strohm has been working as a college counselor, she’s only known of one college that’s turned down a gap year. With that exception, colleges “love gap years because kids come to college more mature,” Strohm said.

In recent years, the number of students taking a gap year has increased as colleges like students coming more mature and having seen the real world. Even though Blesie had some trouble seeing her friends leave for college, she “would absolutely recommend a gap year to anyone considering it. It teaches you so much, gives you a breather from school and it’s also just a ton of fun.”

“TAKING A GAP YEAR WOULD GIVE ME SOME TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO WITH MY LIFE” MARIA BLESIE (’13)

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Features

Drawing the line

S

Features Editor Tyler Skow investigates how course material is deemed inappropriate for the classroom

ex, violence and anything that perpetuates hatred or intolerance: These are the criteria that High School Principal Jack Phillips identifies as distinguishing factors for content that could be considered inappropriate for the classroom.

On occasion, texts that investigate mature themes are presented to students, some of which, include parts of Phillips criteria.

What students are presented in class, be it poetry in English, or primary sources in Social Studies, are ultimately what students are trying to learn from. “No book is just a book,” Phillips explained.

Usually, when curriculum is being developed, the content that’s included is left to the teacher’s discretion. Governance from administrative bodies is usually minimal.

“It’s a collaborative process,” Director of Curriculum Roberto d’Erizans said. “It is a discussion between those teachers, I just have oversight to make sure that [it’s] okay and in line with the school mission and the subject area’s articulated curriculum. But I have not, in my time at ASL made a decision that has been against a recommendation from the department because often they are the subject area specialists.”

The issues d’Erizans tackles are deciding what should be included. “You cannot teach all of history, so we determine what pieces of history we teach,” he said. d’Erizans reaffirmed that when course content needs to be removed it is typically the teachers who make this decision.

During this school year, material has been both removed and evaluated in the English Department because of explicit content. hen the students of an English elective class opened their email several days after The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera was distributed to them, some found what was waiting for them surprising.

Katie Kennedy (’14), who is in the class, said that as the time to read the book approached, discussion as to whether or not the book was appropriate emerged. “We weren’t sure if we were going to read it, and then a couple weeks later [the teacher] decided we were going to, so he handed out the book when it was time,” Kennedy said.

Even though the class would not read the book as part of their course work, some students continued regardless. “Some of us did read the book, and did read the first part that we were supposed to read,” said Kennedy.

According to Joe Hennessey (’14), who is in the elective, this set precedent for him and others alike. “I am sure there have been classes where there were books that were planned that were not allowed to go through, but never to the point where we had been given the book and then asked to give it back,” Hennessey said.

W

made in isolated cases. “Individual teachers at the end of the day have made those decisions,” Tally said.

Melina Asnani (’17), who read Howl thought it was more beneficial to her learning than detrimental. She believed not being able to read that poem would have been a loss to the class as it is a great privilege to learn at such a mature level.

When Asnani first read the poem her reaction was similar to others. “At first I was a little bit shocked but then I realized it was because [our English teacher] thought we could handle it,” Asnani said.

Although sometimes it can be uncomfortable, Asnani believes it is important to confront these texts of sexual nature in school because it provides a safe environment. hile on occasion material is deliberately restricted from students, this is not the only way restriction or censorship, manifestsPhoto itself.by “For some educators Tania Veltchec it’s easier to use what they have experiences in, and it’s a challenge to stretch beyond that,” Lower School Teacher, and one of the faculty coordinators of the school’s diversity initiative, Jennifer Abastillas said.

Abastillas thinks incorporating diversity into curriculum is extremely important.

“We see diversity as part of academic excellence,” Abastillas said.

Abastillas does not necessarily believe that the school censors texts, but rather prioritises some over others, which stems from people’s biases from their own experiences.

Abastillas recognizes tolerance for different texts is always changing and adapting.

“If we were in the 1950s, a lot of the texts that we have children read now would never be allowed,” Abastillas said. “So with regard to the specific things that are happening here, I would say that there is more to the story, because institutions like ASL have to think about everyone.”

Phillips agrees with Abastillas in that perspectives do change, which is a reason why the texts were called into question in the first place. “We are constantly making that decision [to reevaluate] all over the place and that can cause us to effectively change our minds,” he said.

Phillips asserted that there are processes in place, some more formal than others, to prevent inappropriate material for the scope of the class reaching the students. Despite the events occurring this year, these processes are not currently subject to any additional scrutiny.

When determining what is and is not appropriate material in a class, Phillips believes, the answer is never black or white. “By drawing on the collective wisdom of the professional within the building we can make a determination about what is best for students,” he said.

W

This year, some course material was deemed inappropriate after it reached the classroom. PHOTO BY TANIA VELTCHEV When Hennessey first heard news of the book’s removal from the course, he was taken aback like most. “I was a little bit surprised that it had been taken back, and it certainly seems like it was sort of a move that did not think of other consequences within the class.” Hennessey found the removal of the book disruptive.

In defense of the book’s removal, Hennessy reasoned that the obscurity of the book itself could have played a role in the book’s censoring. “When you are looking to ban or censor a certain book it is more difficult to do that if there a group of people willing to say ‘no that’s a classic’, ‘sex represents this’ or ‘violence represent this’, there probably are not as many people willing to get up and say that about The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,” he said.

Kennedy was disappointed when she found out the book had been pulled, and questions the merit of its censoring. “I think it was pulled for the wrong reasons because [Milan] Kundera explores different parts of life through sexually explicit scenes which I think you should not censor because it is an exploration of something,” said Kennedy.

Although the teacher was unable to comment on the situation of the book, he did remark in an email sent to parents and students of the class, that ultimately, the book was removed because of its explicit nature.

The email explained that it was a “pedagogical decision” made between himself, his colleagues and the administration.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was

on the ASL website for a majority of this academic year, as a recommended reading for tenth graders. However, the book only came into question when it entered the classroom. arlier in the school year a similar issue arose in a grade nine English class.

Although the teacher refused to comment, the poem, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, contained content and lead to discussions on certain materials’ suitability for students.

Similar to The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, this poem was included at the discretion of the teacher.

However, d’Erizans maintained that he does not believe there is a lack of oversight. “I

E

“If we were in the 1950s a lot of the texts that we have children read now would never be allowed.”

Lower School Teacher and one of the faculty coordinators of the school’s diversity initiative Jennifer Abastillas

think it’s always a balance between teachers choice and alignment and sticking to a written articulated curriculum,” d’Erizans said.

English Department Head Meghan Tally explained that in elective English classes, individual teachers often choose their own content, however these decisions are not

Culture •••

Page 20

App addiction Snupps

Fashion

Rap culture

Culture Editor Maya Jotwani explores the culture of smartphone gaming at ASL

In bed, when she closed her eyes, she could see the “2048” tiles. While she drifted off to sleep, she thought about what her next move may be.

Over the span of the annual music tour in March, “2048” was more than just a game for Sam Cohen (’16). It was a claim to fame, a way to feel superior over her friend, Courtney Welch (’16).

If Cohen could beat the game, she would also win the race that many of her other classmates were competing in; the race to ultimately make the 2048 tile.

Many of her other classmates were competing while in Paris for Music Tour.

Cohen believes that playing to beat “2048” was not propelled by the need to be a self-proclaimed master but through the need to beat everyone else. “On our music tour] bus, it was about being the first person to finish it, so after I beat it, people came up to me and said they didn’t have any motivation,” she said.

When Cohen beat the game after hours of being glued to her iPhone screen, she was elated.

“First, I was like ‘did this just happen?’ Then I screamed,” Cohen said.

Along with the rise of smartphones and tablets, there has been a spike in popularity in smartphone gaming. Now, instead of sitting down in front of a TV and playing a video game,

one can simply click on an app’s icon on one’s phone and play in short bursts when on the run.

Bjorn Sigurdsson (’15) affirms this. “The best games you can play for five minutes and then you can drop them,” he said.

This instantaneous access has particularly appealed to teenagers–the age group that yearns for constant connectivity and always carries their phones. When in a particularly boring situation, teenagers find comfort in their phones which can provide for instant entertainment.

This gaming phenomenon has fuelled the gaming addictions that are prevalent within our society. According to Nielsen. com, a global information and measurement company, 60 percent of American teenagers who own smartphones play games on them.

Cohen felt that beating “2048” had an immense effect on her. “When I beat it, I put it down, and I was like ‘the world seems so much brighter now,” she said.

While students like Cohen believe that beating a game is a colossal achievement – a result of hours of hard work – students like Jacov Pichougov (’17) see the opposite. “I don’t think completing a video game is something to be that proud of. You can’t put that on a résumé, and say you have finished a game af-

ter 100 hours,” he said.

One of the factors that draws students into gaming is the warmth of the gaming community. Pichougov views it like any other hobby or interest.

“Its kind of like the same thing as liking the same TV shows or books” he said. Shared interests bring people together.

However, a shared interest can spiral into something much bigger. Sigurdsson and his friends constantly share scores and are always competing for the highest scores in iPhone games such as “Flappy Bird”, “2048”, and “Candy Crush.” Like Cohen, Sigurdsson believes that social pressure is his biggest motivator for continuously playing. “I usually have the highest scores among my friends so I have built up a reputation in being ridiculously good at these super pointless games. So I feel pressure now because if I mess up, my reputation is ruined – I need to keep it up,” Sigurdsson said.

For Kara Fallin (’17), her peers help determine when she gets addicted to a game. She believes her addiction comes and goes in phases, and such phases are prompted by competition.

When competing with video games with her peers, she often starts to get into it, and the added competition to improve her score in comparison with her peers helps propel this ad-

THE STANDARD | June 2014

How to play:

The player has to horizontally or vertically swap the positions of two adjacent candies in order to obtain three candies of the same color together. When you have three candies of the same color together, the candies disappear.

Popularity: 500m downloads

According to developer King, the app has been downloaded 500 million times. As of May 20th, it is #2 on the Most Grossing App List for its sheer ability to draw you back to the game.

How to play:

One has to combine equivalent numbered tiles by sliding them into each other until the 2048 tile is made – which is where one wins.

Popularity: 5m downloads

According to the website App Brain, the app has been downloaded 5 million times.

It is slowly making its way down the app charts as the hype dies down after its initial release in March 2014, as of is May 27th.

Beware: Its addictiveness and appeal still haven’t diminished, so don’t open it if you don’t wish to be utterly consumed by it.

diction. Fallin’s addiction is also driven by simply watching others playing video games. “I think its inspired by people, when I see people playing it, I want to start playing too,” she said.

The previous generation stared into television screens with video game consoles in their hands. This has evolved into something very different. This generation’s favorite pastime is to game and clutch tiny machines with screens, as about two thirds of Americans play video games on a daily ba-

sis according to a gaming website, Big Fish Games. Sigurdsson chooses to game with iPhones as opposed to video game consoles, as he believes it is less time-consuming. It is more casual, and less of a rigamarole to simply take out your iPhone and start playing.

With an iPhone, “It's easy to convince myself that I am not wasting time,” Sigurdsson said.

“I feel guilty turning on a Playstation instead of doing work. I feel less guilty when I just turn on my phone.”

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Page 21

Culture

nupps

Culture Editor Nadia Sawiris sits down with co-founder of new iOS App Snupps, Mac Anabtawi (’14)

N

ine years ago, during a vacation in Spain, Mac Anabtawi (’14) and his family had an experience that would exasperate and disrupt any attempt at a relaxing holiday: The loss of a suitcase.

After this occurrence, Mac’s father, Sari Anabtawi, wanted to find something to flag his items in case of loss or theft, and therefore came up with the idea of Serial Number Universal Protection Protocol System (Snupps). At that time, Mac was only eight years old. Sari continuously attempted to launch Snupps, however, both the public and technology needed to implement the app were not ready at that time.

After the vacation in Spain, Sari then moved to the Middle East where he worked

and that everyone, one way or another, is a collector of something. “You could be a casual collector of headphones, sneakers, hats, or even stampseveryone collects something in one way or another,” he said.

After hard work and effort in the Snupps headquarters on a daily basis after school for three years, Mac, along with his father and 18 other employees, were able to launch Snupps on April 10 of this year. Having launched just over a month ago, they have already gained a large following of over 15,000 active users.

Snupps is currently available both online and on the Apple App Store and will be introduced to Android in the next few months.

is great… It’s something that not many people get to do. The coolest thing about it, is that since he’s 52 and I’m 17, there’s a huge age difference, he brings a lot from his generation, and I bring a lot from my generation,” he explained.

Although there are perks for Mac’s young age, he has at times found it to be a challenging aspect of being taken seriously in an adult-filled environment. Although Mac is involved in many aspects of the business, including business development, user interface, user experience and marketing of the app, he feels unable to get involved with everything at Snupps. At times when he brings

I told my father that we needed to bring Snupps back to life, and create a new space in productivity and social networking- the social organizer.

Co-founder Mac Anabtawi (‘14) in the financial sector. Meanwhile, Mac, his siblings, and mother were living in London.

Mac found living away from his father particularly difficult. “I would see [my father] once a month, once every two months ,and it was really hard, and told him that it was time for him to move back, and the time to bring Snupps back to life,” Mac said.

At the young age of 14, Mac and his father met in Jordan to brainstorm Snupps’ potential future, with the goal of Sari soon moving back to London. As a sneaker collector active on social networks, Mac’s young age was imperative to understanding the current generation and how to satisfy their needs. Mac expressed to his father his ambition for Snupps’ relaunch. “I told my father that we needed to bring Snupps back to life, and create a new space in productivity and social networking–the social organizer,” he said.

Mac hoped that Snupps would become a social platform where users can organize and share their belongings. Mac believes that it’s part of human nature to show off

It is a platform for people of all ages, ranging from socially-active teenagers to adults. Many teenagers use Snupps to organize all of their favorite things and to see what’s trending. Adults use it to keep track of their weekly spending and belongings.

“Snupps, in a nutshell, came out of an urge to solve a problem in our lives, disorganization,” Mac said.

Mac coined the idea of virtual shelves, where users can organize their stuff privately, or choose to showcase their stuff and make the shelf public.

Constantly thinking of new ways to expand the software, Snupps will shortly have a “‘friends’” feature like other social networks. “One can request to follow someone else, but for now if it’s not public, it’s private,” he explained.

Working with his father, Mac believes he has given Snupps as well as himself a huge advantage in appealing to a larger clientele.

Both Mac and Sari bring different skills, that together, create a product that attracts a large following. “Working with my father

up a suggestion, the adults surrounding him that have more experience than him, won’t take him seriously. “Sometimes I’m talking, and I tell them ‘no that’s not how you’re supposed to do it’ and they look at me and think who do you think you are?

You’re 17 years old’,” he said. Though he struggles with this, he has learned how to communicate his points professionally.

Mac’s dedication to Snupps is evident when looking at the time and effort he puts into it: He recently spent about a month on a media tour in both Los Angeles and New York with his father, meeting with different newspapers, magazines and venture capitalists.

Passionate and devoted to Snupps, he puts the app before most things in his life.

“Right now, I’d say that I’m putting everything I have behind it, it’s my main focus.

Everything I do revolves around Snupps, it’s Snupps before socializing with friends, of course not before family or health, but that’s a given,” he said. At times, Mac gets back home from work at around midnight,

Mac (’14) and Sari Anabtawi recently released new iOS App Snupps. Snupps is an app that allows users to organize their items and share them with their followers.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAC ANABTAWI and barely has time to complete his homework, but he finds a way to get it done.

Though he will be graduating in less than a month, Mac, as opposed to most of his peers, will be working full time on Snupps, from June 14–the day after his graduation–until January 2015. He is one of 40 students attending Babson’s G.A.P semester program at Babson College in Massachusettes , a program that allows students to pursue their passions while still on track to graduate college in four years.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Culture

FASHION: PASSION Culture Editor Nadia Sawiris takes a look into the

F

rom the catwalks of New York Fashion Week, to the glamorous red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, to the hallways at ASL – consciously or not – fashion is a part of everyone’s daily life.

Throughout history, fashion has always played a large role in society, from depicting one’s social class to representing one’s job, it has and always will be one of the first things noticed of a person.

From jeans being frowned upon in ComAlexandre Ruimy munist Eastern Photo by hamish stePhenson

Rita Ora wearing Elevate leather pants Photo from instagram / elevate_ldn

F

ashion represents how one expresses his or herself and is how a person chooses to be perceived by others – at first glance that is. At times, one may not be able to find clothing that depicts his or her style and must find alternatives to it. Alexandreandre Ruimy (’14), while shopping after Winter Break of 2013, with a friend named Marcel Robin, found himself disappointed with the items on

passion to a more serious level, establishing their own brand named Elevate.

However, Ruimy and his partner were challenged when it came to the process of developing a clothing line. “We both didn’t know what we were doing, he didn’t go to fashion school, I didn’t go to fashion school either; he hadn’t worked in retail, I hadn’t either,” Ruimy said.

Ruimy and his partner spent the

January, their collection has sold out various times and gained success and repute amongst the modern fashion world; from Kevin Hart sporting a leather biker jacket in London’s nightclubs to Jason Derülo wearing Elevate’s elongated tee on The Ellen Show, Ruimy’s brand has had a lot of success.

For the second collection of Elevate, Ruimy got a marketing team to help both disperse their clothing

“For my partner and I, fashion is a way to express ourselves. I mean I’m not a good singer, I’m not a good painter, it’s my only creative outlet where I’m allowed to express myself.” – Alexandre Ruimy (’14)

display. The only solution he could come up with was creating his own articles of clothing. Marcel and Alexandreandre took on the initiative of creating a piece that would adhere to their preferences: A leather Nicolo Baravalle jacket. “We went Photo by nadia sawiris into a shop looking for something and we were Europe in the 20th cen- so frustrated that it wasn’t there, tury – due to their west- and so we decided to just make it ern connotation sym- quickly and see what would turn bol of westernism–, to out because the one we had seen women in Europe con- in the store was way too expensive, sidering a more mas- and it still wasn’t what we wanted,” culine, tight, provoca- Ruimy explained. tive attire after WWI to After being asked several times symbolize their inde- by friends as well as strangers pendence – either way, about their personally-created fashion has always been jacket, they realized that it could a symbol of expression potentially be a passion to pursue. and identity – whether When, a few weeks later, a hoodit be suppression or re- ie they created received similar bellion. praise, they decided to take their

following months experimenting and learning the process of manufacturing and designing, which they mistakenly thought would be simple “At first you always think that it’s easy, but it really isn’t,” he said.

Having first attempted to produce the items of clothing in China, Ruimy and Robin faced challenges, “We tried to make it in China using fabrics from Italy, so we had to ship the fabrics from Italy to London, and then with the fabrics attached to plans for the factories in China, send it there, and then every time they made something it took three weeks to come, and it was just a huge waste of time,” Ruimy said.

Though frustrating, it put them on the right track: They decided to relocate their production to East London. With the new facilities at hand – three different factories and a pattern maker – it only took a few days for an item of clothing to be developed from an idea to a tangible item.

From that point, Ruimy and Robin have developed an urbanly elegant collection for Elevate.

Since their online launch in

on people and in stores and publicize it on fashion icons, “Another important thing for us was product placement: Who to put it on, who’s going to wear it, who’s going to see it and how they’re going to see it,” he said.

For Ruimy, being the creative director of Elevate was a distraction and relief from the stress he faced both at school and in his social life.

“I don’t want to sound cheesy but, when I’m designing or when I’m with Marcel working, it’s a way for me to get elevated mentally, I just feel above everything and I’m not thinking about anything else, aside from what we’re actually doing, it just feels so great,” he added.

T

hough not everyone takes their passion for fashion to a professional level, they are at times intertwined with each other. “I like clothes as objects, they’re like pieces of art in a way,” Nicolo Baravalle (’14) said.

Ruimy believes that his day– to–day clothing differs depending on how he feels on that particular day. “For me, personally, it’s how I feel on the day, I wear clothes that

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Page 23

Culture

AND EXPRESSION importance of fashion within the High School reflect both how I feel inside and how I want to be portrayed on the outside,” he said. He sees his style as his only medium of expression, “For my partner and I, fashion is a way to express ourselves, I mean I’m not a good singer, I’m not a good painter, it’s my only creative outlet where I’m allowed to express myself,” he said.

Tamara Rasamny (’14) agrees with Ruimy in the sense that what she wears depicts her character. “I think fashion is a way of expression, you can be creative with your outfits, it says a lot about a person, so my style says a lot about me,” she said.

One’s style is also a way of communicating with others. “I feel like it’s very important to show your style to communicate to people,” Filo Fabrini (’16) said, son of Alessandro Fabrini, Senior Vice President of Beauty, Watches and Eyewear at Burberry.

This trend seems to also be mirrored by the film and music industry. “Magazines and actors influence me, through television, you see how people dress and you start identifying your own style,” Fabrini said.

Fashion has also become an integral part of fame. “I feel like, to be a musician, you not only have to sing well but you also have to dress well,” Fabrini said.

Being fashionable in the music industry will boost one’s success: “If you’re big enough [in the music industry] being a trendsetter will boost your music and vice-versa,” Baravalle said.

Baravalle believes that throughout the years, fashion has always been inherent within the music industry, “Even when you look back at the Beatles’s style,” he said.

Within the school’s boundaries the trend of the music industry seems to have crept into the way students dress, too. Elevate, Ruimy’s brand, has strong resemblance to the Hip Hop world, however, he believes that the connection between the two has been more from Hip Hop getting closer to fashion rather than the other way around. “Hip Hop and fashion go hand in hand now as the image of the artist has almost become as

relevant as the artist’s music,” he said.

Ruimy pointed out that rap stars have begun collaborating with distinguished brands in order to further their own reputation.

“Whether it’s ASAP Rocky collaborating with Timberland, Kanye West launching his line with APC or Theophilus London and Swizz Beatz attending Chanel runway shows; they all know that if they want their media perception to be accepted by the masses, they’re going to have to look good,” he said.

Ruimy also took advantage of the influence celebrities have by having them wear his creations, “Aloe Blacc wore an Elevate suit on The Voice, Chris Hemsworth is going to wear an Elevate jacket on the cover of a magazine, Jason Derülo and Robin Thicke are both wearing Elevate in their music videos, and we’ve also established a good relationship with Rita Ora,” he explained.

A

t ASL, for some, fashion plays a large role in their daily lives, while others barely bother themselves with it.

One’s unique style is determined by various factors, most importantly their environment and culture. “I think that [there’s a theme between where you’re from and how you dress] because in the culture that I grew up in – elitist Arab society – all of us are really into fashion, we’re all into clothes, everyone dresses quite well, whereas in other places of the world, fashion and style isn’t as important,” Rasamny said.

A person’s culture has a strong influence on the way one dresses.

Fabrini believes that fashion is more vital in Europe as opposed to in the United States, as most higend brands are French and Italian.

He feels as though students at ASL choose a more basic and simple way of dressing, with no notable style trends. “At ASL, people care about what they wear, they dress nice, but there’s no style. I feel like in Europe, fashion is way bigger than in the U.S., and this is an American school,” Fabrini explained.

He also expressed that how one dresses is truly determined by where they’re from and how impor-

tant it is in their country.

Though some Europeans believe that fashion is something intrinsically tied to their culture, “I think Europeans care more about fashion than Americans, but I am not sure how it is at ASL,” Emma Abele (’16) said.

Abele, though, notes a difference between Europeans and Americans: The latter demographic is not as comfortable as the former in purchasing designer clothing.

“I don’t want to pay for designer clothing, and to be honest, I don’t care if other people do,” Abele said.

Whereas some of the Europeans who identified themselves with fashion are willing to spend hundreds on a pair of jeans, this trend does not seem to be continued by numerous Americans.

supermarket filled with over 500 Chanel products, the fashion world is constantly renewing and outdoing itself. Each masterpiece created tells a story and expresses a certain emotion; from looking at one’s attire, anyone can reflect on the per-

S

ome believe that fashion is inspired by the environment they live in. Angie Kukielski (’15) thinks that while ASL students are careful as to what they wear to school, people who have lived in more urban cities are more fashion0oriented. “People who have lived in London longer tend to be more into fashion because when you’re in London, you’re in such an artistic metropolitan place, and if you’re from other European countries, or other non–European countries that aren’t America,” Kukielski said.

Baravalle agrees with Kukielski. “Whether you come from a big city or not will influence your style and fashion,” he said.

Some might disagree, but over time, fashion has evolved into an artistic movement resonating with society’s current political, economic and social trends. A form of freedom and expression, fashion has developed into an art: The clothing being the masterpieces, catwalks being museums, and boutiques being the galleries.

From Alexandreander McQueen’s Kate Moss hologram at his 2006 fall runway show, to Karl Lagerfeld’s transforming of Chanel’s fall/winter 2014 catwalk into a luxurious

Tamara Rasamny PHOTO BY MAYA JOTWANI

Chanel Runway Show PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK/CHANEL son’s character and personality.

Fashion is the art, one’s body the canvas, the clothing the paint, and one’s environment the paintbrush that helps shape the final masterpiece: One’s style.

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Page 24

THE STANDARD | June 2014

Culture Commentary hip hop’s

NEW DEMOGRAPHIC

GUEST WRITER DANYAL MAHMOOD (’15) The growing movement

H

as anyone ever venomously shrieked “Turn Up” in your face at a High School party, as you slowly snake away into an isolated corner? Have you ever been unknowingly caught in the midst of a violent mosh pit as “Versace” booms out from all corners of a room ? Do you or one of your friends swear to have “Started From the Bottom” and claim to have “made it”? If so, you, my friend, have been directly influenced by the infectious, appeal of Hip–Hop music. And even if none of these things have ever happened to you, you have still been influenced, and I will tell you how.

Hip Hop started off as an emceeing and DJ’ing movement in New York during the late 1980s and has, over the decades, evolved into a fully–fledged, multi–billion dollar industry, empowered by new media.

Despite the obvious qualms many people could have with the genre due to the controversial connotations it has involving drugs and alcohol, there is no doubt about it; Hip Hop dominates High School culture. It is present in everything you see, from the outbreak of “contemporary” clothing, to the music you hear as the boys varsity basketball team warms up, Hip Hop has intertwined itself in multiple facets of the average teenager’s life.

Hip Hop and rap are now playing the same role as a cultural dominator for the youth of the 21st century as did rock and roll during the 20th century. In a recent interview with BBC’s Zane Lowe, Kanye West was quoted saying, “Rap is the new rock ‘n’ roll.” As the first individual to vocalize this idea, it was a bold statement, one that I am in full agreement with. I believe in this statement based on an analysis of the pop icons of today as compared to previous decades.

The 1960s and 70s brought about an American countercul-

ture that spurned the popularity of bands such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath.

The youth of those decades worshipped rockstars just as much as today’s youth worships Hip Hop stars, suh as Kanye West.

Taking over tHE Fashion scene

O

ver the past decade, Hip Hop’s influence on popular fashion and fashion trends bears a similar resemblance to rock’s in the 20th century. Fashion houses such as Givenchy, Lanvin and Balmain, have seemingly trans-

Dominating A new generation

E

ven if you are not a fan of rap, you are a part of its culture, and as a teenager in high school, Hip Hop’s reach is inescapable. The class of 2014’s performance in the Spirit Week dance off last year was emblematic of the spread of the culture. As a junior class they won spirit week through unanimously chanting the words to none other than rapper Trinidad James’ “All Gold Everything”.

Hearing 120 or so teens screaming “WOO!” in return to the cry

Similarly, Hip Hop culture has pushed for the acceptance of drinking, and drinking hard.

“Turn Up,” defined as the act of being promiscious due to the consumption of drugs and or alcohol. a term made famous by rapper Juicy J, calling for individuals to get “turnt”, is used frequently by numerous teens at parties in high school. It is my observation that ASL’s party culture is very closely linked to Hip Hop music, and drinking at ASL is perhaps interlinked with lyrics heard in many rap songs that advocate alcoholism.

An example of this is the emergence of DJ Snake & Lil Jon’s song, “Turn Down For What”, as a chart

wrong. However, I cannot question the appeal of the sonic factor and the mellifluous nature of these tracks; they are simply too catchy not to love, and perhaps that is what is so wrong about them.

Hip Hop is a culture that, without a doubt, accepts and advocates drinking, drugs and sex. As well as this, there is an encouragement of casual racism. Evidence for this lies in the lyrical content of the genre’s songs, as the term “Ni**er” or “Ni**a” frequently makes its way into rap songs that are placed highly in pop charts, such as Chris Brown’s “Loyal” or, even more glaringly so, YG’s “My Ni**a”.

encouraging CASUAL RACISM

R

PHOTO FROM FLICKR / RODRIGOFERRARI formed their collections to morph in line with the styles of Hip Hop’s self–proclaimed “biggest rockstar”, Kanye West. An outbreak of oversized attire, skinny denim, and goth–like prints and designs have integrated into these popular brands’ collections during the 2010s as West began to integrate them into his own style. This is a direct example of the recognition of the influence certain rappers have on the direction of modern trends.

of “Popped a molly, I’m sweating!” really makes you think about how far rap has come. People who probably thought Molly was just another girl the rapper was fond of, were, inadvertently, aggressively advocating the use of a hallucinogenic drug, MDMA. I feel that this has negative connotations to the way we think, as hard drug use seems to become more and more casualized and glorified in society due to Hip Hop’s acceptance and adherence to it.

Kanye West performing topper in recent weeks. Due to its crossover–pop appeal, this song can be heard on the radio, which has directly led it to be a popular song amongst many ASL students. “Turn Down For What” is symbolic in the sense that it is a song whose message basically questions an individual’s reason to remain sober and not drink.

Subliminally, as well as fairly bluntly, rap songs continue to implement messages supporting alcohol, and I believe that this is

ecently, The Standard published an articleW on casual racism, yet one factor that wasn’t taken into account, that perhaps should’ve been was the music that we listen to and the effect it has on our thoughts and actions.

Hip Hop is a genre that makes no attempt to hide its connections to racist terms such as “ni**er”, it is simply part of its culture. At ASL, I have noticed that when people do use “ni**er” or “ni**a” it normally coincides with the outbreak of lyrics of a rap song, or using these words speaking in the tone of a rapper. I feel that Hip Hop culture has most definitely created the feeling among some students that it is acceptable to use racism casually in this sense because they are granted access to popular rap songs that make it seem normal.

Long term, the effect of rap on high school culture is yet to be known, as it’s longevity as a trend plays a factor in this. For the time being, get used to seeing people twerking, “Turning Up”, and nae–naeing to Rich Homie Quan’s “Type of Way”.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Sports

World Cup Predictions Infrastructural disorganization, political anarchy and widespread riots can do little to abate the excitement coursing through Brazil as the World Cup draws ever nearer. For one month, the world’s footballing super powers will converge on Brazil all with a common goal – to make it to the final at the Maracana in Rio De Janeiro on July 13. Four Standard editors sit down together and compare their predictions for the tournament

JAMES MALIN

SEBASTIAN MAYR

4 Semifinalists: Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Germany

4 Semifinalists: Brazil, France, Italy, Spain

Winner: Brazil

Winner: Spain

The home advantage was clearly beneficial for Brazil in last summer’s Confederations Cup and I can’t see that changing.

Their squad is full of quality players, and in Luiz Felipe Scolari they have a coach who knows how to motivate a team and has the experience of winning the World Cup with Brazil in 2002. While the pressure will be piled on the hosts, I don’t see that undermining their chances to win.

Exhibiting an uncompromising passing game, coupled with intense, high pressing, this years World Cup is set to be yet another piece of silverware to add to Spain’s already garnished trophy cabinet. Winner’s of the 2010 FIFA World Cup as well as the past two UEFA European Championships, Spain’s controlled “tiki-taka” possession game and impressive attacking displays will yet again culminate in the Spaniards lifting this year’s trophy come July 13.

Player of the Tournament: Neymar

Player of the Tournament: Cristiano Ronaldo

Solidifying his footballing reputation among the likes of Ronaldo and Messi, Neymar continued in what can hardly be viewed as another breakout year for the Brazilian youngster, but more the enhancement of a burgeoning reputation and a desire to prove any critics wrong. Neymar has continued to seduce fans and coaches alike, with his mixture of hard work and unselfish play, while forming a lethal striking partnership alongside former World Player of the Year Lionel Messi. Amassing an impressive 9 goals and 8 assists in 25 league appearances for newly signed club Barcelona, Neymar’s implementation into the squad has been a successful one.

Ronaldo has proven himself to be a big-game player. He carried Portugal at Euro 2012 and continues to score big goals for Real Madrid. I see Portugal making it all the way to the final, and for that to be possible, Ronaldo will have to be on top form. This past year has probably been the best of Ronaldo’s career, as he reclaimed the Ballon D’or, broke the scoring record in the Champions League and scored to seal Madrid’s Champions League success.

NOAH ABRAMS

ZACK ASHLEY 4 Semifinalists: Brazil, Uruguay, Germany, Portugal

4 Semifinalists: Belgium, Germany, Spain, Brazil Winner: Belgium

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Winner: Brazil The hosts will just edge it over Uruguay in an all South American final after Uruguay overcome Portugal in the semifinals in a match of the tournaments two top performers (Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo). Spain will falter in a year where they have simply not been as dominant as they were four years ago, as shown by their crushing defeat to Brazil in last years’ Confederations Cup final. Brazil’s squad is as good as any, especially their back four, and the fact that they are the hosts, plays to their advantage.

Player of the Tournament: Luis Suarez I’m tempted to put Ronaldo here, who will drag his team tied to his back to the semifinals, but I’m going to go with Suarez just because of how many goals I think he will score and the success I think his team will have in the semis over Portugal. Along with his passionate play for his country, Suarez will be the tournament’s top scorer, continuing the absolutely prolific form he had in the Barclays Premier League this year with Liverpool.

Belgium is a team consisting of an extremely attractive group of youngsters who are eager to succeed in their first major competition.

Having watched several enticing displays of the nations’ football myself, I see absolutely no reason as to why this talented batch of players can’t perform equally on the World Cup platform.

There is no better way for this group of players to achieve PHOTO FROM FIFA.COM a world-class status by performing in an elite competition such as the World Cup. Belgium will be relishing the opportunity to impress in Brazil.

Player of the Tournament: Eden Hazard Having recently received the PFA Young Player of the Year award, Eden Hazard has continued to impress fans and critics alike. Into his second year of representing Chelsea, the Belgian youngster has evolved into a critical part of “The Blues” success. His pace and ability to rip apart defences will suit Belgium’s style of play. Having scored 16 goals for Chelsea this season, Hazard will be eager to impress during his first World Cup campaign.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

Sports N

umerous athletes, regardless of age or talent, have visualized the possibility of earning a scholarship to play their sport of choice at college. To realize their dreams and to ultimately achieve them, they must train extensively and suffer the gruelling struggles demanded by their sport. Reflecting upon what can only be viewed as yet another successful athletic year for the High School, six athletes competing in a host of varsity teams have been given the opportunity to further pursue their sporting passion at university.

Originally a volleyball and basketball player looking for a spring sport, Emma Nealis (’14) had never considered the possibility of pursuing a rowing career. During her freshman year, the prospect of a crew team sponsored weeklong trip to the Spanish city of Seville with her friends enticed Nealis to join the team and pick up the sport. From that point onwards, Nealis has never looked back on her decision. Developing each of her strengths through specialized weight programs, technique practices on the river and participation in numerous races throughout the U.K., Nealis’ enduring commitment culminated in her winning the women’s J16 Single Sculls National Schools Regatta in her sophomore year.

Nealis admits the gruelling training schedule and packed race calendar consume a large portion of her life, and therefore requires efficient time management. Currently training seven days a week, with regular twice-a-day sessions, Nealis acknowledges there is little margin for procrastination.

“I learned when to do things and when to miss out on things and when rowing becomes more important. It’s one of those things where if you really love it you’ll do anything for it, and missing a party one night is worth it for getting better,” she said.

Efficient use of her free periods

Committing to the Future Sports Editor Sebastian Mayr sits down with five of the recently recruited athletes at ASL to discuss their respective recruitment processes as well as habitual communication with her teachers has allowed Nealis to balance her sporting and academic demands. “[Rowing] is very stressful. When we have river practice we get home extremely late. Rowing is a very emotionally and mentally draining sport if you do it to the fullest. Getting work done on time, on the day its assigned, and being on top of communication with my teachers because they are definitely very supportive, have been very important,” Nealis said.

The first signs of a potential athletic recruitment for Nealis surfaced during February Break of her junior year. After receiving positive feedback from numerous rowing programs she had initially contacted, Nealis finalized her decision during the summer of 2013, eventually settling on Harvard University’s Radcliffe Rowing team. “I’m just excited to be part of such a big program and sort of see where it takes [me] and learn from more experienced rowers that have higher level in-

ternational racing experience and from the two amazing coaches there as well,” she said.

Receiving consistent support and recognition from peers and teachers have been integral factors in Nealis’ success on the river. Ecstatic to be part of such a competitive rowing squad, she intends on completing the next four years of rowing as part of her undergraduate experience. Nealis does not however, have any concrete plans for her future after university and wants to see how far she can go in rowing. “Right now the only long term goal I have is to perhaps try out for the U.S. national team,” she said. “Other than that, I just want to see where rowing takes me.”

Recently admitted into Pomona College, Will Conway (’14) will continue his soccer career in Claremont, California. Conway was initially introduced to the sport by his friends who had already been involved with soccer previously. Having played for a variety of clubs including Hamp-

stead Football Club and Kensington Dragons Football Club from a young age, Conway’s fervor for the game has been insatiable.

“

The skills you learn on a football pitch are invaluable but I want to bring those skills to something else in my life after college Will Conway (’14) Hoping to further develop his football skills, Conway subsequently joined the Olympic Development Program (ODP). With ODP, Conway gained new experiences, participating in tournaments in Germany and California.

Despite an intense training schedule often forcing him to make social sacrifices during the weekends, Conway has rarely encountered problems between balancing academics with sports.

“Balancing sports and academ-

ics has never been a problem because the times don’t overlap.

Whereas with balancing my social life I’ve had to give up Friday nights [as well as] Saturday and Sunday mornings, which means Saturday nights too. But it’s all been worth it and football is a team sport, so you have a social aspect there,” he said.

Unlike the rest of his peers who were battling the college process, Conway could enjoy a more stress-free environment and focus on his one true passion: Soccer. Although he had not yet officially been accepted into Pomona College to play soccer, Conway successfully underwent an early read. “By the time the actual college process came about I knew that I would be playing soccer and where I was going. It was pretty stress-free academically afterwards,” he said.

Head Varsity Soccer Coach Akay Mustafa acknowledges Conway’s longstanding ambition to play soccer in college. Mustafa has been witness to Conway’s at-

PHOTO BY COLIN BRIDGEWATER

THE STANDARD | June 2014

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Sports tempts to play year-round while regularly taking part in programs such as ODP. He hopes Conway will fulfill his potential in college, further building upon his “natural leadership abilities” and “strong athletic presence” on the pitch.

Although Mustafa does not believe Conway faces any impending challenges come August, he admits it will take time for Conway to adjust to the straining demands of the program and atmosphere at Pomona. “He’s got to again be as it is at the bottom of the class and work his way up to the top. That challenge is difficult especially if you’ve been the captain and the starter and you’re so used to that mentality, to then be on the bench

of player rather than just playing with his heart,” Mustafa said.

Intent on striking a balance between soccer and academics at Pomona, Conway recognizes the importance of staying committed to the sport and aspires to earn a starting spot on the team in his freshman year. Conway believes his footballing education, which will be continued at Pomona, will ultimately help him later in life off the football pitch . “At this stage in my life I don’t want to be a professional soccer player, I simply like to play it. I think the skills that you learn on a football pitch are invaluable but I want to bring those skills to something else in my life after college,” Conway said.

ing consecutive spots on the High School varsity team for the next three years. Despite committing to St. Lawrence University in March,

“Right now the only long term goal I have is to perhaps try out for the U.S. National Rowing Team” Emma Nealis (’14) Bennett admits her position on the tennis team has not been confirmed yet; she will have to undergo a trial to ensure her spot.

Additionally, practicing with two trainers outside of school,

University in November, officially committing to the University in March.

Having devoted numerous summers to his club baseball team in Boston, as well as practicing with the Great Britain baseball team, Collins hopes his past competitive experiences will earn him a starting spot on the team during his freshman year. His junior year was spent balancing a rigorous ASL baseball schedule and club-level baseball in addition to schoolwork.

Whether going on to coach his own team or becoming involved in other aspects of the sport, Collins remains steadfast on continuing his biggest pas-

ously for the following three years.

“Doing a little track in middle school, I never really competed seriously until High School. During the spring of ninth grade I decided to give track a try to keep me fit for the next soccer season, and ended up really enjoying it. After a very successful JV season, I wanted to keep working at it so I kept coming back every year,” Fallin said.

Fallin has been competing regularly in track races ever since, joining a local club team, Highgate Harriers, in the summer of his junior year to further pursue his growing passion for the sport.

Reflecting upon his successes in track so far, Fallin said the rigorous training schedule and

Will Conway (’14) has been a part of the Kensington Dragons FC Men’s Team since 2011; Patrick Collins (’14) pitches vs. ACS Hillingdon; Emma Nealis (’14) trains weekly with the University of London Boat Club; Alex Bennett (’14) reaching for a volley vs. ISB. PHOTOS BY COLIN BRIDGEWATER AND EMILY MARK or not make squads is very difficult for many players to get used to,” Mustafa said.

Citing Conway’s technical attributes and positioning as his biggest areas for improvement, Mustafa acknowledges areas for continued development still exist in Conway’s game. “[Conway] definitely plays with his heart but as you progress in this sport you have to play more and more with your head and you have to think more and not let your emotions take over. For now it’s not an issue, especially at this level, but if he wants to step up to the next level, he needs to be a bit more of a cold-calculating type

Initially treating the sport as a leisure activity, Alex Bennett (’14) paid little attention to the prospect of playing tennis in college. Achieving a spot on the varsity team in freshman year however, motivated Bennett to further pursue tennis and transform it into a full time involvement.

“I didn’t really take [tennis] seriously until high school, as it was always just kind of a fun side activity for me. Then I made the varsity team my freshman year and I started to really like playing on a team and that got me really interested in it,” Bennett said.

From that moment onward, Bennett never looked back, earn-

Bennett views tennis as an important social factor in her life too. “[Tennis] is a great way to make a lot of friends because you have a group of people that you know and you have something in common with,”she said.

Reflecting on her past experiences revolving around the sport, Bennett admits the time commitments, including the distant travel to Finchley Manor and game days have been a struggle but manageable.

Relishing the opportunity to continue the sport he’s dedicated large portions of his time to, Patrick Collins (’14) underwent an early read with John Hopkins

sion, and wants to see where baseball will take him after college.

“I definitely look at baseball as a leading thing in my life right now, it’s what decided where I’m going to college. I feel strongly about the place baseball holds in my life and in 40 years’ time I think I will still feel that way. It just depends on whether I’m given the opportunity to continue it throughout my life,” Collins said.

Jake Fallin (’14) never gave much thought to the possibility of running track in High School. His decision to join the team during freshman year prompted him to stick with the sport and compete seri-

workload have been stressful to handle, but remain manageable at this point.

Despite continuing to compete in university, Fallin realizes his lifetime path will not necessarily involve athletics. “I actually don’t think my career will have a lot to do with track, as I’m really interested in film. But who knows?

Maybe I’ll make a documentary about track.”

Sports Editor Noah Abrams contributed to reporting for the article.

Kate Kennedy (’14) has not been mentioned due to a previous affiliation with The Standard.

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THE STANDARD | June 2014

RECRUITED Sports Editor Sebastian Mayr introduces the recruited athletes from the Class of 2014 Athletic Recruitment on page 26

Photo By Yarra Elmasry