Br e
Graphic Designer
Jiayi Liu is currently a sophomore at Farmington High School and participates in various activities ranging including debate, crew, and playing the clarinet. She hopes to become an engineer as she enjoys hands-on activities. While she has an avid interest in STEM, Jiayi’s guilty pleasure is watching history animation videos on YouTube.
Editor
Bryce is currently a senior at Farmington High School. In their free time, they enjoy reading and learning about topics that interest them. While extremely introverted, Bryce also enjoys going out with their friends every so often. After high school, Bryce’s goal is to study public health and microbiology with an intent on becoming an epidemiologist or oncologist. They are very eager to begin work with Trailblazers as an Assistant Editor, and is happy to be here!
A dream sought after by many, the same one repeated since childhood: maintain high grades in school, graduate with honors, go to a good college, and land a perfect high-paying job to support your future family. This ¨life plan¨ has been told numerous times, but how do we even start to achieve this lofty goal? And how do I find hope for a bright future if the same people telling that story are, more than likely, not content with their life choices? It is time to rewrite this story and help students to build upon a concrete foundation.
School is supposed to give me the knowledge needed to become a responsible adult, yet, I struggle to see how all those hours of math and history will prepare for my postgraduate life. I would love to attend a good college and receive a degree that earns me a promising career, but I still have many unanswered questions.
As a junior in high school, I am at a pivotal time in my life. I am studying for standardized tests and preparing to apply to colleges all while trying to figure our what it is I want to do with my life. Everything is given last minute to seniors about to graduate. Burnout and a lack of instruction cause seniors to write last-minute essays for scholarships that they may not even get, and who wants to write more than ten writing prompts in under
a month to see a devastating response? One that only reminds you of the debt bestowed upon your future. I have taken my time to wrap my head around the scholarships, loans, credit hours, majors, and minors, but I have yet to take action. If schools were to prep learners for this reoccurring issue, students would be capable of taking advantage of the opportunities available. I was recently told, by a guardian, that I can apply for colleges and scholarships as early as Freshman year. In a rush to catch up on everything I had been missing, I reflected, ¨Why did my school not tell me about this?¨.
College, for me, has been something to look forward to since early middle school. I have always been thrilled by the idea of specialized education in an enjoyable subject, thus, obtaining my dream career that I will, hopefully, continue for the rest of my life. My only wish is that I started sooner because the saying, ¨I have a year to think about it.¨ does not work for me. While I still have the resources, like many other students, I would like to use them. If schools were to provide easy access to resources and opportunities, the issue of many younger students, and even those approaching graduation, would be diminished significantly.
I propose that every school give presentations, classes, or even workshops to educate students about their options. These educational classes should be in-depth and learner based, meaning an open and welcoming environment that allows students to feel comfortable asking questions. If students wish to have one-on-one meetings with advisors, as my school does, it would be very beneficial for that option to be offered openly. In this change, I hope to see more confidence in students because they should know their future is thought-out, not just last minute. I await the day when schools lay down a concrete foundation for their younger students to build upon because I know we have all thought, ¨I wish I would have started when I was younger. ¨
“Lacks an educational purpose.” This is what Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis said about the College Board’s pilot Advanced Placement African American Studies course, a revolutionary class that brought diversity into our schools Eurocentric curriculum. We all know that race is a major factor in almost every aspect of our nation’s history. We all know that even with the progress made since school integration a student’s race impacts their experiences daily. Many times I have heard people say, “What can we do to fix this issue?”
However, is this an issue that can truly be fixed? The idea of American exceptionalism and the inferiority of other cultures, races, and ideas have been ingrained into our society since 1492 when Columbus stumbled upon already established Indigenous territory. He claimed the land for Spain and later tried to conquer it, causing the uprooting of a people with a vast and proud history.
So, maybe the question isn’t how can we fix this issue, but how can we improve the understanding and value our society puts on other cultures? What can we do to incorporate more thoughtful discussions of other points of views despite our current state where acts of racial injustice are a part of daily life? What can we do to incorporate more thoughtful discussions of other points of views despite our current state where acts of racial injustice are a part of daily life? Maybe we start by establishing an early foundation of equity, especially in our schools where students learn the basic skills that guide their behavior and actions throughout life. Because of this great impact, it is important that schools consistently incorporate diversity into their curriculums, not just for one class or a single month, like Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month, in order to foster more accepting mindsets in students early on.
Thus, when I stumbled upon a New York Times article about an AP African American Studies course I immediately told my parents. Curiosity filled my head, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I reread the article to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. My parents were just as interested and happy as I was, so much so that my dad told me I should try to get the class implemented into my school’s curriculum. This is how my advocacy journey for this course started.The next day I started to plan. I got over 100 signatures from my fellow classmates and worked with the advisors of my school’s Black Student Union to discuss the best way to approach the administration about the course.
When I met with my principal and expressed my desire for this class, the need for this class, and the impact this class would have on so many students. I explained to my principal how I am usually one of the only people of color in my AP and honors classes. I stressed the impact of not having a core class teacher that looked like me since 4th grade has had on my education.
For me, being taught history from a white point of view and not expanding to include African American experiences decreases the amount of minority voices I heard in the classroom. This makes it seem like my culture’s perspective is not as important and does not deserve to be listened to or discussed. This can discourage minority students from sharing in class and furthers the ongoing achievement gap between young minority students and white students.
However, the AP African American Studies course is a class nothing like we’ve seen before. This class encourages all students to take an AP course and hear history from a different point of view: the point of view of people that look like me and the struggles they face daily, a point of view that has been suppressed by the plague of Eurocentrically dominated curriculum nationwide since the beginning of the education system itself. My principal agreed with what I was sharing with him, and told me there were already discussions on the subject. After that, I continued meetings with the principal and the school’s curriculum coordinator to talk about the progress being made.
I can report that Advanced Placement African American Studies is being offered at my school this year and I’m looking forward to being a student in the inaugural class. A student with an idea was the first step and the school administrators being open to talk with me and truly listen to what I had to say made this endeavor a success. Thus, it is necessary for students, parents, faculty, and administrators to work together in order to improve the learning environment in our schools.
We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t.
- Audre Lorde
Thursday at noon I was contemplating writing an essay on being Adam's Eve – what it meant to be a woman. It was the heavy sort of thinking I did rolled up like a tight armadillo on the carpeted floors of my bedroom, clutching my stomach and clenching my teeth. Overwhelmed, I changed positions, shoved my back to the floor, stretched out my knees to a groan, and straightened out a worn spine. All parts of me protested the movement, and as I stared at the ceiling, pain shot through me, drawing my knees to my chest with my toes painfully outward: the resented tantrum of a five year old.
A working day, the house abandoned in agony, I was free to curse at my misfortune as I rolled onto my side to stare at oil paint stains that surrounded me, just as forgotten. If someone were to have been there, I would be quiet to not let them see me so weak, afraid of being told to toughen up. Thursday, noon, and I could not wait to write this essay.
First, a matter of biology. I am a girl. I go through menstruation. I choose this phrase from many appealing options, particularly from being ‘down’ or ‘on the time of the month.’ I made this choice between awkward finger tucks and squirmy winks on a Thursday at noon, tired of never saying out loud why I missed martial art classes religiously a week each month. Even now, I hold the awkwardness to my chest as part of a progressive society unfamiliar to such transparency. People – men and women – look you in the eye and wince at any mention of menstruation and escape from the conversation and honestly, I get it. Maybe patriarchy wants a last stand. Crawling onto the floor, high on pain medication, maybe I want to fight for the reality society promises in the growth of women. As Eve, now is the time to recant.
But, to be just, there is discomfort in my choice. Declaring menstruation in this essay seems like a subterfuge, written once and never again. My unsettlement is rooted in a history of fear, of 1908’s Muller v. State of Oregon, of legislation implying women are weak. As a woman, I discredit the accuracy with which society describes my gender: I am not a man. Society, through social media and advertisements, tries to convince us that a lifetime of tampons does not cost $1773.33 and pain medication for minimal relief does not mean $1229.83. And I certainly do not stand by the fear that surrounds the words, whispers, and stigma that keeps women from gatherings, academics, and athletics that do not restrict others. These truths seem to be far from the claims we hear in propaganda driven agendas these days, prying open the gap between reality and the fear of an honest truth.
Most heartbreaking is how this inequality instigates cultural restrictions, making rituals of misery and giving power to a lie repeated for centuries. People have continued to suffer from unsanitary and medical conditions while men dominate what they do not understand. Some realities do not agree with biological stipulations.
Mine is one of them. Whatever the legislature may say of society’s promises, I am calling them out. I do not care what is said, I care what is done as women continue to be denied necessities, denied rights that control their lives like they never do those of men. I subscribe to normalizing these conversations, the squirming, menstruation, and “female problems.” And I refuse to conform to the flow of disguised misogyny and euphemisms for comfort behind the curtain of equality; I refuse to pretend that my counterparts who find themselves less comfortable are not losing lives and facing health concerns by the ignorance of the other gender. But call me perverse or shameless if you like. I have long since gone deaf to these defenses; and if they are all society has, perhaps I do not need more proof. Moreover, I feel their truth sometimes. Society is no more receptive to talk of menstrual equality than they are women in workplaces, on battlefields, in courtrooms, as credible writers. I would never bow to these doubts, not as I recant a story Adam will not tell, as Eve recants.
Happy New Year - an artistic portrayal of the intersection of traditional and modern Korean culture.
From, Mother Nature - An interpretation of the symbiotic give-and-take relationship that exists between humans and the earth.
Midnight Snack - A creative twist on how late night cravings can cause spur of the moment snacking.
City Upon a Hill - An indirect reference to John Winthrop's vision of the Massachusetts Bay colony shining as an example to the world, but used to represent how the ability to own name brands have become normalized and desired, as well as constant marketing.
My decision to spend the last semester of my senior year abroad in Italy was based in my desire to have a language immersion experience. Since late January, I've been attending an Italian high school and living with a host family which apart from the language, has also been an immersion experience into Italian culture. Coming from a public high school in the U.S., I had some expectations about how different European schooling would be. After about two months here, when a lot of the culture shock and newness has finally worn off, I feel able to form some of my own opinions about what makes Italian and American schooling different.
My impression of Italian high school is that it's both more and less progressive than school in the U.S. Right out of middle school, Italian students have a lot of choice when it comes to their high school education. Rather than a four year high school with a general course of study, Italian high schools focus on a specific subject or profession and usually last five years. This can take the form of a 'liceo', an 'instituto tecnico', or an 'instituto professionale'.
A trip to Castello della Manta with my host family.
Italian 'liceos' are most similar to U.S. high schools as they are aimed to prepare students for university, covering a range of general subjects but each school with a specific focus or direction. This could be 'liceo classico' with the main subjects being Latin, Greek, and history; 'liceo scientifico', which focuses on math and science; 'liceo artistico', which teaches a variety of different artistic mediums; 'liceo linguistico', in which students often learn three or four different languages; 'liceo musicale', which often teaches music, singing, and dance; and 'liceo delle scienze umane', where the main focus is on sociology, psychology, and anthropology. The second type of Italian high school, 'instituto tecnico', can generally be split into two categories: economic and technological. The economic schools often focus on finance and management, while the technological schools can cover a wide range of topics from technology and electronics to fashion and design. These schools are the most common choice because they offer both an education and technical specialization in the field of the students' choice.
I'm currently attending a professional institute, which exist to make it easier for students to go into work immediately after high school. These schools can provide education and practical skills in agriculture, engineering, gastronomy, and many other fields. My school is an 'alberghiero' school, which are hotel and culinary schools. My classmates are on the culinary track, which means that a large amount of our classes are based around cooking or restaurant management. However, we still study general subjects such as history, French, English, and science. These classes are simply tailored to be more relevant to the students' focus on gastronomy.
For example, we'll have a unit in French class about food waste or a project in science about the nutritional values of a particular recipe. In this way, the students are receiving a lot of fundamental education in different subjects, while still remaining focused on their culinary studies. Every Friday, we spend around six hours cooking a four course meal together. This has been extremely interesting, as I'm learning about Italian cuisine while also practicing language and building cooking skills.
Beyond the wide variety of options for high schoolers, another major difference I've noticed is the methods of teaching in school. While I find the Italian system to be generally progressive by allowing students to choose what they study, I've found the classes themselves to operate in a very traditional and old fashioned way. A big change from my school in the U.S. has been the number and frequency of tests. Italian students have both oral tests (interrogazioni) and written tests (verifiche). There's usually at least one test per week, but there have been weeks where we've had three tests in a week both interrogazioni and verifiche. Another difference I've found is the lack of project-based learning in our classes. Most of our lessons and homework come from textbooks, where the subject material is often very similar between different classes. Besides cooking on Fridays, there are no hands-on learning experiences and very few opportunities for students to be creative. Although I've only spent a couple months here, I've noticed that this seems to create a completely different mentality among my classmates. When students are allowed and encouraged to use creativity and create projects to further their understanding of a topic, it generates more engagement and interest over the material.
My impression of the students here is that, while still interested and excited about cooking, they're constantly worried about the next test, their time and energy taken up by studying and memorization. While I'm obviously only experiencing a specific type of Italian high school, the discussions I've had with my host family and other exchange students has confirmed a lot of my feelings about the traditional nature of Italian schooling.
I've been able to connect with a lot of the other students in my program especially those from the U.S. about some of the culture shocks we've experienced starting school in Italy. And from my host parents' standpoint, Italy is still very behind the times in terms of providing students with modern education that meets their needs. They've expressed that there's a kind of stubbornness in Italian culture which
educational system.
manifests in many ways, one of which being the
Carnival celebrations my host family took me to see in a nearby town In Italy, students have an official school vacation in February to celebrate Carnival
When people think about education, their initial reaction typically revolves around the common “core classes” that each student is required to learn. Yet even though much of the educational system hinges on these traditional classroom settings, another underlying quality of the school system is the social aspect which, unlike the basic subjects, can’t be taught without being immersed in the same space with others. After graduation, it is imperative that these young adults enter the complex and diverse world with well-developed social and collaborative skills, an empathic moral conduct, and a willingness to participate in difficult discussions with others in order to work towards a better future. And while these particular skills aren’t taught in any one classroom, it is in fact more beneficial for children and adolescents to interact with each other in a “natural” sense; that is, engaging socially with each other without true structure, and therefore producing the most growth within each student. That is why it is particularly engaging when students engage in educational conversations with each other, and are actively contributing to the conversation with genuine interest.
However, it is very difficult to inspire this kind of environment, as much “academic discussion” typically doesn’t continue outside of the classroom if not required directly for a student’s academic success, such as grades.
For this reason, Farmington High School’s “Social Justice Week” bridges the gap between critical social development and studentled discussion, all aimed at starting conversations to advocate for change within the national and global community.
Spanning the entirety of a school week, Social Justice Week consists of presentations within the FHS library covering a variety of different social justice topics, from LGBTQ+ rights to Cultural Appropriation. All presentations are researched, created, and presented by students from various Social Justice Clubs that FHS hosts, for their fellow peers. There are quite a few factors that set these presentations apart from typical classroom instruction, but one that is crucial to begin the conversation is both parties’ willingness to engage with each other. Students will typically attend presentations by their own means, and sit in the library for those 40 minutes to learn something new. Meanwhile, across all presentations is it clearly obvious to the audience that each student speaking about their topic is extremely passionate about their words, and have put much effort into ensuring that they are the most informative and engaging that they can be. All around, the environment created is one of genuine curiosity, which is essential when discussing topics that can be quite polarizing.
One notable moment from this year’s Social Justice Week took place during the Intersectional Feminism presentation. Each audience member had received an “identity wheel,” showing off multiple different social constructs that make up who an individual is within society. To conclude the presentation, the speakers asked the audience members to share what aspects of their intersecting identities they have to grapple with at times. In a moment of mutual understanding and respect, audience members shared different aspects of their identities, and those listening nodded and were respectful of their courageous peers. In that moment, both the true goal of what social justice week aims to accomplish and the vast difference in genuine respect that can’t be taught instructionally was revealed.
The mantra of the week is to “lean into discomfort”; essentially, it encourages students to push the boundaries of their preconceived notions that they may have about specific groups of individuals, and listen directly from members of those groups and their experiences. Thinking of the bigger picture, any social change relating to human rights can only begin if there is respect shared amongst all people engaging in the conversation, and taking an empathetic stance to these issues. Social Justice Week highlights the necessity of this unconventional teaching style, and the importance that it holds in developing deeper connections not just within the student body at FHS, but to bridge the gaps across a collective human condition that is seen globally, but perhaps not understood at such a magnitude as well.
I find it absolutely spiffing that there is a term that conceptualizes creativity, improvement, and boldness all in one. In fact, I am incredibly chuffed to introduce it. This word happens to be “innovation”. To be innovative means to be confident in your choices that may deviate from the norm. To be innovative means to make our seemingly dull day-to-day system more vibrant. Or perhaps, to be innovative means to sprinkle a bit of British slang in the first paragraph of an essay.
Just as the word “innovation” can synthesize multiple meanings, it also has many real world applications. It’s like bricks stacked on top of each other. It’s important to observe the innovations of today in order to create the new innovations of tomorrow. From work to education to society in general, innovation is the foundation of all these systems. Personally, it has been very prominent and beneficial in my educational career.
Currently, a common example of innovation is online learning. Zoom and Google Meets gained a lot of traction during COVID because they provided more accessible learning to students. But the problem of inaccessible learning existed way before COVID, and unfortunately still exists now. Before, students were limited to their local resources, whether it be financial difficulties or just the distance. Online learning offers an innovative resolution to this problem. It’s less costly than in-person schooling, and anyone with a Wifi network and a laptop can join from anywhere in the world. During COVID, my debate class went fully online. At first I felt apprehensive, afraid that I would feel disconnected. On the contrary, I met people from the other side of the country and learned a lot of Canadian French from my new Canadian friends. Online learning is an innovation that gives more students an opportunity, but it also augments my growing perspective on the world.
Technology proves once again to be a very influential innovation in my life. Through different learning platforms, studying has been made a lot easier for me. Sometimes my friend and I compete to see who has the highest Duolingo streak (she’s winning), and in the midst of our friendly competition, I found myself getting pretty good at French. When I need to review vocabulary terms, I seem to find myself typing “quizlet” in my browser, as if I had an automated setting. It’s always satisfying when you find the Quizlet set you’ve been looking for online, especially when it’s eerily specific to what I’m currently learning.
Sometimes I go on texting platforms to find others with similar interests as me. I joined a debate group chat, and as we prep for future debate rounds, we send debate memes to keep each other motivated. This source of motivation helped me prepare a lot better since it made a banal task seem fun, and it ultimately paid off when I per- formed well at the final competition. Not only does technology provide me with the needed tools for success in terms of my studies, but it also keeps me inspired and connected. Technology is an innovation that has helped me become more innovative.
Although I ran out of positive British slang words to describe the word “innovation”, my experience with it has been very positive. It has made me a more engaged learner, and it has made my academic journey a lot smoother. Once again, innovations build on top of one another. We are working together for change, so let’s continue this pattern.
Mudras and Pearls is a graphite and white pencil on toned paper inspired by my American and Indian identity. The picture depicts a hand gesture in Bharatanatyam (an Indian dance form).
These gestures are called mudras; this mudra represents putting on a bracelet I wanted to contrast the Indian dance form with pearls which are considered traditionally Western jewelry. Combined, they reflect the joining of two cultures and a rare moment of peace between these two identities.
