Issuu

the

B&W

!"#"$%&'()*')&+"'%&%, pg. 14

the

B&W

!"#$%&'(#%)"*#$*+,#-.&& !"##$%&'(')*''

!"#$%&/0$01#$1&'(#%)" &+**$%,-"#.

!"#$%&/0$01#$1&'(#%)" /#0*$%1+2-+2

!"#$%&!")(23%#)$&4-0(& !"#"234"%1'502'

1%B*&'"&,')#'<F+F?!(F'DA:S?A

theblackandwhite.net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

The Black & White is an open forum for student views from Walt Whitman High School, 7100 Whittier Blvd., Bethesda, MD, 20817. The Black & White’s website is www. theblackandwhite.net. The B&W magazine is published six times a year. Signed opinion pieces reflect the positions of individual staff members and not necessarily the opinion of Walt Whitman High School or Montgomery County Public Schools. Unsigned editorial pieces reflect the opinion of the newspaper. All content in the paper is reviewed to ensure that it meets the highest level of legal and ethical standards with respect to the material as libelous, obscene or invasive of

4+$")&-*@A&'($)*+ A$*"-%&'!"#$%&' !"#$"%&-*@A&'($)*+3 J*-'E"$.;"-/'J*$$"'D*"&B+1C6&01"12%+ 0";*6'+"&3%$NC+2$$*& D%1)5+%&'($)*+3 <";'+>$N%&./'+**&"'<5&%O/'0*66*'=2.*& E%F3&'($)*+3 J*-'<,&21@*&/'J*-'J"262-8*&C=%6*-/'AB"'D*B# !@$"$*"&'($)*+3 4*$2-"'I&",3615*&/'0"1@'+19>2&*' =@*+)3&'($)*+3 9")*'<15"-*&/'+2"'I&2*.;"-/'F-.&*L'A"8$* D%1)5+%&;+$)%+3 P*N-*'F6$"-/'F$*#.26'J"&-*6/'<"65"'J$"@*/'<@#$"&'45"6*-/' K*-."$$'(*".$*#/'=*-"':"-'D**>L*-/'M>*-,2-'4%&G>*$/' ?2$'Q3.*;2& E%F3&;+$)%+3 R%*'4"-,%&/'9&"1*'4%&)*,,/':265->'P"-.2/'+",,5*L'A26-*&/'D2$#' I&**;"-/'4$"2&*'D"-*/'45&26,2"-'D"&6%!@$"$*"&;+$)%+3 !"&"'P"B%%.2/'S;"-'S$2"6/''4",*'?"B"&&*,*/'F.";'?".2T/' F$*H"-.*&'<15>G"@/'I*$2H'D*%-5"&.,/'+"#"'9%*$;"-/' 4"2,$2-'4%L"-/'9&"1*'4")&"$' =@*+)3&;+$)%+3 F-.&*L'F>."6/'="N*'AG6,*2-/'P"-2*$'+2$$*&/' 0%5-'+19%L"-/'4"2$*#'!5"$;"-/'P"--#'K%,*$"-6@2 -*#59$3)3 45&26,2"-'(2$$/'(*",5*&'E"-8/'0";*6'+"&3%$NC+2$$*&/'<"&"5'!%-8/' FN6%%-'+%B"5*./'A,5"-'E"8-*&/'AB*'!2,$*)">;/' A$2'U>,-";/'0"1$#-'+%&8"-/'D2-1%$-'U%$"-/'45$%*'D*66*&/' J*$$"'J&%.# 8(G$3%+ =#"-'P*&*-)*&8*&

privacy. All corrections are posted on the website. Recent awards include the 2019 CSPA Gold Crown, 2018 and 2017 CSPA Hybrid Silver Crowns, 2013 CSPA Gold Medalist and 2012 NSPA Online Pacemaker. The Black & White encourages readers to submit opinions on relevant topics in the form of letters to the editor, which must be signed to be printed. Anonymity can be granted on request. The Black & White reserves the right to edit letters for content and space. Letters to the editor may be emailed to theblackandwhiteonline@gmail.com. Annual mail subscriptions cost $35 ($120 for four-year subscription) and can be purchased through the online school store.

LET TER FROM THE EDITORS As kids, there was nothing better than a bedtime story — taking us to other worlds, bringing characters to life. Even as we got older, though, storytelling never lost its magic. During this time of isolation, our staff thought about ways in which we could bring the community together. We decided to do what our writers do best: tell stories. For many, political issues can seem abstract — irrelevant to their lives unless they know someone affected. Personal stories have the power to change that, to provide an untold perspective to the issues we see debated every day in the news, to offer empathy, understanding and insight into the lives of individuals. Throughout the last few years of aggressive, divisive debate over immigration policies, we’ve often forgotten the stories of those whom these policies directly affect. One writer went into our community with the intent of tell-

ing those stories of immigrants who overcame war and persecution. Through the power of storytelling, people can be frozen in time. Math teacher Elizabeth Doschek can still be a 17-year-old blue-haired punk rock fan. Senior Josh Harkins can still be a 3-year-old budding chess player at his grandfather’s side. Junior Zach Yaqub can still be a frenzied elementary schooler enthralled by the LeBron James sports card he received at a birthday party. interviewed CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer about his experience bringing stories to Americans for 30 years. We got a taste of the Foodism Club, a way for students to share their stories behind cultural dishes that have shaped who they are. And, through the lens of a camera, we got to know senior Rainer Baker, who has captured the stories behind major D.C. news

events. In journalism, we aim to give outlets to anyone who needs their story told. And through storytelling, we hope to bring acceptance and justice to those in our community who have been historically ignored and left in the shadows. To that end, one writer elevated the story ty, shedding light on a dark history of discrimination in our school system and giving a voice, even if it is 50 years later, to someone who was once silenced. We’d like to thank our astute adviser, Ryan Derenberger, remarkable writers, extraordinary editors and passionate production team who have made it possible to share these stories and produce this magazine. As Taylor Swift once said, “I used to think one day, we’d tell the story of us.” We hope this magazine accomplishes just that.

photo by CHARLIE SAGNER

Emily London

Managing Editor

Sammy Heberlee Editor-in-Chief

Holly Adams

Managing Editor

Student photojournalist captures historic events

A writer’s perspective on learning from religion, even as a non-believer

Every immigrant has a story: Whitman parents recall their journeys to America

CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer discusses his career in the news industry

A roundtable discussion on gender identity

As national trends decline, students still experiment with cigarettes

Virtual school disparities disproportionately impact students of color, low-income students

Female athletes compete on male-dominated teams

A writer advocates for the adoption of co-ed sports teams

discrimination in the county

Students work the ski slopes on weekends

28 The best pancake stacks in Bethesda 30 Staff Editorial: MCPS should keep snow days 31 34 Taking a “rook” at Whitman chess players 36 A writer’s experience living abroad during the pandemic 37 Teachers reminisce about their days as Whitman students 40 Foodism club serves up culture, community 42 Students rediscover their passion for sports cards during quarantine 44

From Vikings to Retrievers: Matt and Jack Ryan continue their baseball careers at the collegiate level

46 Crossword: Endless Playlists Issue 3, February 2021

“I care more about my camera’s well-being than my own. own.”

r e k a B r e n i a R A snapshot of photojournalist

by DEFNE ASLAN

At 5 a.m. on Sept. 19, 2020, the streets were mostly empty as Americans mourned the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Amidst truck drivers and workers with painfully early shifts, senior Rainer Baker zoomed down highways before the sun had tojournalists to arrive in Washington, D.C. Although he doesn’t consider himself a morning person, Baker wanted to get to D.C. while it was still peaceful and uncrowded. “The morning after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, I spent about four hours photographing a never-ending amount of adults and children paying their respects to there.” Baker began to consider himself a pho-

ing in Colorado during middle school, he was mesmerized by the nature surrounding him and photographed the mountainous landscape of what he considers the most beautiful state in the country. After moving to D.C. at the end of middle school, Baker fell in love with photojournalism and immersed himself in the city’s frequent social and political events.

According to Michael Seymour, Baker’s the battle in photojournalism is being present. “Rainer is willing to go out into the city every day — whether it’s in the pouring rain, freezing cold, during dangerous protests or even when he should be in school,” Seymour said. Seymour feels that COVID-19 lockdowns have had a positive effect on Baker’s photojournalism. With all his newfound time in quarantine, Baker has “become addicted” to shooting photos in the city, Seymour said. Baker’s Instagram account, @rainer_baklast year — from the somber, early stages of lockdown, when D.C. was empty except for the occasional dog-walker, to the historic and violent breach of the U.S. Capitol building this January. During almost every newsworthy event this past year, Baker stationed himself at the center of the action, waiting for the perfect shot. Even on regular weekdays, Baker will When shooting, he stops almost every ic scene as he can, said senior Harrison Starr, Baker’s friend.

“I go with him to protests sometimes, and he takes photos of every little thing, even Since Baker attends most major D.C. protests he has become closely acquainted with other local student photojournalists. “I've made friends because I run into them all the time,” Baker said. “There are the same photographers at every protest and demonstration. We basically move in a pack.” Baker follows COVID-19 guidelines when he shoots in public, making sure to wear a mask and keep an appropriate distance from others. While photographing former president Donald Trump’s rallies and post-election protests, Baker had to be more cautious because masks were scarce. “Those who didn’t wear masks ruined it for everybody else by risking the spread of the virus,” he said. Baker places a heavy emphasis on avoiding any bias in his photography. In an effort to act like a professional photojournalist, Baker reports on all events — not just the ones that align with his personal opinions. “I just want to paint the picture and have viewers come up with a conclusion for what it actually means to them,” Baker said.

IN BAKER’S WORDS... LEFT: “Observers watched as fireworks went off above the Lincoln Memorial on the 4th of July in Washington, D.C.” CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: “Supporters of Trump covered their mouths to protect themselves from tear gas while police tried to take back control of the Capitol building”; “The morning after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg brought people from all around the DMV area. I spent four hours photographing people at her memorial filled with flowers and candles in front of the U.S. Supreme Court”; “I noticed Trump supporters throwing tear gas grenades back at police as they moved down the Capitol’s steps”; “When Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 U.S. election, traffic in D.C. was at a complete standstill. I ran out into the street and these young girls and their mom poked out of the sunroof and posed with their sign.” photos by RAINER BAKER

While shooting, Baker feels almost invisible behind the lens of his Sony. In Baker’s opinion, photography is a way to capture a person’s raw emotions, and the product is always more interesting when a subject interacts with the photographer, he said. “I want people to make hand gestures at said. “It’s more transparent and also more entertaining.” When protests become violent, many photojournalists don’t step back. Rather, photographers like Baker try to get as close as possible to the action in order to get a good shot, unbothered by angry and sometimes violent poworth the hassle, most of the time, Baker said. “I'd rather get hurt than break my camera,” he said. “That sounds stupid, but it’s true.” So far, this decade has seen protest after protest, all of which have been captured by photojournalists like Baker. Since most

protests attract people from both sides of the political spectrum, Baker said, photographers

he said. The attempted coup on Jan. 6 was unlike any protest Baker had attended, with one Trump supporter badly injuring a photographer. Baker and other photojournalists who willingly stepped out into the dangerous insurrection were the reason why the event was reported so transparently, he said. “It was plain madness,” Baker said. “I felt so confused, like I was in a fever dream. People should be happy that there are people taking pictures of what they're doing because it means that they're getting recognition. We should be praised, not attacked.” Baker hopes to pursue a career in photojournalism after college and dreams of one day working for an organization like National

Geographic. “Working for National Geographic is a possibility because it sounds so fun,” Baker said. “You just travel and hide behind bushes for three days to take pictures of all sorts of animals like cheetahs and birds.” Although a career in nature photography is appealing to Baker, he is presently more interested in shooting current events. In college, Baker will start to explore what career path he wants to take as a photojournalist. According to Seymour, Baker’s recent work in D.C. is good enough to be published in The New York Times or The Washington Post without anybody knowing that the photos were captured by a high school senior. Besides accolades, there are other perks to look forward to, Baker said. “One of the things I’m most excited about,” he said, “is not having to blow money on camera gear when I work at a newspaper.”

Non-religious students can still learn from religion graphic by LEAH GOLDSTEIN

BY CATE NAVARRETE I grew up Catholic like my parents, going to Mass on every major Christian holiday and attending Sunday school weekly. But when I took the time to formulate my own beliefs, I began to resent my former religion and started to identify as agnostic. In middle school, I attended a Mass during which the priest preached that marriage should be a union between a man and a woman only. I was internally aware, then, of the fact that there was a possibility I wouldn’t marry a man, and that meant I wouldn’t be able to marry in my own church. I realized that my values no longer aligned with those I was being taught. I knew I supported bodily autonomy, gender equality and the LGBTQ+ community; in contrast, what my religion often supported seemed illogical, homophobic, sexist, outdated and exclusive. Despite having family members and peers who were both religious and politically liberal, the acts of hate committed by the Westboro Baptist Church, Catholic priests’ pedophilia and religion’s historical ties to oppression amounted

hesitance to support the restrictions that many religions impose. But young people like myself can still learn a great deal from religion. After recently conversing with students of diverse religious backgrounds, I realized that religious morals like charity and discipline are universal lessons

Christianity preaches that every person has inherent value and that we should show each other grace and be forgiving. Hinduism prioritizes balance and discipline, Buddhism favors resilience and resourcefulness and Judaism values community and “tikkun olam,” or “repairing the world.” “I use religion to search for answers when I’m confused by an outcome of certain situations,” said senior Claire Sorkin, who practices Judaism. “It gives me something to fall back on in both good times and bad.” Senior Ela Shroff practices Hinduism. Though she originally participated because her parents and grandparents practiced the religion, Shroff realized that she valued practicing Hinduism as well after taking a brief step back from it. “Not doing it for a while and then missing it made me return to it,” Shroff said. “These things are actually important. I believe in it, and that was why I wanted to go back to doing

practice or worship.

proud of my identity.”

believe that religion was anything but holy. I’m not alone in this belief — religious faith is declining among the younger generations in the U.S. A 2018 Deseret News study concluded that 42% of Gen Zers don’t identify with any given religion, while that number is only 25.5% among Baby Boomers. In line with these trends, many Whitman students don’t hold strong religious beliefs, either. seems quick to dismiss religion, whether it’s

Although she’s never experienced outright hostility, senior Lia Harrison feels subtle judgement toward her beliefs as a Presbyterian. “Someone might look at you a little differently because religion is something you do care about,” Harrison said. Despite Whitman’s lack of religious culture, Harrison has found community in worship. Being in a youth group has provided her with a circle of friends who share the same beliefs and has encouraged Harrison to further explore that aspect of her identity. Through conversation and self-education, I learned that every religion holds values beyond the worship of a higher being or beings. My mom, a Catholic, believes in God because of the comfort that it brings her, she says, and values Christianity’s emphasis on service, forgiveness and charity. My maternal grandpa has dabbled in several religions, including Catholicism, Buddhism and Unitarianism, and cur-

Anna Yuan (‘20) was raised Buddhist and longer practicing Buddhism, Yuan continues to apply Buddhist values to her daily life. “Buddhists believe that all of life is suffering, so you’re always trying to make the best of things,” Yuan said. “You’re trying to escape that suffering — accepting the fact that yes, sometimes things do suck, but you have to make the best of it.” Last fall, Yuan took the course Problem of God at Georgetown University, a Jesuit inquirements. The class forced her to combat her personal biases toward religion, educate herself on major religions and confront opposing perspectives. “I had a bias that all Christians were against gay marriage and against abortion. This class really helped me realize that I had this bias,” Yuan said. “I never really understood what Christianity was. I think I just had some notion in my head that all Christians believe this, and that just wasn’t true.” “Learning” isn’t code for “conversion.” It’s important, though, to discuss and respect each other’s beliefs in order to reduce polarization between believers and non-believers. These discussions and debates help us formulate our own beliefs and add credibility to them. “If you asked me last year if theology classes should be required at all colleges, I would have said absolutely not,” Yuan said. “That was the class I was the most hesitant about, but now it’s the class I’ve enjoyed the most.” To some, faith brings hope and joy. Others be open-minded and respect religious people. When I chose to simply write off religion as hateful, I forgot that in the right settings, it can reinforce the important values of morality and community. Now, I know there is something to be learned from everyone.

“WE SAW THE PURE HORROR OF THE WAR”

Whitman parents recount immigrating to the US by Tara Davoodi Every immigrant has a story. American immigrants were once forced to make the challenging and heartbreaking decision to leave behind everything they had ever known. But among the wars, revolutions and faltering economies that drove them from their homes, there’s one common thread: a belief in the American dream. The U.S. is certainly not perfect — the threat of insurrection and false claims about the fraudulent presidential election made that clear — but for those immigrating to this country, the U.S. did, and in many ways still does, represent opportunity. It represents the hopeful ideal that people can make a better life for themselves and their families. Around 35 years ago, my own parents immigrated to the U.S. My mom, Shiro Gnanaselvam, is originally from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and grew up during a time when civil war ravaged the country and ethnic tensions between the minority Tamils and the majority Singhalese ran high. In July of 1983, when my mom was 16 years old, riots swept through the country. The violence hit the capital, where she lived, particularly hard. Singhalese citizens, instigated by the government, turned on Tamil citizens. This put her and my grandparents, part of the Tamil minority, in danger. Mobs burned down almost their entire neighborhood. My family couldn’t go far, as the mobs would target them, so they took shelter at their Muslim neighbor’s house. From there, they evacuated to a small safe zone in the city. Although my mother and grandparents escaped relatively unscathed and with their house still intact, the riots were part of what factored into my mom’s decision to leave the country a few years later. My dad, Hamid Davoodi, is from a small town in Iran called two years of high school. But as he was applying to universities, a revolution was brewing in Iran. In 1979, the Shah was ousted following demonstrations in opposition to his economic policies and his oppression of social and political rights. My dad was able to leave the country — while a coup d’état was unfolding — after being accepted to a university in the U.K. He later moved to the U.S. to pursue higher education. Listening to my parents’ stories growing up, I’ve always felt a

My mom, Shiro Gnanaselvam, 1983. She emigrated from Sri Lanka amid a civil war and ethnic persecution. photo courtesy TARA DAVOODI

their journey to this country and am appreciative for their incredible eration immigrants, proud to be a witness to their success. But like so many immigrants, my parents’ journey was not an easy one. When we examine the stories of immigrant parents in our community, we hear unbelievable accounts of prejudice, poverty and separation from family. But these histories — recounting the lived experiences of real people — are important to hear, now more than ever, at a time when our country is incredibly divided. In the hopes of amplifying the voices of other immigrants, I talked to a few Whitman parents, all of whom faced incredible challenges in their journey to the U.S. but have persevered nonetheless.

Sanan Shaibani

Sanan Shaibani was only seven when he moved to the U.S. from Iran. He lived in Tehran with his mother, father, sister and extended family. Shaibani’s childhood was made up of a strong female support system, since he was the only boy born in his family in several generations, and delicious street food — grilled corn, barbecue and liver being his favorites. But this was all before the 1979 Iranian Revolution began. There was rampant corruption during the Shah’s regime. The Shah wanted to take Shaibani’s family’s money, but his father refused. As a result, the Shah’s sister threatened to execute Shaibani, his sister and his mother. Concerned for his family’s safety, Shaibani’s father bought his family plane tickets to New York, but the new regime, who believed that he had been working with the Shah, forced him to stay. They put his father in prison, and Shaibani had to grow up in the U.S without him. The family twenty years later. Shaibani’s family eventually moved to the small college town of Auburn, Alabama. At the time, Shaibani didn’t understand exactly what was happening, but he was excited to be able to

Gloria Friedland anything like it before. “I thought, ‘This is what America tastes like. It’s delicious,’” Friedland said. Friedland was only a toddler when she moved to New Jersey, but her family’s story begins long before that. Her mother, along with her uncle, aunts and grandmother, escaped North Korea on foot, migrating to Incheon, South Korea. Friedland’s mother left North ed in 1945 following the Soviet occupation of North Korea and the American occupation of South Korea. Friedland’s mother was only three at the time, but she heard countless stories of how her family crossed the border. They walked tens of miles through the snow overnight, bringing along only a few legal documents and baby pictures. Friedland’s parents got married in South Korea and moved to the U.S. in 1973. They wanted to come to America to establish family connections, economic opportunities and a better quality of life, Friedland said. “Korea, at the time, was still sort of a second-world country,” Friedland said. “And the American dream was something that the whole world knew about, even then.” But the transition wasn’t easy. Friedland’s father worked three jobs to support their family, and her parents spoke minimal English. Because she immigrated at a young age, Friedland picked up English relatively quickly, but Friedland’s mother and older brother struggled to

a New Jersey trailer park before moving a year later to New York, where Friedland’s uncle and cousins lived. In 1977, Friedland’s family moved from Flushing, New York, to Chesapeake, Virginia. The move was a culture shock — their family went from living in an area with a large Korean population to one with very little minority representation. Growing up, Friedland and her brother endured bullying and name-calling from other students, which forced them to adopt a hard-working mentality and push themselves in school. “The way that my brother and I were encouraged and pushed to deal with [bullying] through my mom was, ‘If you’re never going to be like them, you’re never going to be exactly accepted by them. So, be better than them,’” Friedland said. Since then, Friedland has attended and graduated from the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, becoming a cardiac nurse practitioner. Her daughter, senior Marlo Friedland, attributes her own drive for success to her mother. “Knowing someone who’s worked so hard to get to where they are has inspired me to have that hard-working mindset,” Marlo said. “It’s given me a better perspective on my life in America.”

At his predominantly white school, Shaibani received many narrow-minded questions from his classmates. Since his town was very small, most people were unfamiliar with Iran and Iranian culture, Shaibani said. “There were a lot of instances after the a kid, you don’t realize this prejudice.” Overall, Shaibani enjoyed growing up in America. He continued to live in Auburn for many years, eventually attending Auburn University. While he loves America, Shaibani is aware that he faces more challenges simply because he’s an immigrant, he said. “I know that to succeed here, it’s not enough to be just as good,” Shaibani said. “You have to work three, four times harder just to be considered equal.”

“

Asmahan Limansky

I know that to succeed here, it’s not enough to be just as good. You have to work three, four times harder just to be considered equal.

”

- Sanan Shaibani LEFT: Gloria Friedland (left) with her brother and mother, 1973. Friedland and her family moved to the U.S. when she was just a toddler. photo courtesy MARLO FRIEDLAND. MIDDLE: Sanan Shaibani’s parents (left) at his wedding. After immigrating to the U.S. without him, Shaibani reunited with his father at his wedding, twenty years later. photo courtesy JADE SHAIBANI. RIGHT: Asmahan Limansky outside her house in Zalka, Lebanon, 1990. Limansky moved to the U.S. at 27 years old with her husband. photo courtesy CHRISTINA LIMANSKY

At a small amusement park near her home in Zalka, Lebanon, Asmahan Limansky felt her surroundings begin to violently shake. In 1985, Limansky and her younger sister were riding on a roller coaster when an explosion from a car bomb adjacent to the ride caused a piece of the roller coaster to fall. Luckily, Limansky and her sister were near the end of the ride and were able to make their way through

struggling economy wouldn’t limit opportunity. Her husband started studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Limansky worked on her MBA. They were both excited to start a new chapter of their lives. Then, 9/11 happened. Limansky was put in a tough position when her Middle Eastern origin made it esMBA student. On top of that, immigrants only sorship, as mandated by the F1 student visa. Fortunately, one of her professors helped her

it was an event she has never forgotten in the decades since. “We never set foot in any amusement park or movie theater again,” Limansky said. Limansky’s entire childhood was set against the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War, which started in 1975, soon after she was

sponsor. Limansky’s time in the U.S. was not without hardship. Having grown up in a tight-knit family, she wasn’t used to doing everything on her own and experienced a great deal of solitude and fatigue. “The war was 17 years — it was fear and a

between Palestine and Israel; displaced Palestinians migrated to Lebanon and started to arm

12 years in the U.S.,” Limansky said.

Lebanon was divided: Muslims supported the armed Palestinians and Christians opposed them. Beirut, the capital, was split in half, and Limansky grew up in predominantly Christian East Beirut. As a child and teenager, Limansky lived through the war’s worst period of instability. Bombing was a constant threat, so her family built their own bomb shelter halfway through the war. They prepared emergency boxes of food, and Limansky and her siblings had to do their schoolwork underground, often by candlelight. Sometimes they would spend weeks, or even months, in the shelter; there was no way to predict when the bombs would come. “The bombing would start, and if you

immigrating to America made Limansky a much more open-minded person. In Lebanon, Limansky only knew the people in her community, who were all the same race and religion. Moving to the U.S. exposed her to people of many different cultures who spoke many different languages. Limansky is grateful for the opportunities she has had and can now give to her children, she said. “I grew up in a country torn by war where the government doesn’t give you anything,” Limansky said. “I always remind my kids how lucky they are to be growing up in a society

Limansky said. “It became so common to us to hear the departure of a bomb.” cle and her best friend. Since there was no way to contact friends and family, it was hard to know who had survived the attacks, she said. Limansky was 27 when she moved to the U.S. with her husband. They both wanted to pursue higher education in a country where a

Q&A with CNN political anchor Wolf Blitzer BY SKYLAR CHASEN 12

Wolf Blitzer is the host of CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Blitzer started off as the military affairs correspondent for the network before becoming CNN’s senior White House correspondent in 1993. He’s continued to work at CNN ever since. Blitzer now covers the latest developments and important news of the day, informing an international audience. The Black & White spoke with Blitzer about his childhood, his pathway to CNN and his current career. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. The Black & White: What led you to want to become a newscaster? Wolf Blitzer: I’ve always been a news junkie ever since I was a little kid growing up in Buffalo, New York. My whole family would watch the television newscast and discuss it around the dinner table. I’ve been blessed that I can have a livelihood doing something I’m really passionate about. Even after all these years, I still wake up every morning looking forward to work. And I recomyou’re passionate about, that you love doing, you’ll do it so much better. You’ll be so much more successful. Just go with your passion and your interests, and I think in the long run, instead of getting up in the morning and dreading going to work, you’ll get up in the morning and love going to work. B&W: Do you think there was one episode at the start of your CNN career that you would consider your “big break”? WB: nalism, working for the Reuters news agency, which is a British wire service. Some of the older guys always said to me, “Remember, you’re only as good as your Gulf War in 1991 that I became well known for because I was on TV, but you just have to know that every story is important. Be fair, be responsible and if you report something that’s negative about someone, make sure you give that individual a chance to respond before you go to press. Because once you go to press, it’s already done. B&W: Growing up, were there careers other than journalism that interested you? WB: Yes, I didn’t know I wanted to be a journalist until I started doing journalism after college. I majored in American History in undergraduate school. I was always interested in history; I just liked it. But I then decided to go to graduate school and study international relations. At one point I thought I’d maybe get a PhD, maybe become a university professor. At another point I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should go to law school or go to business school; those are good careers.’ I really had never thought about pursuing journalism, and it didn’t enter my mind until someone said to me, “Would you like to be a foreign correspondent?” There was this program at the Reuters news agency to train young people to become reporters and journalists. I didn’t think I’d be accepted, but I was. this was something I was going to love doing. And it’s been a blessing over all of these years. B&W: What have been the most memorable interviews or moments in your career? WB: I have a lot of favorite parts. One is interviewing fascinating, critically important people, whether it be a

president, a prime minister or a king. One of my favorite interviews was back in 1998. I went to South Africa and interviewed the then-current president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. When he came out of prison, even after spending all those years, he wanted to build a new South Africa — not a racist South Africa — where everyone That was a memorable moment in my career. I’ve also interviewed presidents Barack Obama — several times — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush. I’ve interviewed a lot of world leaders over the years, and I’ve interviewed a lot of real people. The real people sometimes are even more fasreport that Barack Obama would be the next President of of the United States. Those are memorable moments in a journalist’s career — when they have that opportunity to go on television and report something historic like that. WB: Sometimes, you have people attacking you, like President Trump accusing us of being fake news and enemies of the American people. That’s obviously not true at all. We love the American people. We don’t report fake news; we report the truth. We try to be as honest and responsible as possible, and if we make a mistake, we coryou get personally attacked, as journalists have been over the past four years by the president and his supporters. B&W: How has your job changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? WB: Well obviously, I can’t see people in person. When I’m anchoring on CNN, I’m going into the studio in front of a camera all by myself — nobody’s near me. Normally when you’re interviewing people, they’re sitting around the table with you. Journal reporters are there, analysts are there. Now, everybody’s in different studios and in different locations. You can’t go out to lunch with a source, you can’t go to dinner. You talk to people remotely, on the phone or Zoom or FaceTime, but you can’t see people in person. B&W: What advice would you give to an aspiring journalist or TV anchor? WB: Have an open mind and remember that the story is not about you — you’re just reporting the news. Be skeptical, and don’t just rely on one source. If it’s a sensitive issue, get two or three or four sources. We, in the olden days, used to joke, “If you were a serious journalist and your mother tells you she loves you, make sure you get a second source.” You just want to make sure that the information is really reliable, straightforward and honest. Be careful, be cautious and go with the news if you I’ve learned that I love being a journalist. I think that the world needs more journalists.

TOP: Wolf Blitzer announces CNN’s projection of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. After four days of waiting, Blitzer broke the news on Nov. 7. BOTTOM: Wolf Blitzer discusses the 2020 election as results roll in. Blitzer is the host of CNN’s “The Situation Room,” which airs nightly. photos courtesy WOLF BLITZER

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ABOUT

GENDER IDENTITY by Kendall Headley and Cailey Thalman Recently, both in and out of the classroom, the Whitman community has begun to introduce conversations surrounding gender identity. From sharing pronouns during OneWhitman to displaying pronouns on social media accounts, Whitman students and faculty are working to create a more inclusive environment for all LGBTQ+ students. As the discussion gains traction, more students have progressively started to explore their own gender identities. We sat down with LGBTQ+ and ally teachers and students, as well as representatives from the Whitman Pride Alliance, to gain insight on the current climate of gender inclusivity at Whitman and in the community and how we can improve upon it. Participants: Music teacher Heather Borsum (she/her), senior Julia Cronin (she/her), psychology teacher and Pride Alliance club sponsor Sheryl Freedman (she/her), senior Cayla Joftus (she/they), sophomore Cameron Newell (he/him), junior Sydney Spottiswood (she/they). Responses have been edited for length and clarity. The Black & White: How would you describe Whitman’s culture surrounding gender identity? Heather Borsum: I think Whitman is a fairly supportive community, but I say that because I spend all of my time in the music wing. Most people in the music community at Whitman are pretty supportive and open-minded because there’s a lot of representation of the queer community in the arts; there are a lot of famous queer artists and musicians, which really helps kids identify with that part of themselves. Julia Cronin: It really depends on who your friends are. There are parts of Whitman that are more inclusive than others. I tend to be part of

a group that is more supportive, so for me, the culture is mostly inclusive, although there’s always room for improvement. I know a lot of people treat gender identity as a joke or make ciently addressed by the faculty.

thinking and an implication that one gender identity is better than the other. Even if that’s not the intent, which I doubt it is in most cases, that’s how it can come across. Those kinds of comments can alienate somebody, even if they were meant to empower them.

Sheryl Freedman: There’s a lack of knowledge, particularly among staff but with students as well, in terms of what the spectrum of gender entails and that it is a spectrum. My generation and above has been raised on a binary understanding of things, which makes it hard to break those thought patterns. We’re trying to break those patterns, but a lot of it is a lack of knowledge.

Cronin: Using more they/them pronouns in class. Word problems in math or English classes will constantly use “he” or “she” pronouns, but the curriculum hasn’t realized that “they” can also be used. Using just “he” and “she” can make people feel excluded, so a slight change in teachers’ language will help their students feel more included in their classes. Also, just using more they/them pronouns in everyday language, referring to people in the third person, helps you acknowledge that these are valid pronouns that people use.

B&W: What do you think constitutes a gender-inclusive learning environment? Cameron Newell: Frequently, but also privately, asking for people’s pronouns. There was potential in the way that people shared their pronouns in OneWhitman and the way we share them in Pride club. It would help to have that practice in classes and have teachers be open to students requesting to be referred to by their preferred pronouns –– even when they can change day-to-day. Also, there’s a lot of things that a teacher can do to set the mood of how a class should act. If teachers can call a person out and shut it down when someone’s acting inappropriately and invalidating pronouns, people would understand the kind of environment that you’re trying to foster. Cayla Joftus: Teachers referring less to gender and refraining from separating by gender would help, too. I’ve had a lot of teachers who unnecessarily make comments like, “this is an all-girl group, this is an all-boy group” and create “boys versus girls” activities, which at bic, a reinforcement of a gender binary way of

B&W: Where do you think a lack of inclusivity stems from? Joftus: A lot of it comes from media representation, or lack thereof. There’s a new documenabout trans representation in the media and how bad it is. It discusses how trans women are portrayed as predatory, and people internalize that information, which then leads to transphobia. Newell: In a lot of shows and movies, trans women are portrayed by cis men, which makes the audience see the character as that cis man instead of the actor just being a woman or even a trans woman. The lack of education is also very rampant in a lot of school environments surrounding these issues. Borsum: It makes it easier to be inclusive if you have people in your life who are part of the LGBTQ+ community and you’re exposed to it. It becomes not just some vague intellectual

concept but rather people who you know and care about, which makes it more real. My son is 16 years old and raised by two moms, so the gay community was very easy to address with him. But it’s all about the labels and norms in the household that a child grows up in. So without this sort of exposure, a lack of inclusivity or a lack of understanding can be developed. B&W: Have you experienced or witnessed discrimination based on gender identity at Whitman? Newell: A lot of my friends have told me, because most of my friends are queer, that they’ve experienced people using all sorts of LGBTQ+-targeted slurs in the hallways. That’s very common to hear about at Whitman. It’s also very, very common to hear other students not being outwardly discriminatory but making the “attack helicopter” joke where they say they identify as an attack helicopter to invalidate certain pronouns. Cronin: I know some students who haven’t had great experiences with teachers — a student telling the teacher their pronouns only for the teachers to disregard it, someone using they/them pronouns and the teacher saying, “No, I can’t do that, that’s not a singular pronoun,” just generally not being supportive about changing pronouns or using they/them. Joftus: I’ve heard from a teacher about other teachers who believe that using they/them is not valid and not correct, which is inadvertently hurting people. They may not even realize how much that’s hurting someone, even if there’s not someone who uses they/them pronouns in their class. If a student hears that and believes it, they’ll start hurting people the same way as a result. I think it’s much less discrimination and much more microaggressions that’s the big problem. B&W: What steps do you think teachers and administration can take to make the community more inclusive of all identities?

I have students who change their gender pronouns frequently, and they’ll come into class and private chat “she/her today” or “this is the name I’m going by today” as they’re testing most comfortable with. I’ve found it really valuable, as it doesn’t involve having to come up to a teacher physically in the front of class, and I think more classes can employ it. Newell: This may be happening with the expansion of the WAUD, but we need more gender-neutral bathrooms. I remember during freshman year, a friend of mine wanted to use a gender-neutral bathroom, and the only one was fortable using a gender-neutral one too, but it was extremely inconvenient to have to go all der-neutral bathrooms is something administration could do to further inclusivity. Also, there’s a lot of easy things a teacher can do to show that they’re accepting and open to talking to students about changes to their gender identity –– even just letting students know that they’re very open to the conversation. B&W: Do you feel that there are differences in inclusivity among different friend groups? If so, how do we bridge that gap? Cronin: together because the people are very similar to one another. Before I came out, I was friends with the same people I am today. We all came out around similar times and thought, “Oh, this kind of makes sense.” I think the reverse could also be true though, and less inclusive people tend to become friends as well. A great way to meet different people and make new friends is to join a club you typically wouldn’t join or make a conscious effort to talk to people you don’t always talk to. Straight and cisgender people can join Pride, so if you’re looking for a way to be more inclusive and educated on those topics, joining is a great way to do that.

E DISCUSSION ABOUT Sydney Spottiswood: There have been instances where teachers have misgendered their students or referred to students by their dead names, and when the student calls them out on it, either during class or after class, the teachers will not acknowledge it or will give an excuse nitely need to be more open to hearing criticism.

Newell: New people coming into schools is a good thing because they bring new things to the table. A lot of people have been in the same friend group since middle school, so they aren’t exposed to new ideas very often. Spottiswood: Earlier in 2020, a student-teacher board that I was on got the LGBTQ+ studies course passed by the Board of Education, and now it’s offered at Whitman. I think it’s really important for Whitman to offer that class because it gives members of the LGBTQ+ community a chance to learn more about themselves and gives allies an avenue to become more educated on how to be helpful to the queer community. Taking that class is a good way for students who may not be as wellversed or inclusive to gain that perspective.

R IDENTITY Cronin: I would hope that all teachers are taught how to properly respond to students making jokes about the class sharing pronouns or about students’ preferred pronouns. I hope that situations like students making up nonsensical pronouns, like Cameron mentioned about the attack helicopter, don’t go unacknowledged and teachers know how to handle that situation.

“It makes it easier to be inclusive if you have people in your life who are part of the LGBTQ+ community and you’re exposed to it. It becomes not just some vague intellectual concept but rather people who you know and care about, which makes it more real.” - Heather Borsum

Freedman: I think teachers and students alike can utilize the private chat feature on Zoom.

Casual youth

E T T E R A CIG : G N I K O SM

It’s still a problem by Sam Mulford

RSON

ic by

graph

CKE M NI

Some names have been changed to protect students’ privacy. Hannah needed a cigarette. some way to satisfy her craving during her family vacation last summer. She decided to bike down the side of the highway to the nearest gas station, 20 minutes away, to see if she could somehow purchase a pack. When Hannah got there, she realized that of buying them herself, she asked a random stranger if he would buy them for her. The man agreed, and a few minutes later, he walked out of the gas station with two packs of Newport cigarettes. Hannah didn’t always smoke cigarettes. during her junior year, she thought they were gross. It wasn’t until she found the right type of

cigarette that she really started to enjoy them, she said. For her, Marlboro Silvers just “hit the spot.” Now, as a senior, Hannah considers herself a frequent smoker — at least when she has enough money to buy cigarettes. To relax, Hannah will sit by herself in the park and smoke While she enjoys the buzz from her cigarette, it’s the experience of smoking that she really loves. “I like how they taste, I like how they smell,” Hannah said. “I’m a very anxious person, and smoking cigarettes just makes me relax.” Hannah is aware that her smoking habits are abnormal for most people her age; if she has a pack of cigarettes, she’ll smoke every day until she runs out. With friends, Hannah sometimes chain-smokes, often going through four isn't dependent on them, Hannah said. “I don’t feel like I’m hooked,” she said. “When I have money, I’ll buy them, but when

nitely want one, but I’m not going to freak out because I can’t have one.” But even occasional smoking among said Dr. Jennifer L. Pearson, a professor of Community Health Sciences at University of Nevada, Reno. “Unfortunately, if you start smoking cigarettes, especially in your adolescence, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of problems later on,” Pearson said. “The earlier and more frequently you start using a substance, ten years from now you're at a greater risk for bad mental and physical outcomes, but also social outcomes as well.” While there are still teen smokers like decrease in tobacco use among youth over the last several years. According to the 2019–2020 CDC National Youth Tobacco Survey, current use of tobacco products among middle and high school students decreased from an estimated 6.2 million users in 2019 to an estimated 4.47 million users in 2020. Cigarette smoking

CDC’s 2020 data, only 4.6% of high school students had smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, a decrease from 15.8% in 2001. The current downward trend of youth smoking makes Pearson optimistic about the future, she said. “The overwhelming majority of high school students don’t smoke, and it’s becoming more and more rare, which is awesome because cigarette smoking is the number one source of preventable deaths in the United States,” Pearson said. Efforts in preventing and reducing tobacco use among young people — including mandated tobacco education and anti-smoking advertisements — have been successful in reducing tobacco use among adolescents, Pearson said. In addition, tighter regulations on the sale of tobacco products to minors and increased taxes on cigarette products have helped to deter youth smokers. Senior Molly, who is a daily cannabis smoker and occasionally smokes cigarettes, has noticed how costly buying cigarettes is. “It’s very expensive,” she said. “Sometimes a pack is like ten or 12 dollars. I know what it’s like to have a crazy-expensive habit like that. It adds up very quickly.” While cigarette smoking trends among youth are relatively positive, the popularity of e-cigarettes raises other concerns. For many, nicotine addiction and eventual cigarette smoking begins with vaping. While the aim of e-cigarettes is to wean tobacco users off of smoking or to help smokers quit altogether, e-cigarette devices can also have the unintended consequence of getting teens hooked on nicotine. Senior Ryan, who has used various nicotine products, including cigarettes, has witnessed vaping products lead to tobacco smoking among his peers. “I think it’s rare nowadays for people to start on cigarettes and then start vaping, especially people our age,” Ryan said. “They get started with vapes and then go to cigarettes.” of a school bathroom his freshman year after using an e-cigarette product with his friends. He remembers walking out of the bathroom feeling lightheaded and laughing. Ryan has owned several different e-cigarette devices throughout high school but says he isn’t a huge fan of nicotine. didn’t love it and I never really could see why people were using them all the time,” Ryan said. “I’ve never been a daily nicotine user.” Ryan never thought he would use a cigarette; he had been proud to be a part of the non-cigarette smoking generation and had always felt strongly against smoking. But at a party during his junior year, he smoked a ciga“Before that, I was like, ‘I’m never going to do that,’” Ryan said. “I got kind of caught up in the moment and thought I might as well try it.” perience and changed his perspective on cig-

arettes. To him, smoking a cigarette wasn’t that different from hitting a Juul, a common e-cigarette device. While his view of cigarettes has somewhat shifted, Ryan still avoids smoking cigarettes for the most part. He has only smoked about a half-dozen cigarettes in his whole life, he said. The only time Ryan or his friends will smoke cigarettes is when they’re at a party and drinking, he said. “When you’re drinking and someone pulls out a pack of cigarettes, you’re like, ‘Wow, I could really go for a cigarette right now,’” Ryan said. For some like Ryan, smoking cigarettes simply isn’t appealing enough to risk the activity becoming a habit. But for others, like senior Kayla, the rush of smoking cigarettes has a calming effect and helps her de-stress. “Once I get half way through a cigarette, I’ll feel dizzy and really lightheaded,” Kayla said. “I think the best way to describe it is I just feel really centered and calm.” The dizziness that Kayla is describing is the result of nicotine entering the bloodstream. When a person inhales nicotine, their body releases the hormone epinephrine, which causes blood pressure and heart rate to increase. Nicotine also increases the presence of a hormone called dopamine, which results in a pleasurable feeling. But the “high” from nicotine wears off quickly, causing users to want to use nicotine again, which in many cases, results in addiction. In addition to being highly addictive, the increase in both heart rate and blood pressure caused by nicotine can lead to higher risk of cardiovascular disease. The larger problem with tobacco products, though, is what else is inside of them; other than nicotine, they’re made up of cancer-causing carcinogens like carbon monoxide and tar that can do tremendous harm to the body. Smoking tobacco products such as cigarettes is especially harmful to the lungs, Pearson said. “Even if you took all the additives out, you're not going to get a healthy cigarette,” she said. “It's the burning and inhaling of the leaf itself that's the fundamental problem — it’s not the nicotine that causes cancer.” Kayla started regularly smoking cigarettes in her junior year with a group of her friends. Now, she mostly smokes at her job; after a stressful shift, Kayla and a few of her coworkers will go outside and smoke cigarettes to relax. Kayla’s favorite part about smoking cigarettes is not the cigarette itself but the activity of smoking. “It’s nice going outside and getting some fresh air — it's just really calming,” Kayla said. “I associate the action of smoking with being happy and not stressed out.” Only a few months after Kayla started smoking cigarettes, she contracted bronchitis, caused or exacerbated by cigarette smoking. Even after recovering, she’s noticed recurring respiratory issues, she said. “Ever since then, I’ve had a lot of phlegm in my throat,” Kayla said. “I think it may have

been because of smoking — both weed and nicotine. I feel like there’s something in my throat and I’ll cough, and I feel like I have to spit it out. It’s so gross.” Tobacco smoking is commonly associated with serious lung and cardiovascular diseases, but it can also generally weaken the immune system, Pearson said. “Cigarette smoking weakens your lungs’ and more frequent colds,” she said. Kayla isn’t a daily smoker — she only smokes on average 2–3 cigarettes per week — but she’s already experienced warning symptoms of lung damage. While Kayla is aware of the potential risks, she doesn’t plan on quitting nicotine and is willing to accept the consequences, she said. “Everything you do has an impact. I know that smoking has a more direct impact but so do things like lack of sleep, lack of exercise, dehydration,” Kayla said. “There are people who get 2–3 hours of sleep, and that's not normal — that's terrible for you. There are a lot of things we as teens do regularly that are also horrible for us.” When you’re new to it, using drugs such as nicotine makes you feel better than normal, Pearson said. “Kids are thinking, ‘I’m doing something that’s really logical for my body. I’m not feeling good, so I’m going to use these drugs if they help me feel better in the short term,’” Pearson said. “And that’s totally logical.” What makes smoking cigarettes especially dangerous is that youth smokers start to believe that smoking tobacco products is a normal or helpful coping mechanism for dealing with stress or mental illness, Pearson said. “Someone who starts smoking cigarettes in high school needs a lot of compassion, and they need help,” she said. “A person who is using them pretty frequently — that person is probably suffering.” While Molly is somewhat concerned about her cigarette consumption, she isn’t concerned enough to stop using them. She feels cigarettes don’t affect her much and that smoking won’t affect her life in any major way. “I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff in my life, and I feel like smoking cigarettes was just the cherry on top,” Molly said. “Except I’ve already had like 15 cherries.” According to specialists like Pearson, there’s good news for youth smokers: it’s not too late to quit. Harm from cigarette smoking is a combination of how much you smoke and the proportion of your life you spend smoking, so quitting smoking early in life yields tremendous age, quitting smoking reduces the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, lung damage and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “The really great thing about quitting smoking, especially when you're young,” Pearson said, “is that when you give your lungs quickly.”

Virtual learning compounds inequities in MCPS by ZOE CANTOR Since the COVID-19 pandemic began and schools moved online, MCPS students in the Free and Reduced-Price Meals, special edusuffered the most academically. A November MCPS Board of Education report assessing sixth, ninth and 12th grade students in math and English courses found that, compared to other MCPS students’ results, students in these Measures of Academic Progress test scores, more so than in previous years. The report notes that many of these students cannot attend and keep up with their courses due to a lack of academic resources and parental supervision during class time. Of the students negatively impacted by virtual learning, Hispanic students make up 58% and Black students make up another 22% despite respectively only accounting for 32.4% and 21.4% of the total student population in Montgomery County. Black and Hispanic populations also make up the majority of the county’s poverty-stricken regions. “Distance learning has exacerbated inequality issues,” Assistant Principal Joseph Msefya said. “In schools in the county and across our nation, students of color continue to be impacted more severely than their peers.” McKinsey & Company, a global managethat found the lack of resources accessible to low-income Black and Hispanic children has caused them to struggle more than the average

student during virtual learning. According to McKinsey & Company Communications Specialist Brennan Hoban, the pandemic has exacerbated an already large gap in instruction between white students and students of color; the average white student has lost one to three months of learning during virtual schooling while the average student of “The pandemic has hit communities of color and communities of poverty harder than other groups,” BOE member Patricia O’Neill said. “The best situation will be for us to get back into buildings.” Before the pandemic, MCPS administrators had already been busy implementing programs and strategies aimed at closing the achievement gap created in part by de facto segregation. MCPS made strides by reallocating portions of its budget to new resources and offering aid to those who need it most. After lawmakers distributed additional thousands of dollars in funding for programs such as summer and after-school tutoring for students who need further support, especially students of color. MAP testing has been a vital tool in monitoring academic regression since the beginning of virtual learning, Msefya said. The scores of non-minority students who were not in any supplemental school programs have remained relatively stagnant. But the results for students on FARMS, Individualized

Education Plans or in the ESOL program — all predominantly made up of minority students in nearly every age group and subject. The average drop in grades for students on FARMS was 19.8%, for students in special education programs, 14.2% and for English-learning students, 23.1%. “The achievement gap has long been our focus in MCPS, and it’s particularly important now,” O’Neill said. “We worry when we come out of the pandemic, the need for additional programs will have to be a focus for us as a district.” Online school has posed challenges for many students across the country, O’Neill said. Inconsistent Wi-Fi and the lack of a classroom setting are barriers that prevent many students from staying on task during lessons. “It’s been really hard to pay attention, and it’s hard to do Zoom classes when there’s bad Wi-Fi,” junior Neda Shirzad said. “School Chromebooks even block videos I need for class.” In a November survey, MCPS asked families to choose their preference for schooling once schools do reopen. 80% of MCPS families responded, and about half of the responses requested hybrid school, a blend of virtual and in-person learning. The other half chose online-only schooling, and those who didn’t respond will by default be enrolled in online learning as well. According to the survey data, minority

Solutions MCPS has begun handling the inequities exacerbated by the pandemic through a mailing outreach program, which contacts students who don’t log onto classes, thereby targeting those students most negatively affected by virtual schooling. As the achievement gap continues to widen, MCPS will continue to take steps to close it, prioritizing students at the highest risk of failing courses, O’Neill said. The BOE’s November report on virtual schooling has inspired budgetary investments in adjusting curriculums, assessments and course sequences for reteaching in the third marking period of this school year, whether schools are in-person or virtual. Board members believe these changes will alleviate the pressure on students who are falling behind. During the second marking period, MCPS also reemphasized the importance of “the 50% rule,” a rule that mandates the lowest grade for a submitted assignment is 50%, and required teachers to reduce course loads, placing a cap on how many graded assignments a teacher may assign and mandating For elementary and middle school students, the county has put into place COVIDsafe “equity hubs.” At these centers for distance learning, children can gather and attend different Zoom classes if their parents are unable to monitor them at home. The Children’s Opportunity Fund, the Black and Brown Coalition for Educational Equity and Excellence — both of which work to improve the lives of low-income students in the county — and money from the federal Cares Act help fund these equity hubs. Students in these hubs have access to meals, supervision and the company of their peers. The equity hubs are a step toward ensuring that children are in a safe environment while connecting online, said Kimberly Rusnack, project director of the Children’s Opportunity Fund.

“It’s a classroom of 13 students and two adults,” Rusnak said. “The adults act as proctors, helping students log on, make sure they pay attention and stay focused throughout the day.” The hubs, located in facilities across Montgomery County, predominantly serve elementary school students. But some locations — such as the Kidpower Equity Hubs in Silver Spring — also offer middle school students the same services. A long-term study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which focuses on supporting the well-being of disadvantaged children, found that students who don’t read at or above grade level by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. 88% of U.S. high school dropouts struggled to read in third grade, the study noted. The data emphasizes the importance of educational support for atrisk elementary schoolers. “I’m especially concerned about elementary students,” O’Neill said. “The amount of time they’ve lost with in-person instruction is huge, so we will have to work very hard to get kids back on track.” Throughout the county, there are currently about 1,300 students enrolled in equity hubs, with several community partners including 12 childcare providers. According to the Montgomery County Council, the $1.8 million grant given to equity hubs under the Cares Act expired at the end of January. But, the program has received $3.6 million through additional donations and private philanthropic dollars. The money raised by these donations and programs like the Children’s Opportunity Fund and the Black and Brown Coalition for Educational Equity and Excellence is enough to last through February, but the future after that is unclear. “We are working right now to advocate to MCPS and the county council,” Rusnak said. “Until MCPS has a plan of how and when all students will be able to transition fully back into school, we’re asking for them to continue to support this.” Getting students safely back into the classroom is the best solution for ending the uncertainty surrounding MCPS students’ future education, especially for the students facing the worst consequences of the coronavirus, Msefya said. “Nothing can replace the brick-and-mortar schooling,” Msefya said. “Until then, we must commit all resources to making our current situation work for students.”

5% 24%

20%

NON-ENGAGEMENT

students — especially those living in poverty whose communities have been the most negatively affected by the pandemic — generally chose to remain online. The correlation has not gone unnoticed, O’Neill said. The effects of the pandemic will likely be long term, Hoban said. Because the county is adapting course curriculums to online learning, the BOE predicts it may take one to two years for students in non-AP courses to catch up completely. Working research by the Northwest Evaluation Association, a nonprofit that creates standardized tests like MAP, suggests that some students have already lost a school year’s worth of academic knowledge from the online learning structure. ily outreach efforts to include printed newsletters, phone calls, text messages and home visits to ensure support is getting to the students that need them most,” Msefya said.

Elementary School

49%

25%

Middle school

50%

20%

63%

High school

18% 1%

15%

graphics by LEAH GOLDSTEIN

Key: RIGHT: The MCPS Board of Education released data Dec. 3 reporting the percentages of non-engaged students on a grade level and race basis. Virtual learning has most negatively impacted Hispanic and African American students.

Hispanic

White

Multiple Races

Asian

African American

PLAYING LIKE A GIRL: by Rena Van Leeuwen “You’re a girl. Girls shouldn’t be wrestling anyway.” “Ew, it’s a girl.” “A girl wrestling, really?” As the only girl on the Whitman wrestling team, junior Sophie Tarlov regularly hears comments like these when stepping onto the mat. She started her Whitman athletic career as a freshman on Poms — an entirely female team — but realized that it wasn’t the right environment for her. She wanted to try something completely different, so she decided to join the wrestling team a year later. me because they were scared they would hurt me,” Tarlov said. “It took a bit for my team to really connect with me, but when they did, I gained a family.” Although Tarlov is now extremely close with all of her teammates, it didn’t start out that way. At the beginning of the preseason before her sophomore year, the team would spar — a form of training — with partners. Tarlov was always the last person picked, she said. “It made me feel nervous and alone,” Tarlov said. “I felt like, if it’s going to be like this the whole time, I don’t know how this is going to work.” Having a supportive coach was a game-changer, she said. During preseason, wrestling coach Will Sharbaugh stood up for her during sparring drills and asked her to demonstrate in front of the whole team. Sharbaugh’s support changed the team dynamic, proving to Tarlov’s male teammates that she was just as capable as them. People started picking her as their partner, cheering her on during matches and befriending her off the mat, she said. “It made me so happy and feel so supported,” Tarlov said. “There have been times when opponents will be like, ‘Oh, she’s a girl,’ and my teammate will be like, ‘Yeah, so what?’” Tarlov isn’t the only girl at Whitman to join an all- or predominantly-male team. Sophomore Sophia VanLowe currently plays varsity and junior varsity ice hockey and is one of only two girls on her team of 28. harder for me to insert myself because most of the guys are already friends,” VanLowe said. “It takes away from my team experience a little.” With just two practices and only one or two games each week, there isn’t much time

for VanLowe to bond with the other players. She doesn’t yet feel like she has full connection or acceptance from her team, especially when the game gets tough. “I’ve never heard comments about me girls,” VanLowe said. “Last year, our goalie was a girl, and I would hear comments making fun of her or even just recognizing that she was a girl.” Remarks about VanLowe and her gender said. “Hockey is a really judgy environment, so sometimes being the only girl makes me

feel self-conscious — there isn’t really anyone to talk about it with,” VanLowe said. “Even though this feeling isn’t great, I don’t let it get to me, and I try to work harder.” Other Whitman athletes experience similar consequences of sexism in sports, though not from teammates. Junior Claire Young plays for the girls basketball and soccer teams. Although she doesn’t feel pressured by the boys teams, she and most of her teammates have grown to accept that they won’t get as much attention as their male counterparts. “Even though we may have a better record, it doesn’t matter,” Young said. “It’s sad, but it’s just something we’ve grown up with

and are used to.” When the boys and girls basketball teams practiced together, Young and other athletes trained in small, coed groups. During one of these training sessions, she ended up in a group with two of her friends, both boys. Young overheard them talking about how bad “the girl” was during a shooting competition in practice. Hearing this made her feel looked down on and uncomfortable, she said. “Sometimes, coaches, trainers or anyone else expect less of you,” Young said. “You have to learn how to expect more from yourgym and felt intimidated being one of the

only girls.” pressure to quit and dealing with insecurities about not being good enough, Young said. She has learned to push past these setbacks in order to achieve her goals. “You have to teach yourself to push yourself and stay motivated,” Young said. “When you hear s— talk, it’s intimidating and lowers for yourself.” On Nov. 28 this past fall, Vanderbilt University soccer player Sarah Fuller stepped in a Power 5 football game, taking on the role of kicker for Vanderbilt’s team. Though she

FEMALE ATHLETES COMPETE ON PREDOMINANTLY-MALE TEAMS only kicked once in her debut — the team failed to score the entire game — Fuller later 5 football game after kicking an extra point Dec. 12. “It’s just really inspiring to see something like Fuller kicking for Vanderbilt happen,” Young said. “It feels like hope that we’re moving in the right direction with valuing women’s sports. It feels awesome.” While people like Young celebrated this achievement, some of the online reaction was extremely negative. Instagram users commented things like, “Hope a defensive player smokes her and ends this nonsense,” or, “Damn. Vanderbilt is just that bad,” on a post count. Seeing this negativity surprised Tarlov. “I was not expecting as much backlash as that Vanderbilt had on one of their Instagrams. I was looking through the comments and had to stop after like two minutes; I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’” Achievements like Fuller’s inspire young athletes around the world to shoot for their dreams and seemingly impossible goals, Young said, but the negative response can easily lower self-esteem — especially since some comments said that girls don’t even belong in sports. “It makes me really mad because I’ve spent the majority of my life putting hours and hours of work in, and in the end, these comments just invalidate all of that,” Young said. Outside of these comments, Fuller inspired many girls to do what they want to do even with the stereotypes surrounding women in sports, Tarlov said. “If I had to tell a young girl one thing before they started playing sports, I would tell them, ‘Listen to what the haters are saying, and use it to make you stronger,’” Tarlov said. “Show people that you’re in it to win it for yourself, not for anyone else.”

LEFT: Junior Sophie Tarlov battles for control of her opponent during one of her many matches for Whitman. photo courtesy SOPHIE TARLOV. TOP RIGHT: Sophmore Sophia VanLowe races for the puck against Walter Johnson’s defense. photo courtesy SOPHIA VANLOWE. BOTTOM RIGHT: VanLowe carries the puck up the ice during a varsity game against Washington County. photo courtesy SOPHIA VANLOWE

Coed sports: Let’s bring all athletes together

graphics by MAYA WEISE

by Cailey Thalman

n Nov. 28, Sarah Fuller, a women’s soccer player at Vanderbilt Univer-

to play in a Power 5 football game. Her monumental kickoff to start the second half sent the message to thousands of young female athletes that they can do anything a male athlete can. Fuller expanded upon this achievement on Dec. 12 in Vanderbilt’s game female to score in a Power 5 football game after kicking an extra point. Fuller made an impact by playing on a male-dominated team in a male-dominated sport — but it shouldn’t be rare for every gender to play on the same team. Some of my favorite memories from elementary school are the ones I made on the recess. Every day at Burning Tree Elementary School, a large group of us got together, divided into two teams and played soccer for half an

hour. No one cared whether you were a boy or girl — it was just about soccer. As I got older, games became binary — “boys vs. girls” — instead of all genders together. The boys didn’t want to play with girls, they said, because we were “weaker” or “not as good.” Having my sports ability put down solely because of my gender made me feel less respected in terms of athletics. Offering more coed sports teams at Whitman in addition to the existing boys and girls teams would allow all athletes to gain respect for each other’s abilities, complement each other’s strengths and return sports to the inclusive activity it once was for so many of us. Currently, Whitman offers coed volleyball during the spring season in addition to a girls season in the fall and a boys season in the spring. With the staggered schedule, students get the chance to participate on both the coed and usual gendered teams. “I look forward to the coed season because it challenges me,” said junior Megan Chen, a coed and girls volleyball player. “The net is higher, so I have to work on adjusting my swing and increasing my vertical to hit effectively.” The coed volleyball team functions the same way any other team does, playing an 11game season against other schools in Montgomery County. Implementing this same system with other sports — such as basketball or soccer, where men and women already play by the same rules — would offer student athletes the opportunity to play their sport competitively in a new way. Coed sports also build respect between the sexes. Putting men and women on the same team to work together toward a common goal allows players to gain respect for one another’s abilities. Female athletes are often taken less seriously than their male counterparts, whether it’s girls being picked last during P.E. games Women’s National Soccer Team being paid sports give female athletes the ability to prove their skills alongside the boys and men who of-

“There are a lot of stereotypes surrounding guys and girls in sports, which puts unnecessary pressure on athletes when playing,” said junior Grace Li, who plays soccer and basketball. “In coed teams, no one can make assumptions about the other gender’s abilities. All conclusions are made based on how people actually perform.” The overarching goal for most athletes in their sport is to win. When both men and women play together on the same team, it’s not always about who’s faster, stronger or more technical — it’s about working together. On Whitman’s coed sports teams like hockey and wrestling, players say that they end up discovering newfound respect for the opposite sex’s abilities. “Watching my teammate Stephanie Solloso wrestle at states last year — and win — made me really appreciate her understanding of the sport and amazing technique,” junior wrestler Cole Wharton said. Men generally have bigger and stronger bones in both size and density, often granting them a leg up in strength and speed and fueling the common argument that coed teams shouldn’t exist because of males’ physical advantages. But according to a 2017 study done at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, researchers found that women have greater muscle endurance than men by a large margin, allowing them to become less fatigued over the duration of a sporting event. By placing them on the same team, men and women could complement each other’s strengths, bettering the collective team’s overall performance. There’s already so much pressure surrounding high-level sports at Whitman. I often miss the simple joy that came with playing soccer at recess in elementary school, when no one cared who was who. The opportunity to improve skills in a more relaxed and fun environment on coed teams would only better the sports community and each individual player.

The story of Joe Acanfora: Reflecting on discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community in the 1970s by Kendall Headley “I need your help. You’re the only person that I can talk to about this. I’m just like you — I’m gay. And I don't know what to do about it.” Joe Acanfora received many letters in 1972. Some were beautiful and supportive, some ugly and hostile. But this one caught his eye. Because of his sexuality, Acanfora job at Parkland Junior High School in Silver Spring just weeks earlier, so he had become used to the pile of mail from teachers, parents, students and unfamiliar addresses. A young in the one person he knew of who was publicly out and easily available to contact. Acanfora realized that this boy reminded him of his younger self: in denial of his identity and wallowing in self-loathing. Despite then being in the midst of a nightmarish journey full of lawsuits and legal disputes with school administrations, this letter showed Acanfora that, although the administration and superintendent were unsupportive of his sexuality, the MCPS community — with the exception of the frequent angry, parent-written letter condemning homosexuality — still supported him. Joe Acanfora, now 70 years old, was an aspiring science teacher in the early 1970s.

now-dissolved MCPS school, Acanfora was outed to the administration by the secretary of education in the state where he had attended college. The secretary went public about granting Acanfora — a gay man — his teaching made big splashes in local and regional news, eventually reaching Parkland. He was asked to leave the school and not to return. Acanfora had begun his teaching path at The Pennsylvania State University, where he changed his major from meteorology to education after losing interest in an earlier aspiration to pilot for the Navy. During that time of exploring his passions and interests, he simultaneously began coming to terms with his sexuality. Although Acanfora realized his identity as a gay man, he was still unsure exactly how to approach it. The culture surrounding LGBTQ+ rights in the 1960s was exclusive and disapproving; the church condemned homosexuality as a sin, medical professionals labeled it as a mental illness and big news outlets like The New York Times had policies of prohibiting even the printing of the word “gay.” “If you were a gay person, you felt very isolated,” Acanfora said. “There was nowhere

to turn that was supported. If you wanted to even read about a gay person and what that means, and you went into the library and searched for the word ‘gay’, it would say, ‘see “sexually deviant.”’ Then, if you found something, it was probably extremely negative and degrading.” During his junior year at Penn State, Acanfora found a safe haven after coming across a tising a group meeting for LGBTQ+ students to share their experiences and discuss what “gay” meant to them. Joining that group allowed Acanfora to fully accept his sexuality and refute society’s labels of being a “monster, sinner and sick,” he said. After six months of meetings, the group formed an organization for gay students, called Homophiles of Penn State, and were immediately denied access to any meeting rooms on campus. At this point, Penn State and, after three years, won. By that point, Acanfora had already graduated. suit, the university recognized Acanfora’s name in the court documents. They quickly pulled him out of the student-teaching position

“Although I’m proud and open about my sexuality, the label of ‘gay’ is not all I am. I’m a smart, valedictorian science teacher. I’m well educated. I’m a nice guy. I could not believe people would treat me this way based on the word ‘gay’ rather than who I am.” -Joe Acanfora

yes

24 16

he held, subsequently hindering his ability to receive his teaching certificate. This led to Acanfora filing — and winning — another lawsuit so that he could continue his career in education. The lawsuits made headlines in local newspapers, exposing Acanfora’s identity to the general public. As foreign as homosexuality was to Pennsylvanians at that time, Acanfora didn't consider the coverage extremely harmful, he said. “I remember thinking, ‘It’s so much easier to fight a university president than to sit at home and self loathe and have an internal battle every minute of every day,’” Acanfora said. “So it was an awakening and an empowering, positive experience.” Acanfora continued and finished his education courses after winning his court case, but he encountered another obstacle when he applied to formally receive his teaching certificate. To be officially certified as a teacher of “good moral character,” the dean of the school of education at Penn State must endorse the student by personally signing the certification. The dean refused to certify Acanfora, citing Acanfora’s sexuality in the decision. The school of education administration called a meeting to decide his fate, during which three deans of other academic colleges at Penn State sided with Acanfora, while three other deans refused to certify him. It was a deadlock; Acanfora was not certified. He released the transcript of the meeting to the local news the next day. “I was called in to be interrogated about my moral character,” Acanfora said. “They would ask me questions about my teaching, about being gay, about sex – it was unbelievable. I released the transcript the next day, and the news ran two pages of the interrogation. It was hugely embarrassing for the university and very, very positive for me because I answered the questions legitimately, honestly and straightforwardly.” Acanfora appealed the certification rejection to Pennsylvania’s secretary of education, who sat on the decision for around eight months. In the meantime, Acanfora was able to graduate, apply for jobs and begin teaching in certain states, including Maryland. He applied for a number of teaching positions, he said, and landed one as a middle school science teacher at Parkland in Montgomery County. Living in Washington, D.C. and commuting to work every day, Acanfora had a private life; he was not out in Maryland like he had been in Pennsylvania. In a pre-internet age, his colleagues weren’t aware of what he had gone through just one state north. Unfortunately, his time in Maryland with a sexuality private to him was short-lived. Pennsylvania’s secretary of education had come to a conclusion in his debate about certifying Acanfora. He had ultimately sided with certification, but the decision came at a cost; the secretary went public with his choice, which subsequently garnered enough media attention to eventually reach The Washington Post, The New York Times and, inevitably, Parkland's administration. “The day I saw that headline, I said, ‘Oh, dear. This is going to be difficult,’” Acanfora said. “I went to the principal's office and said, ‘I want you to know if you haven't seen it yet, this may come to your attention, and I want to give you the background and details.’” Even with the warning he provided to the administration, Acanfora was pulled out of his class the following day and asked to permanently leave his teaching position at the school. “I felt complete disbelief that it was happening. I was valedictorian of my high school. I was a member of Jersey Boys. I did extremely well at university. I was a model citizen,” Acanfora said. “I had fought several legal battles already, and I finally said, ‘Okay, let's get on with life.’ Yet here I am about to launch my career, and I was back out of work and being condemned. It was very disheartening.” While he initially felt discouraged, Acanfora was surprised by the amount of support he received from the school community pushing for his reinstatement. The main driving force behind his departure was central administration, he said, who held firm in their decision despite disagreement from the community. “The students had hundreds of petitions asking that I be returned. The faculty had petitions asking I be returned,” Acanfora said. “I’d done absolutely nothing wrong. My students supported me; my faculty supported me. This was a battle that I had to take on because I was in the right.” Acanfora sought help from several teachers’ unions, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. He also contacted local D.C. gay rights organizations for guidance on how to find and pay for a lawyer and what the best course of legal action for him to take might be. As his fight gained momentum and public attention, his phone line was ringing off the hook with calls from publications ranging from regional news stations to CBS’s “60 Minutes,” reaching out to Acanfora for insight on the lawsuit he had filed against the MCPS school board. One interview with a TV sta-

tion in New York for a segment they called, “How Do Your Children Grow?” stood out distinctively in his mind, he said. “They wanted to interview me about how my family was reacting to what was going on at the time,” Acanfora said. “Particularly my dad, who has no education and was a truck driver, for him to be willing to go on national television and support me — that meant everything to me and gave me the strength to take on any school superintendent.” Despite the fact that Acanfora’s dismissal was clearly rooted in his sexuality, the MCPS superintendent at the time, Donald Miedema, argued that the Board of Education would not knowingly hire a homosexual and that Acanfora’s degree and lack of experience were the main reasons for his dismissal. Acanfora lost the case at Maryland’s federal district court, so he appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit, which awarded him a partial win. The Court concluded that MCPS was wrong to move him out of teaching for what the county cited was his public display and talk of homosexuality — things the Court ruled should have been protected free speech. But MCPS had a right to remove him from his position, the Court said, for “material omissions in his application” — for not including homosexuality on his teaching application. “Although I’m proud and open about my sexuality, the label of ‘gay’ is not all I am,” he said. “I'm a smart, valedictorian science teacher. I'm well educated. I'm a nice guy. I could not believe people would treat me this way based on the word ‘gay’ rather than who I am. Open your eyes and see the whole person.” Even after the loss of his case on appeal, Acanfora recognized his impact on the MCPS community’s perspective on LGBTQ+ issues, he said. “The parents and students had to do some soul-searching about, ‘Should I be firing this person or should I be supporting this person?’” Acanfora said. “Something a lot of parents suddenly had to confront was that their daughter or son might be gay. They had to think about what this meant to possibly have a role model for their children, especially one that was supported.” Looking back to that period 50 years ago, Mark Eckstein, an MCPS parent and the chair of the LGBTQ+ subcommittee of the County Council’s PTA organization, recognizes the social shift in inclusiveness for the LGBTQ+ community from then to now. “Back when Joe was working, his fight introduced a step of tolerance for LGBTQ+ in communities,” Eckstein said. “People weren't exposed to that, so they needed to first learn to not discriminate against people of the LGBTQ+ community. Now, the goal is not so much purely tolerance but acceptance, love and exploration.” Acanfora agreed with Eckstein’s thoughts about the timeline of inclusiveness – the change from pursuing tolerance to pursuing acceptance and love – but added another factor he regarded just as important to the process: the value of having role models. “Recognizing the value of exposure to new, different norms and different role models is important in communities,” he said. “Particularly for gay students, having positive role models and not having that discontent in your childhood but rather feeling good about yourself and knowing you have as much potential as anyone else. But it's not only for gay students. All students need to realize there's a diversity of people in the world and a benefit to having the gay perspective in the community.” Since 1972, when Joe Acanfora was first asked to leave his teaching position, he has never again stepped foot in an MCPS school and doesn't even know if he’s allowed to. Even with all of the legal, social and cultural changes regarding LGBTQ+ rights since he left, Acanfora has never received any sort of formal apology from MCPS or compensation for its damaging actions not just to his career but to the lives of others that may have been affected. “50 years later and MCPS is still on record of having fired me for being gay. There's never been an acknowledgement that maybe they did the wrong thing,” he said. “Can you imagine watching your gay teacher being dragged out of the classroom and your gay students saying, ‘Okay, guess this is what I'm expecting in my life?’ Not only apologizing to me but to the gay teachers and students who were in the classroom or the school at the time. There's a lot of damage that was done, and a simple apology or recognition of change could go a long way.”

COVER: Self portrait of a young Acanfora in the early 1970s. photo courtesy JOE ACANFORA. LEFT: Acanfora, in his twenties, sits for a picture that would be used by many news publications. photo courtesy JOE ACANFORA. RIGHT: The gay liberation movement of the late 1960s through 1980s brought thousands of people to the nation’s capital in protest. These demonstrations have continued in recent years following new court cases and policies.

2.8% other

Whitman instructors ‘ski’ potential in their students BY NIL OZDEMIR Last winter, while most of her peers were still asleep, junior Kailey Nothman was already awake and on the road by 5:30 a.m. She watched the landscape out of her car window as she and her dad made their regular trip out of Maryland, eventually winding up a snowy mountain. Every Saturday and Sunday during winter, Nothman would wake up before sunrise and make the two-hour drive to Whitetail Resort, a ski resort located in southern Pennsylvania. There, Nothman and other Whitman stu-

dents have worked as junior ski instructors, teaching group lessons to beginner- and intermediate-level skiers of all ages. During their seven-hour work day, junior instructors also help teach private lessons to student skiers of varied levels. With youth ski lessons, instructors go over basic skills and fundamentals using skiing games, while for beginner adult groups, instructors decide which slopes to take according to their students’ skill level. Until recently, junior ski instructors who

turned 16 before the winter season could graduate from junior instructing and start teaching their own lessons. After becoming a junior instructor her freshman year of high school, senior Ashley Rommel taught classes as a lead instructor for the next two years, which gave her the independence to structure her own lessons and shape her own teaching style. Rommel believes that her students aren’t the only “When you’re instructing kids how to ski, you learn how to ski better yourself,” she said.

“Because I’m teaching little kids, I’m focusing more on the basics — but that helps me too.” Junior Tyler Lewis, who also worked at Whitetail last winter, heard about the instructing opportunity through Nothman. Although the Pennsylvania minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Lewis still had a great experience as a ski instructor, he said. “I had so much fun,” Lewis said. “I legitimately got to ski every weekend for a whole season; it was amazing. And I still made a nice chunk of cash.” While ski instructors enjoy item discounts in the lodge shops and free skiing passes at various mountains, they face a demanding schedule. Mornings consist of hour-long instructor clinics during which they learn the daily curriculum, and then they spend the remaining seven hours of the day teaching lessons. With a short lunch break in between lessons, ski instructors’ shifts end at around 3:45 p.m., but many days, Nothman doesn’t get home until 7:30 p.m. During breaks, instructors can ski for free, and though there aren’t many steep runs at Whitetail, they use their break time to bond and ski together down the few hard slopes the mountain offers, labeled “black diamond” ty. For Nothman, the Whitetail community is one aspect of the experience that made the job worth the challenging moments, she said. “I had a core group of six people,” Nothman said. “On our breaks, we would go skiing on the blacks. It was a nice reminder of how we were in it together — how we were all dealing with some crazy kids.” Nothman and Lewis also both help instruct Whitetrailers, the mountain’s all-day youth skiing program for students ages seven to 15 that takes place on Saturdays. Over the teach young skiers fundamental skills by taking students down various slopes. Directing kids and making sure they’re all where they’re ly when they’re younger, Nothman said. “One time, I was on the lift with two of my quite young kids,” she said. “We were right about to get off when one of my kids scooted off two seconds before we got to the platform to put our skis on. He ended up falling about never want a kid to fall off, of course, but he Other times, students have surprised instructors with their advanced skills. Lewis teaches his beginner students the “pizza” strategy: a technique where students turn their skis into a triangular pizza slice-like shape in order to better control their speed. While many stuthis beginner strategy, Lewis recalls how one of his younger students was able to skip this step altogether. “He was having some trouble because the strategy that we were teaching him wasn’t working,” Lewis said. “So we just didn’t have him do the pizzas, and he started skiing at a

years old; it was incredible.” Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, skiing and instructing look drastically different this year. Along with limiting mountain access and requiring masks, Whitetail only allows related parties to share the same lift and restricts class sizes to six or fewer people for all skiing and snowboarding lessons. Ski instructors undergo quired to complete pre-arrival self-screenings. While Lewis is instructing this year, Nothman and Rommel have opted to wait until next winter due to the inherent risks and time commitment of the job. “I would most likely have been a ski instructor while in my junior year of high school, taking three AP classes and being an assistant producer for Whitman drama,” Nothman said. year was just going to be absolute rubbish because I was going to be so busy.” Skiing has always been a constant in these instructors’ lives. Before they started teaching, they were all once Whitetrailers themselves. Growing up in a family that loves skiing, Lewis quickly discovered his passion for the sport was only three years old. “When I was a kid, my favorite parts were the sights around me and exploring new places,” Lewis said. “I really liked when it was snowy because the snow blocks out the sound and it gets very calm.” Eric Nothman, Kailey’s dad, learned to ski from his own father, who led Sierra Club-organized ski trips. Eric wanted to pass those skills and experiences on to his daughter, he said. “Skiing has brought me such great joy,” Eric said, “so I wanted to share it as a gift to Kailey when she was young.” On family ski trips, Kailey has been able to travel to top ski destinations in Canada and Colorado. When she was 11, she joined the Whitetail race team but soon realized that com-

petitive skiing wasn’t for her. “I kind of joined too late to really master it,” Kailey said, “so once I was old enough, I left the race team and became a junior instructor.” Rommel has been skiing for as long as she can remember, she said. With an extended family of skiers, she travels to her family’s house in Park City, Utah, every winter during the skiing season. Whitetail, though, has always been her favorite local ski resort, she said. “I’ve been skiing since I was very young, and Whitetail is the local ski resort that we go to,” she said. “I was expected to learn how to ski because everyone in my family knows how to, and I’m really happy about that because it’s been amazing; I know I’m going to be skiing for the rest of my life.” Since Kailey has been skiing at Whitetail for years, she has memorized the ins and outs of the resort. But even with her familiarity, she has gained a new perspective through teaching young skiers, she said. “I grew up on Whitetail,” Kailey said. “I know every slope like the back of my hand, and it gets kind of boring. Ski instructing makes the mountain more interesting because you’re focused on teaching.” Kailey, who is considering attending college in Colorado to continue ski instructing, loves that her job combines two of her passions: teaching kids and skiing. “It’s so fun to open up this door for the students and teach them this awesome sport,” Kailey said. “I’ve had such a positive experience with skiing my entire life. My hope is that my students grow up and also learn to love to ski — that it becomes a lifelong passion of theirs.”

graphics by SAMANTHA RUBIN 27

S t a c ke d a n d R e vie w

a d in g B e t h e s

“As American as apple pie” is an outdated expression. Unless you’re at McDonald’s, you can’t just sit down for breakfast and start digging into a warm slice. Parents would be outraged. Congress would Pancakes, on the other hand, are a breakfast staple that work for any meal — breakfast, brunch or even “breakfast for dinner.” The possibilities are endless. To an average Joe or Jane, all pancakes may taste the based delicacies. A stack of silver dollars is as American as Wall Street — that is, the Occupy Wall Street movement and “Wall Street” starring Charlie Sheen all rolled into one. Given the importance of pancakes, of pancakes in Bethesda.

Methodology

We do not have Abe Froman status; we are not the pancake kings of Bethesda. We are not extraordinary chefs. And we are not phenomenal journalists like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Choe Sang-Hun (the Seoul bureau chief for the New York Times and, in our opinions, the LEFT/RIGHT: Pancakes from the Original Pancake House. photos by CHARLIE SAGNER

: c i t s a t ” s t n n i o j a k P c “ ja p a fl ’s

by Jack McGuire and Taylor Haber

most underrated journalist of his generation. Keep killing it). No, we’re high school journalists with a deep passion for pancakes. That being said, our judgements are not fact: much like comedy and music, pancakes can taste differently from person to person. And while our analyses might not have been peer reviewed by the New England Journal of Medicine, we believe these are the best pancakes in Bethesda. ments: Tastee Diner, Silver and the Original Pancake House. Just like the legendary Miami Heat core of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, these restaurants possess the most notoriety, prestige and talent. At each restaurant, we ordered a stack of chocolate chip pancakes for pickup before bringing the hotcakes to a neutral location for the tasting to occur. Throughout the entire process, we made sure to follow COVID-19 guidelines by staying outside, always being six feet apart and keeping our masks on when we weren’t eating. We tested each order of pancakes with and without the syrup provided by each location. On our grading scale, “5/5 Flapjacks” represents a perfect score while a “0/5 Flapjacks” represents the equivalent of an “MCPS 50.”

Tastee Diner

SCORE: Two Flapjacks out of five

Tastee Diner is a staple of Montgomery County. It boasts three locations, and the Silver Spring location is a Montgomery County historic landmark. Whitman students frequently visit the Bethesda location, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And depending on whom you ask, it’s either the seediest or the most charming Bethesda restaurant. However, its vibe is irrelevant; our job is to adjudicate pancakes, not ambience.

came a dramatic drop in quality. The pancakes themselves seemed overdone and had a rubbery consistency; the Michelin Man probably would love these hotcakes, but not us. The chocolate chip aspect of the pancakes was also unremarkable. There wasn’t an even distribution of chocolate, and pockets of chips were few and The manufactured syrup Tastee Diner provided didn’t help the pancakes. The syrup was, well, kind of gross. It tasted like straight-up high-fructose corn syrup, not maple syrup, and it had the consistency of string cheese. Props to Tastee for sparing us the illusion that the syrup we were eating was straight from the maple trees of Vermont. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to try Tastee’s pancakes for yourself for the foreseeable future. In response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County, the County Council passed an indoor dining ban Dec. 15. Tastee Diner, which doesn’t offer outdoor seating at its Bethesda and Laurel locations, decided to close these locations until the County Council lifts the indoor dining ban. Tastee Diner’s Bethesda location is 7731 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814.

Silver

SCORE: Three Flapjacks and one Halfjack out of five

Silver has been an extremely popular establishment ever since it arrived in Bethesda in 2015. Created by the owners of Silver Diner, another iconic Montgomery County institution, the restaurant offers a wide variety of contemporary American cuisine. There, patrons can get classic American treats like crab cakes, steak dinners, milkshakes and, of course, chocolate chip pancakes. Before we even bit into the pancakes, we noticed how pristine they looked — a little too pristine if you asked us. They were all perfectly circular, had the same diameter and an eerily similar concentration of chocolate chips. They reminded us of the Eggo pancakes you warm up in the microwave. Some may see this as a compliment, but, frankly, the pancakes disturbed us. Give us some edge in our hot cakes! After we got over our fears of the pancakes’ spooky similarity, we took a bite. They were good. Silver seemed to use chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips, giving the pancakes added texture and crunch. Silver also must have spent a pretty penny on the chocolate; it was extremely rich

Our biggest complaint with Silver isn’t with their pancakes but with their syrup. The Smucker’s syrup packages they gave us had a confusing tightly. For patrons eating outside in the cold, brittle air, it’s imperative that Silver provides customers with easy-to-open syrup packages. Silver has two locations, with the cloest to Whitman located at 7150 Woodmont Ave, Bethesda, MD 20815.

The Original Pancake House

SCORE: Five Flapjacks out of five

ship title at the end of this article, Mike Tyson would have to watch out because the OPH means serious business. Boasting over 90 locations across 28 states — not including those in the Amazon rainforest, the kingdom of Narnia and the forest moon of Endor — the OPH is a force to be reckoned with in the world of diners. We should note that the franchise’s claim to be the “original’’ pancake establishment just isn’t true. The ancient Greeks, Romans and multiple other cultures all had their own forms of pancakes, dating back as early as the 5th century. Semantics aside, the OPH makes some darn good breakfast food. top of and inside the pancakes, sometimes simply spread across the plate. Inside the dish, it becomes a chocolate chip catastrophe of delicious proportions. The heat from the pancakes brings the chocolate to a perfect For syrup enthusiasts, the OPH’s plastic containers seem to have found the perfect amount of syrup coating per square inch, a mathematical olate but instead complements them. As Barry B. Benson from the “Bee Movie” might say, the direction in which you take your breakfast is a lot like jazz. There are countless ways to approach the situation. Syrup or no syrup? Extra chocolate chips? A side of whipped cream, maybe? But the taste always comes down to how the musicians, or in this case the diners, want to play. Be your own Thelonious Monk and experiment. The Original Pancake House’s Bethesda location is 7700 Wisconsin Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814. The existence of pancakes has puzzled some of the greatest philosophers in human history: Aristotle, Socrates, Guy Fieri. The list goes on. “If they’re cakes, then how come they’re not baked in an oven? If they come from a pan, then why can you put Eggo pancakes straight into the microwave?” We don’t pretend to know the answers to some of life’s most complex mysteries. We are but simple culinary custodians, pancake prophets if you will. We hope this review has started to unravel the wonders of an age-old American tradition and perhaps even given you a North Star to guide you on your pancake-related travels. But wherever your heart, or more realistically your stomach, leads you, just remember one lesson above all others: plain pancakes can never compare to chocolate chip pancakes. Godspeed.

MCPS: Don’t let snow days become a thing of the past The most magical days of elementary school were the ones when our teachers would with spoons under our pillows and wear our pajamas inside out. We completed these superstitious tasks, no questions asked, in the hopes of waking up to a powdery blanket of snow. As high schoolers, many of the things we once there’s one constant that will always hold as much excitement to our teenage selves as it did during our kindergarten years: snow days. We spent these days sledding down steep hills, building lopsided snowmen and piling marshmallows into cups of hot chocolate. But now, students of all ages will spend these once-treasured days glued to their computer screens as school continues online. MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith stated during a Sept. 10 virtual Board of Education meeting that with online learning protocols now in place, there would be no excuse for inclement weather days in MCPS even when schools reopen again for in-person learning, making snow days forever a thing of the past. MCPS should keep snow days during virtual learning, as well as in the future when we can return to school in person. These surprise days provide us with an impromptu break from technology in an era when mental health days should be encouraged regardless. They give us an everlasting sense of normalcy and allow us to relish being children again, even if only for a day. After many months of online learning, MCPS has made it possible for every student

to have the required technology necessary to participate in its new virtual norm. And when we expeseason on Dec. 16, students across the county continued their Zoom classes on a day that, under usual circumstances, would have been spent outside, re-energizing. This was a missed opportunity on the part of MCPS leadership. Abolishing snow days removes one of the only normalities left in our lives right now. The pandemic rendered our world surreal, robbing us of loved ones, important milestones such as graduations and so much more. Now, lost snow days are yet another consequence of COVID-19. Traditional snow days serve as an escape from reality, and MCPS should be working to preserve anything and everything that can help students feel more like their pre-pandemic selves. country to make a decision like this, either. A New Jersey school district made headlines this past fall when it announced that snow days would still be granted, even during virtual learning. Their reasons: normalcy and wellness. These breaks allow students to take a much-needed hiatus from the technology that has taken over our everyday lives. We spend four hours a day, for four days a week, glued to our computer during Zoom classes and even more hours after that completing homework assignments. A day that we don’t have to spend staring at a screen would provide us with a physical break as much as it would a mental

AN AM yS b ic

EVI

L HA

ph gra

one — an opportunity to go outside, get our bodies moving and relax. As for the well-meaning argument that snow days now are especially harmful, causing even more missed learning in an already scaled-down year, we say this: snow days are a childhood rite of passage, and it’s disappointing to see one more thing taken away from kids during this pandemic. While school is imperative for academic education, we also gain valuable social knowledge from other life experiences that shape who we are. There are ways to allow for snow day counts to be limited and remain within reason. MCPS could mandate, for example, a maximum number of snow days each year so that the wellness we enjoy doesn’t consequently impede our learning and instead brings only excitement and relief. pure bliss of a white blanket of snow. The breaks provide a “pause” button for life and give us a chance to bring back the excitement we’ve missed out on during this pandemic. We shouldn’t let assets like snow days become yet another relic of the past. They should forever be a cherished tradition that bring out the child in all of us.

IN THE RUBBLE OF ARTSAKH:

the Armenian community responds to a war across the world

Outside the U.S. Capitol, activists come together to raise awareness for the war in Artsakh. This was the third protest that the Armenian Youth Federation organized in response to the conflict. photo courtesy JULIE TILIMIAN

15-year-old Hovsep Seferian was old enough to enlist, and if it was legal, he would have the Nagorno-Karabakh war in a heartbeat. “My parents wouldn’t have liked it,” said Seferian, a sophomore at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia. “But I still would’ve.” Although this decision may seem extreme, countless Armenian-Americans feel the same way. Many of their family members, friends and neighbors, some of whom were even born in the U.S., have packed their the world — in the middle of a pandemic — to defend their heritage from Azerbaijani and Turkish forces. Tensions between ethnic Armenians and Turks have persisted for hundreds of years. In the 1890s, Sultan Abd Al-Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire ordered the mass execution of 300,000 Armenians. And the Armenian Genocide, when Ottoman Turks murdered 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during World War I, is still ingrained in the collective Armenian memory. Even today, many Armenians are hesitant to befriend Turks and vice versa, said Whitman junior Julie Tilimian, whose extended family lives in Armenia. “For as long as I can remember, there has been tension between the two countries,’’ Tilimian said. “I don’t know when it will end.” In the aftermath of WWI, Armenia gained independence for two years, beginning in 1918. During this short time, Armenia went to war over land disputes and cultur-

al tensions with its neighboring nation Azerbaijan, populated by Azerbaijani Turks. The war ended with the USSR absorbing both countries in 1920. In the late 1980s, during the fall of the it had left off when Armenia and Azerbaijan both claimed a small region of land, referred to as Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh by the locals. In 1994, the countries brokered a agreement on the possession of this region — even though 95% of its inhabitants were ethnic Armenians. Since then, rising tensions have led to isolated violent incidents, but none as consequential — and bloody — as what started in September of last year. “I kind of expected it,” Seferian said. “It made a lot of sense based on history. It’s been building up and then petering out and then building up and petering out for decades.” This past summer, an Azerbaijani-Turkish military drill made a clash seem inevitable. According to Artsakh authorities, launched aerial strikes against local civilians. For the next 44 days, Artsakh transformed into a war zone. The bombardment of small cities and towns displaced thousands of civilians; reports of war crimes and civilian casualties became widespread; food and resource shortages left families dependent on donations; and Azerbaijani troops’ attacks on schools and hospitals left little infrastructure left in the already underdeveloped area. Some felt so upset by the news that it started to affect their mental health. “That was the only thing I was thinking about,” Tilimian said. “I got really behind in school. I had to send a lot of emails saying, ‘Sorry I’m behind.’” Even before the war, the Armenian-American community had always been tight-knit. Anais Chubukian, a senior at Thomas Wootton High School, would regularly post Armenian news on social media and attend Armenian gatherings facilitated by her church. The atmosphere of these events always seemed to be one of love and liveliness, she said, and she couldn’t have been prouder of her culture. “When I’m with my family, we’re always laughing,” she said. “It’s just a time to get together and get closer to each other as an organization.” When news of the war broke, the familial support which had brought community members together for church events and holidays now propelled the extended Armenian community to take immediate action. “It was like battle

stations for everyone,” Seferian said. “People started posting a ton on social media, fundraisers all over the place, people donating crazy amounts of money, including my parents. They took money out of my college fund.” The Armenian Youth Federation, a youth organization that Tilimian joined this in D.C. to raise awareness for the war. People came from as far as California to demonstrate in front of the White House. Chants of “Recognize Artsakh” and “Justice for Armenia” rose from the masses adorned in red,

seeing each other since it started,” Tilimian said. “We were all very stressed out.” Fundraisers through Armenian churches have helped provide aid for Artsakh humanitarian efforts. The Soorp Khatch Armenian Apostolic Church in Bethesda and the Saint Mary Armenian Apostolic Church in D.C. have organized baked goods, art and Christmas ornament sales and, through them, have raised large relief funds. Another act of aid, the sponsoring of refugee families, has strengthened the Armenian familial bond across oceans. Through this fundraising strategy, a family in the U.S. sends money each month to displaced families in Armenia. Seferian’s grandparents took this concept one step further by taking a refugee family into their home in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. During the war, the refugee family’s mother gave birth to a baby boy. Without Seferian’s grandparents’ compassion, they might not have had anywhere to raise him. job opportunities and home arrangements for the family, his grandmother is just enthusiastic to host visitors, Seferian said. Despite the donations and mobilization of Armenian-Americans, challenges have forces, backed by an autocratic Turkish government, have access to vastly greater resources. In such dire circumstances, some Armenian-Americans, including Tilimian’s uncle and one of Chubukian’s brother’s friends, decided to donate to the Armenian cause their most valuable assets: their bodies, as soldiers in the military. By the time most of these volunteer soldiers arrived for battle, however, Armenian and Azerbaijani forces had already For many outsiders unaware of what’s at stake, these measures can seem extreme and unnecessary. That’s why the struggle for visibility has become so important, Tilimian said. In the middle of a pandemic, a national racial reckoning and one of the most divisive U.S. presidential elections in recent history, there has been little room in the news cycle to cover this international war. “Media coverage, that’s all we need,”

people will care — the government will care. I just need people to post about it.” For Tilimian, the apathy toward the conare going through my mind like, ‘No one cares — that’s just what it is.’” This indifference is only one of many reasons the war has largely been ignored in public discourse, Seferian said. He believes that most media outlets, governments and international organizations are choosing not to take action due to the enormous power that Turkey — a close ally to Azerbaijan — holds on the world stage. Just last year, former President Donald cially recognize the genocide after Turkey threatened to shut down a strategic airbase that holds American nuclear warheads. This suppression of truth is also visible in Instagram comment sections, where Azersupports Armenia or references the genocide with rebuttals such as, “Don’t believe the Armenian lies!” Tilimian believes this results from a lack of Azerbaijani social media freedom and the large-scale organization of automated accounts designed to spread misinformation. Such campaigns gained public prominence in recent years with Russia’s attempts practice has expanded to many other countries. News organization Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty reported last October, for instance, “bot-like” Twitter activity surrounding the topic of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Additionally, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found evidence of a small number of accounts coordinate to create the appearances of much larger, grassroots support. For example, in a given four-day period in July, the top 20 tweeters to pro-Azerbaijani hashtags had more than 1500 tweets each; many of these accounts had only been created weeks earlier. Along with the war itself, the struggle against Azerbaijani misinformation has been extremely troubling for Armenian activists. Armenian history isn’t taught in American schools, and the century-old genocide is rarely discussed in everyday conversation. Seferian believes that Armenia’s theological the historic nature of the genocide should be taught to every student in America. “The Armenian Genocide gets overlooked a lot,” he said. “And it’s important because to learn about these tragedies in human history is what helps us prevent them from happening again.” Armenian-Americans defend Artsakh for a similar reason: Turkey and Azerbaijan may be attempting to repeat history, Seferian said. “This is basically the second part to everything that happened in the genocide,” he said.

“Media coverage, that’s all we need. If more people find out, more people will care — the government will care. I just need people to post about it.” - Julie Tilimian Prejudice against Armenians in Turkey and Azerbaijan continues to this day. Chubukian described how some of her family members that live in Turkey have to keep their Armenian heritage a secret for fear of being targeted. “When I was eight years old, I was there for a month,” she explained. “There were certain things you couldn’t say because my ing out we’re all Armenian.” Seferian’s mom, who grew up in Azerwas a teenager to escape persecution. When the war broke out this September, she struggled with a PTSD-like reaction, he said. “She was all over the place,” he said. “She was a mess, and I had to stay strong.” After 44 days of total war, the Nov. 9 she could remember, Tilimian felt a divide within her community. While some members felt that thousands died for nothing, others were thankful the bloodshed was over. has not completely come to a halt as small skirmishes still plague Artsakh. But after the formal agreement, focus shifted from staking territorial claims to helping refugees and rebuilding infrastructure. In the rubble of Artsakh, the collapsed buildings and shattered

glass not only represent broken livelihoods, but broken identities for those an ocean away. “Being Armenian is what I am,” Tilimian said. “It just means everything to me. It’s my whole life. Like a lot of people say, when we lost that part of our land, we also lost a part of ourselves. It really does feel like that.” For Armenians, both in America and in their homeland, the land lost in this most redefeat in a storied Turkic-Armenian history and what some believe to be a step toward annihilation. tual violence break out,” Seferian said. “And when you have people who have wanted you to try to stop them because we don’t know what they’re going to do from here.”

BOTTOM LEFT: A protester holds up a sign in front of the White House that reads, “We will win” in Armenian. TOP RIGHT: Activists support Armenia at a protest organized by the Armenian Youth Federation in Washington D.C. People from all over the country came to demonstrate. photos courtesy JULIE TILIMIAN

STUDENTS “RESIGN” TO THE CHESSBOARD DURING QUARANTINE by Aleydis Barnes

To the average person, the word “chess” may bring to mind stone-faced competitors squaring off on wooden boards, eyes narmoves at lightning speed. But for senior Josh Harkins, the game is linked to a moment when he was just three years old. Positioned in front of a chessboard, he gazed down at diagrams of chess openings laid out in a 1950s strategy book his grandfather showed him, breathing in the smell of the wooden pieces and ancient pages. The popularity of chess among Whitman students has risen Queen’s Gambit.” But many students, like Harkins, have been playing long before the fad. Senior Abby Chen, president of Whitman’s chess club, learned the game at a young age as well. Her two older brothers, both of whom were also presidents of the club, taught her how to play when she was just “My oldest brother is, I think, the best one of the three of us,” Chen said. “He’s really been able to teach me all his tactics, all his openings, has really challenged me and has played me in games to help me improve.” Chen plays chess mostly as a hobby in her free time but said that the game also of-

graphics by EVA SOLA-SOLE

fers valuable lessons applicable to her daily life. The way opponents test her positions and moves on the board during matches has taught her to respond better to challenges outside of chess. “I’ve taken away a skill of really looking at issues or problems from multiple angles,” Chen said. “There’s an analyzing aspect and a problem-solving aspect because situation.”

For Harkins, the lesson comes after the game ends: his experiences playing against others in chess have taught him how to respond to defeats and persevere against adversities, on and off the board. “Sometimes, you fail,” Harkins said. “And you feel really, really bad, and you can lose really, really badly. But the great thing about chess is that all you have to do to get up from that failure and that loss is reset the pieces and play again. You don’t have to like to lose, but you have to learn how to. I think that chess offers a great way to learn how to do that in life.” Beyond the life lessons that playing

“But the great thing about chess is that all you have to do to get up from that failure and that loss is reset the pieces and play again.” - Josh Harkins

chess unlocks, the game isn’t as slow to play or watch as it may seem, senior Sharif Gauri said. “Blitz” chess — commonly known as “speed chess” — can entice those looking for action. In speed chess, games are shortened to under ten minutes, forcing players to make split-second decisions. Gauri, who revisited chess during quarantine, remembers a surprising play made by a higher-rated friend. “He’s a very good player, plays all the time,” Gauri said. “In chess club, you play a

per rare to do that. And then in the last game, he was beating me, and then he blundered once. I checked him, and it was crazy.”

and excitement in high-stakes games at tournaments, said senior Aravinth Venkatesh, who competes regularly at local competitions. “There are a lot of situations where there’s a certain amount of points you need or a certain situation where you might need to draw or win to get ahead in the ranking or standing, so it’s very interesting to go in with a psychological attitude it very fun.” But the exhilaration and life lessons gained from chess can be less accessible to girls, as the chess community suffers from a severe gender disparity. Of 1,700 grandmasters around the globe, only 37 of them are women. Grandmasters are players with ratings of 2,500 or higher, and ratings are calculated by points awarded for wins at competitive tournaments. In her elementary school chess club, Chen was one of very few girls, she said. “There’s that element where it’s like, ‘I’m the only girl here. Why are there so few girls here?’” Chen said. “I feel like it’s a stereotype associated with chess, and I guess some girls might not want to play into that. I also feel like there are a lot more male players, so girls don’t have that many people to look up to.” A 2007 study by the European Journal of Social Psychology found that young women who played against random opponents without knowing their opponent’s gender won about half of their matches. In contrast, when they were aware that they were playing young men, the women won only a fourth of their matches and used a less aggressive playing style. Researchers concluded that projected biases in the chess world may subconsciously affect the way girls participate in chess. Critics and audiences alike hailed “The Queen’s Gambit” for showcasing a successful female chess player and helping to increase chess participation among girls. Since the show’s release in October 2020,

“I’ve taken away a skill of really looking at issues or problems from multiple angles.” - Abby Chen

there’s been a rise in the number of women joining chess programs, according to Jennifer Shahade, the women’s program director for the U.S. Chess Federation. Junior Clara Dumon, who started playing chess more often after watching the show, felt that the series counteracted her viewpoint on the types of people that play chess. “I think not a lot of girls play because they think it’s more of a man’s game and only men should play,” Dumon said. “But the show really helped because it shows that women can play and do just as well. It really helped to see that you don’t need to be a man to play chess.” Harkins related to those inspired by the recent series, as his interest in developing his chess skills began in part because of the movie “Searching For Bobby Fischer,” a at the time looked up to the way the seven-year-old protagonist was able to succeed and cultivate his chess abilities. “That kind of spoke to me,” Harkins said. “I was also a little kid who couldn’t really do anything, but I could be good at something too. I think chess offers that sense of accomplishment, and series like ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ show people how you can use chess to better yourself.”

iving abroad during the pandemic: China edition

by Heather Wang 1:30 a.m.

start my “afternoon” classes. While my classto hide my bed frame, constantly adjusting the angle of my Zoom camera toward my ceiling. I give up; no one has ever called me out for it anyway. An unforgiving 13-hour time difference with Bethesda and occasional technology is-

me; I don’t want others to see my eyes closed, fast asleep. After all, having to endure these extra classes following a long “day” of school is exhausting, especially when I have to get up again three hours later for debate practice. Waking up at 7:50 a.m. for practice has posed a challenge. Sometimes I sleep through four alarms, miss two hours of practice altogether and don’t feel energized enough to slip out of bed until noon. The huge time difference has some ben-

of my senior year. Due to family responsibilities, I temporarily moved to Beijing, China —

due on Sunday evening EST, I have the luxury

— in late October. Being home is a relief, and I’m grateful to reconnect with family I hadn’t seen in years. But the move came at a price. While those in Bethesda are asleep, it’s broad daylight for me, and while night falls in China, I sit awake to attend Whitman Zoom lessons. Sometimes bedtime is between 4 and 8 a.m., coupled with four more hours in the late afternoon. Most days, though, my schedule is more irregular. With my parents and brother in the kitchen or watching TV, I sleep while I can. 3:30 a.m. My music teacher is constantly surprised that I can Zoom in at three in the morning and seem undisturbed. But by eighth period, I feel lightheaded and dry-eyed. Social Emotional Learning and OneWhitman are camera-off time for

as if I had an extension. The house is usually quiet then. Unlike me, my brother attends kindergarten in person down the block, which saves me from the noise of happy toddler chatters. I put on some music and get to work. 4:30 p.m. Movie theaters wide open, restaurants back to business, subways packed with people — all wearing masks. According to NPR and other major news outlets, China leads the pack in recovering from the deadliest period of the coronavirus. But people are still wary. The government requires that we scan a QR code called the “health code” for every place we visit, ensuring accurate contact tracing when there’s a newly-diagnosed COVID-19 patient. While many Americans cite personal freedom as a reason for not wearing

masks, the attitude in China is that it’s better to approach a deadly health situation with caution and strict enforcement. I’ve been able to reconnect with my old friends from Beijing after several years apart. The streets outside my house have changed, and several new shops have opened while others have closed. I’ve tried new cuisines and visited places around town to which I had never been. Although I myself have changed, the temperament of Beijing has not: solemn, radiant, warm. Sometimes, just as I did years ago, I go to an empty milk tea shop on a Monday morning, pull out my schoolwork, put on some music and start writing. This unconventional time period is a reminder that I live a double life. While I cannot simultaneously stay awake in the daytime of two countries that are literally on opposite sides from summer camp, text my Whitman friends and stay connected to both of my worlds. On those crystal mornings when everyone in Beijing is hurrying to work or school, I gain a moment of solace. The pandemic is undoubtedly one of the biggest strains we’ve experienced in our lifetimes and has made many of us feel isolated, but I’ve found ways to bask in the silence. After three years of living in America, I walk out onto the outstretched streets and memories. Perhaps the 13-hour time difference isn’t so bad after all.

gra ph

ic b yM AYA W

IES

Teachers recall their days as Whitman students by Danny Kotelanski

Unlike the students who would be joining her in room C-328, Cline had seen this room before; the same rusty bulletin board remained front and center and several of the same science-related posters still hung on the walls. It had been 16 years since Cline last saw this classroom, yet very little had changed. Cline (‘02) is one of several Whitman graduates who made the decision to return to their alma mater as a teacher. And although the building and community have evolved since their time as students, these alumni prove that some things will always stay the same.

ELIZABETH DOSCHEK

BACK TO SCHOOL

If you had asked the high school version of math teacher Elizabeth Doschek (‘97) if she wanted to become a teacher, the answer would have been a “My parents are both scientists, and I thought that I was going to be a physicist,” Doschek said. “I never thought about teaching at all.” Doschek fell in love with music as a competitive violinist in Whitman’s instrumental music program. She described former music teacher Chris Allen’s classes as “brilliant,” helping her develop her violin skills and interest in playing the instrument. Doschek became so dedicated to playing that she even contemplated becoming a professional violinist after graduating high school. She credits Allen for developing Whitman’s music groups into the several distinguished bands and orchestras they are today. Outside of the music room, Doschek was an avid punk rock fan. “In the late 90s, there was a huge underground punk scene in D.C.,” Doschek said. “There was a store called Smash that had every record you could want and that would sell clothes so you could dress like a punk.” Doschek dyed her hair often when brace her “punk” identity. But as busy as she was being a violinist, a punk and even a varsity tennis with straight A’s in all of her classes. While several things have changed since she was a student at Whitman, Doschek admits that the competitive culture regarding academics has not. “The students are really similar I would say,” Doschek said. “I have students now who remind me of a lot of classmates I had.”

16 years after graduating, Cline entered Whitman once again, but this time, her former teachers were her co-workers, her most dreaded subjects as a student were the ones she was teaching and the classrooms in which she had once learned were the ones in which she now taught. “Calling my former teachers by their

fewer than there are today. Whitman’s reputation of being a powerful school, both academically and in the arts and athletics, was even greater when Hisle was a student than it is now, he said. Hisle described himself as a “middle of the road” student in high school, falling toward the middle of his class rankings. While he wasn’t the most academically-focused student, he excelled in his math classes, inspiring him to become an Algebra II, precalculus and, this year, an AP Calculus AB teacher. As a student, Hisle’s focus was directed more toward sports than academics. He wasn’t very tall when he was in high school, standing at just 5 feet and 4 inches. But height didn’t limit his athletic ability. Hisle managed to become a skilled high jumper the Maryland state championship several years in a row. When he returned to teach at Whitman, the biggest change Hisle noticed was how dedicated students had become to their extracurricular activities and academics. “Back in those days, if you went out to Hisle said. “Now everyone is so involved with their clubs and schoolwork that there isn’t that opportunity to gather and hang out.”

JOAN CLINE

RALPH HISLE

Math teacher Ralph Hisle (‘80) started at Whitman in 10th grade after graduating from Pyle Junior High, which at the time hosted students from grades seven through nine. Hisle loved his years at Whitman, with the only downside being that he couldn’t meet all of his peers due to the size of his 700-person class, he said. “Whitman really offered everything to students,” Hisle said. “It had competitive sports, competitive drama, competitive music, so many honors classes and so forth.” 40 years ago, there were just 18 high

took a lot of getting used to,” Cline said. “It’s also a little nerve-wracking teaching a subject alongside another teacher who taught you that subject.” Science teacher Anne O’Donoghue was Cline’s chemistry teacher during her sophomore year. Today, they instruct the same subject together, and although she struggled with chemistry in high school, Cline attributes her teaching skills and strategies to her own teachers, such as O’Donoghue. “One interesting thing since coming back has been watching Ms. O’Donoghue teach,” Cline said. “I teach and do things a certain way, and I realized from watching her that that’s the way she taught me.” At the beginning of her senior year, Cline and her then-boyfriend started the coed a cappella group None of the Above. NOTA has since become one of Whitman’s major a cappella groups, performing at the annual winter music concert and at several out-of-school shows throughout each year. Cline was scheduled to get married this past October and have the current members of NOTA perform at her wedding ceremony, but due to COVID-19, she had to postpone the larger ceremony. Like many current students, Cline faced the stress and pressure of Whitman’s competitive academic culture when she attended; she frequently felt not as smart as her peers, she said. It was only after graduating that Cline realized this academic intensity wasn’t regular in other schools around the country. “I was surrounded by students who were taking lots of AP classes and stressing over their SAT scores; I thought that was the standard everywhere,” Cline said. “It took me a while to realize that this only existed within the little bubble of kids I was hanging out with.”

LAURA EVANS- RHODES

There’s a good chance you’ve heard math teacher Laura Evans-Rhodes (‘86) express her love for Whitman Swim and Dive. “Ms. Rhodes always talks to the swimmers about their times and events,” junior Max Walker said. “She seems to be really invested in the team’s success.” But Evans-Rhodes isn’t just a fan; she was a swimmer herself on the Whitman swim team for all of her four years of high school. Early morning and after-school practices left Evans-Rhodes with only enough time to do her schoolwork, she said. “I didn’t have a super crazy social life or anything because I was an intense swimmer,” Evans-Rhodes said. “I also had a lot of schoolwork, but that prepared me well for college.” Evans-Rhodes was the swim team captain for both her junior and senior years at Whitman. She competed every year at Metseveral private and public school teams from the DMV — and continued her swimming career at the University of Michigan. After college, Evans-Rhodes returned to MCPS, this time as a teacher. She taught at Albert Einstein High School and later at Winston Churchill High School for several years. In 2016, there was an opening in the math department at Whitman. At the time, her daughter, Caroline (‘16), was entering her senior year at Whitman and her son, Tommy (‘20), his freshman year. Evan-Rhodes had always dreamed about teaching at the same school her kids attended, and the fact that it was her former high school made her want to teach there even more, she said. But Evans-Rhodes loved teaching at Churchill and was hesitant to apply somewhere else until one of her colleagues, math teacher Audrey Fisher, eventually convinced her. “She went to Churchill and then her kids went to Churchill,” Evans-Rhodes said. “She told me that it was so great being at the same school where her kids go and that I should really want to do this.” When she was offered the Whitman teaching job later that year, she didn’t hesitate to take it. “If I hadn’t loved Whitman so much, I wouldn’t have moved back to the area,” Evans-Rhodes said. “Iloved it so much that I wanted my kids to go there.”

PAGE 37: Math teacher Elizabeth Doscheck’s sophomore yearbook photo. photo courtesy ELIZABETH DOSCHECK. CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Math teacher Ralph Hisle stands outside his home wearing a Whitman jacket. photo courtesy RALPH HISLE; Science teacher Joan Cline’s senior portrait. photo courtesy JOAN CLINE; Math teacher Laura Evans-Rhodes’ senior portrait. photo courtesy LAURA EVANS-RHODES; Hisle dunks at the Whittier Woods courts a few years after graduating. photo courtesy RALPH HISLE; Hisle attempts a high jump during his junior year on the Whitman track team. photo courtesy RALPH HISLE; Evans-Rhodes poses with Ronald McDonald at the 1985 USA Swimming Nationals. photo courtesy LAURA EVANS-RHODES; Doschek plays guitar in the Whitman marching band. photo courtesy ELIZABETH DOSCHEK

FOODISM BLENDS CULTURES With the smell of cinnamon and frying oil still lingering in the kitchen, senior Nina Madeddu sat down in front of her computer

BY ANDREW AUDAS

To honor the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, the self-proclaimed “foodies” had made churros. Sitting at their own kitchen tables with warm, freshly fried treats, club members chatted about their lives, with one member sharing her view from the Bahamas and one receiving their acceptance into college during the meeting. While members laugh and a bite to eat. Madeddu and senior Deshawn Ejiogu started the Foodism Club in the spring of 2020 as a way for students to bond and relieve stress through cooking. The club teaches a range of cooking and baking skills — from cutting an onion to properly cooking tiramisu. These skills are not the only lessons members learn; each recipe also comes with a cultural lesson about the origin of the food they’re preparing. After witnessing people on social media take up cooking during the pandemic, Ejiogu and Madeddu wanted to create a club with a relaxed environment where people could be present in the moment, Ejiogu said. They came up with a preliminary name — the Walt Whitman Cooking Club — but since they also wanted their club to include baking, they moved on to a catchier, more accurate name: the Foodism Club. “Foodism doesn’t have any meaning — we just created it since it sounded cool,” Ejiogu said. After establishing the club, Maddedu and Ejiogu began to recruit students. They enlisted members by contacting their friends and following students from the club’s Instagram account. Within a few weeks, they had gained about 15 faithful members. Once their base was settled, Ejiogu and Madeddu sent a poll to their members to learn the kinds of dishes they were interested in cooking and baking. “People kept asking about various cul-

CLUB WITH COOKING tural dishes,” Madeddu said. “Then we realized that Whitman doesn’t have a cultural cooking club, so we thought that it would be an important part to bring into the club. Cooking brings people together, so we wanted to have a safe environment to do that.” What Ejiogu and Madeddu had intended to be an outlet to relieve stress grew into something more important, Madeddu said. While the club still emphasizes the theme of bringing people together, they recognized their opportunity to provide students with a unique cultural experience as well. “We decided to move toward a cooking club with a cultural, stress-free cooking vibe,” Madeddu said. Ejiogu’s family is from Nigeria and his mother grew up in Britain, so he became well versed in the value of spices for cooking. In addition to preparing his family’s cultural dishes, Ejiogu’s mom regularly experiments with foods from various cultures, often teaching Ejiogu along the way. Madeddu has had a similar experience. She’s from Italy, so food is very important to her family, she said. She remembers cooking with her grandmother — being shown how food connects cultures and watching her test the saltiness of pasta water by quickly dipAnd even though Ejiogu and Madeddu are fairly seasoned in cultural cooking, being a member of the Foodism Club requires no cooking experience or diverse background, they said. “My parents are immigrants from the

Philippines, and they came here with a bunch of recipes,” sophomore Jacob Palo said. “The thing about Eastern cooking is we always go by taste — we freestyle it, we never go by recipe — and the club does a really good job of teaching this.” Palo has grown up around food his entire life; his dad had a lead restaurant management position and his brother attended culinary school. While his family played a large role in getting him involved with the food scene, Palo didn’t experiment with cooking until the pandemic began in March. “Since I was watching ‘Binging with Babish’ videos, I began to wonder how I could do that,” Palo said. “Then I found out about the club, so I now had an excuse to make a mess in my kitchen.” Palo religiously watches “Binging with Babish,” an energetic food tutorial YouTube channel, and cites it as the reason he became so interested in cooking. Foodism expanded that interest, teaching him about the cultural relevance of the food he cooks. “People are so limited to what they know,” Palo said. “Sometimes they’re scared to venture out into these places that they aren’t that interested in.”

conversation, Madeddu said, but the members still see meetings as a time to enjoy the community the club has built. “People really talk about everything,” Ejiogu said. “We tried to get people to send what they made and how they felt about it. We really want to see other peoples’ takes since it’s cool to see what they’re capable of.” The club aims to teach more than its own members about the foods they cook, so members are now writing a free, digital cookbook for anyone to use. But instead of making a traditional printed cookbook, the club decided to make an online recipe document where anyone can post and view recipes. Ejiogu and Madeddu try to focus on the accessibility of their recipes during the pandemic. The club publishes on a Google document reachable from their Instagram account for people to view recipes week by week, but

that they were making, the club eventually decided to make dishes in accordance with holidays celebrated around the world. At a December meeting, they decided to make lat-

TOP: Members created holiday cookies for a competition to see who could make the best looking cookies. MIDDLE: Club members pose for a photo during their last meeting before winter break. BOTTOM LEFT: Club leaders encourage members to experiment with fun designs as they make churros. BOTTOM RIGHT: Sophomore Jacob Palo made a meat dish in his spare time to further his experimentation with food. photos courtesy FOODISM CLUB

The cultural aspects of the club serve to make everyone feel included and spur important

by the end of the school year. “Since the club is so diverse, we’re trying to share this food,” Palo said. “The club is a way of saying, ‘We see you, you are with us’”

Follow the Foodism Club on Instagram for more information about their work and meetings.

@WWHS_FOODISM 41

Sports cards: TIN CORPUEL

EN photos courtesy QU

A business for some, a passion for all

by Quentin Corpuel LeBron James was sitting in my closet, staring at me while I did my homework. No, not the actual LeBron James. He’s busy getting buckets for the Los Angeles Lakers. After all, his 6’9”, 250-pound frame would have closet. In the top corner of my closet sits a small cards I’ve been collecting since kindergarten. Inside, childhood heroes like Eli Manning and Derek Jeter were always busy, winning Super Bowls and World Series titles on 2 ½ -by-3 ½-inch rectangular cards. For many, being isolated during quarantine created a natural desire to revisit old passions and hobbies. Thumbing through my sports cards one day, I found myself searching online to see if any of mine were worth anything. I quickly found I wasn’t the only one with a rediscovered passion for collecting sports cards. Throughout the pandemic, it turns out, millions of people have gravitated back to trading sports cards, an activity that has otherwise experienced a decline since its “golden age” in the 1980s. When the COVID-19 pandemic canceled American professional sports in March, sports gamblers couldn’t bet on any games, so they turned to investing in sports cards instead. And because families are at home, some parents who were a part of that golden age of sports card collecting have now introduced the hobby to their kids. For former collectors, the pandemic gave them the chance to revisit — or continue — their devotion to the sports card world. Over quarantine, Whitman graduate and adamant sports card collector Nathan Schaefer (‘19) spent time developing his passion for sports cards. Schaefer became more serious about sports card collecting and trading when, in February 2019, he started a basketball card Instagram account to which he posted his inventory — from glistening new cards of current superstars like Kevin Durant and Nikola Jokic to autographed cards of players on the Dallas Mavericks, Schaefer’s favorite NBA team. He began posting pictures of his cards more frequently over quarantine because it was something to keep him busy, he said. Since then, the account has gained nearly 2,000 followers. “It’s something that I hope to grow and show others that it’s a really fun hobby,” Schaefer said. “It’s really fun to collect stuff like that and also engage with the community, which was something I never really expected.” Schaefer has been collecting cards since he was in elementary school. He recalls his most memorable sports card collecting moment at a Target four years ago. “I bought this random $15 pack and pulled MVP season,” Schaefer said. “I always like telling that story because with most other valuable cards, I know what I’m getting — this was a pleasant surprise.”

On top of the memories and experiences Schaefer has gained from card collecting, his social media account has given him the opportunity to make some money. He uses the Instagram account to sell cards, posting detailed showcases in hopes of connecting with potential buyers. “I love business and sports, and I’ve been a sports fan my whole life,” Schaefer said. “I feel like card collecting is like investing stock in a player, but you’re not as attached and committed to it as actual stocks.” Similar to stocks, a sports card’s value can increase or decrease over time depending on the performance of the player. Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic’s rookie cards have sold for hundreds, even thousands of dollars on eBay over the past calendar year as he’s become one of the biggest names in the NBA. Yet they weren’t priced for even close to that when Doncic joined the league in 2018. On the other hand, Washington Wizards guard Jerome Robinson, drafted the same year as Luka Doncic, has yet to have one of his rookie cards sell for over $50 on eBay due league. While some people enjoy sports card connect with fellow collectors, others, including junior Zach Yaqub just enjoy owning the cards, even if they don’t necessarily have monetary value. with sports cards at a birthday party in elementary school. All of the kids at the party were given a pack, and Yaqub struck gold, pulling a LeBron James card that sent his friends into a frenzy. “Everyone was trying to trade for it, and I kept saying, ‘No,’” Yaqub said. “Even though you could buy that card for $2 now, it was so cool to me at the time.” Yaqub became truly enthralled with collecting cards when he went to the Washington Nationals Spring Training in 2018. Yaqub came equipped with cards of the entire team roster that most of the players at the training autographed. From that point on, those cards held a special place in his heart and have become daily reminders of his love for baseball, he said. “I have a case in my bedroom with all the autographed cards and balls the players signed,” Yaqub said. “Whenever I look at it, it reminds me of baseball, and baseball makes me feel better.”

y cb

T AN M SA

ap gr

%& !"#$

Hitting it out of the park:

THE RYAN BROTHERS reunite through college baseball

by John McGowan Only 2.2% of high school baseball players continue their sport at the Division I college it takes to play at that level is rare, especially among teenagers. But in the Ryan household, it’s the standard. In November 2019, senior Matt Ryan committed to the baseball team at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, joining his older brother Jack Ryan (‘19), who was already on the team. “Jack and Matthew both possess a strong work ethic and intense determination especially when it comes to baseball,” said Christine Pellerin Ryan, Matt and Jack’s mom. “Both emulate the UMBC motto of ‘grit and greatness’ to a T.” Matt and Jack played on the Whitman varsity team together when Matt was an underclassman and Jack an upperclassman, their time on the team overlapping for two years. Jack took Matt under his wing, teaching him drills that helped him on both offense and defense. Having a familiar face on the team made the transition to high school baseball much smoother, Matt said. productive, especially with Jack and the other seniors to help me,” Matt said. “I was playing beside many future Division I athletes who helped pave the way for my success as a baseball player.” In the 2019 season, Whitman baseball catcher, and Matt earned All-County status as the starting shortstop. Jack has made sure to look out for his younger brother outside of baseball as well, Matt said. “Jack has helped me stay motivated off the room or staying on top of my game in the classroom, he makes sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing in preparation for college.” Even with Jack’s encouragement on and UMBC on his own, Matt said. Rather than pressure his brother, Jack stayed supportive throughout the recruitment process. “He helped me through the recruiting process and didn’t try to push any decision on me,” Matt said. “When I decided on UMBC, he was all for it.” In the summer before his junior year, UMBC had begun showing serious interest in Matt by attending most of his club tournaments. Because of his brother, Matt already had a good idea of the team’s culture, he said. After observing a team practice during a visit to UMBC, Matt appreciated how the coaches were engaged and focused on every detail of the sport, he said. On top of throwing during batting practice and hitting balls to meaningful advice, emphasizing the idea that

players need to “practice how they play” and creating a game-like environment in practice. Matt knew UMBC was the school for him. “I loved the coaches and how they ran their baseball program,” Matt said. “I knew it a baseball player.” Aside from their contribution to Whitman created countless baseball memories together over the years. But there’s one memory, from before he was even on the team, that has stuck with Matt. Jack was called up to the varsity team ing catcher, who was injured. Matt remembers watching from the bleachers as Jack played his ersburg High School, one of the best teams in the county at the time. Although Whitman didn’t come out on top, Jack played his heart out and proved he was deserving of a varsity spot, Matt said.

“Having the opportunity to play the game I love with my brother at the high school level and now in college is something that I will cherish for the rest of my life.” -Jack Ryan “I remember him coming home after his freshman year of tryouts being devastated that he didn’t make varsity from the start,” Matt said. “To see him grind and eventually earn a starting spot on the varsity team was really inspiring.” Jack has enjoyed every moment of watching his younger brother grow into both the person and the player he is today and is excited for their future together on the team. “I’ve had a lot of great memories with my

to work hard to match Jack’s example and, in return, motivates Jack to improve his game. Even with this competition, they want the best for each other, Jack said. largely attributed to their competitiveness, Prime Performance Athlete Training — a basebaseball players work out — has also contributed to their successes. “The staff at Prime have been instrumental in developing both Matt and I into Division I-caliber players,” Jack said. “The team at Prime are not just great coaches but great people who really invest in each player’s development and will help everyone who walks through the door reach their goals.” Both brothers have become leaders on the baseball diamond in different ways, said Whitman baseball coach Joe Cassidy. Jack was a more vocal leader and a “rah rah guy,” Cassidy said, while Matt is quieter and lets his actions are a staple of Whitman’s baseball program, Cassidy said, both Jack and Matt take the values they learn from the sport to help others. When they weren’t under the lights of the stadium, Matt and Jack both worked as P.E. assistants — Matt during his sophomore year and Jack during his junior year. Matt also helped in the special education department, showing a great deal of maturity, Cassidy said. “I’ve been lucky to have a good amount of siblings play for me at Whitman, but the Ryan boys stand out,” Cassidy said. “It’s not just because of the high level of baseball they’ve played for Whitman but how good of young men they’ve been.”

“Having the opportunity to play the game I love with my brother at the high school level and now in college is something that I will cherish for the rest of my life.” Over the years, Matt and Jack have developed a friendly rivalry. Matt continues

ENDLESS PLAYLIST by Kaya Ginsky and Mathilde Lambert ACROSS

1. Layer beneath the Earth’s crust 7. Gong-like instrument 13. Justin Bieber 2020 hit song 19. Famous Iron Chef, ______ Lagasse 20. Filled with excitement 22. Popular type of houseplant 23. “Drove up” in Dutch 24. What The Beatles want 26. The Who’s eighth studio album 28. Dog collar ornament 29. “Place” in Norwegian 30. Granular soil 31. What singer Tammy Wynette does with her man 34. Total Harmonic Distortion, abbr. 36. Distinct time period 37. Austin Texas, in text 38. “Aunt” in Spanish 39. Perfect condition: “good __ ___” 41. “Trashy,” in Britain 46. Pile 49. Frank Ocean album, “Channel ______” 53. State of owning a lot of land 54. Peruvian volcano 56. Bets 57. “Dancing Queen” line: “Friday night and ___ _____ ___ ___” 61. Shooting stars 62. State International Development Organizations, abbr. 63. Out of style: “so ____ ____” 64. Famous person 66. Relating to the nervous system 68. Two “gnu” homonyms 69. Type of salad ingredient 72. Comes back in 77. Nickname for the Montreal Canadiens 81. Extinguishes, like a birthday candle 82. Rihanna’s seven-time Grammy-nominated project 85. Turkish Vitamin B complex supplement brand 87. John Adams’ First Lady 88. “Cafe” ending 89. “Offshore” in Hindi 90. Regional Earthquake and Tsunami Monitoring Center, abbr. 91. Alpine herder singing 94. “Horses” in Icelandic 96. Point at a target 98. “It’s not me, it’s ___” 99. Ashford Hospitality Trust, abbr. 102. Superfood used in homemade face masks and on toast, for short 103. ____ Toast Crunch 106. Commune in Loire-Atlantique, France 110. Type of pottery 112. Antelope found in Southern Africa 114. Run up a drink tab 116. “___ __ __ ___ ____ and let me play among the stars” — Frank Sinatra 120. Over there 121. “Last” in Spanish

122. English city home to Ironbridge Gorge 123. Opposite of “off of you” 124. What you do to see an eclipse 125. Former Ghanaian ambassador to Germany and consultant 126. Location of the Rwenzori Mountains

DOWN

1. Cat noises 3. Common perfume ingredient 4. Opposite of “trick” during Halloween 5. “Bind” in French 6. First children abbr. 8. Quantity 9. Speed of a car in America, for short 10. Nickname for Theodore 11. Improvise 12. Father of Chicago Blues, _____ Waters 13. Drake song, “_____ ___ Cry Later” 14. Canadian hockey player Bobby 15. Informal negatives 16. Gladden 17. Large passenger ship 18. Rude interruption when repeated three times 21. Michael Jackson love song, for short 25. Breakfast grains 27. Bacteria protein type 32. Disappointment 33. Like The Onion and The Rutabaga 35. Make crazy 37. North African herding dog breed 39. Toyota CEO ____ Toyoda 40. Darius Rucker hit song 41. “Darn” 42. Windy City college, for short 43. Raised- BRED 44. 2009 Taylor Swift hit: “You ______ ____ me” 45. “So close ___ __ far” 47. On the ocean 48. Center for Teaching, Learning and Research, abbr. 51. Base metric unit of mass 52. “To be” in Latin 55. Naval abbr. for “Landing, ship, tank” tion 59. “Anger,” in Budapest 60. Trendy Brooklyn neighborhood, for short 65. To such an extent: “____far” 67. Basque language 68. “Ride Wit Me” singer 69. Best-selling Swedish band 70. Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, abbr. 71. Beauty brand sold at Ulta 73. Correct

Endless Playlist 1

124

106

107

108

109

121

116

102

111

101

100

110

103

112

104

105

113

114

117

118

119

122

115

120

123

125

ACROSS 74. The Beatles: “I am the ___ ___, I am the walrus” 75. Cholesterol medicationthe Earth’s crust- MANTLE 1. Layer beneath

126

101. Attempt ment, abbr. 104. “Ideal” in Slovenian 105. Mundari speaker

7. Gong-like instrument- TAMTAM 78. Shelter 79. “Bath,” in Paris 13. Justin Bieber 2020 hit- LONELY 80. School Diversity Advisory Group, abbr. 19. Famous Iron Chef Lagasse- EMERIL 83. Paddles 107. English pool champion, Peter _____ 20. Filled with Employees excitementAMPED 84. National Treasury Union, abbr. UP 108. “Loan,” in Bulgaria 86. Where pasta is cooked 109. Italian sports equipment company 22. Popular houseplant type- ARALIA 92. A toy you might receive in a goody bag, backward: 111. Armenian-American inventor, ____ Avakian 23. “Drove in Dutch - OPREED 93. Simple Minds up” hit song 113. T-mobile competitor 95. Featured passage in a jazz piece 24. What The Beatles want- TO HOLD YOUR HAND 115. City in Asia: “_____ Kong” 97. Fruit from the Philippines often called a “velvet apple” 117. Second-largest living bird 99. Horrible 118. Term used in international economic relations, abbr. 100. Greeting in Berlin 119. “Out of stock,” abbr. 47

301-881-7700