Leon Yang
Outside of classrooms throughout the high school, the 21st Century Fund has put up signs to display the various programs and classes they have helped fund.
Rachel Vin, Staff Writer
November 10, 2016
While many kids sit in class answering questions from traditional textbooks, visual arts teacher Thato Mwosa watches her students’ eyes light up as they work. Each one learns new skills and expresses themselves creatively as they make their own mini-documentaries for the newly introduced History as Film course.
This new course, as well as many other courses in the high school, was created by a teacher, and was put in motion with funding from the 21st Century Fund, which supports teachers in developing new programs for the high school. According to the fund’s mission statement, its purpose is “to empower the BHS faculty and community by fostering a culture of innovation and supporting the development of new ideas.”
By supporting new and creative courses, the fund provides both students and faculty with opportunities to advance their experiences beyond traditional methods and curricula.
Elizabeth Zachos, chair of the 21st Century Fund, said that one of the Fund’s main purposes is to supplement the high school in a way that is generally not offered.
“It’s about bringing learning opportunities to BHS students that are not typically available in a public school setting,” Zachos said. “Also, it’s about providing teachers with an opportunity to develop professionally outside the normal structure of teaching.”
Junior Liam Downey was involved in two 21st Century Fund courses last year: Global Leadership and Racial Awareness. Downey said that the structure of these classes was more unique than traditional academic courses.
“It’s definitely diversified the way I’m learning because you tend to learn along five courses, but these don’t really fit into any of those lines,” Downey said. “There weren’t a lot of notes or tests. It was more of a discussion based classroom.”
According to Spanish teacher Astrid Allen, who is also the Fund’s program liaison, teachers with ideas for new courses will often approach her. Her job is to help them build a proposal for this potential course or program, and this will later be presented to the Fund’s program committee.
“Part of my job is reaching out to the whole school community to find out if anyone has any innovative ideas that they want to move forward in some specific way and to bring that proposal to the program committee of the 21st Century Fund,” Allen said.
According to Zachos, if funding is approved for a new course, it typically goes through a trial period of two to three years. Some ideas are designed to be temporary programs, but for ongoing classes, the trial period tests the success of the course, which afterwards may be absorbed into the school budget as a permanent elective.
Mwosa co-teaches History as Film with social studies teacher and creator of the course Mark Wheeler. According to Mwosa, the creative aspect of the class makes students more engaged than they are in traditional history classes.
“This is sort of more active. I feel like the students are engaged and participating,” Mwosa said. “A big part of this class is being creative. You get to learn, but you get to be creative as well.”
Last year, the 21st Century Fund started a new program for teachers to produce fresh ideas called the Innovation Fellowship. According to Allen, The Innovation Fellowship chooses one teacher annually and alleviates their class load by one or two classes, giving them time to develop a potentially groundbreaking idea.
“They [21st Century Fund] wanted to give a teacher an opportunity to really follow a really innovative idea that would benefit the whole school and community,” Allen said.
According to Downey, the individual style of the classes allow students to learn what they’re passionate about without being restricted by curriculum requirements.
“It was taught where the teachers understood that we aren’t bound by a curriculum, but instead we were free to explore our own issues that we want to explore,” Downey said.
Allen said that the programs supported by The 21st Century Fund can expand a teacher’s career as well as the students’.
“The fund provides this opportunity for teachers to do something totally different, to use their expertise to create something that benefits students at the school where they see a need,” Allen said.
Q: In your view, what is the Fund’s role at BHS?
A: I think the Fund’s role is to spur and foster innovation at the high school. To me that means supporting teachers and supporting really interesting ideas that would benefit kids. It could be regular classes, particular curricula, or it could be grants and programming. The Fund does that, in part, by putting really smart parents and community members in partnership with Brookline High and district staff, so we get the perspectives of smart parents and smart people in all kinds of different disciplines and industries, and that helps us think about the work that we do. When we had our breakfast Elon [Fischer] was talking about his very interesting work as Innovation Fellow, and what he heard in return were several ideas about how that work could be improved or looked at differently, and really, at the end of the day, supported. We had two premier design thinkers [at the breakfast] who’d done a whole lot of work. So, is it possible that Elon would have stumbled upon those people? Yes. Is it much more likely that the Fund helped put those people together? Yes. There’s a tremendous amount of energy and expertise in this community, and I think the Fund provides a key way to support the school using that energy.
Q: So that’s a way of bringing parents in, connecting them with teachers. In terms of drawing talented teachers into the school, is the Fund something that helps you in the hiring process?
A: Absolutely. We had a very specific example of that this year. We had a teacher who was set to co-teach Film as History/History as Film — this teacher left the school and district in the late spring/early summer — it was late in the game. It seemed like bad luck. We had a very interesting candidate for the position, but we were asking her to take less FTE to be here. The fact that one of her teaching assignments was going to be this very interesting co-teaching opportunity was an incredibly powerful draw. She ended up coming.
But to answer your question more broadly, there are so many incredible teachers here, and what has been clear throughout — at least in my history with the school, and what I’ve seen and heard — is that we find different ways for teachers to improve and increase their leadership skills. One of those ways is by creating a course or leading a program, supported by the 21st Century Fund. So Elon Fischer is a leader in this school, and the Fund’s Innovation Fellowship is a perfect way for him to work on and demonstrate that leadership. That to me is under the umbrella of retention. I absolutely believe that opportunities with the Fund help us attract and retain talented, committed teachers and support them to help lead the school. With a faculty and staff of this size you need all kinds of leaders.
Q: What challenges currently face BHS, and how does the Fund help to address them?
A: I think we need to look at all of our collaborations, all of our partners, and all the work that we do to focus on challenges. There are several challenges that come to mind. I would say the biggest is that we have a group of students who struggle here to engage, struggle to achieve in the ways we believe they’re capable of achieving. It’s not surprising that it’s the historically underachieving populations of students who don’t do as well here on various measures. It’s certainly not true of everybody in those populations, and it’s not unique to Brookline, but it’s true enough that we have an achievement gap. As we look forward to addressing that, we need to think about how to do it: How does our student support, how does our monitoring of kids increase and improve so that the net is raised higher, and the net is tighter? We need to think, instructionally, about how we’re making sure that excellent instruction targets kids who really struggle to engage. These are not novel ideas — they’re things that an institution like this is always engaged in. And I think there are opportunities with Fund courses — we can look at things that have already been experimented with in the Fund, and also programs and courses that we might want in the future, and ask how can they affect as many students as possible.
Tutorial is a really good example. To me there’s a tremendous opportunity that we’re embarking on to reconsider tutorial and think: OK, this has been a really important model. How do we use it even better and differently to make sure that we’re catching kids sooner, that we’re being flexible in the structures we’re using, and then zeroing in on re-teaching or supporting kids in what they need content-wise, as well as habits of learning? That’s what I’m interested in thinking through with the Program Committee and others: We have this course proposal, or we’re thinking about these courses — what will be the impact for the students in that course or in that program, and in what ways can those experiences be offered to more kids? It becomes an access issue. The Makerspace is a great example. It is overdue and so appreciated to have the Fund’s support to have Aubrey Love and Andrew Maglathlin work on a Makerspace. And it’s going to be a space for Engineering Innovation and Design, but then we think if we have this incredible space, and the district comes in and helps improve it also, how do we make sure that that space is accessed by as many kids as possible?
Another long-term benefit of the 21st Century Fund is that these courses might run for X number of years, but it’s safe to say that the experience of developing these courses should have long-term impact: What did we learn about how kids learn? Film as History/History as Film is not only a terrific opportunity for the students who are enrolled, but: What are we learning about interdisciplinary studies? We believe that more kids should experience that, so how do we build on this model? Many examples come to mind, but those are a few. To me, the central challenges right now are issues of equity and access.
A second and parallel issue is space. We’re moving towards a building renovation, so we’re thinking about how we organize a school that, in five years, will be over 2500 students. What does that mean about how we organize ourselves? What does it mean about the opportunities and supports we want to make sure all kids have? Then there will be the challenge of a school in the midst of a renovation: How do we continue to do what we do while having our spaces changed?
A third challenge is that there’s been a significant transition in leadership. All of these are real opportunities, and that for sure is an opportunity. It’s been great to welcome Andrew Bott and Nicole Gittens. Across the board, there’s quite a bit of change.
Q: So, tell us something about your personal interests. If you could take one of the 21st Century Fund’s classes, which would you choose?
A: Historically, if I could have taken Good Citizen in a Good Society, I think I would have loved that project-based class. It was a really interesting approach to English and History. The discussion about really meaty issues and ethics would be really interesting to me. It was thematic, so they would read things like the Tracy Kidder book Mountains Beyond Mountains, the one about Paul Farmer [of Partners in Health], and were essentially looking at: What does it mean to be good? What does it mean to make decisions that are mindful of others? What does it mean to foster those same values in a community or in a society? Also certainly the Racial Awareness Seminar. Having the opportunity to be guided and supported around thinking about identity and racial identity — to do it in a highly supportive, small community, very intentionally doing work that we all pay lip service to — would be really incredible. Frankly, seeing the super-motivated young people who are involved, I would want to be a part of those classes, not only because Malcolm Cawthorne and Kate Leslie are awesome teachers, but because cool, smart, thoughtful students are working to wrestle with really important topics. Also Film as History would be really neat. I don’t have any technical skills, and I would love that. It’s a co-taught history and art class, and I think many kids are probably coming to it from one side or the other, but to have a passion for history and story, and then be able to learn some of the technical skills behind film-making would be awesome.
Q: OK to finish up — and I hope this isn’t too personal — but the Gala-Rama is coming up, with bowling at Jillian’s. I assume, being a mid-westerner, you’re a pretty good…
A: Oh, I can bowl! In fact there was a bowling alley in Minneapolis that Earl Anthony owned — he was one of the great bowlers of the ‘80s. I used to go there when I was in high school, and I joked that I was “the real Anthony.” I wasn’t in a league, but my high score was probably somewhere in the higher hundreds — 160, 170. But that was in my high school days. I think now I’m… beatable.
Social studies teacher Stephanie Hunt has taken on the additional role of teaching in the African American Latino Scholars Program. Hunt carries an enthusiasm about the program as she prompts her students to think about their own identity as scholars.
What is your position?
I am part time in the social studies department and part time working with the scholars program. I am currently teaching the sophomore scholars seminar.
What was the process of getting selected for that role?
I had applied for the scholars coordinator position and it worked out where Dr. Lemel was hired and there was money in the budget to bring on another teacher in a part time fashion so my love for scholars was alive and it is still present so it made sense for me to take this opportunity and even though it wasn’t the opportunity that I had initially sought, it was a great opportunity to still be connect with the program.
What do you do in a day to day class?
The sophomores get PSAT help twice a week and then the other two meetings they are with me in seminar. Currently we are looking at the identity of a scholar and my goal is to provide them with a more comprehensive view on what a scholar looks like and to provide them with examples of scholars that look like them and that have similar experience, obstacles, and successes that they do. So right now it’s all about exposure and defining or even redefining what it means to be a scholar and what it means to be a pioneer in your community
Do you think teaching scholars classes has affected how you teach your other classes?
I think what has had an effect on me is last year Dean Poon and Ms. Ramos came up with this idea of the identity curriculum. It’s about getting the students more connected with what they are learning whether it be in history, english, math and science. The goal is for students to feel like they are connected and represented in what they learn in the classroom and I think that has definitely impacted my view of curriculum. With scholars I have more flexibility to play with things, but even with my modern world history classes I feel like when I am looking at my curriculum I am thinking “Okay, in what way can we bridge the past and the present. In what way can we bridge these subjects with who our students are”.
What are you hopes for the future of scholars?
My hope is that more students know what the scholars program is. I fear that the broader community only knows it by name and does not know enough about what they do, who they are, and what their accomplishments are. My hope is more visibility. I would love scholars to get involved in other programs as well. I want the program to grow. If the program grows, that means that more and more students are hitting the requirements. Our expectations aren’t lowering, but students are meeting them and that’s a testament to the support staff that work with scholars and a testament to the students that continuously are bringing each other up and helping each other succeed.
Lauren Mahoney, Sports Writing Editor
Around 70 residents of Brookline attended the “World Cafe” in the Schluntz Auditorium on May 4. The purpose of the event was to create a conversation about race-related issues in Brookline, and discuss what our responsibilities are to solve them. Participants included high school staff, town government members, parents and community members.
The 21st Century Fund in collaboration with the BHS PTO, Steps to Success, METCO, the Brookline Interactive Group and members of high school faculty presented the series “What’s the Big Idea” to kickstart conversations around race in the greater Brookline community. The World Cafe was the third part in their series.
In the World Cafe, tables were set up around the room with a packet at each table. Each page of the packet was headed by a driving question, and the rest of the page was blank. The attendees were divided into groups and given 10 minutes to discuss the question at each table before switching.
These groups then wrote down their main points of conversation on the blank page. John Lang, who hosted the Cafe, stressed the importance of respect and understanding. He said he did not want the conversations to lead to a debate, but rather to create a safe space where everyone could say what was on their mind.
“Listen,” Lang said. “We may hear things that don’t sit well with us. Despite other people’s different values, we have to agree to be our authentic selves. We have to give ourselves the opportunity to hear one another. Ask yourselves ‘Am I going to give myself the opportunity to learn something from someone that I didn’t know before.’ Give yourselves the opportunity to be challenged by other people’s thoughts, beliefs and emotions about us as individuals, and the systems in which we work and how these systems include people.”
The first question was, “Why is diversity and inclusiveness beneficial to a community?” Around the table, people agreed that communities are better and stronger with differing backgrounds. Sophomores Sophie Arnstein and Lena Harris said that knowing people from diverse backgrounds can help disprove stereotypes and break apart ‘single stories.’
“It’s really easy to be ignorant when you’re not forced to interact with people who are different,” Harris said.
The group also agreed that having a more diverse community increases compassion. Having more teachers of color in school, for example, could ensure that every student had a staff member whom they could relate to.
The second question was, “What are some challenges of having racially diverse and inclusive communities?”
The second group acknowledged the challenge of creating a comfortable environment where people have permission to talk about more challenging race-related topics. One table member believed that it is easy to treat people as separate countries and it can be difficult to know how to approach someone. Group members also believed it can get exhausting to talk to someone in a way that both respects them and gets the point across, and that it is really easy to offend people.
The third question was, “What are the responsibilities of town residents to promote racial diversity and inclusion and to remove biases?”
Headmaster Deborah Holman said that people have to understand resolution can only be achieved through commitment. She said the most important thing is to continue holding events such as the World Cafe and continuing conversations on race, even if things do not always feel harmonious. There was also an agreement that the government can play a role in stimulating inclusiveness in the community and could do a lot more to create visibility and opportunities for engagement. Town residents also have to be informed and ask the right questions.
The fourth question was, “In what ways will you be involved to solve these responsibilities?”
The group agreed it was the responsibility of everyone in the community to bridge polarizations between groups and create inclusiveness. A group member said, “The problem with a highly educated community is that everyone thinks they know everything.”
At the end of the night when everyone came together to discuss the questions, the general consensus was that it was a very successful event, even though there weren’t too many differing opinions. Many also expressed hope for another World Cafe in the future.
Valentina Rojas, Arts Writing Editor
Headmaster Deborah Holman speaks at the event organized by the 21st Century Fund. According to Holman, there are between 15 and 20 educators of color at the high school.
After a day of discussions about race for students and staff at the high school, around 80 parents attended a 21st Century Fund-organized conversation, entitled “What’s The Big Idea?” The first event of the night was named Courageous Conversations: Students Voices on Life at BHS.
As parents were walking in, a slideshow was projected, featuring headlines from the Sagamore’s articles on race and the list of demands students wrote that are currently hanging in the atrium.
The event began with a poem by senior Hannah Timmermann entitled “How to tell your racist step-father that you held hands with a Black boy.” Her last spoken line was “He’s the only one who makes me not afraid of what you are about to say.”
After Timmermann, Headmaster Deborah Holman thanked parents for coming and for the Fund for organizing the event. She told parents that she would repeat what she had said to students in the Tell Your Story assembly during B-block.
“The Day of Courage is a special day because we hear voices that make us think,” Holman said. “The Brookline community has been called upon to be better. Brookline High School has the chance to be the best it can be.”
The next speaker was Diane Cheren Nygren who framed the conversation and explained some terminology such as “microaggressions.” She elaborated on the different levels of racism such as: interpersonal, microaggressions and institutional/systemic racism.
Next, a video clip was shown, featuring seven students reciting their speeches at the Asking for Courage day and the Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly. Senior Lea Churchill was the first in the video, reading the same speech she presented at the B-block Tell Your Story assembly. She mentioned the “fetishes that surround White girls.”
Senior Manjot Singh also recited her speech. She said she feels like she can neither fit into American social norms nor her Indian family. For example, she said, when she asks her mom not to throw her apple core on the freeway, her mother calls her American.
Senior Isaiah Milton spoke about the importance of the African American Latino Scholars Program and how glad he was when AALSP Director Christopher Vick talked to students of color in his grade school, for he felt that he was finally getting recognition for his hard work. When he was a child, he learned that, as a Black student, he would have to work twice as hard to get the same level of recognition as a White student.
In sophomore Komal Wasif’s speech from the F-block Tell Your Story assembly, she compared her experiences as a Pakistani in many different areas of the United States, such as Washington, D.C., Alabama, New York and Massachusetts. She thanked social studies teacher Ben Kharl who sent her “articles and videos, where he would encourage [her] to express my opinion.”
Senior Kerimal Suriel Guerrero began her speech previously given at the MLK assembly by telling the audience that she was finally going to be honest. She asked everyone to acknowledge privilege’s existence and encouraged students of color to take advantage of the education they are getting in Brookline, in order to make a change in the world.
Senior Hal Triedman gave the same speech as he did during the MLK assembly. He told the audience that he was racist for passively benefitting from the institution of racism and not “swimming against the current of passivity,” which he later encouraged the audience to do at the end of his speech.
Senior Donnaya Brown was the last student in the video. She told the audience that no one is too old or too young to have conversations on race and ended by saying “my generation has a voice, and we plan to use it.”
The leaders of the event then began a forum with a panel, consisting of parents and Brookline residents Alicia Hsu, Scot Huggins, John Laing, Lisa Lisi and Charlotte Mao; social studies teacher Malcolm Cawthorne and Holman.
The first question was in regards to students asking Holman to change her title of “Headmaster.” She said that it wasn’t actually students who asked for the change, but that she has created a proposal in Lunch and Learn and is willing to change the title if it is hindering her ability of collaborating with students.
The second question was about the plans for hiring a more diverse staff. Holman answered by saying that there have been two recruiting events of near 60 attendees, in order to build relationships with future staff members of color. She told the audience that there are currently 15-20 teachers of color at the high school, consisting of African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans.
The next question was about the reasoning behind the first three speakers at the event being White. Nygren answered by saying that those currently in the position to create this event are White, but that these types of race conversations are in place to change that.
A parent asked a question about the social segregation of Black and White students at the high school. Huggins said that this type of clustering helps students of color build confidence, come together and feel pride. Cawthorne also replied to this question. He said that a difficulty that may arise in clustering is that it leaves social and academic groups predominantly White, whereupon the teacher is still made to have one-sided conversations around race.
Questions about the African American and Latino Scholars Program were asked. For example, a parent asked why it only has students of color in its honors level classes. Cawthorne said that it was the original inception of the program, which was to bring promising students and give them the support they need to succeed.
A parent later asked what defined being “of color” and why Whites are not considered a part of this group, to which Cawthorne replied, “The idea of everyone being of one color or colorblind is disingenuous and denies my history. That’s what makes me what I am.”
Mao said that it is important that parents talk to their kids about race and identity so that they know they do not have to face the confusion alone. Hsu said that it is crucial for parents to understand that each student encounters different hindrances in life, although they all end up sitting next to each other in the same classroom, working on the same problems and taking the same tests as one another.
The recent incidents at the high school, such as the Kahoot situation, were brought up. Holman said that educationally, they are dealing with these incidents by putting a spotlight on them and making it apparent that inappropriate and offensive language is inexcusable. Inappropriate use of technology, which is a new medium that teachers need to learn how to regulate, is also being reprimanded.
The last question was in regards to the sophomore pilot class and if there would be a requirement for taking a racial awareness course to graduate. Holman said there are three different ways that the administration could incorporate more race-related discussions in the school. She said that administration could implement conversations in advisory, but, according to Holman, this would not work because there are other things that need to accomplished during that time period. There could also be classes that students are required to take in order to graduate. Also, the five departments at the high school, English, Math, Social Studies, World Language and Science, could incorporate discussions on race more often.
The next event hosted by the 21st Century Fund will be a “Speakers Panel on Racial Equity in Education” on April 4.
Valentina Rojas, Arts Writing Editor
PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Klein/Sagamore staff
Teachers help students with their math homework in Math Center on March 16. Math Center is held prior to school every morning in multiple rooms, one of them being room 144.
It’s 6:30 a.m. and your alarm is ringing. A half an hour later, you’re out the door and on your way to one of the many help centers the high school has to offer.
For sophomore Claudia Marza, waking up early can be the deciding factor of whether or not to go to Math Center.
“I would much rather go in the afternoon for 15 minutes or half an hour than go in the morning,” Marza said. “Teenagers already get too little sleep as it is, so I think that having it in the afternoon would be better.”
Sophomore Jackie Mundis said that she doesn’t get the help that she needs when she goes to Math Center due to the distraction of other students.
“I like the idea of getting extra help,” Mundis said. “I’ve been a couple of times but, when I went, I found that I didn’t really end up getting the help that I needed. I think that it was a good idea to meet with my teacher, but I don’t think that I got enough help because I was pretty easily distracted by some of the other students who were there.”
According to Mundis, one of the biggest problems with Math Center, in addition to distracted students, is that there simply are not enough teachers to help all of the students who come.
“I think the main problem is that there is only one teacher in the room,” Mundis said. “Since there are a lot of students, you can’t really get one-on-one help.”
Marza also said that the lack of teachers present is a problem.
“I think that there should be more teachers there,” Marza said. “It’s like six kids to one teacher, which can make it really hard to get help.”
Math teacher and Math Center Supervisor Lisa Rodriguez said that she understands why students would not want to come to Math Center due to its timing, but feels that the program is run well.
“People don’t like how early it is, and certain kids don’t want to get up so early, even if they need help,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think there are problems with how Math Center is organized, but I do think that, even if kids don’t want to wake up, they should try to come to Math Center for help if they need it.”
Rodriguez said it can be hard to have so many students and not very many teachers.
“In the upperclassman Center, there are a lot of kids who come in, but only three teachers,” Rodriguez said. “Some kids don’t like to work together and talk to each other, which makes it so that I often have to answer the same question like 10 different times, which makes it hard for me to get to all the kids. I can totally see that being a reason why some people don’t want to go to Math Center.”
Rodriguez said that she wants to get the word out to more students about Math Center so that more kids, especially those in standard level classes, can come and get help.
“It needs to be advertised more so that more students can take advantage of it,” Rodriguez said. “Not a lot of standard kids end up coming to Math Center. Usually, the room gets really packed with honors and advanced students, but I wish we could get more standard students to come.”
Senior and founder of the Science Center Aria Wong also said that not enough students know about the help centers.
“I think the reason that some kids don’t come is because they don’t know about it,” Wong said. “We haven’t done enough outreach and marketing.”
Wong said that she wants to spread the word about science center by making announcements, talking to teachers and putting up posters around the school.
Students work at the Writing Center prior to the school day. Senior Ben Groustra, who works at the Writing Center, said that there aren’t a sufficient amount of students who know about the program.
Petra Huang for the Sagamore
Students work at the Writing Center prior to the school day. Senior Ben Groustra, who works at the Writing Center, said that there aren’t a sufficient amount of students who know about the program.
Senior and Writing Center worker Ben Groustra was recommended for his place in the Writing Center by his history teacher and the teacher supervisor to the Writing Center Michael Normant. Groustra said that there are not enough students who know about the Writing Center.
“It can get very quiet in the Writing Center, and I feel like it is very under-utilized,” Groustra said. “A lot of teachers don’t have time to look over papers as much as they would like to or as much as some students need, and writing center is a great place for people who need someone to edit their paper when their teacher can’t.”
However, Andrew Kimball, who runs the Language Center, which meets Mondays and Tuesdays before school, during X-block and Thursdays and Fridays after school in room 206, where kids go to retake quizzes, get practice and ask for clarification, said that X-block is the most popular time for students to visit the Language Center.
“Attendance is equal before and after school,” Kimball said. “X-Block is easily the most popular time. We try to balance the hours before school and after school because lots of students have commitments after school.”
Groustra said that he understands it can be early to wake up, but feels that the mornings are the best time to get help and that it is well worth it.
“I don’t think there’s really a better time to do it,” Groustra said. “You need a time where everyone would have a free block, which wouldn’t really work, and people have stuff to do after school. Coming in before school for 10 minutes isn’t too bad, and that’s when everyone has free time.”
Petra Huang for the Sagamore
Infographic by Ben Mandl
The high school’s help center vary in time, room number and aid provided. This infographic relays this information.
Advisory is the only class at the high school which every student participates in. In response to feedback from advisers, mentors and students, history teacher and Advisory Curriculum Coordinator Jennifer Martin decided that it was time to change major parts of advisory.
According to Martin, she and a team of teachers spent part of the summer working on revising parts of advisory. The changes they made included installing a wellness program.
“We’ve trained about a dozen teachers and they are coming into junior advisories,” Martin said. “They’ll do six T-blocks in a row of mindfulness, so learning how to destress and become less anxious before tests, and it’s going to be really cool that that’s going to be now part of advisory.”
According to Martin, the program will be unveiled for the juniors this year, and will roll out into every grade as the years progress.
Spanish teacher and Mindfulness Program co-creator Elizabeth Gorman helped write the grant that brought the Mindfulness Program into being. Gorman believes many students and teachers create unhealthy stress which negatively affects their lives.
“As a teacher you are empowered to replicate this intense culture that is out there in society that says do more and achieve more, or you can create the culture of educating ourselves and students in a proactive way to be able to understand stress and the impact it has on us,” Gorman said.
According to Gorman, the constant stress many students feel led her and others to create the Mindfulness Program. One of the main goals of the program is to empower students to use the techniques they learn to help alleviate stress.
“One of the goals of the curriculum is to educate students about stress and that’s nice, except that everyone sees themselves as chronically stressed and then they’re stuck,” Gorman said. “So there are actually all these tools to teach yourself to not only identify stress, but to recover from it.”
Junior Mentor Jake Sternlicht believes that having a strong wellness program is important at the high school.
“I’ve always thought of wellness as being important, because of many of the things that I have seen at the high school,” Sternlicht said, “So, I think the changes are positive.”
Another major change that will begin this year, according to Martin, is the new way advisories deal with community service requirements.
“We’re no longer doing the one hour community service requirement and that’s going to get replaced with something that is going to happen next year, not this year, because we need some time to do it. It’s going to be morphed into no longer being, ‘You need to do this amount of community service,’ but rather that the advisories will find a community service club in the building to sponsor and help raise awareness around those issues as a group,” Martin said. “So it’s not like you go out and do something for someone else, but more of we as a group do something together to help out a club, and hopefully it will encourage kids to join community service clubs.”
The Ithaka Cup, which is an annual competition for freshmen and sophomore advisories to gain points through events and determine the winning advisory in a grade, will also undergo major changes this year, according to Martin.
“For freshmen, instead of having four tournament events, we want to do something where every freshmen comes, and it’s awesome because you see your friends from other advisories,” Martin said. “Whereas when we used to do it, you’d end up with just two advisories in a room and it’s kind of cramped. It’s not as fun as everybody together in the gym. So as of right now there will be two events for the freshmen, one each semester.”
According to Martin, the process for changing the advisory curriculum began nearly two years ago. She already had a significant amount of data compiled, and worked to get more so she could understand how to best improve the program.
“When you run something for seven years, you hear people say when they don’t like a lesson, so I have this document where I keep notes on all those things,” Martin said. “I surveyed the Junior and Senior Mentors all last year to see which lessons needed go and which ones were still good for the the 9th and 10th grade, and then I used the adviser’s opinions about what was going on in the upperclassmen advisories to figure out what we should do.”
Sternlicht thinks that the changes in the advisory curriculum will be beneficial to the program as a whole. He said that many of the topics covered in the old advisory program were also taught in middle school, and therefore became monotonous.
“I am happy about the changes because it was always hard to get kids integrated and interested in what we’re talking about because it was often repetitive and very boring because we had already done all that stuff before,” Sternlicht said. “The freshmen have seemed relatively interested in what is going on so far.”
Louie Goldsmith, Opinions Editor
Students work together on homework in a Tutorial class. Tutorial can help students stay organized and study for classes.
I have been in Tutorial since my freshman year and it has been very helpful for me. I use Tutorial as a block to do some of my homework from the night before or to study for tests and quizzes that I have that day.
Everyday, I plan out when I’m going to do my homework and how much time I should spend on each subject. There have been times where I have forgotten to do an assignment. For example, a few weeks ago I had a two-day project due the next block, and I had to do some edits on it. I was lucky that I had Tutorial before that block, so I had the chance to get it done.
It is nice to have an organized class where I can sit down without any distractions and get my work done. During the school year, especially in the spring, managing time can get very difficult due to sports and other commitments, which is why I love having Tutorial in my schedule.
It’s also nice to have two teachers in the room, because I can get help on the subjects that they specialize in. During my three years that I have been in Tutorial, I had the chance to work with many teachers in different subjects.
In freshman year I had Mr. Cawthorne, who helped me with history, and Ms. Hitchcock, who helped me with math. In Sophomore year I had Ms. Longmire and Mr. Mallory, who taught history and math, respectively.
This year, I have Ms. Grubb and Dr. Weiffenbach, who teach history and biology respectively. Having a block where I can brush up on the information that we went over in class is very helpful. Taking Tutorial has been great and I am glad I chose to take it.
