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.
Some of the recently hired teachers have had little teaching experience, yet the school has consistently been highly ranked; US News and World Report stated it is 23rd in Massachusetts in 2013.
Headmaster Deborah Holman said the school, when hiring, focuses on the quality of the teaching by prospective teachers.
“We aim to hire the best teacher who is the best match for that program and that teaching position at the time.” She said that experience can range from one year to 20. “You have to think about the composition of the department already. Does the department have a bunch of folks in their 40s and older, and you want to bring in someone in their 20s, just to do some balancing?”
Holman said high-quality teachers can have varying degrees of experience.
“Sometimes a quite together, thoughtful, new teacher who maybe has one year of experience shows a ton of promise,” Holman said. “We might make a decision to say that’s worth it for us, because this person brings these different characteristics. Therefore, the department head would have to commit to supporting that person very, very heavily if they’re new to the teaching profession as well as new to Brookline High School.”
Mathematics Curriculum Coordinator Joshua Paris said his department’s hiring process, which he said resembles that of the other departments, starts with posting a position’s availability on the website SchoolSpring. He then goes through the applicants and chooses 10-15 out of 50-60, on average, to be reviewed by a committee of four to five teachers and himself.
The committee, according to Paris, then selects five to 10 teachers to interview, and to four of the remaining teachers usually asked to teach a class at the school. In the past, Paris said, he has seen videos of teachers or gone to visit them if they could not come to the school.
Holman said she wants to always be available to observe these teaching sessions because she will have a fresh perspective on the candidate, whom the hiring committee already knows from his or her interview and resume.
One or two of the candidates are chosen to be interviewed by Holman in the final step of the decision process, according to Paris.
“I won’t repeat the interview that the department interview committee had. I want to converse with the person and find out why they’re interested in Brookline High School specifically, who they are as a
person. I’ll talk to them about favorite books that they read, things in education that they’re particularly interested in,” Holman said. “I’m asking questions to see if they are a reflective teacher, or if my sense is that they think they have all the right answers.”
She also says she wants to get a sense of their teaching, the way they interact with kids, and their overall personality. She often asks about past situations.
Paris said he looks for regional, ethnic and experiential diversity when he hires teachers.
“I think more experienced teachers and newer teachers have different things to offer the school. I like to create a balance of those,” Paris said. “I might look at what type of person I think could enhance the department. Do they have a perspective that we don’t necessarily have that might push us in a certain direction?”
The school offers the Teachers Mentoring Teachers program to teachers new to Brookline, according to Paris. The program is currently run by math teacher Meghan Kennedy-Justice and social studies teacher Robert Grant. The program has new teachers discuss their experiences. In addition, they are given teacher mentors and they observe other teachers’ classes.
Holman said the program was created by the 21st Century Fund in the late 1990s.
“It was the idea of how you can get new teachers who come into the high school acclimated and oriented to not just teaching in a classroom, but the Brookline High School and Brookline community culture,” Holman said.
According to English Curriculum Coordinator Mary Burchenal, not all teachers are eligible for the program. Teachers who teach less than half-time and long-term substitutes who are not at the school for a full year are not included in the program. She said these teachers may have unofficial mentors, although overall, they do get less support.
Burchenal said this is a difficult place to be a new teacher.
“There are a lot of really great teachers here. Kids have high expectations, parents have high expectations, department heads have high expectations, colleagues have high expectations,” she said. “Although everybody is very understanding of a new teacher’s dilemma, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a challenge every day to plan every day, teach every day and have all these expectations surrounding you.”
Holman said she looks to hire teachers who strive to self-improve.
“If you get, collectively, a teaching staff, which we do not have, that is pretty self-satisfied, that’s not a lot of fun,” Holman said.
She said she will not hire a teacher who is not open to feedback from others or is not willing to help all of his or her students.
“Every kid who shows up in your classroom in September, regardless of who they are, what strengths and challenges they have, where they’re from, you support all of those kids,” she said.
Paris said there are benefits to hiring both new and experienced math teachers.
“To be a good teacher is a mix of an inherent energy and passion that you have for teaching, for math and for working with teenagers. Starting from there, I think high-quality educators learn how to take those ideals and implement them in the classroom. An experienced teacher has already figured out how to do that,” Paris said. “Their classroom management skills are usually excellent. The way they write lessons is well-defined. Newer teachers have to learn that, because that comes from experience, but what you get is that idealism and energy that I want all of our teachers to have.”
In Room 368, every table has a four-foot tall Rube Goldberg machine on it. In UA 11, saws, sanders and every other tool imaginable surround a few tables supporting the futuristic locker organizers students are building. These are the engineering rooms.
The school has two engineering classes: one run by the science department and one run by the career and technology education department. The two classes differ due to the role science plays in each class.
“Ninety-five percent of the time, the students are working and trying to solve problems,” said science teacher Aubrey Love, who teaches Engineering By Design, the science department’s engineering class. “I might be walking around and help a little bit here and there, but it’s really about what you can come up with through trial and error.”
Both classes focus on engineering, but Engineering By Design is more math- and physics- based than the elective class, Engineering the Future, according to Ed Wiser, the science department curriculum coordinator.
“It’s more hands on,” said Glen Gurner, of his Engineering the Future class. “I try to bring a little science into it. It’s more project-based, and it’s about making things and how to put things together.”
Both of the engineering classes follow the same design process of figuring out the problem, planning out what they are going to do, making a model, doing tweaks and then creating the final product, according to Wiser.
The Engineering By Design projects, however, require equations to help plan out every detail, according to senior Marshal Rekovskyson.
“Its a lot of physics,” Rekovskyson said. “Engineering requires a lot of physics because you need to know about the force needed to do something. We aren’t going to do calculations on the fly. Understanding the forces in effect, gravity and friction, definitely helps us make better machines.”
There is also a difference between the two classes in their access to large tools. The Engineering the Future class has access to all of the advanced tools in the basement of the Unified Arts Building, while the Engineering By Design class only uses the tools they have in their classroom and what the career and technology education department will give to them.
According to Wiser, Engineering the Future introduces fundamentals of engineering while Engineering By Design does projects that require more in-depth knowledge of engineering. Both aim to help students figure out whether or not engineering is something they want to pursue later in their life.
“We are given the freedom to do whatever we want and to add our own spin,” said Rekovskyson. “Most projects have strict guidelines and have a strict goal, but in this class, we just build.”
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