Weekly Affirmations (Food for Thought) 3

I will accept that sometimes the entire world is not out to make me feel terrible. I will realize that I must just be Vitamin D deficient (seriously, check into that). I will not judge discussions I hear in the bathroom. These discussions are sacred and the people are vulnerable, and I will remember this when my eyebrows shoot to my hairline over discussions that put fanfiction to shame.

If I’m upset with my teachers, I’ll think of their high school yearbook pictures.

No one can tell if my eyeliner is crooked. They’re too worried that I can see their bra strap.

I will not let my self-worth be determined by how many books I’ve read or how much I understand my teachers.

Michelle Obama Takes on the Fight to Improve College Access to Low-Income Students

Because less than half of low-income high school students apply to college, President Obama last week asked the first lady, Michelle Obama, to lead a national initiative aimed at increasing college access for low-income students. Over 40 non-profit organizations and 140 college presidents and chancellors, as well as corporate leaders, gathered at the White House, to discuss ways in which colleges, in particular the more prestigious ones, can work towards admitting more students from low-income families.

I see this event as a deliberate attempt by the president to highlight his election pledge to narrow the gap between rich and poor, something he is expected to address during his State of the Union address on January 28. Obama did, however, sound genuine in his introduction stating, “We want to restore the essential promise of opportunity and upward mobility that’s at the heart of America, to that end, young people, low-income students in particular, must have access to a college education."

Michelle Obama, reciting her own experiences entering higher education at Princeton and the difficulties she encountered, made the event seem more real and relevant.  She admitted to feeling scared and intimidated by the whole college process and distinctly remembered receiving little or no support applying to colleges. The experiences she describes are totally alien to the students experiences here at SAAS where we have a dedicated team of high school advisors available every day of the week to patiently answer our questions, listen to our concerns, and basically help prevent us having four mental breakdowns a week! I am alarmed by the fact that many high school college advisors are more invested in dealing with gang issues and truancy than taking time to discuss college applications with their students. This only encourages these students to apply to the colleges they are familiar with - a wasted opportunity, in my mind.

Hopefully with the members’ pledge of over $100 million to focus attention on exploring how to match low-income students with more prestigious colleges, expand mentoring services to ensure students are better academically prepared, and increase the resources made available to school college counselors, the number of underprivileged students applying to college will begin to increase.

However, one important topic that I would like to have seen addressed at the summit was the issue of the skyrocketing cost of higher education. Statistics from The College Board show that tuition and fees are up 27 percent at public four-year colleges and private college costs have grown 14 percent in the last five years. Tuition costs and student debt represents yet another barrier for underprivileged students gaining access to a college degree.

The House System: An Interview with Molly Mitchell

Kellen: What background can you give me on the House system? Molly: It’s been in the works here for a while in the sense that people have been thinking about how we do mixed grade advisories so that everything’s not just grade specific. In Innovations, a senior History class, last year four students created this concept of what we now call the House. Then all of the grade level coordinators, Mindy, and I worked together throughout the rest of last year to put together what it might look like, so as Mindy talked about yesterday in the assembly, we are trying to create our map, our guide.

Kellen: Why did the school think it was necessary to change from the old system?

Molly: I think there were several things at play. One was the idea of doing mixed grade levels because it is a great opportunity for juniors and seniors to be mentors, and have leadership opportunities. I think that students learn a lot from peers who have already been through what they’ve been through. Also, it helps advisors be better advisors too, when there is someone else in the room who can help answer questions. The other issue was that we were doing class meetings, so the way the schedule was last year, during break time on Mondays, we sometimes had announcements where we gathered in the gym for maybe five minutes, and then all of the other days switched between grade advisories and class meetings. Students were really feeling like their time was being wasted. They would just file in, whether it was an all-school meeting or a class meeting, and then, “Any announcements? No? Ok! You can go.” So how do we use our time better as a community?

Kellen: What are the goals of the house system?

Molly: The overarching goal of the House System is to find a space for mixed grade level interaction and to be able to offer some mentorship and leadership opportunities. Also, we thought during spirit weeks and competitions, it would be more fun to have mixed-grade teams, as opposed to having the seniors always win because they are the seniors. So instead you’re collaborating within a mixed-grade team to compete in a way that might be more spirited fun. The idea of it also is to create more opportunities for some spirit.

Kellen: What are some benefits of the new system?

Molly: I do still think that having a small advisory by grade is important, but I also think having interaction with younger and older students in that very positive school community is important. I think that the House system is a great opportunity when we are able to practice it more and be together more, to create more of a sense of community than just grade level.  I think a lot of the students who come from middle school enjoyed their middle school experience, but one of the things that they talk about that they like better in the upper school is, once you get here, you’re mixing grades 9 through 12, whereas in middle school, you tend to be 6th grade, 7th grade, or 8th grade. I think that’s why people enjoy their time on sports teams, or robotics, or anything that’s cross grade. I think there are some things you can learn from each other that you don’t necessarily want some adult telling you. I would say that the creation of a closer, more spirited community is definitely one of the benefits.

The House System: An Interview with Alison Ray

Kellen: What background can you give us about how the House System was created? Alison: Basically there was a class called Innovations that seniors are able to take and just started last year, and one of the assignments they had to do was to create an innovation or to find an area in which SAAS needed to create an innovation to improve the school. The students really focused on the advisory system, and they believed that the advisory system could be used better, that it could encourage more contact between kids of different grade levels and also help to foster some leadership in the school community. So these four students in particular decided upon as their innovation project creating this House system through which they would basically address all of those issues about improving the community. And so that’s where the idea came from. They then developed it and took it to the administration who from there developed some of the specific pieces that they were still working on.

Kellen: What do you think the benefits of the new system are?

Alison: I think, with some time to really get it going, that the benefits are (1) to encourage more conversation and interaction between students of different grade levels, which I think is really important in our school because sometimes it’s easy to get disconnected from kids of other grades; (2) rather than encourage competition between grades, to maybe encourage more collaboration between grades; and (3) to help the actual advisors learn from other adult leaders in the school how to best run an advisory. Some people are more natural advisors, and that’s not a criticism against anyone, that’s just teachers, just like any human beings, have different strengths and weaknesses. I think that there’s a lot to be gained from being in a House system where one House leader might be really good at something that another House leader isn’t, and you can rely upon each other’s strengths to help all of the students in the House rather than just being limited to your strengths in your single advisory system.

The House System: An Opportunity for Positive Change

Alright, so even if we aren’t saying it, many of us are thinking it. The House system is stupid and confusing, why do we even have to do that? The old way was so much easier! But really, how much better was it? I know the House system isn’t completely organized right now, and it’s far from a fully implemented system, but was the old system any better? Meetings multiple days a week, sometimes every day? Trips up to Temple, being herded into an area for all of us – that’s not exactly an ideal system either. But mostly, I think that the biggest difficulty was that everything done in the old system was separated by grade. Obviously that’s a good thing at times, but as a whole can we honestly say we have gotten to know the other grades? We are a school, one strong student body. The House system was made to bring everyone together: freshmen and juniors, sophomores and seniors, and freshmen and seniors! The whole point of wearing red and black on school spirit days is to feel like we are a part of something bigger. We can be a group of individuals. Yes, each student is talented, expressive and successful. But we can also be a unified whole, individually exceptionally strong, but together – overpowering. Some have brought up the complaint that the House system conflicts with Seattle Academy’s focus on the individual. I think the House system is just another legitimate way to cultivate greatness in individuals. Think about this, if I were going to build a house, what’s the first thing I want to make sure my house is stable and functional? The foundation, because without that, my house will never last. If there is a crack in my foundation, I have a problem. It may go a couple months, maybe even a couple years without showing the damage. But inevitably, that crack will come back to bite me, and my house will suffer because of it. In theory, the system should give each individual a strong base to launch from: a supportive network of students.

Okay, maybe it’s a silly analogy, but it makes sense doesn’t it? The nature of Seattle Academy encourages us to be valuable individuals, like a nice house. We are encouraged to try new things and be risk takers. To do this, it is necessary to have a firm foundation supporting us. Of course we are not going to succeed every time; it’s just not realistic. But having a group of people that we know will support us can take the edge off of the disappointment, can’t it? In theory that is what the House system is supposed to give us. If we don’t let ourselves despair at maybe not succeeding like we’d hope, we will not get as discouraged, and will still be open to trying new things. On the other hand, we can be too discouraged by failure and let that fear of messing up paralyze us. In this way, the House system actually really supports the Seattle Academy message of becoming an individual while being a part of the larger community.

I know some of us are concerned that because of the House system, we can’t be separated by grade from time to time. It has already been argued that because of the House system, traditions like Spirit Week have been compromised. But this doesn’t mean there will be no opportunities in the future for us to connect with our grades. Just because we have a new system that is characterized by the mingling of grades doesn’t mean nothing will ever be done at the grade level. The freshmen still had their Freshmen Night and the seniors will still have their Alaska trip in the spring.

There are endless opportunities for SAAS students to connect with their grade. The House system doesn’t subtract from those opportunities – it adds to them. Separate grade levels are still able to get information that applies only to them. With the old advisory system, if you wanted to get the information that applied to your grade that week, it meant filing into the Orvis Theater, tripping over countless backpacks trying to find a seat, and sitting, anxiously wishing you were studying for that vocab test next block instead of listening to your ASB try to get everyone to be quiet. With the House system, all this information is delivered to us in an email. No crowded Orvis Theater once a week, no tripping over backpacks, no more F’s on vocab quizzes.

Some people may read this and discard it as just one of those cheesy movie speeches the hero makes when he’s trying to rally his friends around him when all hope is lost and they have to come together and defeat the darkness or the opposing football team or whatever it is. There is a reason there are scenes like that in movies. It’s because that’s what humans strive to be: strong individuals but an even stronger group. We want to feel like we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, even bigger than our grades. We can’t be a cohesive group if the only people we see in the school are the ones in our grades. We also cannot let being a strong group overshadow the importance of being an individual. If we are not strong, versatile, and independent individuals, we are not accomplishing our goal and we also aren’t helping our group.

The House system is undoubtedly a good thing that people that are criticizing because they haven’t even seen it in action. It will give us inter-grade relationships, therefore making us a more cohesive school. The system will also give us a strong foundation to branch off of, helping to support Seattle Academy’s aim to bring out the best of each individual. Even better, I do not believe it means there is no hope for certain events to be done by grade level. That first day that we all got together…do you remember the competitions? Do you remember the people we cheered for, the charades, something we all worked together towards? As a group we worked to guess all those words because we were all acting together, all trying to achieve a particular goal. I think that while we haven’t seen the House system in action for long, we must first let it be seen before we begin to judge. So the next time you go to a House meeting, just try to be open -minded and watch out for the good parts of the system. What you see, may just surprise you.

A Critique of the House System

As I sat, hood over face, hunched with bleacher-induced back pain, slowly being roasted by the shared heat of my peers’ bodies, only one thought crossed my mind: where did we go wrong? The sound of some song involving butterflies played about 100 decibels too loud over the gym speaker system. Some kids I don’t know pranced around, almost to the beat. All the while, the entirety of SAAS remained crowded and divided in their respective Houses. The hood of my sweatshirt that was draped over my face acted as the veil that I wore to mourn the loss of the SAAS community I once knew. The same community lost to the opaque machine we all know as “the House System.” To be honest, going into the House System, I had already made up my mind. The previous advisory system was working out great for me, because if I needed to talk to my advisor, I sent an email and we would meet. It was as simple as that: a completely laissez-faire advising method for the busy SAAS student who barely has time to eat breakfast. So naturally, I opposed the House System. However, following the initial assembly on the first day of school, my loathing for this foreign implementation was almost completely mitigated. It was a system that brought together all of the grades so that those with experience in the SAAS community could mentor those who were freshly immersed into the mystical culture of performance. Further, it created a multi-tiered governance system so that, instead of confusing balances between grade-wide and school-wide student government, there was a clear trickle-down power structure in place between the central, ASB government, and the decentralized House governments. I was suddenly sure it was going to work.

And then it actually began.

I entered the CUB classroom where my House was to meet, and took a seat amongst faces I had never before seen. We went around the room, sharing names and fun facts. I was waiting for the moment when I could wield my power as a senior and do a little mentoring. But that moment never came. Instead, in that meeting and all meetings that followed, we did not help out freshmen and sophomores immerse into the school, or share college application experiences with juniors. Rather, we discussed colors. We discussed colors, animals, and characteristics that are representative of our House. Now, in the ASB meetings, we’ve discussed some other topics. However, my House at the very least is still hopelessly deadlocked in discussion about what color we are going to have represent us.

And this is what we have done ever since. Instead of debating issues that carry any weight or merit, or using my time in any sort of beneficial way, we tried to come up with words, colors, and images that represented a group so incredibly different and confused that the only way we were going to be collectively represented by anything was if our defining characteristic was “very different” or “diverse” and our color was rainbow.

Frankly, no one cares what their House is called, or whether their mascot is Malcolm X or a badger. It would behoove those who control this system to mandate a theme for the names of the Houses, such as Seattle street names. The individuals that comprise a House are so unique that it would be offensive if we were to be clumped under one flag. Because what makes SAAS great is not how similar we try to be, but how different we all are.

Instead of focusing on the contributions that we, as individuals, can make to our community through and inside our House, we have spent time on trivial planning. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I’d rather actually be strengthening ties with the community, or boosting my chances of getting into Georgetown, than deciding if we are going to be named “The First House” or “House One.” And as for those who say that these things are important because they will be long-lasting through the future of SAAS, I say: 1) The House System is lucky if it lasts past May and 2) even if it does, whatever we come up with today will not be representative of those who occupy our House in 2020.

Beyond an individual House’s self-determination, however, our community as a whole has stewed in the misery of wasted time. The House competitions were the perfect manifestation of the agony of having one’s time wasted by that which they haven’t a modicum of interest in. People have no interest in these competitions because they feel no connection to the people from their House who are competing, and because they cannot make these connections when the only interaction they have with these people is discussing the color wheel. The more SAAS students are forced to attend events in which they are crowded onto overpopulated bleachers, forced to listen to overly amplified music that they detest, and then remain in such a position for the entirety of a break during which they could be caffeinating or studying, the more they are going to resist the institution that puts them there in the first place. And in this situation, the institution that crowded us like livestock, bled our eardrums dry, and left us thirsting for espresso was none other than the House system.

No matter how many “spirited” events or bonding activities you make us sit through, at the end of the day, a SAAS student is a SAAS student: we’re cynical and apathetic. And we will remain that way until our time is put to use. And because it seems I will never be given the chance to mentor in my House, I suppose now is the time for it. My word of advice: use the House System to its true potential so that our time is not squandered on all things trivial, or watch as it burns in the flames of the cynicism and loathing of the SAAS student population.

A Review of Beasts of the Southern Wild

Every year, it seems that at least one indie film comes into the spotlight. First appearing at Sundance Film Festival in 2012, Beasts of the Southern Wild won the Grand Jury Award as well as the Excellence in Cinematography Award. Since then, the movie has won 34 of the 35 awards for which it has been nominated. This year, it is nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress. In terms of Best Picture, this movie deserves every bit of its nomination. It is the story of a six-year-old girl, Hushpuppy, living in the Bayou with a hot-tempered and sick father. As the ice caps begin to melt and threaten to destroy her village, Hushpuppy is faced with challenges such as fear, maturity, and survival. Beasts of the Southern Wild is less likely to win Best Picture because it is not very well known, but that should not count it out. It is a beautiful movie all together and displays childhood in a clear and relatable way, because everyone has to face their Aurochs at some point in life.

While Jennifer Lawrence of Silver Linings Playbook pretty much sealed the deal for Best Actress after her win at the Golden Globes, nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis will not be forgotten. The youngest actress to be nominated for Best Actress, Wallis was just five years old when she first auditioned for the role. She gives a riveting performance in the movie and proves that she will be a forced to be reckoned with. Although it is doubtful that she will win the Oscar, Wallis has a very bright future ahead of her.

Nominations

-          Best Picture

-          Best Actress (Quvenzhané Wallis)

-          Best Director (Benh Zeitlin)

-          Best Adapted Screenplay

Playlist of the Week: Hans Watkins '13

Hey guys! Welcome to the Playlist of the Week. This is a playlist of 5-10 songs that a SAAS student is currently jamming to. Each issue, a new student’s playlist will be featured. If you would like to be featured, email me, Molly Schwartz (mollyschwartz@seattleacademy.org), and we’ll talk. No matter what type of music you’re listening to, we want to hear all about it. This week, we’re featuring Hans Watkins ‘13 and his current top songs.  

“Green & Blue feat. Ben Glass” - Author

This song starts out with some wandering saxophone lines accompanied by gentle chords and ambience. A thick kick drum comes in along with minimal drums as the song starts building, and then right before you think something big is about to happen, this deep bass line drops and just sort of hangs out for a while as the saxophone plays around with different melodies on top of the whole thing. All in all, super chill song. One of my favorites.

“Blue Milk” - Big Chocolate

Big Chocolate is a local electronic producer who has mastered the popular genres. He nailed the timing of the "trap music" craze with this song. These chopped up vocal samples fade in and then the song opens up with some good old fashioned 808's. And such is trap music. If you're into his music, Big Chocolate has a new EP coming out on December 4, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

“Nightmares in Reality (feat. Maksim)” - Culprate

I've always loved Culprate's production; he keeps it simple but his sound design is some of the best I've ever heard, which makes his songs interesting. Maksim brings some humor into the song with his brilliantly silly lyrics. The lyrics could be described as a dude trying to tell you how "hard" he is and how you are not nearly as "hard" as he is. Classic. Lyrics aside, Culprate lays down some seriously crunchy bass lines like no one else can.

“I Only Know (What I Know Now)” - James Blake

Bringing it down a notch here. This song starts with some scratchy piano samples and dreamy vocals until a kick drum comes in and keeps time with a simple clap on every fourth upbeat. The song then just hangs out on a moody descending vocal clip with really clean percussion. Definitely on par with Author and Ben Glass' “Green & Blue” as far as chill music goes. I definitely suggest checking out some of James Blake's other music. He sings too and he has the coolest voice.

“Bootleg Fireworks (Burning Up)” - Dillon Francis

As of writing this, I don't think this song has been officially released yet, but electronic music has a tendency of getting leaked before it's released, so here's Dillon Francis' latest. I'm a big fan of slicing up vocal samples, and Dillon Francis does this with ease. This song has a super catchy hook and hits that party vibe spot on.

“Lifeline” - Eskmo

Fresh off of his new EP, Language, “Lifeline” is undoubtedly my favorite song of all of Eskmo's work. Eskmo also has one of the most unique sounds I've ever heard. He incorporates organic sounds like flowing water with synthesized soundscapes flawlessly and creates an original atmosphere like I’ve never heard.

“Meanwhile, In The Future (Original Mix)” - KOAN Sound

I'm just going to say it straight up, KOAN Sound are my favorite producers, period. They mix the whole funk/hip hop genre so well with electronic music and the result is Glitch Hop. KOAN Sound also consistently blows me away with their sound design. So clean.

“Beyond The Shadows” - KOAN Sound x Gemini x Culprate x Asa

Here's another with KOAN Sound, but it's also featuring some of the greats of glitch hop and dubstep. This is a pretty chill track but it's got this steady beat that keeps the song interesting all the way through. Great song.

“Places” - Shlohmo

I've been listening to a lot of Shlohmo lately and this is definitely one of my favorite songs of his. The simplicity of the song makes it relaxing but the textures add a lot of interest. If you're into this song, you should look up some of his other music because it's some of the most unique that I've heard.

“Captain Higgs (Original Mix)” - Oskilator

This'll be a hit or miss for most people. If you're into heavy bass music, you'll probably like this. If you're not…well, give it a try I guess. Either way, it's a pretty cool song with some quality sound design that's worth a listen.