Obama Continues the Fight to end Racism - The Heschel School

Page 6 Helios Volume 7 Issue 2 December 2008
Transforming the “Lost” Generation
By Anna Rothstein and Rebecca Schwarz
The theme of this year’s Shabbaton,
dren and homeless
the “Lost” Generation, left the people, cookdren
entire school thinking of ways to avoid
a dark future with a troubled economy
ing and serving
meals in
and global warming. Thinking locally, soup kitchens,
one strategy to help change this generation
for the better is to turn the high
school green.
The Student Senate has plans
and sort-
ing and packing
foods in
a food warehouse.
to improve the school’s recycling program
The
by spreading awareness of how to
properly use the recycling bins located
around the school. Almost every classroom
has a bin for containers (such as
plastic and glass bottles and cans) and a
bin for paper. However, students often
deposit a mix of paper, containers and
trash in each bin; as a result, everything
in the bins is just thrown out. Student
senate also hopes to persuade teachers
to use less paper, doing more electronically
instead.
Another approach to helping
change the world and the future is
through Hesed. On Wednesday, November
26th, the entire school participated
in Hesed projects all around the
city. The ninth grade cooked a Thanksgiving
meal in school for the homeless.
The tenth and eleventh grades went
out to different locations in Manhattan
and the boroughs, working with chil-
twelfth grade
went to clean
up an old Jewish
cemetery.
A
standing issue in
the Heschel School
remains how to motivate
students to participate
in community service
activities? Last year,
many students did not come
to Hesed day. Leaving aside
the issue of families choosing
to leave for vacations a day early,
many students choose to skip school
and catch up on sleep instead. Hesed
days are not optional, however; they
are mandatory, school-wide activities.
The more people who join in helping
on Hesed day, the more the community
can be changed for the better and the
better the
w o r l d
c a n
become.
Thanks to
the determination
of
the Student
senate, the
Hesed club,
and the community
service
group that meets
during Arts Block, the
Heschel high school is
taking steps to change its
world. Perhaps, in the new environment
they are creating, everyone will
be motivated to do more: whether by
recycling that Snapple bottle bought
during lunch or showing up for the
next Hesed day.
Illustration by Shelly Kaplan
All Women’s Colleges: Are They for You?
By Abigail Lipnick and Aliza Rosenfeld
nard classes
and I also took
a lot of classes
at Columbia
right across
the street, so
I wasn’t isolated.
I did
tend to have
more female
friends, but I
think I would
have anyway,
and there were
men around in
classes, some
Illustration by Hannah Kober
Seven all girls’ high schools are
of the dorms,
on campus,
etc.”
located in New York City, all on the Upper
East Side. For girls attending these schools,
college is a time to break free from the allgirl
bubble. Many of them want to go to
a co-ed college for a more diverse atmosphere.
Sara Winograd, a Heschel Middle
School alumnus who now attends Spence,
remarked that although most students at
Spence love the single-sex environment
now, they are most likely ready for change
Ms. Slutsky believes strongly in
the benefits of having a primarily singlesex
classroom environment. In her experience,
“boys and men tend to be more
outspoken in class and sometimes speak
before they think…there were definitely
some aggressive women.” In general, however,
she claims that she had more time to
consider her responses to questions and
discuss them in a more thoughtful environment.
by the end of four years. At Spence, only
Another reward to being in an all-
seven girls out of the two hundred and
thirty -one graduates of the last five years
have attended all women’s colleges. Sara
explains that “being in an all girls’ school
for childhood and adolescence makes maturing
girls confident to be or do anything.
By the time they enter college it is important
to also be comfortable, in and out of
the classroom, socializing as well as collaborating
with males.”
A common concern of women
who are thinking of attending all women’s
college is the difficulty of meeting men but
it is not really an issue. Carolyn Slutsky,
who teaches the Journalism elective during
Friday’s arts block and attended Barnard,
offers assurance that men are accessible
and states, “There were men in many Barwomen
atmosphere is that it allows those
who are passionate about women’s rights
and feminist values to comfortably express
such sentiments. Ms. Slutsky acknowledges
that at George Washington University,
which she attended before transferring to
Barnard, “feminism was sort of stronger
or more militant because you had to fight
to feel equal and heard.” She partook in
women’s rights issues on both campuses
but commented, “at Barnard it felt more
comfortable and integrated than at GWU
where as a woman I still felt I had to fight a
little harder.”
Over the past few years several
Heschel students have enrolled in women’s
colleges. A number of girls in this year’s
senior class are also looking into all women’s
schools. In addition to Barnard, notable
women’s colleges in the U.S. include
Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley.
Most young women at Heschel do not feel
intimidated by their male peers. Yet, it is
probable that later in their lives they will
encounter sexism, injustices, and double
standards in society. An all women’s college
can serve as an incubator, getting
young women ready to cope with the various
challenges that so often exist for them
in society. According to Heschel’s college
guidance counselor, Micki Talmadge, “both
in college and after graduation, women
who attend women’s colleges tend to take
on more leadership roles, e.g. over 75%
of the women heading Fortune 500 companies
attended a women’s college, and
women who attended a women’s college
are more likely to succeed in traditionally
‘male fields,’ e.g. math, science, engineering,
business.”
Many girls enjoy single-sex environments
where they feel they can thrive
best. However, some apply to or attend all
women’s colleges “in spite of the fact that
they are all women,” states Ms. Talmadge.
“When thinking about what they want in
a college, while they may find it in a coed
school, they may also find it in a women’s
college.” All-women classrooms can help
females focus more on their education in
the absence of the distractions that sometimes
come when men are around. Many
women feel stifled by the forthright nature
of some men and prefer not to compete
with men for attention from the professor.
Ms. Slutsky liked the idea that Barnard
was “a school that focused on women
and their learning style and needs and power
and development.” She found that, particularly
given that classes at Barnard were rigorous
and challenging, being in some classes with
only women allowed her to formulate her
opinions more slowly and thoughtfully. She
maintains that Barnard taught her “that sense
of women being empowered and strongminded
and competent and worthwhile.”
Op-ed: The Issue
of Elevator Use
By Benjamin Seidman
Using the school elevators
during the day is not a privilege
or a right given to Heschel High
School students. Only teachers,
faculty members, and the battered
and bruised of the student body
can use the elevators. To everyone
else, the elevator is a sacred domain,
only accessible in the mornings
and at the end of the school
day.
Seniors have expressed
their displeasure with their inability
to use the elevators. Said one
senior, “I feel like after all these
years of walking up the stairs, we
need a break.” Another sophomore
said, “I see upperclassmen using it
and I just do not understand why
they have to try and avoid teachers
to use them. I understand that
administrators do not want to
overcrowd the elevators, but these
are our seniors. Shouldn’t we cut
them some slack?”
Senior privileges used to
allow the senior class to ride the
elevator at will, but they have
been revoked in recent years. The
privileges were rescinded because
of the ever-growing size of the senior
class, which overcrowds our
two elevators, and because using
the elevators leads to a loss of exercise
from using the stairs.
Regrettably, seniors and
the rest of the student body still
use the elevator and are often penalized
as a result. Faculty members
who witness students in any
grade using the elevator have no
choice but to assign detentions to
those trespassers.
If seniors were given the
right to use the elevators, less tension
would exist between faculty
and students over this delicate
issue. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh
grades would look forward
to senior year as a time when they
too could exercise the privilege
of using the elevator. This system
would develop a respect for elevator
use and students would think
twice before entering an elevator
instead of climbing the stairs. If
elevator use were deemed a privilege
for the senior class, younger
students would not disobey the elevator
policy because they would
know that one day, they too would
be able to ride the elevator. That
is, once they earn it by climbing
up and down our seven floors for
three years.