October 20, 2011 Volume C, Issue 2 www.thesamohi.com Check out the new documentary about Samo choir, BIG VOICE Student bands rock the samo community Feature, Pg. 8 A&E, Pg. 9 Campus News............................................................3 Opinion...................................................................4, 5 Special Report........................................................6, 7 Feature................................................................8 A&E........................................................... ................. 9 Sports.................................................................10, 11 Spotlight..............................................................12 DOUBLE-DOUBLE: Samo students grab some In-N-Out at the celebration for achieving over an 800 API on last year’s Cali- fornia State Testing on Friday, Oct. 14. NICHOLAS ZARCHEN / The Samohi Confusion about extra credit cre- ates rumors Despite allegations that extra credit has been banned at Samo, Principal Laurel Fretz has not revised any policies, but rather attempted to guide teachers in adopting extra credit practices proven by research to help stu- dents learn. “If you give extra credit, it must be for standards-based work. Not for bringing paper tow- els,” Fretz said in a memo sent to all Samo teachers. “Extra credit is for learning, not compliance.” According to Fretz, these suggestions, which have recently caused confusion among students and staff, are not mandatory or even new policies, but rather educational suggestions. Accord- ing to Fretz, the principal does not possess the power to change policies or teaching methods. The power to change policies is left to the Board of Education and the power to change teaching meth- ods is left to individual teachers. “It is not a new policy. I cannot set policy. It is not a new rule. And it is not something I can even make teachers accountable for,” Fretz said. “I am sharing with them as their principal and as their guide the best practices in grading.” Students, however, feel that teachers are not correctly inter- preting Fretz’s guidance. “I think that even though they are suggestions, teachers are strictly enforcing them. The whole bringing the paper towel thing to get an A in the class is a little corrupt so I [understand] why she wants to limit that, but there are other extra credit op- portunities that are being limited,” senior Nikky Ucedo said. In years past, marine biolo- gy teacher Benjamin Kay offered frequent extra credit opportunities to his students, which eventually added up to become a large per- centage of the grade. Some extra credit opportunities were more closely related to the curriculum than others. For example, Kay would have students attend beach and wetland clean-ups, environ- mental documentaries, and sus- tainability awareness events. Be- cause Kay teaches classes about environmental awareness, these extra credit opportunities connect directly to the standards he teach- es. However, according to Kay, by offering as much extra credit he did, students became lazy in regards to the regular coursework. “Before, I would give ex- tra credit for all of these things and some people would just not study for the test because they’re like ‘oh I’ll just make up for my poor performance by going and doing Mr. Kay’s credit events,’” Kay said. “Now, the students feel a sense of, ‘Oh my gosh! A test is coming up and I only have this test to prove myself.’ They don’t have a crutch so it forces the stu- dents to really know the material.” Other teachers, like math teacher Kelly Okla have never of- fered extra credit. “I think that [extra credit] inflates grades,” Okla said. In order to prevent this “in- flation” of grades, Kay’s extra credit events have now become a mandatory “service learning” category of his class. Kay said he was never forced to make this change, but took Fretz’s sugges- tion. Any amount of extra credit can be offered, if the teacher so chooses. Social studies, teacher, Robert Alvarado believes extra credit can be helpful and educa- tional. Alvarado offers extra credit in the form of historical trivia where he asks questions from trivia cards to his classes. The first to respond gets the extra credit points. “[It’s] a fun way of get- ting students involved and a way for them to earn a couple extra points,” Alvarado said. Students share similar senti- ments. “My opinion is that it should not be the main majority of the class. I believe that if students are in the A range and they want to get to the A+ range, it should give them that little push but it shouldn’t make up the majority of the class points,” senior Cassan- dra Kliewer said. Greg Boehm Staff Writer Marine biology teacher and Team Marine adviser Benjamin Kay was recently featured on a five minute segment on NBC. Earlier in the week, Kay had post- ed a picture of himself on the Internet that went viral within two days. The image shows Kay lying down in a full wetsuit next to his surf board. On his board, the word “help” is spelled out in garbage. “A thousand [people], maybe more saw this pho- to,” Kay said referring to his photo’s popularity. “It elicited a crazy response from the public that surfers were actually swimming in this garbage.” During one of his weekly surfing trips, Kay noticed an accumulation of trash in the ocean and decided to collect it to make this image. Accord- ing to Kay, the creation of From viral photograph to national television the image was purely on a whim with hopes of spread- ing the word about the de- teriorating conditions of Santa Monica beaches and oceans. That day, in addition to collecting the trash to spell out “help,” Kay gath- ered other debris that was floating in the water and disrupting his weekly surf. Kay stuffed the trash in his wetsuit so he could dispose of it properly afterwards. “[The trash] looked like a big giant cancer to the other surfers,” Kay said. Originally Kay posted this picture on Facebook without realizing the grav- ity of the events that would follow. According to Kay, he was urged by friends to post the picture on the Team Marine blog and email it to others as part of a press release. Within a few days the photo had been Lillian Kalish Staff Writer NETWORK: Kay appeared on NBC for a five minute seg- ment after the above photograph went viral on the internet. WHAT’S INSIDE: S.O.S.: Kay arranges trash on his surfboard to draw attention to the trash polluting oceans and beaches. Courtesy of nbc.com Homecoming lunch rally changed to second period The Homecoming pep rally has officially been moved from a lunchtime rally to a second period rally on Oct. 28, according to princi- pal Laurel Fretz. The decision was made Tuesday morning after con- sulting with various students and administrators, including ASB and members of The Samohi. According to adminis- trators, the rally was sched- Sintra Martins Staff Writer uled for second period to curb the chaotic behavior that has ensued after past pep rallies. “The problems are almost always after the rallies, so by having it during second peri- od, I hope students will calmly walk back to class instead of going to lunch and causing problems,” Fretz said. As a result of the fights after the Homecoming rally in 2009, former Samo principal Dr. Hugo Pedroza canceled all subsequent pep rallies for that academic school year. Pep rallies last year were resched- uled for lunch due to addi- tional post-rally misbehavior. According to administrators, misconduct issues in the past have included students throw- ing full water bottles at peers and administrators, running up and down hallways, chanting years and starting fights. “I’ve heard that there were many problems: every- thing from large fights (or what some people call small riots) to individual acts of vio- lence. Last year when people felt the pep rally went well, there was a time right after when [this year’s] juniors and seniors faced off in the Sci- ence Quad,” Fretz said. When Fretz became Samo principal in July, she no- ticed the pep rallies had been changed to lunch rallies, and tried to change the rally to a fourth period rally. However, she was advised by adminis- trators not to do so. Contrary to rumors that have been circulating among students, Fretz did not cancel pep rallies. (continued on pg. 2) (continued on pg. 2) Courtesy of nbc.com [email protected]see Campus News, page 3
Transcript
October 20, 2011 Volume C, Issue 2www.thesamohi.com
Check out the new documentary about Samo choir, BIG VOICE
DOUBLE-DOUBLE: Samo students grab some In-N-Out at the celebration for achieving over an 800 API on last year’s Cali-fornia State Testing on Friday, Oct. 14.
NICHOLAS ZARCHEN / The Samohi
Confusion about extra credit cre-ates rumors
Despite allegations that extra credit has been banned at Samo, Principal Laurel Fretz has not revised any policies, but rather attempted to guide teachers in adopting extra credit practices proven by research to help stu-dents learn.
“If you give extra credit, it must be for standards-based work. Not for bringing paper tow-els,” Fretz said in a memo sent to all Samo teachers. “Extra credit is for learning, not compliance.”
According to Fretz, these suggestions, which have recently caused confusion among students and staff, are not mandatory or even new policies, but rather educational suggestions. Accord-ing to Fretz, the principal does not possess the power to change policies or teaching methods. The power to change policies is left to the Board of Education and the power to change teaching meth-ods is left to individual teachers.
“It is not a new policy. I cannot set policy. It is not a new rule. And it is not something I can even make teachers accountable for,” Fretz said. “I am sharing with them as their principal and as their guide the best practices in grading.”
Students, however, feel that teachers are not correctly inter-preting Fretz’s guidance.
“I think that even though they are suggestions, teachers are strictly enforcing them. The whole bringing the paper towel thing to get an A in the class is a little corrupt so I [understand] why she wants to limit that, but there are other extra credit op-portunities that are being limited,” senior Nikky Ucedo said.
In years past, marine biolo-gy teacher Benjamin Kay offered frequent extra credit opportunities to his students, which eventually added up to become a large per-centage of the grade. Some extra credit opportunities were more closely related to the curriculum than others. For example, Kay would have students attend beach and wetland clean-ups, environ-mental documentaries, and sus-
tainability awareness events. Be-cause Kay teaches classes about environmental awareness, these extra credit opportunities connect directly to the standards he teach-es. However, according to Kay, by offering as much extra credit he did, students became lazy in regards to the regular coursework.
“Before, I would give ex-tra credit for all of these things and some people would just not study for the test because they’re like ‘oh I’ll just make up for my poor performance by going and doing Mr. Kay’s credit events,’” Kay said. “Now, the students feel a sense of, ‘Oh my gosh! A test is coming up and I only have this test to prove myself.’ They don’t have a crutch so it forces the stu-dents to really know the material.”
Other teachers, like math teacher Kelly Okla have never of-fered extra credit.
“I think that [extra credit] inflates grades,” Okla said.
In order to prevent this “in-flation” of grades, Kay’s extra credit events have now become a mandatory “service learning” category of his class. Kay said he was never forced to make this change, but took Fretz’s sugges-tion.
Any amount of extra credit can be offered, if the teacher so chooses. Social studies, teacher, Robert Alvarado believes extra credit can be helpful and educa-tional. Alvarado offers extra credit in the form of historical trivia where he asks questions from trivia cards to his classes. The first to respond gets the extra credit points.
“[It’s] a fun way of get-ting students involved and a way for them to earn a couple extra points,” Alvarado said.
Students share similar senti-ments.
“My opinion is that it should not be the main majority of the class. I believe that if students are in the A range and they want to get to the A+ range, it should give them that little push but it shouldn’t make up the majority of the class points,” senior Cassan-dra Kliewer said.
Greg BoehmStaff Writer
Marine biology teacher and Team Marine adviser Benjamin Kay was recently featured on a five minute segment on NBC. Earlier in the week, Kay had post-ed a picture of himself on the Internet that went viral within two days. The image shows Kay lying down in a full wetsuit next to his surf board. On his board, the word “help” is spelled out in garbage.
“A thousand [people], maybe more saw this pho-to,” Kay said referring to his photo’s popularity. “It elicited a crazy response from the public that surfers were actually swimming in this garbage.”
During one of his weekly surfing trips, Kay noticed an accumulation of trash in the ocean and decided to collect it to make this image. Accord-ing to Kay, the creation of
From viral photograph to national televisionthe image was purely on a whim with hopes of spread-ing the word about the de-teriorating conditions of Santa Monica beaches and oceans.
That day, in addition to collecting the trash to spell out “help,” Kay gath-ered other debris that was floating in the water and disrupting his weekly surf. Kay stuffed the trash in his wetsuit so he could dispose of it properly afterwards.
“[The trash] looked like a big giant cancer to the other surfers,” Kay said.
Originally Kay posted this picture on Facebook without realizing the grav-ity of the events that would follow. According to Kay, he was urged by friends to post the picture on the Team Marine blog and email it to others as part of a press release. Within a few days the photo had been
Lillian KalishStaff Writer
NETWORK: Kay appeared on NBC for a five minute seg-ment after the above photograph went viral on the internet.
WHAT’S INSIDE:
S.O.S.: Kay arranges trash on his surfboard to draw attention to the trash polluting oceans and beaches.
Courtesy of nbc.com
Homecoming lunch rally changed to second period
The Homecoming pep rally has officially been moved from a lunchtime rally to a second period rally on Oct. 28, according to princi-pal Laurel Fretz.
The decision was made Tuesday morning after con-sulting with various students and administrators, including ASB and members of The Samohi.
According to adminis-trators, the rally was sched-
Sintra MartinsStaff Writer
uled for second period to curb the chaotic behavior that has ensued after past pep rallies.
“The problems are almost always after the rallies, so by having it during second peri-od, I hope students will calmly walk back to class instead of going to lunch and causing problems,” Fretz said.
As a result of the fights after the Homecoming rally in 2009, former Samo principal Dr. Hugo Pedroza canceled all subsequent pep rallies for that academic school year. Pep rallies last year were resched-
uled for lunch due to addi-tional post-rally misbehavior. According to administrators, misconduct issues in the past have included students throw-ing full water bottles at peers and administrators, running up and down hallways, chanting years and starting fights.
“I’ve heard that there were many problems: every-thing from large fights (or what some people call small riots) to individual acts of vio-lence. Last year when people felt the pep rally went well, there was a time right after
when [this year’s] juniors and seniors faced off in the Sci-ence Quad,” Fretz said.
When Fretz became Samo principal in July, she no-ticed the pep rallies had been changed to lunch rallies, and tried to change the rally to a fourth period rally. However, she was advised by adminis-trators not to do so.
Contrary to rumors that have been circulating among students, Fretz did not cancel pep rallies.
re-blogged on the Inter-net, appearing on Foam Mag-azine and 5Gyres.org, both environmentally conscious websites. Kay even emailed it to someone from CBS, who forwarded the photo to NBC, leading to Kay’s television ap-pearance.
“Instead of just posting a picture of the garbage, Mr. Kay showed an actual mes-sage which helped to signify that the environment needs our help,” Team Marine member and senior, Jesse Robertson said. “The trash is disgusting and I think this publicity really helped to get Team Marine’s goal out.”
In his segment on NBC, Kay discussed the importance of creating feasible solutions to environmental problems. With him, Kay brought along his band of reusable accesso-ries, including a set of bamboo utensils, glassware containers,
reusable cloth napkin, lunch pail, metal water canteen, and a reusable grocery bag. While Kay spoke, a slideshow of pho-tos passed across the screen featuring the copious amount of garbage that has washed up on Santa Monica beaches.
“We shouldn’t be adopt-ing a disposable culture,” Kay said regarding the current gen-eration’s reaction to environ-mental problems.
During his NBC appear-ance, Kay talked about the importance of reusing items, and about how plastic is not a necessity in our society even though we have become de-pendent on it.
“Only in hospitals may-be,” Kay said, “are plastics es-sential but otherwise, we can find other resources to use.”
Kay regrets not fully celebrating his students’ ac-complishements during the segment.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to talk about Team Marine,” Kay said. “The important thing was to get people to rethink the way they treat the environ-ment.”
As a result of his televi-sion appearance, Kay hopes to have sent a message about the state of our environment, urging people to switch to re-usable products to save the planet.
“We need to get people to rethink the way they use plastics,” Kay said. “We have to try and reduce our carbon footprint.”
Human Rights Watch Student Task Force cam-paigns for education
The Human Rights Watch Student Task Force (HRWSTF), a student-run club on campus, is currently in the middle of their 2011 campaign: Protecting the Right to Education.
Samo, along with 12 other schools in Southern California, is focusing on this campaign, which focuses on bringing educational materials to refugee camps in Chad.
“The basic premise of the Human Rights Watch organiza-tion is to promote awareness of hu-man injustices around the world,” sophomore club leader Rachel Kiekhofer said. “The Human Rights Watch focuses on one hu-man rights issue in the world, and this year we’re focusing on educa-tion in refugee camps in Chad.”
The Samo branch of the Student Task Force has five lead-ers: junior president Cami Speyer, junior Chloe Cohen and sopho-mores Linda Gordon, Max Gum-bel and Rachel Kiekhofer. These five students have different tasks in the group, each contributing in a different way to help the club move forward.
“I feel like it’s really impor-tant to learn about issues that are present in the world that we really don’t hear about because of the stuff that’s happening locally. It’s a really worthwhile thing to do,” Kiekhofer said.
Currently, the Student Task Force’s main goal is to fundraise as much money as possible by Nov. 6, their deadline, which is when the materials will be sent to Chad.
“We partnered with another organization called i-ACT. It’s a really small private organization and the two people in charge have traveled to the refugee camps in Chad ten times, so they’re going to be the ones bringing the materials to the camps,” Kiekhofer said.
According to Speyer, Ga-briel Stauring and Katie-Jay Scott, the two i-ACT representatives, be-came interested in Darfur on their own, and it was Stauring’s brother who got him involved in Human Rights Watch. [email protected]
Lily CainOnline Editor
Formerly a lunch rally, Homecoming pep rally is moved to second period
“I am learning that I’m going to have to communi-cate more clearly. I’m also sending home a letter to explain the miscommunica-tion,” Fretz said.
According to Fretz, it wasn’t until she had meet-ings with different groups of students — including the senior class, members of The Samohi and ASB, as well as the other adminis-trators — that she felt con-fident enough to give the students another chance.
“I came back and talk-ed to all the house princi-pals, and I told them that I believe the students will behave well and that their desire to have a regular pep rally should be honored,”
Fretz said. “I believe that at some point, we have to give students a clean slate. We need to use the past and be wise when we make the decision, but at the same time we need to look for-ward and expect the best from our students,” Fretz said.
According to senior Maykel Pernia, students see the situation similarly.
“The behavior issues were a long time ago, and I don’t think we should have to pay for [past classes’] actions,” Pernia said.
But Fretz does not ex-pect any behavior problems during the upcoming rally.
“I do not believe that given this opportunity, the students are going to blow
(continued from pg. 1)
WE’VE GOT SPIRIT: Gabriela Griffin shows her Samo spirit at the last fourth period rally of the 2010-2011 school year.
NICHOLAS ZARCHEN/ The Samohi
“Gabriel’s brother, Javier, works really closely with Human Rights Watch, and he led the cam-paign last year, which was Juve-nile Justice,” Speyer said.
On Nov. 6, Stauring and Scott will be returning to Chad, this time armed with educational supplies for what they call “mobile libraries.”
“A mobile library is a chest full of learning materials,” Kiek-hofer said. “It’s going to be trans-ported through the camps on a donkey.”
According to the HRWSTF website, each mobile library, also called an R23 library, will contain three Kindles, 10 spiral notebooks, writing utensils, three talking dic-tionaries, two two-inch binders with worksheets, maps and other visuals.
“There are other organiza-tions that are [raising money for food], but where this whole push for education comes from is when-ever Katie-Jay and Gabriel visit them, the people always ask for the same things: they need more food, they need more water, they’d like more shelter, but they always ask for more education, because they are completely convinced that if their kids are educated, they will be able to go back to Sudan and create a better government,” Speyer said.
According to Speyer, most of the kids in the refugee camps only make it to sixth or seventh grade; after that, they usually work to support their families. Most of the children are interested in edu-cation, but have other priorities.
“This one kid that we watched a video of, he sits down and reads the dictionary in Eng-lish for fun, and he doesn’t speak English. He’s taught himself just from sitting down and reading the dictionary for fun,” Speyer said. “So if they want to be educated, we should be giving them [the materials].”
In addition to raising money for the mobile libraries, HRWSTF must create materials to include for a better educational experience for the children, but have not had much time to do so.
“We went to a leadership
meeting in the beginning of Sep-tember, and that’s when we were introduced to what we would be working on this year, so we’ve had no time,” Speyer said. “I feel more pressure on our school because Samo’s so big that Human Rights Watch expects us to bring in a lot more revenue and make a lot more money than Wildwood and Cross-roads because they’re so tiny.”
According to Speyer, the di-rections given to the club on how to create the materials were ambig-uous, but said they should focus on teaching the kids both English and basic human rights.
“While teaching the kids how to read, [they are also] teach-ing them about human rights, because one thing they remind us of all the time is these kids don’t know what their basic rights are,” Speyer said. “It’s so normal to us, like we have the right to freedom of speech, we can write whatever we want, we can say whatever we want, but these kids, some of them don’t have these rights, some of them don’t even know they have the right to have shelter, or food, so we have to educate them about that as well.”
The club is primarily focus-ing on how to educate kids by means of the mobile libraries, but once the campaign is over, their plan is to start educating locally on these global problems.
“Right now we’re focusing on the task at hand. We have this movie that we’re trying to screen as a fundraiser, so we’re trying to rent the Aero for a day and show it there,” Speyer said. “I’m not re-ally concerned with educating the community right now because of our bigger goals.”
After Nov. 6, HRWSTF will still be focusing on some aspects of the campaign because this is not the last time Stauring and Scott will be going to Chad.
“These people, they have nothing,” Speyer said. “They have barely enough food to survive, they have no shelter, all they ask for is education, which is so cool, and we can provide that.”
information courtesy of hrwstf.org
Price in Dollars
What goes into an R2E library?One year salary for librarian
Three Kindles and Accessories
Notebooks and UtensilsE-Books
Four ChairsThree Talking Dictionaries
Copies (in camp)Donkey Feed and Care for One Year
English Curriculum Material10% Contingency
ChestTables
Two Mats
Provisions (rope, etc.)
Total: $2,871
SCAVENGER: Kay collects trash from the ocean during one of his surfing trips.
courtesy of nbc.com
it. I expect at this rally, students will be respectful, and will know that [the ad-ministration] is going out on a limb for them by al-lowing them to have a pep rally, they will behave and go out of their way to make sure that the rallies become permanent,” Fretz said.
Fretz hopes that stu-dents will both respect the rules and enjoy themselves at the pep rally.
“My goal for this year is that we will have pep ral-lies for all of our seasons and that we will start a new Samo tradition of fun and excellence,” Fretz said.
Samo clubs keeping it casualJones PitskerStaff Writer
HOT OFF THE GRILL: Freshman Cruz Calderhead picks up his In-N-Out during the extended lunch period on Oct. 14 as a reward for Samo’s raised API score.
NICHOLAS ZARCHEN / The Samohi
In repsonse to the com-munity service requirement implemented by adminis-tration, many new and re-turning clubs have begun to identify themselves as “casual clubs.” The name seems almost redundant to many students, as clubs are a choice, rather than an ob-ligation.
“I think it’s absurd that clubs which are just gather-ings of friends and require no outside funding from the school have to participate in community service,” sopho-more Jonathan Massachi said.
Massachi is the presi-dent of a club called the Model United Nations (UN) Club, in which members dis-cuss politics and goings-on in the UN. This club is one of many taking a more ca-sual approach to the idea of clubs, comprised of people who share a similar inter-est. However, this new take clashes with the underlying purpose clubs are supposed to serve at Samo.
“If you look at the club charter, the number one goal of each club is to promote school service, loyalty and [exemplify] the high stan-dards of citizenship,” Samo Activities Director Veronica Garcia-Hecht said.
However, Massachi thinks that the current club system is not necessarily ap-plicable to his club.
“Service is very use-ful to help the community improve, but not every club should be required to do community service to retain their status,” Massachi said.
Sophomore Caren Nad-er, member of both Model UN and Chess Club, agrees with Massachi’s point.
“Our club isn’t centered around doing community service — it’s about debat-ing ideas that have been dis-cussed in the UN. So if the UN were to hold community service, we would go and help them out, but there’s no community service right now that offers us that abil-ity.”
Garcia-Hecht believes that this is not necessarily true.
“I think we need to de-fine community service,” Garcia-Hecht said. “[Model UN] could have an informa-tional booth about the differ-ent jobs on politics at lunch out in front of Barnum Hall. We are challenging students to think outside the box.”
According to Garcia-Hecht, thinking outside the box is the over-arching pur-pose of clubs and student-run organizations. Clubs give students the opportunity to express their creativity and
volunteer work is just a way for the school to make sure they are adding positively to the Samo community.
Garcia-Hecht views the community service require-ment not only as a chance to help out around Samo and the community as a whole, but also as a way to encour-age students to be creative in the way that they complete the requirement.
Though casual clubs such as Model UN and Chess Club might see this as a restriction, Garcia-Hecht believes that the commu-nity service will help them raise awareness about some-thing they are passionate about. Several clubs such as Invisible Children and Samo Solar Alliance (SSA) have embraced the require-ment, organizing school as-semblies and district-wide events.
As more and more ca-sual clubs form at Samo, it is the hope of administration that students will see the community service not as a restriction, but as an invita-tion to be creative. Garica-Hecht hopes that more stu-dents will be encouraged to create their own clubs — even if all they entail is a group of friends spending lunch together doing some-thing they enjoy.
Forty Samo seniors were able to wave goodbye to the troubles of off-campus park-ing and return to Samo’s north lot this October. The north lot, which was closed to seniors during September, is now tem-porarily reopened to students on a month-to-month basis.
The north lot was closed to students because of the im-pending construction of the new Science and Technology buildings. However, Dean of Students Catherine Baxter says the schedule for the con-struction of the new buildings has yet to be finalized, and therefore the administration is reopening the lot for student use.
Senior Class President Spencer Goodman said the reopening of the north lot is a relief for seniors struggling to find alternate parking options. According to Goodman, the school plans to hold a lottery to give new seniors an op-portunity for parking every month.
“Finally, we have spots to park in,” Goodman said. “Al-though it’s only 40, it’s still something. We’re going to cy-cle through and have a lottery each month, so hopefully there will be forty new kids getting parking each month.”
For the month of October, no lottery was needed because originally only 35 students applied for parking, leaving excess spaces. Goodman was surprised by the lack of sign-ups, but expects the number
to increase for next month’s round.
“I was definitely expect-ing more sign-ups, but now that kids are hearing only 35 people signed up initially, I think there is about to be a lot more interest,” Goodman said.
One senior who was able to obtain a spot is Brian Alfa-no, who is happy to have park-ing for as long as he can.
“I’ll have my spot until Nov. 4, but it might last longer if no more people sign up. I’m ecstatic about it.”
Administration allowed late applications, and all of the spaces for the first round have now been filled. When construction of the new foot-ball field is completed five more spaces will be avail-able. Students who were not awarded parking are being put on a waiting list for when these spots become available.
Goodman was also pleased with the fact that the administration chose to reopen the lot instead of keeping it closed until construction be-gins.
“I’m really happy the school decided to act on all these empty spots because it was frustrating seeing them everyday — allowing us to park there is just really nice,” Goodman said. “At first I was upset, but I understand the administration does not know when each stage of construc-tion is going to happen. I’m happy they recognized it so early.”
In celebration of Sa-mo’s 805 Academic Per-formance Index (API) score, Samo administrators treated students to a special hour-long lunch on Oct. 14 that included an In-N-Out truck and Diddy Riese cookies.
The celebration also featured music courtesy of 97.1-AMP radio.
Samo Principal Laurel Fretz said the focus of the celebration was the teach-ers and students.
“It’s not the adminis-tration’s celebration; it’s really the students’ because they’re the ones that did it. It’s the teachers’ work of teaching and the students’ work of learning — that’s what that 805 represents,” Fretz said.
I-House Principal Renée Semik also thought the celebration was appro-priate.
“We should celebrate and showcase those things that we want students to continue to do just as much as we share with students the pitfalls and things we don’t want them to do,” Semik said.
Sophomore Michele Lauto was pleased with the overall celebration. How-ever, she was not as satis-fied with its organization.
“I think it was a great idea, though they should have had more trucks, so it wouldn’t have been so cha-
otic,” Lauto said.Gilda De La Cruz,
English teacher, thought the celebration was suc-cessful, especially in terms of student satisfaction.
“They seemed really organized and prepared. Students were happy to just have the extra lunchtime. From what I witnessed, stu-dents were sitting around relaxing,” De La Cruz said. “I think it was a little hec-tic at the beginning with everybody rushing to get the cookies and In-N-Out,
but it ended up being pretty calm and people enjoyed their day.”
Junior Mari Marshall was unhappy with the fact that students had to pay for the In-N-Out trucks.
“It’s not really an ad-equate reward. It’s not a re-ward if you have to pay for it,” Marshall said.
In addition to the cel-ebration, the school plans to hold an awards ceremo-ny in November to honor students who improved on California State Testing
Sam ReamerStaff Writer
(CST). Those who made noticeable improvement on their score or scored im-pressively on the test will be recognized at the cer-emony.
“I hope students really feel proud of themselves because they should,” Fretz said. “They really made a jump last year and really proved themselves as great learners.”
Students rewarded for API score increaseAdministration reopens north lot for student parking
Page 4October 20, 2011
Fretz explained that they had been in the Santa Monica -Malibu Unified School Dis-trict High School Academic Planner and Course Directory booklet before she came to Samo.
According to Fretz, these policies encourage students to think more carefully before taking on a challenging course, instead of switching when it’s too late and ending up with a ton of new work to catch up on.
This also serves as a great life lesson, for there is not al-ways going to be an easy out.We as students need to learn to take responsibility for our choices, understand the conse-quences and follow through on our commitments.
However, in accordance with our choices and their consequences, many students feel that instead of encourag-ing them to stay in an AP or Honor’s course, these rules discourage them from even attempting to take on the chal-lenge or to switch before they have given it a fair chance.
High School means an ongoing struggle to impress colleges with high grades, a great brag sheet and as many AP and Honors courses as one can handle.
Students no longer take classes because they simply are interested in them but rather because they believe that the classes are what colleges want them to take. They abandon who they are in order to im-press universities.
Recently there has been some controversy over what appeared to be a new set of “drop rules,” requiring students to switch their AP or Honors course before certain dates or else receive a “WF” (Withdraw Fail) on their report card and transcript.
Students were shocked by these “new” rules, but some-thing they didn’t realize was that the rules weren’t as recent as they thought.
“The new rules aren’t new,” principal Laurel Fretz said.
What’s in an A+?Maddy ShaughnessyStaff Writer “People should not be
penalized for realizing too late that they took on too much,” ju-nior Rochelle Rubin said.
Some students find these rules unfair and detrimental. Once making their decision, there is no way out without “hurting” their brag sheets for colleges.
“It leaves you second guessing yourself with every move,” junior Nastasja Smith said.
Students start questioning whether it is better to stay and fail or switch and get a “WF,” where neither one looks good for universities.
But the question must be: what kind of student should a college consider a “desirable competitor?” A student who switches down from an AP to get an A, or one who stays in the course no matter the grade?
“Sometimes students and parents think it’s all about that letter grade, but more and more colleges are looking at students that stick with something in-stead of switching into an easi-er course,” Fretz said.
On a scale from 1-5, 1 being the least and 5 being the most, how much do you think administration cares about student input and feedback on policies or on other campus matters?
*295 Samo students (9-12) from P, HP and AP courses were surveyed.
Opinion
“Believe it or not, getting a B or a C in a class is not the end of the world, and taking that rigorous course and stick-ing with it no matter how hard it is, shows that you have the personality not to just drop the course when it gets really hard. Colleges appreciate that,” Fretz continued.
The belief that A’s are the only golden tickets to success needs to be adjusted. Our edu-cational system is in danger of becoming a factory that churns out narrowly defined academ-ic overachievers, instead of strong, self- governed and pas-sionate individuals who show initiative and flexibility.
This course drop policy not only changes the image of an ideal student but prepares the student for the future, where he or she must be con-fident in their decision-making and accept the responsibilities and consequences that come with their choices.
The Samohi is a bi-weekly newspaper by, for and about Santa
Monica High students. Our goal is to empow-
er the student body through information. We do not represent the views of the ad-
ministration or staff. We do not endorse
advertisements placed in our paper.
Opinion Editor:NadineMelamed
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Campus News Editor:McKennaJensen
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jumping to conclusions.
Therefore, we at The Samohi would
like to propose a plan to ensure that informa-tion is passed directly from the administration to the students from now on. We are call-ing for the adminis-tration to instate a
monthly roundtable discussion between administrators and representatives from various student orga-nizations on campus. This would establish open communication between adults and students on campus, and ending the con-fusion about rules, policies and school events. Through open communi-
cation,
we can create
a school that will allow students and staff towork
Need-less to say, there has been a surge of rumors spread-ing through the student body this year. “They took away extra credit, and credit points are gone!” The Samohi has been bombarded with rumors of policy changes since Au-gust. Many of these speculations have proven to be false.
The problem at Samo is few stu-dents, if any, know the truth about what the administration has done thus far.
This miscommu-nication stems from the lack of clear communication be-tween administrators and teachers, and subsequently, teach-ers and students. The game of telephone that has been going on throughout Samo, has caused students to be-lieve that policies were
created, pep rallies were canceled and our new principal Laurel Fretz was
the “bad guy.”These rumors seem to
have centered around the idea that Fretz arrived at Samo and immediately began making changes to various policies.
First of all, a school principal does not even have the power to make or change policies in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD). That power, according to Fretz, is left to the Board of Edu-cation. The job of the principal is to enforce those policies.
However, Fretz has met a large amount of animosity regarding ex-tra credit and the Home-
com-ing pep
rally. In regards to
extra credit, Fretz has
already said that “teachers
can do what-ever they want.
I can’t tell them how to teach.”
Instead, Fretz said she
suggested that teachers only
offer extra credit that relates to the
academic standards of the class. Teach-
ers and students misundersood, and
took that to mean that Fretz was ban-
ning all extra credit. Subsequently, rumors began to spread.
The second point of gossip was the
lunchtime Homecoming pep rally.
When Fretz stood up in front of the senior assembly to discuss the possibility of reinstat-ing the fourth period rallies, she said she
hoped to have a mature discussion with the
students.However, many
students jumped to the conclusion that Fretz had changed the rally to lunchtime. That immediately
put some students on the offensive. Some
students, in a coun-terintuitive attempt to
earn a pep rally, began chanting “one-two,” the ex-act behavior that has created trouble in the past.
Assumptions and mis-interpretations have created the disperate atmosphere present on our campus. Teachers misunderstood memos, and they uninten-tionally passed flawed in-formation to students. This misinterpretation of memos led to rumors, which has disrupted our ability to adjust to all of the changes that are happening this year.
We must not let rumors define our perception of someone or something. We owe it to ourselves to find
out all of the facts before
CScience teaches us that
all events fall under one of two categories: being con-trolled by the laws of the universe or occurring as a result of chance.
There are certain laws that explain the way the universe is governed. These include gravitational pull and why color is perceived instead of black and white. When there is no scientific explanation, events are la-beled as chance.
According to the Mer-riam-Webster dictionary, chance is an unpredictable occurrence that happens
without an observable cause.
The concept of chance is what hu-mans credit as “luck,” or the belief that suc-cess or failure comes about as a result of chance rather than one’s actions. How-ever, luck does not truly exist outside the mind. This be-ing true, what is per-ceived as luck can be influenced by a state of mind.
P s y c h o l o g i s t Richard Wiseman devotes his career
Lto studying luck, conduct-ing experiments to test its relation to the Law of At-traction. Through one of his studies, Wiseman found that people are able to in-crease their chances of hav-ing a “lucky” or a positive day if they make a con-scious effort and keep an optimistic outlook on life.
The Law of Attraction states that “like attracts
like.” This idea is the basis of the search for the sci-ence behind luck. Those who think positively, take initiative, are enthusiastic and confidant are likely to attract ‘good luck’ in their lives, whereas those who are preoccupied by fear, doubt, self-pity and resent-ment are more likely to feel the effects of ‘bad luck.’
When the human mind accepts something as defi-nite it becomes so in the in- [email protected]
dividual’s life. In contrast, when one embraces the idea of change, they develop the capacity for change to occur. Therefore, when an individual gains something previously deemed unob-tainable, this action is con-sidered “lucky.”
This ability to alter the interpretation of real-ity can be further explained through the examination of
the Placebo Effect. Place-bos are used in drug trials as a control. A placebo re-places an active drug thus allowing researchers to see if the drug is effective or if the results are merely psy-chological.
Dr. Robert Coghill, a researcher at Wake Forest, has explored the Placebo Effect in various studies. He found that every pos-sible action triggers reac-tions in different areas of
the brain. Even predicting an outcome lights up the corresponding section of the brain.
The same idea applies to the concept of luck. If one were to have very low expectations for their day, each time something nega-tive occurred, the experi-ence would be intensified because the brain was al-ready prepared for a mis-hap. Those who focus on the success of the day ahead of them will find that they are more prepared to suc-ceed and are less affected by negative events.
Even the most average of days can appear dread-ful or magnificent based on one’s mood. Maintain high hopes and keep a positive perspective, and more posi-tive or what you perceive as “lucky” days are sure to come your way.
Those who think positively, take initiative, are enthusiastic and con-fident are likely to attract ‘good luck’ in their lives. Those who are preoc-cupied by fear, doubt, self-pity and resentment are more likely to feel the effects of ‘bad luck.’
F i n d i n g L u c k : T h e S e c r e t s o f S c i e n ceMcKenna JensenCampus News Editor
The Monty Hall Problem
Hypothetical Question: Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given a choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car, behind the other two are goats. You pick door number one. You are then shown that behind door number three is a goat. Do you stick with your original guess? Or do you pick door number two? Common Sense Answer: Stay with your original choice because you believe there is a 50/50 chance of getting the car.
Real Answer: If you always switch doors, your chance of winning a car is 66.7 percent chance.
U
Graphic from programmingzen.com
The idea of luck is important to many Samo teams, clubs and orginiza-tions.
Senior Gabriel Free-man has participated in theater since his freshman year. While many believe saying “good luck” will bring, well, good luck, Freeman says that quite the opposite will occur in the world of theater.
“You do not wish someone ‘good luck’. It’s just not done. It kind of jinxes it,” Freeman said.
Instead, Freeman says that thespians tell each oth-er to “break a leg” before a performance.
However, not every luck ritual is universal. Jaryd Dorsey, Samo sopho-more and member of the boys’ varsity soccer team says that he irons all of his soccer clothes for good luck before playing a game. According to Dorsey, if he doesn’t iron his clothes he feels uncomfortable and unprofessional, which puts him in a negative mind-set before the game even starts. However, when he wears his crisp uniform, Dorsey is ready to take on
The idea of luck has ex-isted since the beginning of time, and superstitions about luck have been found in cul-tures all around the world.
Ancient RomansTo the Romans however,
the concept of luck was in-dependent of human control. Luck was manifested into the form of the goddess For-tuna—to them luck was an un-controllable force that reaches to us with a wanton disregard for human desire. Fortuna, the daughter of Jupiter, would sit
giddily in the heavens, and herald our world with luck good or bad.
Good luck charmsIn ancient African cul-
ture, carrying an animal’s foot, or other parts of a swift crea-ture was supposed to allow a person to escape or flee with the speed of the animal. This “lucky rabbit’s foot” charm was then passed along to American culture by enslaved Africans who were brought to the New World.
The number 13Friday the 13th is typi-
cally regarded as an “un-
noun [luhk]the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person’s life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities.
the opposing team.“It makes me feel con-
fident in my performance, like I’ll have a better game,” Dorsey said.
Senior Imani Barton,
Gold Captain of Samo’s varsity cheerleading squad says that she has both per-sonal and team-wide tra-ditions. First, Barton says that the team prepares for
S u p e r s t i t i o n s a t S a m o : H u d d l e s a n d H a n d s h a k e s
lucky” day. According to Donald Dossey, a folklore historian, author and founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, one theory states that it is a mod-ern combination of two older superstitions: that 13 is an un-lucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day
In numerology, the num-ber 12 is considered the num-ber of completeness, seen in the 12 months of the year, 12 hours of the clock, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles of Jesus and 12
T h e h i s t o r y b e h i n d o b j e c t s o f s u p e r s t i t i o n a n d b e l i e f
The Fool: Facing upright: New beginnings, new adven-tures, new opportunities.Upside down: A bad decision, indecision, a faulty choice.
The Empress:Facing upright: Action, development, ac-complishment.Upside down:Inaction, lack on concentration, indecision, anxiety.
Zodiac signs. Therefore, the number 13 was considered ir-regular, a deviation from this “completeness”.
Dossey has traced the fear of 13 to an ancient Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. However, an uninvit-ed 13th guest, the mischievous god Loki, arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. This myth, combined with the death of Jesus following the Last Supper, at which there
K:
The Magician:Facing upright: Originality, creativity, skill, Upside down: Weakness in will, insecurity.
Optimistic and Ominous Outcomes: The Samohi explains tarot cards
Amancai Biraben and Mia Lopez-ZubiriStaff Writer
competitions by singing songs on the bus rides over. Then, before performing their routine, the team has a customary huddle, fol-lowed by each stunt group’s
lucky handshake. Person-ally, Barton also prays in order to bring out her best.
“It definitely, definite-ly gives me a positive out-look,” Barton said.
A Special Report
were thirteen guests, resulted in the superstition that having 13 dinner guests will result in the death of one of the guests.
In Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 ½. In France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) made themselves available as 14th guests at dinner parties to keep the guests from an unfor-tunate demise.
Superstitions worldwide:There are various other
superstitions from around the world. For example, in South-east and East Asia, the number
four is considered unlucky. This is because in Chinese and Japanese, the word “shi” sounds like the word for both four and death. As a result, it never appears in any Nokia handset model number in Asia, and there are no seats with the number four in all Nippon Air-ways passenger planes.
In the flute section of Samo’s marching band, the musicians believe in “the pinky kiss.” Right before a competition or football game, every member of the flute section will make a fist and connect just their pinkie finger with the per-son next to them, and then kiss their fist and pass it on.
“The pinkie kiss changes the confidence I have in myself,” said flute section member Sara Ar-vesen.
Although luck is based purely in superstition in-stead of scientific fact, don’t expect to see a drop
“You do not wish someone ‘good luck’. It’s just not done. It kind of jinxes the meaning” Freeman said.
in lucky action anytime soon. After all, even with-out solid proof, adding a lucky handshake to a pre-game ritual can’t hurt.
Tarot cards chal-lenge the idea of luck. While luck is based on the idea of random acts of chance, the aim of reading tarot cards is to glimpse an individuals set future, something that will not change regardless of luck-inducing ritu-als or charms. Here, The Samohi demysti-fies the symbols of the tarot.
BIG VOICEConveniently located bare-
ly 30 minutes from Hollywood, the Samo campus has been fea-tured in a number of short and feature-length films. But this time, the focus of the production crew visiting campus is not to recreate a genuine-looking high school backdrop. They are here to film Samo students.
Director of new documen-tary “Big Voice,” Varda Hardy, and her team are here to produce a documentary about Samo’s choir program.
The new film centers around Samo choir teacher Jeffe Huls and the students in Samo’s two top choral ensembles, and deals with a public school music program overcoming decreas-ing funding for art education. “Big Voice” also examines the struggles that come with pursu-ing dreams in creative and com-petitive fields.
Hardy’s inspiration sprouted from the recurring discussion of public school budget reductions, specifically involving arts educa-tion. Hardy, whose daughter Ra-ven Bennett is a Madrigal singer in the choir program, thought that Samo would be a perfect environ-ment to showcase.
“I’ve always wondered how Huls and his students achieve such inspiring artistry within the context of a public school,” Hardy said. “I then had the inspiration that is now grow-ing into ‘Big Voice.’”
Hardy approached Huls last fall with the idea, and by the end of that year filming had begun.
“When [Hardy] talked to me about a new documentary, I immediately said yes, but I never thought production would start any time soon,” Huls said. “However, by the middle of the
year, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the necessary pa-perwork was done and that the district had approved the entire project.”
However, “Big Voice” still had a long way to go. The production team needed an ad-ditional $40,000 to continue filming. That goal was met and exceeded by nearly $5,000 from 442 donators.
Choir students were excited to be a part of film which focused on both the choral program and individual students.
“I think it is just fantastic that the choir program will be highlighted because it is abso-lutely amazing,” junior Madrigal Ensemble singer and Hardy’s daughter Raven Bennett said. “The movie will show all the hard work that is put into becom-ing a successful ensemble.”
As the idea turned into a production, cameras started to fill the choir room, altering the environment of the class.
“[The cameras are] a little intimidating, and at first I was really worried about what I was doing and what I looked like,” junior Madrigal member Nora Winner said. “But since then, I’ve really considered and thought about the purpose of the documentary and I find a way not to notice anymore.”
For some, the “Big Voice” cameras also extend into their lives outside of the classroom.
“Several students are be-ing interviewed outside of the classroom, like at home, around school, or at private voice les-sons,” junior Madrigal member Isaac Nemzer said.
With this angle on students as individuals, many members of the choir are also given very rare opportunities to work with profes-sional artists of many kinds, and a few are even writing their own songs. Winner, for example, is currently creating a song with pop music composer Siedah Garrett, who co-wrote Michael Jackson’s hit “Man In The Mirror”.
“The experience of work-ing with such distinguished people is really special for the students,” Huls said. “The songs
will also add pop music to a doc-umentary about a classical choir, stirring additional intrigue from audiences that listen primarily to pop songs.”
According to Hardy, the film’s focus on choir students shows the challenges and possi-bilities that are inevitable in the pursuit of a dream.
“I want especially to en-courage and inspire young au-diences,” Hardy said. “During these constricted and austere times, we need authentic stories that remind us that anything is possible when we are truly de-termined and put in hard work.”
“Big Voice” also displays how singing in a choir drives those involved to accomplish goals that may not have to do with music or the arts.
“Music is really a way of expressing one self, and the more you’ve experienced the more you can really appreciate mu-sic’s value and message,” Huls said. “Therefore, experiencing music like how we do in choir can be a way to achieve personal growth.”
“Big Voice” is also very much centered on how Huls in-spires and motivates his students.
“Huls lives and breathes music,” Winner said. “He pushes the choir until we are the best we can be at that moment, and then pushes us past what we thought was possible to achieve.”
According to Winner, Huls’s passion will be displayed in the movie, showing the dedi-cation that many teachers have, regardless of the budget or over-all success of the school they teach at.
“We hear so much about ‘broken’ schools, and the flaws in public education these days,” Hardy said.” Huls, and “Big Voice” as a whole, should show that teachers with rigor can over-come the adversity they face.”
Although “Big Voice” fea-tures only Huls and his teaching style, Hardy is adamant that the film is representational of teach-ers across the nation.
“Although “Big Voice” fo-cuses on one teacher, my inten-tion is that this teacher will serve
as an example of the many other excellent teachers who are truly passionate about teaching the subjects they teach, and enrich-ing the lives of their students,” Hardy said.
Hardy hopes that the docu-mentary will raise awareness for issues involving public educa-tion, like the film “Waiting For Superman” did last year. How-ever, “Big Voice” aims to shed a positive light on what a school like Samo and a teacher like Huls have the ability to accomplish.
“I believe that if all we do is focus on what’s wrong with the system, we start to perpetuate the very problem we are criticizing,” Hardy said. “With so many nega-tive depictions of public schools, we are left with the impression
that public schools are inherently problematic, but this school dis-trict has shown me otherwise.”
Even though there is still about a year of filming left, many cannot help but anticipate the re-lease of “Big Voice.”
“I really hope that the film communicates the need for the arts in schools,” Nemzer said. “These programs are in desper-ate need of funding, and hope-fully this movie will kick-start the support of taxpayers for edu-cation and the arts.”
The Samo community has already rallied to raise funds for the “Big Voice” project, with many posting links to the mov-ie’s funding site and its “kick-starter campaign” on multiple social networks.
“Fundraising was tough, and there were many complica-tions,” Huls said. “However, our community has stood by this movie, having worked their hardest to make this film work.”
And, in fact, the actualiza-tion of the project through fund-ing backs up the film’s idea that a small community can flourish despite growing odds.
“My experience with the Samo community has revealed to me that there are many chal-lenges to face, sometimes seem-ingly insurmountable,” Hardy said. “But, with the determined support of a caring and engaged community, obstacles can be overcome.”
Feature Page 8October 20, 2011
Max GumbelStaff Writer
MOLLY CHAIKIN / The Samohi
Photo courtesy of Varda Hardy Photo courtesy of Varda HardyHULS AT THE HELM: Jeffe Huls advises altos Angelique Rosenquist and Raven Bennett as they rehearse Hakenberger’s “Exultate Justi.”
GOD, I HOPE I GET IT: Students audition in quartets for upper choirs last year.
MIC THE SITUATION: Senior Henry Boyd gets prepped for filming by “Big Voice” director Varda Hardy
A&E Page 9October 20, 2011F i r s t - S t r i ng Playe r s
The Funky Reggae Party
Auto Pilot
At heart, Funky Reggae Party is a brotherhood of musicians as equally intent on crafting groovy melodies as chasing the elusive “vibe”. Their conversations weave and duck like a melody line eclipsing and building on itself only to erupt in bursts of laugh-ter, “Rasta names” and inside jokes.
Composed of seniors Luke Ben-civengo, Aziz Yehia, Adam Davison and Greg Boehm, the band’s funky beats and interconnected melodies are the result of their incredible closeness and shared ideals. Each member be-lieves their music should parallel their positive life experiences.
“The Funky Reggae Party is an open invitation. Everyone is wel-come,” Yehia said. “You don’t need five dollars at the door to enter. It’s all in the attitude — it’s not about com-petition, it’s not about the race to be the best. Once you hear the music, the people making the music and the peo-ple listening to the music, we all get caught in the same vibe, the cycle.”
It would be far too easy to sim-ply label each member as drummer or guitar player. Switching around instruments is a normal routine. The
The blend of guitar, drums, base and vocals will always be a treasured part of the youth music movement. Auto Pilot, formed four years ago by seniors Christian To-mita, Tai LeGanoux and Aziz Yehia, is a prime example of a creative compilation of music.
The band has experienced a creative metamorphosis over the years, and their style is still in a state of flux.
“We were all into anything rock and roll; the driving beat and the emotions that fly when playing rock is crazy and absolutely exhilarat-ing,” guitarist and lead singer To-mita said. “Over the years, though, it has turned into more funk music and ‘lighter’ rock music, and to this
instruments they use can range from a drum set to a didgeridoo.
“The point of The Funky Reggae Party is not to make people all punked up. We aim to give people a new life, a new perspective,” Bencivengo said.
The Funky Reggae Party will make their school-wide debut on Nov. 18 at Samo’s Viking Showcase, and band members hope their performance will make a difference to Samo stu-dents.
“Our goal is to make beautiful music for a sad world,” said Ben-civengo.
In a classic Funky Reggae move, the mention of the goal of their music sparks another wave of conversation.
“Basically,” Yehia said, “Reggae in our modern rushed society is the shade under the banana tree.”
So when academic stress has you waiting to scream, head over to a Funky Reggae Party jam session. They’ll be waiting for you, a drum-stick in one hand and a didgeridoo in the other, under the shade of a banana tree.
day we are still writing funky rock music for fans to enjoy.”
In the midst of AP classes and college applications, the band still finds the time to come together and jam on Monday afternoons.
Fans can enjoy the creative chords concocted by Auto Pilot Thursday, Oct. 20, at Samo’s first Viking Showcase.
With a resume ranging from performances at Downbeat 720 to The Talking Stick to Samo’s own lunchtime showcases, the band is always hard at work compiling mel-odies and crafting verses, uniting the friends in a rush of rhyme and rhythm.
Half-diminished
Although young and relatively new to the band scene, Half-diminished, composed of five Samo freshmen, has made an impressive start to their career as a group. Driven by a common pas-sion for jazz and inspired by friendship and enthusiasm, the group utilizes a multitude of musical talents to create a unique, youthful and refreshing sound.
After playing together in the jazz band at John Adams Middle School (JAMS), the boys were encouraged by their instructor, Russ Mullen, to form a musical group. The five closely knit friends — Andres Orrelana on saxo-phone, Zachary Gotler on drums, Julian Apter on guitar, Elias Valladares on pia-no and Otis Escobedo on bass — have a wide range of skill and possess the ability to attract fans of many different genres of music.
“The type of music we play is mainly jazz, but we also play Latin, and even some Funk,” Orrelana said.
The band, which has only been together since June, is just getting ac-customed to finding gigs. Their first ma-jor gig was at the Talking Stick Coffee Lounge over the summer.
At this stage on their musical jour-ney, Half-diminished is focusing on de-veloping as a group and getting more publicity.
“My goals for the band are pretty basic,” Escobodo said, “I don’t really care about getting famous, or anything like that. As long as we’re having fun, I’m fine. We just want to keep playing music, wherever that takes us.”
However, all members of Half-di-minished have a natural talent and incli-nation toward music, so the possibility of taking it to a professional level sometime in the future is never out of the question.
“All of us are still sort of kids,” Val-ladares said. “We hope to be big and play professionally one day, like other musi-cians have inspired us to play. I hope it’s useful.”
As the band progresses, however. their experience seems to exceed “use-ful.”
OLD SOULS: Freshman Andres Orrelana, Julian Apter, Elias Valladares and Otis Escobedo channel the rock ‘n roll spirit in their first live show.
HEADS UP: Members of The Funky Reggae Party Luke Bencivengo, Aziz Yehia, Adam Davison and Greg Boehm relax in a tree, sporting their rasta gear.
NOT AUTOMATIC TALENT: Auto pilot band mem-bers Christian Tomita, Aziz Yehia and Tai LeGanoux perform at last year’s Battle of the Bands.
Samo’s campus is a flagship for student-led music groups. It doesn’t take long to discover everything from barbershop quartets to indie-rock groups with a penchant for witty lyrics. Because music is such a promi-nent factor of day-to-day life on campus, it is inevitable that students would seek opportunities to express their creativity outside of the classroom.
ALIZA ABARBANEL / The Samohi
ELIAS VALLADARES / ContriubtorHENRY BOYD / The Samohi
Keone Kojin: Budding Midfielder Brazil] I would wake up at 7 a.m. and be back home be-fore 1 p.m. Here, I don’t get home before 4:30 p.m., and on soccer team practice days, at 8pm.”
Kojin has also had to acclimate to the American at-titude toward soccer. He feels like soccer in the United States and is not as highly adored.
“Here people are more into football, basketball and baseball. They watch and sup-port these sports a lot, while in Brazil [these sports] are not really famous, except for bas-ketball,” Kojin said. “Back in Brazil, soccer is something we play every day during lunch, Wednesday nights, week-ends…, and if we are not play-ing, we are talking about it.”
When Brazil lost in the 1950 World Cup to Uruguay, the then 150,000-seat Mara-canã Stadium fell into a deep state of mourning, which lasted for weeks after the match. This only caused Bra-zilian people and players to become more motivated about the sport, and by the time the U.S. founded Major League Soccer, Brazil had won three World Cup titles.
But even with the differ-ing attitude towards soccer in the U.S. and the changes that he has had to accept, Kojin recognizes the perks of his new life in the United States.
“I like how things are so complete in the United States. I love to play soccer — I have played since I was six-years-old — but I also love to
Caio Rodrigues Staff Writer
KICKIN’ WITH KOJIN: Keone Kojin (right) takes the lead during a sixth period practice in the Greek.
Samo junior and varsity soccer player Keone Kojin spent the majority of his first summer in the United States surfing. A native Brazilian, Kojin has had to adjust to the waves north of the equa-tor and now that school has begun, a new daily routine, a new school, and the American attitude towards soccer.
Kojin was born and raised in Ilha Bela, an island three hours from the state of São Paulo in southwest Bra-zil. He has come to the United States to improve his English proficiency, experience life outside, as he put, his “per-fect little world” and deter-mine whether he would like to attend college in California. Though he has only been in Los Angeles for four months, he is already experiencing cul-ture shock.
“In Brazil, I knew every-one in my neighborhood, and at my school we didn’t leave our classrooms, so we stayed together all the time, like a family. I miss that,” Kojin said.
In addition to the drastic difference in population size, Kojin has also had to get used to a new daily routine.
“In Brazil breakfast is not as important as lunch and din-ner because we [spend] less time in school [an average of six hours at public schools]. Here, though, I need a good breakfast to take on the rest of the day,” Kojin said. “[In
skate, study history and surf. In Brazil, it’s really hard to get into a good college, such as [University of São Paulo], and we don’t have athletic scholarships,” Kojin said. “In the U.S. we do: so far I’ve been interested in UC Santa Barbara, where I may have the opportunity of studying on an athletic scholarship.”
During a recent practice drill, Kojin, who typically plays as a midfielder, tempo-rarily left his post to serve as a defender, intercepting passes and aiding the defense in neu-tralizing the offense. He later recognized his appreciation for the opportunity to expand his skills by experimenting with different positions.
“It is part of becoming a more complete player,” Kojin said.
He recognizes that earn-ing an athletic scholarship will depend on his versatility as a player and his success on the field, not to mention the sup-port of his teammates, who are quick to give him praise.
Senior teammate, Eyasu Negash said of Kojin, “He’s got that Brazilian ‘swag’ when he plays: he has both technique and skill. Of course he will have to compete for space, but I think he is still go-ing to help us a lot during this season.”
Soccer coach Andy Rock, also believes Kojin is an important asset on the team and is eager to play a role in Kojin’s assimilation process.
“When you play in anoth-
er country, it’s a different style of play. In Brazil, [the players] give more touches on the ball, more passes and tricks. Here we have a fast paced game, so we don’t do much of that; we want to push the ball forward, so we give more long passes,
[getting] rid of the ball quick-ly. These are different styles. He’s in a transition time. But he’s coming along well,” Rock said.
Kojin feels very fortunate to have the chance to experi-ence life in the United States.
“I love having the oppor-tunity to live in California,” Kojin said. “I have fun and it makes me grow. I love having a good house, friends, family and such a different life on the other side of the world.”
October 26B Water Polo (V) vs. Culver City, 3 pm
G Volleyball (V) @ Morningside, 3:15 pm
October 25G Volleyball (V) @ Beverly Hills, 3:15 pm
October 22Cross Country — Mt. San Antonio Invitational, Mt. SAC, 7 am
October 21B Water Polo(V) vs. Torrance, 3 pm
Football (V) @ Beverly, 7 pm
October 20G Tennis (V) vs. Culver City, 2:30
G Volleyball (V)vs. Culver City, 3:15
October 27B Water Polo (V) —Hank Vallenkamp Tourna-ment
IN FOR THE KILL: Junior opposite hitter Dane Keckin, seen to the right sporting a Pali jersey, tools the blocker on the opposing club team.
After two hours of rig-orous practice with their high school sport, most students would want to go home for a bit of rest. Yet, for senior Samo soccer player Cristina Battaglia, the end of Samo practice is only the beginning of her day of sports. Three days a week, Battaglia travels an hour through traffic to get to her club soccer practice in Long Beach.
“My club team pushes me much harder, and is more intense than high school soc-cer. Some practices will be so difficult that I’ll barely be able to walk the next day, but it’s worth it because I know I’m improving,” Battaglia said.
To some, it seems super-fluous to spend so much extra time on a sport that is already offered at Samo, but playing club sports offers students a great opportunity to improve and practice during the off
season.Club teams provide
students with the chance to explore many different skill levels. Most club sports are divided into age groups con-sisting of multiple teams ranging from beginner to ad-vancedlevel teams.
“The overall skill level of my club team is higher than that of my high school team, so it gives me a chance to improve even more than if I were only playing at school,” junior varsity boys’ volleyball player Dane Keckin said.
Various difficulty levels provide athletes with person-alized and focused experi-ences outside of their school sport teams. In addition to being more skill-level spe-cific, club teams often start at young ages, promoting close relationships with their fellow teammates from early on.
“There will always be a core group of girls that stays on the team together, even if new people join, and some people leave. I’m still really close with some of the girls
that I joined my club team with in 5th grade,” junior girls’ varsity soccer player Dalia Kaufman said.
Club teams tend to have large numbers of Samo ath-letes. The water polo program has its own club team outside of school solely for students on the Samo team.
“Club basically makes the season year round, so it allows students to constantly improve their game,” water polo coach Matthew Flanders said.
Within the Samo wa-ter polo program, students never face difficulties bal-ancing high school and club teams because the two are so closely related. However, this is not always the case. Some club coaches don’t want their athletes playing at their high schools at all.
“Sometimes these club coaches think that they are much more important than the high school experience, and that’s where the conflicts start to arise,” Athletic Director Daniel Escalera said.
For Lacrosse and row-ing, playing club is the prima-ry way to get involved. Be-cause lacrosse is not offered at Samo, the club team is the only option. Rowing, howev-er, is a different story due to immense financial demands.
“One boat alone is around four thousand dollars. It works better to draw from athletes all over Los Angeles because it would be too dif-ficult to raise enough interest in the sport at Samo,” senior rower Julian Daly said.
Participating in club sports outside of school is an easy way for students to get involved in sports that aren’t offered at Samo, as well as to provide athletes a way to work on their game even when their sport is out of season.
“Playing club and high school sports makes my sport a year round commitment. Al-though it’s sometimes hectic, I love it,” volleyball senior Dana Ritchie said.
The Samo Vikings overpowered former league champions Ingle-wood in their first league game, despite the absence of offensive and defensive starter Chad Wheeler.
Wheeler has a full dis-location in his left shoul-
der that will require him to be absent from the field for the remainder of the season. Luckily the team has rallied to pick up the slack.
Relinquishing his spot as starting tight end, senior Matt Schultz has moved into Wheeler’s position on offense as a left tackle. On defense, senior Chris Col-
CHAD NO LONGER IN MOTION: Wheeler takes down an opponent in a game last year, one of the many performances that sparked USC’s interest in him.
“We need some other guys to step up and fill that gap, we’ve got to keep the momentum going.”
— Coach Travis Clark
CHAD WHEELER / Contributor
lins has stepped in.“It was vital for me
to fill in when Chad went down,” Collins said. “I want to help my team out, in any possible way I can. I’m willing to step in and do whatever it takes.”
Before the game against the Centennial Apaches on Friday, Oct. 7, the fifth out of ten regu-
lar season games, Wheel-er said that he would be out for four to six weeks. It is likely that Wheeler has played his last game for Samo.
“Losing a player like that, you just can’t replace him,” coach Travis
Clark said.Luckily for Wheeler,
his recent verbal commit-ment to the University of Southern California as a defensive end goes un-touched. But even though Wheeler will sit out the rest of the season, there is still work to be done on the field.
“We needed some oth-er guys to step up and fill that gap, we had to keep the momentum going,” Clark said.
After six games, the Samo defense has allowed
only 63 points, averaging 10.5 a game. Offensive-
ly the team has scored 179 points, with a game average of 29.8 scored. C o m p a r i n g these aver-ages, Samo is
a winning team, and their 5-1 (1-0 in the league) re-cord supports that.
Clark is focusing on maintaining the success of his team. He has come to terms with the loss of a key player, and he is opti-mistic about Wheeler’s fu-ture in football.
“The way I’m looking at it, the next time I see Chad, he’ll be in a Trojan jersey,” Clark said.
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Fixies are s Spotlight Page 12
October 20, 2011
2010Samo’s own unicyclist, Maxwell Devita is one wheel ahead of the curve Sintra Martins Staff Writer
Samo’s biking trend has been reinvented by freshman Maxwell Devita. This ground-breaking cyclist believes less is more as he carves a path on the way to, from and around Samo, winding between cars, trees and other obstacles with ease on his blue and white unicycle.
Devita’s hobby began in the summer of 2010, when his uncle bought a unicycle valued at $200 from a neighbor for only ten dol-lars.
During a family reunion, Devita’s uncle spent two days passing his knowledge down to his nephew.
Yet, when the reunion ended, Devita could ride no more than two feet at a time.
For Christmas that same year, after displaying a great inter-est for the sport during the reunion, Devita received his own brand new unicycle.
“I spent that entire week of winter break [practicing]. Even now, I practice up to three hours a weekend,” Devita said as he sped through the science quad on his
one-wheeled bike.Since he attended John Ad-
ams Middle School (JAMS), De-vita has used his talents to transport himself to and from school on sev-eral occasions.
On these days, it took Devita five to ten minutes to travel a mile on his unicycle.
“I had a 16-inch wheel at first, and I rode that to JAMS,” Devita said as he teetered between his front and back petals on his 24-inch wheel, using a tree for sup-port. “I really want to get a 32-inch wheel though, that would make riding so much easier.”
Because unicycles are fixed gears, the smaller the wheel, the more rotations it requires to travel a certain distance, and therefore the more energy it takes to travel with it. Riding a larger wheeled unicy-cle is easier because it takes fewer rotations to make it go further.
After showing off some of his biking skills, a few kids from across the Science Quad started shouting encouragements.
“I get comments like that a lot. You know, ‘you’re so swag’ and ‘you’re so awesome’, ‘what happened to the rest of your bike?’” Devita said with a smile.
Devita plans to share his en-thusiasm for unicycling with other Samo students through his new Unicycle Club, which meets Fri-days after school from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. in room H122.
Devita says Unicycle club will start off with simple lessons, but he has high hopes for the club. Devita thinks unicycle basket ball would be something fun to work towards.
Devita also has high hopes for his own future, both related and unrelated to unicycling.
“A lot of people have asked me if I’m going to join a circus. The idea is interesting to me, but not necessarily as a unicyclist,” Devita said. “I find trapeze really interesting. I also think mountain unicycling is cool, so the next time I go hiking, I’m going to bring my unicycle.”
On top of starting a unicycle
club and biking or unicycling to school every day, Devita is con-stantly trying new one-wheeled tricks.
“Yesterday, I rode down a flight of 29 stairs,” Devita said. “The stairs were flat, though, and pretty small—about four inches tall. It took me about 50 tries, and two hours.”
While the risk of injury might seem high for people who
don’t unicycle, Devita has suffered no serious injuries from his chal-lenging pass-time.
“One of the biggest mis-conceptions about unicycling is that you’re going to fall and hurt yourself, but most of the time you just jump off and land on your feet,” Devita said. “I’ve never had any broken bones. The worst I’ve fallen was on my tailbone.”
Minutes later, he rode steadily on a ledge about two feet wide, then
successfully jumped off onto the sol-id ground from three feet in the air.
Of course, there are always risks when riding a unicycle.
“One of the most painful things is when your foot slips off the pedal, but the wheel keeps go-ing. It smacks you in the shin,” Devita said, demonstrating the mechanics of this problem.
However, Devita does not let the risk stop him.
“Right now, I’m just trying to push boundaries,” Devita said.
Not only is Devita a skilled rider, but he’s a also very sociable person. He takes every opportu-nity to chat with the onlookers he often attracts.
Devita also networks with other uni-cyclists, one of which gave him the unicycle he currently rides.
Another friend of his gave him an old Schwinn Giraffe unicy-cle, a type of unicycle that attaches the pedals to the wheel by a chain drive, allowing for an extended seat.
The prospect of a new uni-cycle thrilled Devita, so he gladly accepted.
Though the four foot high Giraffe isn’t in the best condition, Devita still plans to replace the rusting parts with new ones so he can ride it.
Devita is a student that push-es boundaries and inspires others to question the norm, something which he hopes to do throughout his time at Samo.
“I get a lot of head turns. They’re not all good, but who cares?” Devita said as he rode off through the science quad and down the hill towards
Barnum.
“I get comments like that a lot. Like ‘what happened to the rest of your bike?’”
