The Globe Spring 2014

10
Newsleer of the Great Barrington Waldorf High School Vol. XII, Issue 3 Spring 2014 By Isabella Serpe Class of 2017 Screams pierced the air. Students milled in confusion. A dead man had been discovered in the Spanish room, slumped over a desk. The knife that had killed him was sll lodged in his back. Chairs were upturned and bloodied ssues lay around the room. Dark footprints lined the room. As panic rose in the students and teachers, Ms. Genco assembled her crews of forensic experts to examine the scene. Last March Ms. Genco staged a murder to start a one week intensive of Forensic Science with the 9th and 10th grades, as the conclusion of a Biology seminar. Students learned the posions neces- sary to evaluate a crime scene without tampering with the evidence. The crews were made up of an invesgator in charge, scene sketcher, photographer, and collector of evidence. The area was taped off to ensure the validity of the evidence and the safety of passersby. The team collected the knife and other evidence and measured the footprints. Now, what techniques were available to analyze the evidence? Time to go back to the crime lab. Through a partnership with Dr. Sue Mechanic at Simon’s Rock College of Bard, the Forensics class was treated to an overview of Forensic Science and two lab experiences. Students collected their own DNA samples to take home in the first lab. They dusted for fingerprints in the second, conducted at the Foren- sics Lab at Simon’s Rock College. Each student took home a Ten Card, their own fingerprints, produced in the same way the criminal jusce system would. Students used all of the background in- formaon, along with their heightened observaonal skills, to write a crime re- port. Who dunnit? One of the students, Erika, cleverly discovered a logical soluon regarding the identy of the murderer and how the actual murder had taken place: The day before the murder took place, Señora Cintron made guacamole for her students, and had leſt a large knife in the Spanish classroom. When the vic- m entered the classroom in the morn- ing, he greeted Señora Cintron and sat down. She instructed him to look out the window, and when his back was turned she plunged the knife into his back. He turned with a shriek of dismay and his head sank forward onto the desk. John was a thin boy and the knife went through his body and punctured his heart. Señora Cintron, shocked by her acons, aempted to clear all evi- dence. She wiped up most of the blood, and took off his muddy boots, put them on herself, and stormed hurriedly out of the classroom. Not so fast! When the print of the boot was ex- amined, it was discovered that it exactly matched Erika’s own boot. The height that was determined from the size of the footwear matched her height exact- ly. Not only that, but a brown curly hair was found at the scene of the crime that matched her hair. Her aempt to frame her Spanish teacher had failed. Erika was accused and convicted of the murder. C.S.I. Waldorf 1 Small School, Big World THE GL BE

description

Newsletter of the Great Barrington Waldorf High School

Transcript of The Globe Spring 2014

Page 1: The Globe Spring 2014

Newsletter of the Great Barrington Waldorf High SchoolVol. XII, Issue 3 Spring 2014

By Isabella SerpeClass of 2017

Screams pierced the air. Students milled in confusion. A dead man had been discovered in the Spanish room, slumped over a desk. The knife that had killed him was still lodged in his back. Chairs were upturned and bloodied tissues lay around the room. Dark footprints lined the room. As panic rose in the students and teachers, Ms. Genco assembled her crews of forensic experts to examine the scene. Last March Ms. Genco staged a murder to start a one week intensive of Forensic Science with the 9th and 10th grades, as the conclusion of a Biology seminar. Students learned the positions neces-sary to evaluate a crime scene without tampering with the evidence. The crews were made up of an investigator in charge, scene sketcher, photographer, and collector of evidence. The area was taped off to ensure the validity of the evidence and the safety of passersby.

The team collected the knife and other evidence and measured the footprints. Now, what techniques were available to analyze the evidence? Time to go back to the crime lab. Through a partnership with Dr. Sue Mechanic at Simon’s Rock College of Bard, the Forensics class was treated to an overview of Forensic Science and two lab experiences. Students collected their own DNA samples to take home in the first lab. They dusted for fingerprints in the second, conducted at the Foren-sics Lab at Simon’s Rock College. Each student took home a Ten Card, their own fingerprints, produced in the same way the criminal justice system would.Students used all of the background in-formation, along with their heightened observational skills, to write a crime re-port. Who dunnit? One of the students, Erika, cleverly discovered a logical solution regarding the identity of the murderer and how the actual murder had taken place: The day before the murder took place, Señora Cintron made guacamole for her students, and had left a large knife in

the Spanish classroom. When the vic-tim entered the classroom in the morn-ing, he greeted Señora Cintron and sat down. She instructed him to look out the window, and when his back was turned she plunged the knife into his back. He turned with a shriek of dismay and his head sank forward onto the desk. John was a thin boy and the knife went through his body and punctured his heart. Señora Cintron, shocked by her actions, attempted to clear all evi-dence. She wiped up most of the blood, and took off his muddy boots, put them on herself, and stormed hurriedly out of the classroom.Not so fast! When the print of the boot was ex-amined, it was discovered that it exactly matched Erika’s own boot. The height that was determined from the size of the footwear matched her height exact-ly. Not only that, but a brown curly hair was found at the scene of the crime that matched her hair. Her attempt to frame her Spanish teacher had failed. Erika was accused and convicted of the murder.

C.S.I. Waldorf

1

Small School, Big WorldTHE GL BE

Page 2: The Globe Spring 2014

By Evan SeitzClass of 2016

It was a special experience for me to travel thousands of miles to a coun-try I had never before visited and be instantly welcomed into its community. Usually, travelers feel a certain isolation from the people they meet but, because of our long-standing exchange program, I was already connected. My German studies allowed me to attend classes in the school, experience the culture in a more meaningful way, and communicate on a deeper level. The language connection allowed me to appreciate even the geography in a new way. My trip marked the ten year anni-versary of the Great Barrington Wal-dorf High School and Schwabing Rudolf Steiner school exchange. For the last ten years, German students studying English and American students studying German have traveled to the Berkshires of Massachusetts and Munich, Germa-ny, to experience a different culture. By doing so consistently, we have created a

truly international community. We may only see each other for weeks or a few months at the longest, but we are a com-munity none the less, bonded through friendships and shared experiences. I enjoyed looking out at the Alps while drinking a glass of Spetzi, walking through downtown Munich, and visit-ing Chiemsee. Doing all that with new friends made the experience one I will remember for the rest of my life.

“Ich Bin Ein Münchner!”Our German School Exchange Program

2

From left to right, top to bottom. Marien-Platz, Munich. Partial Group of Travelers: (Evan Seitz, Ursula Wirth, Carmen Major, Tessa Pittman). English Garden, Munich. Park, Munich. Town of Salzburg, Austria.

Page 3: The Globe Spring 2014

Piñas, Bananas, Old Chevys, and Cigars

3

ImpressionsBy Raphaela Seward-Mayer

Class of 2015

The man says piñas! Bananas! And then the Chevy drowns him out

We say, Holá! And they say, Holá! And then they say

Beans and rice are for lunch. There is always a bit of juice

From sunny piña to purple guavawith the sweetest grapefruit for extra flavor.

Then of course there is agua Cool in the heat,

And the ocean is warm.The road is bumpy.

We go to a club in Pinar del Rio – the music is big and brassy

The women are letting all hell looseAnd there are the occasional old geezers who think

they know the moves.The fun is just the same.

Cigars, they are a highlight hereand so we take a jaunt to see how they came to

be. Once a year the tobacco plants are harvested, and

handpicked. Each stalk is dried three months,

then soaked in honey and rum which is the real Cuban flavor.

Then on to old Havana. Pedestrians. Horse-carts, motorcycles, rickshaw, and old CadillacsWe play the drums, the rumba drums,

We salsa…We see the work of artists, their lithographs.

Troubadors with drawings all over the walls. The songs are strong.

The markets too – hustling, bustling, vendors. The work day is swallowed down with good old

Cuban mango juiceWe dive in head first

The alluring country, the alluring voyage… Holá! Bananas! Piñas!

From top to bottom: Tobacco farm in Pinar Del Rio. Sunshine filled Beach in Rio. Stuck in the ‘50s in Havana. Images courtesy of Ann Marie Genco & Annabel O’Neill.

A group of students and faculty from the Waldorf High School recently returned from a historic trip to Cuba! Señora Cin-trón was among a group of five students and three teachers who spent 15 days on a rare visit to this country. Waldorf parent Andrea Panaritis, the executive director of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, an agency aimed at strengthening U.S.-Cuba relations, initially suggested the possibility. The trip was allowed as part of a person-to-person educational exchange. Trav-eling across the island’s northwestern and southwestern provinces, the group stayed with Cuban families while visiting an orphanage, creating art with people with Down’s syndrome, and working with peers on community projects. They also visited many historical places, including the site of the U.S.-led Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961.

Page 4: The Globe Spring 2014

4

Pondering LifeBy Evan SeitzClass of 2016

A naked man is found dead in the des-ert clutching a straw. How did he die? We are conditioned to think linearly, and while sequential thinking is useful, it is also limiting. Creativity is not se-quential. To develop creativity, we need to learn to think laterally. One way to do this is by consciously breaking our sche-matics of the world. It is impossible to consciously decide to think laterally, but we can develop our capacity by solving puzzles like the one above by asking yes-or-no questions about the situation. If I had to explain why the man died, I’d say he had gotten lost in the desert, removed his clothing in a delirious at-tempt to cool off, and tried without success to suck some liquid out of the straw before succumbing to exposure or dehydration. To explain the same situa-tion linearly, I first need to consider all the meanings of each element of the scenario. This means I cannot make as-sumptions. Did the man die from dehydration? No. Did the man travel by land? No. Did he fly? Yes. Was he in a plane? No. A blimp? No. A hot air balloon? Yes. Was he alone? No. Why would a man flying over the desert in hot air balloon re-move his clothing... was he in a relation-ship with the other person? No. Was the clothing removed for a reason? Yes. Was the clothing in the hot air balloon? No. Was it thrown out? Yes. Was this done to reduce weight? Yes. So, why would a hot air balloon need a lower weight... was there a mechanical problem with the balloon? No. Were they running out of fuel? Yes. But why would the man end up dead... did the man want to die? No. Did the other person kill him? No. Did the man die for a reason? Yes. Did he jump out of the balloon? Yes.

Could both people in the balloon have survived? No. Could one of them? Yes. OK... so one of the people had to die, but why that man... Did the man sacri-fice himself out of love for the other per-son? No. Did he feel he should die and not the other person? No. Back to the straw. Does the straw’s material matter? No. Does it size? Yes. Was the straw for drinking? No. A stalk? No. Did the straw directly cause the man’s death? No. In-directly? Yes. Did the other person have a straw? Yes. Was it the same as the dead man’s? No. Not for drinking, not a stalk... Did they draw straws to see who would die? Yes. Eureka! Dr. Sagarin began each English class this winter with a lateral thinking puz-zle. Over time, we became more adapt at solving them. Suprisingly, the key in-sight that solved the puzzle often came from an unexpected guess.

Man Dead in Desert

Excerpt from Physical Geography seminar book. Image Courtesy: Annabel O’Neill

Why I Weigh 400,000lbsBy Noah Meyerowitz

Class of 2017

Did you know that you weigh around 200,000 pounds? Each day, a person takes in roughly 8 to 10 pounds of matter. This includes approximately 2 or more pounds of food, 2 pounds of oxygen (in about 35 pounds of air that we inhale each day), and 4 or more pounds of water. That is 56 to 70 pounds per week, which is somewhere around 1.5 tons per year. If you figure that an average person lives 70 years, the total intake of matter for that person in one life-time is more than 100 tons, or 200,000 pounds. Now, some of us consume more than others. For instance, I drink roughly 6 pounds of water and eat 4 pounds of food per day (I eat more than most). Add in my oxygen consumption, and I add roughly 84 pounds of matter to my being each week, or about 2.5 tons in a year. If I live 80 years, then, in this life-time, 400,000 pounds! What’s the point? As Dr. Sagarin pointed out in our seminar on Physi-cal Geography, we only weigh what the scale tells us at any given point in time, but the earth on which we live has to provide for us for a lifetime—fresh water, nutritious food, and enough oxygen. If we picture our mass over a lifetime, we are more likely to under-stand our impact on the world and to treat it in a way that will continue to sustain us.

Page 5: The Globe Spring 2014

A Burst of ExpressionCalming the Tumutuous Energy of Adolescence

5

By Erika WainwrightClass of 2017

The door slams; crumbs fall to the floor, sweat drips, and the growl of hun-gry teenagers can be heard all around. Thudding footsteps, boisterous shouts, and shrill laughter fill our small school with chaos and excitement as students come pouring in from lunchtime activi-ties. Those who were playing basketball quickly stuff their mouths with one last bite of food before going to class as the ones playing chess finish their rigorous, competitive game, snapping out of their sheer focus for the last period of the day. Those coming from town, with cof-fee in hand, tell one more joke or laugh at one more story before the teachers, trained and ready to tame the beasts, come to rein us in. The art of expression is one we strug-gle with throughout our lives. Learning how to express what we feel in an ap-propriate way is one of the most diffi-cult parts we are least likely to achieve. We are constantly experiencing new things, and learning to interpret those sensations in the “right way,” or the way that helps us grow and flourish most, is a lifelong battle. Here at the Waldorf High School, this challenge is faced head-on. There is no way to teach us how we should deal with our emotional problems, but teaching and encouraging us to express those feelings is something we will take with us for the rest of our lives. Every form of art, whether it’s poetry, draw-ing, painting, sculpting, or calligraphy, is a form of expression, and through that art we learn to free ourselves of emo-tions that others may hold on to, with-out knowing what else to do. The 9th grade, in our calligraphy block, practiced patience, determination, in-

dulgence, tolerance, and dedication all while learning to express ourselves, and calming the tumultuous energy of ado-lescence. We breathed through each stroke, as we made every letter more beautiful than the last, and as every word became more significant. Thought, effort, and concentration came together to help us create our masterpieces. Our hearts slowed, our minds loosened, and our bodies relaxed as every burst of ex-pression became clear.

Photos by Erika Wainwright

Page 6: The Globe Spring 2014

By Isabella SerpeClass of 2017

While the upperclassmen traveled to foreign countries or interned at various places, the ninth grade was alone at the school for two weeks. Since we had not participated in the school production of “Harvey,” we performed their own play called “Audience” by Michael Frayn. It was an ensemble piece about a group of people going to a play, but they do not realize that they actually are the play. In it, there is an odd arrangement of characters who each have their quirks, but they come together while watching their own play, which was really the au-dience. Director Ms. Beth Robbins said she chose this play for the ninth grade be-cause it had an odd assortment of char-acters, and the correct number of char-acters for the number of people in the ninth grade. “The play is funny, and you are a funny class,” Ms. Robbins said, “and I wanted each student to have equal responsibility.” During the weeks the ninth graders were alone at the school, we participat-ed in acting exercises, such as improvi-sation, worked on creating individuality in our specific characters, and we re-hearsed in small groups for line learning and blocking.

The play was a smashing success for both the actors and the audience. The ninth grade enjoyed performing the play and the audience got a kick out of the quirks of the characters and the witty humor. A special thanks to Ms. Beth Robbins for directing, Will Seltzer assisting with the directing, Arthur Seltzer as stage manager, Karen Seltzer and Carmen Ma-jor for putting together the costumes, and Ms. Elizabeth Lombardi for helping with the program design.

9th Grade Meets Drama

An Exhilarating Night

By Isabella SerpeClass of 2014

For the past four months, several high school students sang during our weekly elective. On May 17th, at the Unicorn Theatre, several of them stood up with microphones and sang solos ranging from Irish folk songs to a popular song by Beyonce. Our bold and brilliant so-loists were: Arthur Seltzer who sang a traditional American song called “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” along with leading the audience in a sing-along called “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize, Esther Young who sang Starry Eyed” by Lana Del Rey, Kosta Koufis who sang “All of Me” by John Legend, Sarah Stosiek who sang and played the harp to “The Fields of Athenry” by Pete St. John, and Natalie Fernbacher who sang “Ave Ma-ria” by Beyonce. The audience was warmed up by choral director Sheri Bauer-Mayorga who orchestrated a sing-along, consist-ing of traditional and civil rights songs. The high school chorus stepped up onto the stage and sang “C-O-F-F-E-E” by Karl Gottfired Hering, as well as a traditional Korean folk song, a song written in He-brew, a South African hymn, and an is-land song. The audience was mesmerized, and we all had a wonderful time. We are especially grateful to Ms. Sheri Bauer-Mayorga for her inspiring, enthusiastic way of bringing out the best in us.

Our Chorus CAN Sing!

6

Photos by: Christine Casarsa; Poster by: Noah Meyeorwitz

Page 7: The Globe Spring 2014

By Isabella SerpeClass of 2014

For the past four months, several high school students sang during our weekly elective. On May 17th, at the Unicorn Theatre, several of them stood up with microphones and sang solos ranging from Irish folk songs to a popular song by Beyonce. Our bold and brilliant so-loists were: Arthur Seltzer who sang a traditional American song called “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” along with leading the audience in a sing-along called “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize, Esther Young who sang Starry Eyed” by Lana Del Rey, Kosta Koufis who sang “All of Me” by John Legend, Sarah Stosiek who sang and played the harp to “The Fields of Athenry” by Pete St. John, and Natalie Fernbacher who sang “Ave Ma-ria” by Beyonce. The audience was warmed up by choral director Sheri Bauer-Mayorga who orchestrated a sing-along, consist-ing of traditional and civil rights songs. The high school chorus stepped up onto the stage and sang “C-O-F-F-E-E” by Karl Gottfired Hering, as well as a traditional Korean folk song, a song written in He-brew, a South African hymn, and an is-land song. The audience was mesmerized, and we all had a wonderful time. We are especially grateful to Ms. Sheri Bauer-Mayorga for her inspiring, enthusiastic way of bringing out the best in us.

My Passage to IndiaWaldorf Student Journeys to the East

7

By Victor FeldmanClass of 2016

Last year my family relocated to In-dia for six months. The trip came about when my mother received a grant to write music for her next opera (my mother is a composer of modern or-chestral music). Her piece was based on Kalled Hussein’s “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and the music required what my mother called, “an Eastern feel” about it. She always dreamed of traveling to India, and the opera was a perfect op-portunity. After two days of flickering seatbelt signs, airplane food, and cabin pres-sure, we arrived in Mumbai. A cloud of smog greeted us and led us to a long line of small black taxicabs. On the drive through the city to our new home, we gazed in awe at the men and women who sat in the streets, chewing gum and playing games. Children ran wild and sometimes, when our car stopped, a few of them would rush toward us, and pound the windows with their small fists, smiling hugely. We soon discovered that they were begging, and our driver ad-vised us to ignore their antics. It turned out that the Indian people we spoke with, beggars and aristocrats alike, were among the kindest and most hospitable people I have ever met, and their smiles the most radiant in the world. Midway through our stay, my father and I talked to one of the families liv-ing in a slum near our apartment. They were a family of five living in a small hut with walls made of sheets of corrugated fiberglass they had “picked up” from a nearby dump. There was a small bed in the corner, some stones for chairs, a single gas burner, and a television. The place was barely large enough to park a car in, but somehow the Wagri family

managed. We spoke to the father, who washed dishes for a local caterer. He spoke just enough English to tell us that he wanted to give his children a better education than he had received. The daughters were enrolled in a local pub-lic school and their English was already more fluent than their father’s. The fam-ily exuded so much love and happiness toward us and each other that it felt as though they were better off than most wealthy people. That was the lesson I carried back with me to the Berkshires. If the Wagri family could be happy with so little, cer-tainly I can be with so much. It’s a simple idea, one that I must have heard dozens of times, but it never held much sig-nificance for me until I traveled to India and witnessed real poverty for the first time. Since my return I have begun to notice small but significant details that had been right before my eyes for years. I just had never before bothered to pay attention. Little things, like the neatly swept sidewalks on Main Street in Great Barrington, the ornate stone carvings at the top of each building, or simply the polite greeting from a stranger passing by. We in the Berkshires live and thrive in a very different world from the pen-niless in the slums of India. If you ever find that the people seem more cold than you’d like, or the buildings on Main Street seem drab, take a look at my video called “Blogs from India,” on the school website, to win back your appre-ciation for where we live.

From top to bottom: Main Street of the Slum, Wagri House, Wagri Family with Vic-

tor, Wagri Mother and Children. Photos by: Victor Feldman

Page 8: The Globe Spring 2014

By Victor FeldmanClass of 2016

I looked out the window of David Scrib-ner’s office overlooking Main Street. A strange man wearing three-quarters of a torn blue jacket and scruffy work boots, wheeling a battered mini-shopping cart across the street, aroused my suspicion. I recognized him as David Magadini, the most outspoken and familiar homeless man in Great Barrington. I turned to Da-vid Scribner, my boss, and mused, “I wonder what I his life must be like.” My boss stared at me for a few still moments then he said, “Write an article about David Magadini. Go and ask him for an interview right now.” Every spring, the Waldorf High School requires its upper-classmen to intern at local businesses or create projects of their own. I was an outlier (I missed half a year of German studies when my family traveled to India for a month, and therefore stayed behind), and joined my older peers in their search for work. Considering my newfound interest in writing and journalism, I was led by a close friend to David Scribner, the for-mer editor of “The Berkshire Record” and “The Berkshire Eagle.” David was starting his own regional news publica-tion, called “The Berkshire Edge,” and was looking for new writers with youth-ful ideas. When we first met, he told me that, “I want this publication to be more like the New York Times than the Times itself,” but on a local scale of course. One week later I began writing for David. Every morning we met at Fuel Coffee Shop and chatted over current events with some of the Berkshire Edge’s caffeine-driven journalists. Then David and I would retreat upstairs to his office,

where even more work was done. As awkward and embarrassing as it was, asking a man I had never spoken to before to sit and talk to me about inti-mate issues like homelessness, was the biggest step I could take in my budding journalistic career at the time. I met with David Magadini at the Ma-son Library for an interview about his life. “I refuse to leave this place. This is my hometown and I’m not going to be driven out because people do not like my opinions or the way I look.” The power of his words forced their way through the quiet library halls. A retiree slouching in the corner armchair looked up from his newspaper to glare at us with weary, beady eyes. The librarian at the front desk swiftly and mechanically raised her finger to her lips. “On second thought,” I asked David Magadini, “maybe we should finish this interview in one of the study rooms?” Most high school students don’t spend spring break chasing homeless people, but I’m not most people, and my interview with Magadini was suc-cessful in providing me with a story that has been published in “The Berkshire Edge.” It also inspired me even more strongly with a determination to pursue journalism in the future.

8

On “The Edge” with Victor F.Poetry

Life, by Isabella Serpe

Fluffy blossoms fallcascading over earth

then browning and gone

Within, by Annabel O’Neill

Light grows dimSky caves in

Star shines within

Rockin’ in a Prius, by Luca Barton-Cain

Pink-blossomed trees,We whiz through the night

Listening to Zeppelin.

Childhood, by Liam Kudlick

I cannot see anything but colorsThe wonderful feeling of being

outside with the others

Forest, by Erika Wainwright

Trees sway rhythmicallyAs their clusters of leaves giggle

Gossiping of rain

Taconic,by Noah Meyerowitz

Headlights shineThere’s a deer

Oh shoot

Photo by David Scribner

Page 9: The Globe Spring 2014

Senior ProfilesWhere Are They Going?

9

Justin Graeff will attend Berkshire Community College next fall, where he will fulfill the prerequisites for a four year degree and prepare for medical school. He interned this year at Kindred Nursing and Rehabilita-tion in Great Barrington. Last year he built a koi pond for a private client.

Arthur Frederick Zachary Seltzer will attend St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, to study a “great books” cur-riculum. This year he volunteered in Leyte province in the Philippines with a reconstruction project. Last year he learned Native American brain tanning with the guidance of Kevin Fuerst.

Solomon Joffe will attend Bennington College next year where he intends to study art and architecture. Last year he interned at the Barrington Coffee Roast-ing Company. This year he worked with furniture maker Peter Murkett.

Milena Celeste Stanton will attend Connecticut Col-lege next year to study international relations and psy-chology. Last year she interned for Gorham & Norton in Great Barrington, learning about a small business. This year she interned with Berkshire Pulse.

Mac Litishin will study computer science at Berkshire Community College next year. He interned with Tom Stier of Promote Globally web development this year, working on a website for Off the Beat-n-Track Record-ing Studio in Sheffield, MA. Last year, Mac worked for Greenagers and Mike Leavit of the Appalachian Moun-tain Club.

Nicholas D. Sagarin will attend the University of Mon-tana, Missoula, next fall, where he plans to study busi-ness administration. He apprenticed to a goldsmith in Munich this year, and worked for the Great Barrington Library last year.

Henry William Ward-Hanke will drive the PanAmeri-can Highway to Argentina after graduation, where he will sail for Antarctica during a gap year. After that, he plans to study art at Pratt Institute. This year he interned with Beryl Jolly at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. Last year, he worked for Hummingbird Films on the set of a film at the Op-tion Institute in Sheffield, MA.

Esther Donna Young will attend School of the Vi-sual Arts (SVA) next year in the BFA in photography program. This year she interned with photographer William Waldron, New York, NY, and last year she also interned in New York with clothing designer Tanya Taylor.

Page 10: The Globe Spring 2014

The Great Barrington Waldorf High School provides an education for ado-lescents that seeks truth, develops imagination, nurtures growth, fosters responsibility, and honors inner freedom in an atmosphere of academic excel-lence, artistic fulfillment, openness, and mutual respect.

Editorial Staff: Erika Wainwright

Isabella SerpeVictor Feldman

Evan SeitzRaphaela Seward-Mayer

Milena StantonAdvisor:

Winslow EliotLayout & Design:Noah Meyerowitz

By Milena StantonClass of 2014

In my junior year I took “history through architecture” with my friend Sophie, and, while neither of us thought we were par-ticularly interested in architecture, a few weeks later we found ourselves discuss-ing the kind of columns that are outside Rubi’s in Great Barrington. The conver-sation continued as we walked through town, and half an hour later we found that we were still discussing ancient ar-chitecture. My senior year has been revealing in terms of understanding the uniqueness of the Waldorf curriculum. These past four years I studied events and epochs of different eras through many focal points: class lectures and seminars that have in-cluded literature, philosophy, architec-ture, economics, and politics. Because of this interdisciplinary, collegial approach, I have not only been able to study histo-ry’s facts and dates but also to discern its

complex connectedness. For example, how the Middle Ages has affected today’s economy. You might ask yourself what happened in the Middle Ages that matters today? From the early to mid-14th century the black plague decimated Europe, in some areas leaving less than thirty percent of the population alive. Yet, as dreadful as that might seem, it was the relative gain from such a loss that astounded me. The death of the old bore the birth of the new. The plague’s survivors inherited a world unlike anything Europe had seen since antiquity. Society moved from im-poverishment and disease to increasing wealth. I have studied this from all sorts of focal points, with different teachers. I have examined medieval consciousness, economics, literature, and philosophy. And I’ve come to realize that there is a great deal more to history than facts, di-saster, and dates. And that’s just one subject … I could tell you how similar revelations have oc-

curred in many more. At my school we have the ideal balance of respect and friendliness between every person here. My teachers are not only ex-tremely intelligent and highly educated, but also weird and crazy enough to keep me intrigued and checked in. I remember walking into calculus one morning to wit-ness Ms. Robbins holding a broom like a sword, jokingly fighting Mr. Sagarin over a coveted piece of paper. Ultimately, an education depends on teachers. For a subject to be interesting it is the teachers’ responsibility to bring it to life, to intrigue the students, even when they think they’re not interested. For me, that is what makes this strange place so special: I’ve grown to care about subjects I never imagined I would be in-terested in.

A Senior Point of ViewWhy Waldorf is Worth It

10

14 Pine Street, Stockbridge, MA 01262 | (413) 298-3800 | waldorfhigh.org