See Hillary Run

JARED BELLOT '08

As yet another month of presidential primaries drags on, Democrats seem to be no closer to deciding on a presidential nominee. The two main contenders, frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, continue to drag each other down into the mud in hopes of gaining an advantage in the upcoming primaries. Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona is using his ‘opponent free’ time to reintroduce himself to voters and catch up on fundraising. In many recent polls, John McCain has tied with both Democrats in projected results of the November election. When former state senator George Bachrach spoke at Beaver earlier this year, he called the 2008 election “the Democrats’ race to lose”. Historically, it is rare to see a single party hold the White House for more than two terms, especially when the existing administration suffers from low approval ratings. However, with these lengthened primaries, it seems that the Democrats may have lost the advantage they once held over John McCain and the Republican Party.

Despite Clinton’s large base of support, there seems to be a growing consensus that she will not win the Democratic Presidential nomination, and that she should withdraw from the race for the good of the party. Senator Patrick Lehay of Vermont was recently quoted, saying, “There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw, and she ought to be backing Senator Obama”. Experts say that there is a less than 5% likelihood that Senator Clinton will win the nomination, and yet she still says that she will not withdraw from the race until the DNC in August. Senator Clinton claims that there are many states left where she is still very competitive, and that she will not withdraw from the race if there are still states which she can win. Hillary’s claim is true, she can still win in Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but unless she sweeps Barack in all of these states, Hillary will not be able to gain the votes needed to secure the nomination. Super delegates, while important, will not completely skew the election. Hillary can still finish strong by bringing home some important states, but ultimately, she will most likely finish short.

Many say that there is nothing wrong with Sen. Clinton staying in the race, that she still may win the nomination, and that even if she doesn’t win, the feeling of competition that Clinton brings can only help Sen. Obama when it comes election time. This argument does have its points. It is true that a healthy sense of competition harms no one. However, when the competition resembles a death match, it only harms those involved. Slinging mud at your opponent will not help make them stronger, it is instead helping your opponent. When Clinton continues to question Obama’s experience levels, stating that he will not be ready to enter the White House on day one of presidency, she is not boosting her ratings, she is simply lowering his. The two Democrats seem to forget that it is not each other they are fighting. They should not view each other as enemies, but rather, allies.

I feel as though Hillary’s refusal to step down is seriously harming the Democratic party. Battle lines have been drawn, and Democrats are split down the middle. Indeed, in Beaver alone, fierce arguments were commonly erupting in the hallways and classrooms between Clinton and Obama supporters. Yet I don’t understand; who is this helping? How does Clinton benefit from the hatred of Obama supporters? How does Obama gain anything by having Micah Telegen attack the junior senator’s credentials? Nothing good is coming from this lengthened and hateful competition. Obama supporters refuse to vote for Clinton should she become the nominee, and many Clinton supporters feel the same way about Obama.

So why does Hillary stay in the race? Understandably she was the predicted nominee from early on, and many had expected her to become the next president of the United States. After all who could possibly defeat the Clinton machine? Certainly not a first term senator from Illinois who had served in the US senate for merely 3 years before he announced his plans to run for the highest office. At the time, such a scenario seemed absurd. However, that is exactly what happened. Whether Clinton refuses to believe this to be the case, or whether she still is holding on to that 5% chance that she can become commander-in-chief, she remains in the running to become the Democratic nominee. But one is left to wonder, ‘why does she continue to run? When will she stop? And where will she take the Democratic Party?’

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Jury Duty Is No Joke

JAN DEVEREUX

Ed. note: while so far the content of the Beaver Reader has been dominated by high school students, we welcome contributions from all members of the community, including middle schoolers, faculty, alumni, and parents. The following is a guest editorial by Director of Communications and parent ’07 Jan Devereux.

Once you turn 18, you become eligible for jury duty. Apart from serving in the military, jury duty is the most important civic responsibility a U.S. citizen has. Voting is also important, but as a juror you hold a fellow citizen’s fate in your hands. As the judge I sat before today described it, jury duty is an “awesome” responsibility – that’s awesome in the original sense of the word. As she reminded us, America is one of the few countries in the world that entrusts ordinary citizens with such an awesome power.

Yet most of us are annoyed when we are called to report for jury duty (it can be as often as every three years for a Massachusetts resident). Let’s be honest, there’s never a convenient time to wait around a courthouse with a bunch of strangers and no cell or Internet access. They don’t even sell coffee in the courthouse. The majority of those summoned spend the day waiting without being chosen, and go home feeling like the court has wasted their time. For the self-employed, jury service can be a financial hardship, too. Like others, I have joked with my friends about ways to avoid getting picked as a juror: “Just say you don’t trust the police, or cross your arms and glare at the defendant. That’ll get you off the hook.” Even without resorting to such tactics, I had never been selected for a jury. Until today.

And, after today’s experience, I will never again joke about jury duty. I learned it is no laughing matter.

With about 200 other potential jurors, I reported to the Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn at 8:00 this morning. As part of our orientation, we watched a video that explained courtroom procedure and reminded us of our duty to remain impartial. While the video’s cheesy production values were ripe for an ironist’s snickers, its solemn message was straight out of a high school civics book. Innocent until proven guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt. Decide only on the evidence presented.

After three hours of waiting, I was chosen (“impaneled”) to sit on the criminal trial of a young man accused of two counts of illegally possessing a firearm. Conviction of a weapons offense would likely mean jail time for the defendant. A visibly pregnant young woman, probably his wife or girlfriend, was the lone spectator in the courtroom. Our jury’s decision would affect not only the defendant, but also his unborn child. As I raised my right hand and swore to uphold the laws of the court, I felt the full weight of my awesome responsibility.

I’ll never know whether I was selected because the prosecution figured that as a well-educated professional and a resident of the People’s Republic of Cambridge I support the strict enforcement of gun laws (I do), or whether the defense hoped that as a mother I might have a soft spot for the clean-cut young defendant with a baby on the way (I might). I never got the chance to prove my impartiality because another juror’s careless joke got us all dismissed even before the opening arguments.

Right after the selection process concluded, we jurors were escorted to a small waiting room where a uniformed court officer explained that the trial might last up to three days. At that point another juror blurted out, “It’ll be a short trail – he’s guilty. Ha-ha.” The rest of us squirmed, stunned at his inappropriate “joke.” This guy was probably the same fool who would joke about having a bomb as he went through airport security. The court officer was obligated to report the “joke” to the judge and the attorneys, who ultimately decided that the joke had prejudiced us all, and we could no longer be trusted to remain impartial. The judge scolded us about disrespecting our awesome responsibility and wasting the court’s time and our own tax dollars. All of us were dismissed, and the selection process would start over with a fresh group of untainted jurors. The defendant’s day in court would drag on a few hours longer.

Ironically, being sent home midday and excused from jury duty for another three years was the outcome the joker and most others had hoped for. He probably thought he had done us all a favor. Equal parts relieved to be sprung by lunchtime and disappointed not to be able to prove myself a worthy juror, I wondered how the joker would feel if he ever found himself in court, either as a defendant or a victim, and heard a juror joke about his case. If he keeps joking around, he won’t have to wait long to find out.

Image from beavela at Flickr.
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Creative Commons: Some Wrongs Reversed

TOPH TUCKER ‘08

Here’s something you may not know: every piece of work produced is automatically protected by full copyright law. Every piece, including this newspaper—until now.

With the rise of modern computers and the internet, so too has the world seen a boom in sharing, collaboration, remixing… and copyright infringement. Every Beaver student has probably gotten the plagiarism talk at least half a dozen times, and we all know how Google and the web make it more tempting than ever to just copy and paste whole chunks of work done by other people. And we know how that’s wrong. And it is.

But life is not a history paper. When you’re talking, not about the serious study of the rise and fall of civilizations, but about a movie you saw the other day, doesn’t copyright law seem like overkill? Another thing you may not know: no matter how well you format your MLA citations, you’re only allowed to quote so much before it goes beyond “fair use.” So while emailing your friend a link to a review is fine, emailing the whole review—even if you also include a link—may technically be illegal.

What if that’s more strict than even the creator wanted? Enter Creative Commons. It’s meant to fill the gap between All Rights Reserved and no rights reserved, between full copyright and the public domain. And starting today, The Beaver Reader is being published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Basically, readers are allowed to share and remix our work as much as they want, just as long as they give us credit and don’t impose harsher restrictions on any work they base on our work.

It’s not as if it will make a big difference; it’s not as if anyone can track whether people are copying our work or giving us credit anyway. So from a reader perspective, almost nothing has changed. It’s as much a gesture as anything else. We support a culture where information flows freely. And by ending each page with “Some,” not All, “Rights Reserved,” perhaps we have reversed some wrongs.
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On Dedham

LUCAS JUDSON ’13 (middle school)

Dedham is by far the awesomest town ever. Tons of cool people that would take too long to list are from Dedham, the awesomest sports are from Dedham, cool stuff is from Dedham, and Dedham House of Pizza is awesome.
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Voicing Concerns: A Letter to the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch

EMILY BELOWICH '11

Dear Mr. Jeffries:

I am writing to tell you about how the sizing of your clothes can impact a young woman’s body image and how that might affect the way in which you market and sell merchandise. I am a 14-year old girl and a freshman in high school. I am five foot seven and weigh approximately 123 pounds. I participate in two varsity teams at school, cross country and basketball. I work out a lot, take good care of my body; I eat right, and care very much about the way I look. I know for a fact that many girls like me are interested in your merchandise, so I hope you will hear what I have to say as a customer.

Last weekend I went into one of your stores, Hollister Co., in Natick, MA, to look for jeans. The last time I shopped there I bought a pair of corduroys, size three. When I walked into your store, a saleslady asked if I needed help finding anything. I told her I was looking for a pair of jeans, size three. She took out two pair of jeans for me to try on. When I got into the fitting room, I tried on the jeans. I could not button either pair, and the jeans were too short. I was confused; I am normally a size two or three, or a 27 wide, and these jeans were labeled a three long. I did not understand why this size wouldn’t fit when all of my other pants this size fit without a problem. I became so upset at what I thought was a change in my body that I ended up leaving the store in tears. Overall, I did not have a good experience shopping here. In fact, I didn’t really have any intention of going back to the store again at that point in time.

As you are well aware, body image is such an important issue for girls, especially teenagers. I think that in order to prevent an experience like this from happening again, you should train the salespeople to first look at customer closely, suggest that the customer bring in a few sizes and tell the customer that the sizes run small. It would not only benefit the customer, but it could even increase the sales in your company. It would have made me feel much better had I been told that the sizes run small. Knowing that, I wouldn’t have been upset trying on a size five. For me, the experience at your store wasn’t a great one. The experience of shopping at Hollister should be fun, not upsetting. I hope that you will take this feedback into consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Emily S. Belowich

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Passive Acceptance: Beaver's Liberal Ideology

SAM O'REILLY '09

"The progressive school teaches the child to think for himself instead of passively accepting stereotyped ideas. It keeps always in mind that each child is different from every other, and that what makes an educated person useful in his particular walk of life, what makes him interesting, what makes him an individual, is not his resemblance to other people, but his differences."
-John French

It’s the convocation day. I walk into Bradley Hall with a snazzy shirt Mr. Manning let me borrow and a bowtie from Mr. Greenberg’s room. Just before I take my seat in the back row, I say to a teacher, “Above or below five minutes when the word ‘Progressive’ is used for the first time.” She laughs and answers, “Below.” I promptly take my seat next to Clay and have some time to marvel at his beard. Mr. Gow walks on stage. Guess what word was in his first sentence?

I am not saying that the fact that Beaver defines itself as a “progressive” school is a bad thing. In fact, it is something to be proud of. Beaver was one of the first so-called “progressive” schools to be founded. Some people may not realize how revolutionary the progressive education movement was at the time. Traditional education generally followed a script in which the teacher would talk, and the students would listen. This idea of progressive education centered on students thinking as individuals.

The progressive education movement was a success, and Beaver was an innovator in this entirely new field of thought. Progressive education today is immensely popular and helps many young independent thinkers. Progressive education has spread and is now extremely popular all across the country and the world. Much like any revolution, the progressive movement evolves. Such change is necessary for the progressive movement to remain progressive…to progress. Yet, how can Beaver continue to be progressive in a time of increased awareness of progressive values across the nation? In today’s world, what can Beaver do to further facilitate independent thought?

Do not get the ideas of being liberal and being progressive mixed up because they are completely different. Beaver is a particularly liberal school in a politically liberal region of the United States. I find the curriculum in the English and History departments have a very liberal slant. Take History, for example: there is too much history to cover, so the department must choose which parts are important for kids to understand. That’s understandable, but these issues are presented in a biased way. In the 10th grade, I was educated about the huge injustice of Americans driving Native Americans off their land. I could not help but think that the curriculum had an agenda of making students disagree with the expansion. One thing that was not presented to us was what our country would be like if we had not taken that land. Would we be as powerful as we are? We are generally taught to disagree with a capitalist conservative ideology. This is all rather ironic because that same ideology helps to pay for our cars, houses, private school tuitions, and video game systems.

I decided to go to Beaver because I agreed with the basic ideals. My parents did not suggest that I go to Beaver; I took the initiative to say that I wanted to go to this kind of school. Beaver is a very liberal school and there is nothing wrong with that. It is important, however, that we address this reality. I have been at Beaver since the 6th grade. I am currently experiencing my 6th year of Beaver curriculum and culture. When I first came to Beaver, I ate it all up. I ate every bite. I loved the idea of thinking for myself and learning from liberal minded people. Keep in mind I was an intensely opinionated sixth grader, whether I was informed or not. Bush was the devil, and Republicans ruled the world, and Michael Moore was the man.

I evolved over my middle school years. I can’t really pinpoint one moment when everything changed. I do know that it was around 8th grade when I came to the conclusion that the liberal agenda of Beaver was not always a good thing. I became concerned that the liberal mindset was too institutionalized. The ideology of Beaver generally attracts a very liberal staff. Kids do not appreciate how many teachers come to Beaver over potentially higher paying jobs because they agree with the core standards of the school. A generally liberal staff grouped with a generally liberal curriculum has created an institutionalized liberal ideology. The funny thing about it was that I agreed with all of the ideals that the curriculum was teaching. Nonetheless, the widespread passive acceptance of these ideas alarmed me.

I think that Beaver has unintentionally become a place that does not truly harbor independent thought. Throughout my years at the school, I felt as if I was being led in a general direction. Whether teachers realized it or not, they were leading students towards liberal ideals in the way they were presenting information. For example, when I was in the eighth grade, a writer for The Simpson’s spoke at our school. He gave a very interesting and funny speech about his experiences, and just so happened to call something “gay” and referred to Steven Hawkins as a nice “cripple.” I can understand that there would be some controversy after that, although what did people expect from a Simpson’s writer? For the next week, I think we talked about the issue in every class. In English, we even had to write an editorial about what we thought of the issue. All of the teachers were obviously offended and continued bringing up the issue. We were expected to be offended. We were supposed to view his comments as highly offensive. If we did not share the same disgust, then we were ignorant.

I saw some of my peers molded into a uniform liberal teenager. Perhaps they all would have come to this conclusion about the world in due time. I began to see people agree with everything that I generally agree with. The majority of my class hated Bush, but could not give a good reason why. Many people supported gay marriage, but had not stopped to consider the opinions and concerns of many other religious Americans. When I was assigned to put together a debate together for science about abortion, every member of my class supported it. About 57% of Americans share the same sentiment. This is just one example of how students have become products of their environment. I support abortion as well, but I am alarmed by the conformity of opinions.

I am not the only one who is aware of the institutionalized liberalism. It is hard to disagree with uniformly accepted liberal ideas. I know lots of kids that accept these ideas, but do not care about them. Many students do not actually believe in an opinion unless they are genuinely allowed to come to it own their own. I feel like so many people at Beaver have given up trying to oppose the common opinion. These liberal ideas, righteous as they may be, are such constants in our lives that they don’t matter anymore.

I know a handful of kids at Beaver who do not agree with some very liberal ideas. They do not argue for them however because it is difficult to defend such an opinion. It is much easier to argue for gay marriage rather than against it because the “correct” opinions have already been implied to us through every class diversity day we have ever attended. It is logical to write a liberal minded paper because the ideas have already been laid out to us. Liberal thought used to challenge the general consensus, but now it is institutionalized.

Beaver is an environment where it is just much easier and much more rewarding to agree with liberal ideals. Although some teachers try to keep their opinions secret, it does not take a genius to deduct which side he or she is on. A friend once commented to me after a class, “Beaver does not teach you to think, it teaches you to reiterate ideals in an attempt to mold your personality.” Unlike other schools, Beaver does not emphasize the memorization of facts and dates. However, it does focus on the memorization and reiteration of ideals. Such uniformity in core ideas can be very dangerous.

Beaver needs to be a more self-reflective institution. It needs to take a hard look at itself and judge if it is a progressive institution in today’s world. I personally believe that the school would do itself a great service in attempting to eliminate passive acceptance of liberal idealism. Even if a student disagrees with the war in Iraq, along with the teacher and the rest of the students, it is the job of everybody to ask the question, “why?” It is the responsibility for every teacher, student, and administrator to challenge the common belief. Those of us that consider ourselves liberals must challenge our core ideals on a daily basis to remind ourselves of why they are our ideals. I believe that it is our responsibility, as students and citizens of the world, to guard against this habit of passive acceptance. If we cannot do this, then we can never expect to progress.

“Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.”
-Bertrand Russell

CORRECTION 5/Apr/08: Mr. Gow's Cum Laude speech, read every year, does not mention progressive anything. His convocation day speech, though, does "proudly connect Beaver's heritage to the extraordinary work of the early Progressive Education movement." We are very sorry for the mistake.

Image from: http://www.bcdschool.org/
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