Too Much Homework?

ERIK TOBIAS '09

One of the most admirable aspects of the Beaver Country Day School is that it offers "progressive education" to its students. It is therefore ironic that Beaver's biggest flaw is that its high school students are inundated with homework. Junior year is notorious for weighting down the average student to the point of academic surrender. However, Beaver is becoming progressively mainstream because, just like every other high school, Beaver is piling on the homework. Beaver's mission is to offer its students "an academically challenging curriculum in an environment that promotes balance in students’ lives." The balance in student's lives is starting to deteriorate. School work, particularly academics and afternoon activities, are causing students to lose the balance that Beaver preaches. The homework load at Beaver is far too high and ultimately prevents students from performing their best in school and from pursing other activities outside of school. Beaver could truly be progressive if it were to limit homework to one hour per night, in addition to half an hour of reading. This would allow students to be well rounded and pursue other activities outside of school that kids should be able to do.

As a student, I have a very busy schedule. I wake up every morning at 6:15am and try to finish up bits of homework from the previous night. It is always a struggle getting out of the house considering I am trying to finish homework, get ready for school and leave the house all at the same time. Somehow, I manage to arrive at Beaver 15 minutes before class starts (Mr.Manning’s time cushion). I then spend the next seven or so hours in classes. I then travel from Beaver straight to golf practice for two hours. By the time I get home after golf practice, it is 6:00pm. I eat dinner with my family until 6:30. That is my only real break of the day. Then I begin the marathon. I receive at the minimum an hour of homework from each class. Considering that I take four classes, that adds up to about four hours of homework starting at 6:30pm.

The homework at Beaver is often drills information into your head. In Spanish, we might practice conjugating verbs, in math we might practice problems, in history we might work on a project, and so forth. The point is that the majority of the homework I receive does not actually teach me anything, but simply drills points made in class into my head. Hence, homework like this could be significantly reduced considering it is mostly "busy work." I understand that some busy work is necessary in order to completely comprehend information, but the amount I receive of it is significantly too high. I also understand that students do have an extended lunch period, but many students use that to see teachers for extra help. When the clock hits 11:00pm, I can barely keep my eyes open and I decide to go to bed even if I haven't finished my homework. On match days, I often get back to Beaver anywhere from 7:30pm-9:00pm. After a match, I am normally exhausted and have to begin my homework late at night. I have come to the conclusion that doing homework after a match is useless because there is no way I can retain anything when I am that tired. I simply scratch words on the paper just to get it done, not caring whether it is right or wrong.

With endless amounts of homework, children are missing some of the best times of their lives. As people get older, they often yearn to be young again. As my Dad says, "I am a 20 year old, trapped in a 50 year old's body." With that being said, I want to be able to take advantage of my youth. When my parents were kids, they didn’t have a lot of homework. They were able to pursue activities outside of school. With less homework, the possibilities are endless. I could get a job after school or volunteer part time at veterinary hospital. Maybe I could actually get involved in politics or pursue Model UN more seriously. Maybe I could practice music with my band. Maybe I could take up cooking. Maybe I could practice a sport or see my friends. All I want is to be able to be kid. While I am in school, the only time I can be a kid is from Friday night to Saturday night because Sunday is completely taken up by homework. High school should be one of the greatest times of my life; I don’t want to remember it by sitting at my desk doing homework. And yes, most of my homework simply requires a desk and computer: not very progressive.

This world is becoming overworked and over programmed. A few students and professors at Penn State actually did a study on how too much homework can be counterproductive. Statistics even prove that "many countries with the highest scoring students, such as Japan, the Czech Republic and Denmark, have teachers who give little homework. At the other end of the spectrum, countries with very low average scores -- Thailand, Greece, Iran -- have teachers who assign a great deal of homework.” In the 1980's, countries started to increase homework in response to performance in comparison to Japanese students. Conversely, Japanese schools were actually lowering amounts of homework. Studies show that math teachers currently in the US assign five-six hours of homework a week (too much) while Japanese schools give two-three hours a week. It has also been proven that working non-stop all day tends to reduce the amount of knowledge you can retain. Along those lines, many case studies have been done in order to show that if a teenager doesn't receive ten hours of sleep a night, his or her learning will be considerably less productive. On a normal day, I receive less than 7 hours of sleep because of homework; my learning is infringed upon considerably.

I realize that there isn't much I can do to change the schedule of my day, but there is room to change my life at home. If I were to get home after school and spend one hour doing homework and a half hour of reading, I guarantee my grades, cheerfulness, mood, extracurricular activities and general knowledge of the world outside of Beaver Country Day School would flourish. I understand that by doing less homework, you are learning less information, but only to a certain extent. The human brain can only retain so much work. As the renowned columnist Thomas Friedman said, "It's for all these reasons [that I have mentioned] that I've been calling them "Generation Q" -- the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad." In other words, because we are so involved in school, homework and extracurricular activities, this generation is not able to formulate opinions and voice them; we simply don’t have time or energy to.

Every day, I notice kids that haven't done their homework and I am secretly proud of them. I know that they have spent time outside of school pursing something they wanted to do instead of doing homework. It just so happens that many of these kids are the most brilliant kids I know. Their grades might not reflect it, but somehow I know they will be just fine in life; doing it their way.
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Investigating Beaver's Fundraising Guidelines

JEFF HIGGINS '08

For Beaver’s celebration of Martin Luther King and Social Action Day, Mr. Principe and a number of students organized a t-shirt drive. They charged t-shirts home for a ten-dollar price− a common practice at Beaver. They plan to donate the money to an undecided charity. Little did they know, their tee shirt drive broke a few school rules.

“We screwed up,” admits Mr. Principe in response to the incident. But the incident seems so innocent, so benevolent. All they did was sell t-shirts for an important cause--at 10 dollars, too, an unusually low price.

At Beaver, fundraising for charity breaks school rules. This, of course, includes Mr. Principe’s harmless sale of t-shirts. The following rules can be found on page 20 in the student handbook everyone received at the commencement of the school year:
All fundraising activities must meet the following criteria and be approved by the Director of Development:

1. Fundraising must be for Beaver-related activities. Fundraising for other
organizations will not be allowed as it:
a) Implies a choice of one
organization over another and
b) Competes with efforts to support certain
organizations though the Hiatt Center.
2. Student-to-student fundraising is
permissible. Student to parent fundraising is not. No letters will be sent home
to parents asking them for donations.
3. The contribution limit is 15
dollars, whether for an outright donation or to purchase an item (food at a
game, flowers at a performance, t-shirts, etc.)
4. Students will not be
allowed to charge donations to school accounts.

I talked to Beaver’s Director of Development, Karen Hill, to try to understand why these guidelines are in existence. One of the focal reasons behind the guidelines is that fundraising for charity robs money from Beaver. The logic is: if parents are relentlessly hounded for money for x, y, and z charities, when the school asks parent to donate to the annual fund, they are likely to donate less money. Since the school rarely receives large endowments, Beaver relies considerably on the annual fund. Karen Hill elucidated that such charity fundraising would not only make it more difficult to raise money for the annual fund, but also for prom and other student activities.

In addition, restricting fundraising for charity apparently inspires students to support the community around us in others ways, such as through the Hiatt Center. The administration wants students to impart time and work hours, not just money. In addition, Ms. Hill also made the point that if there were nonstop, weekly fundraisers going on around the school, they would likely become disorganized, jaded, and unsuccessful. She also said the reason for the fifteen-dollar cap was to level the playing field for Beaver students who are not as wealthy as others.

In the words of Coach Will Morrison, “C’mon, you guys!” The fifth and final part of Beaver’s bullet-pointed Mission is “Serve both school and society with integrity, respect, and compassion.” This is a school that prides itself on events like the winter holiday celebration and on its strong relationship with the Hiatt Center. This is a school that boasts three faculty members solely devoted to community service, social action, diversity, and cultural issues. Yet, we are not allowed to fundraise for charity.

However, there is some fundraising allowed. For example, the Spare Change Drive to benefit soldiers fighting overseas. The drive was followed up with a Wednesday forum presentation, and was heavily influenced by the faculty. The drive was enormously successful. Just imagine though, without the school’s strict rules, individual donations could soar from 75 cents to 16 dollars. But wait! That would prevent parents from donating to the all-important annual fund.
Personally, I do not see the logic behind some of the guidelines. Fundraising is not allowed because it “Implies a choice of one organization over another.” Honestly, who has ever been ridiculed for donating to one charity over another? It is the equivalent of saying there can be no more fundraising to support victims of Hurricane Katrina because it would not be fair to organizations helping the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Let us take a look at Mr. Principe’s t-shirts. What harm did that do to the annual fund? Technically, it was not even a fundraiser. The purpose of the drive was to spread awareness of Martin Luther King Day, so students would “make it a day on, not a day off.” Mr. Principe has not yet even counted how much money the drive made or decided upon a place to donate the money. Yet somehow, he “Screwed up.” The drive charged home shirts for a non-Beaver related activity.

Here is the bottom line: I think there should be momentous edits made to the guidelines. At a gut level, banning charitable fundraising is flat out wrong and even immoral. Giving charity and helping the needy is a fundamental value in our society. I like the idea of having fundraising activity approved by the director of development. Yet, do we really need to ban fundraising all together? I think not. If a student has a solid plan for a fundraiser, such as the spare change campaign, it should not be limited. If fundraisers are well planned and approved, I do not see the reason for a fifteen dollar cap, a ban from charging items home, or student-to-parent fundraising.

I wonder which unnecessary school rule Mr. Principe will undermine next.

Image from: John Wiley & Sons Publishing
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Youth Demand Change in Upcoming Election

JARED BELLOT '08

Maria Montessori once said, “If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.” Surly her words have held true in the past; the youth of the 60’s played a major role in enacting social change as can be seen through the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of feminism, while the children of the 70’s made their voices heard through the hippie movement and the rise of the gay rights activism. However, more recently, the young people of America have failed to make their mark on the country. Young voter turnout has been less desirable in recent elections, despite past efforts to raise participation and arouse some sort of general interest in the political process. No matter how many times we have been threatened to “vote or die”, the youth of America have maintained a steadily declining role in the political process since the close of the Vietnam War.

Today, these young voters, who for years have been virtually non-existent on the political landscape, have burst onto the scene and established themselves as an incredibly powerful force in politics. In the 2004 elections, youth voter participation (ages 18 to 24) was up to 47%, from just 36% in the 2000 elections, and things are only looking up, many arguing that this new generation will exceed the power and influence of the young protesters of the Vietnam era. A recent article in the Boston Globe attributes this increase in participation to the September 11th terrorist attacks and the current crisis is Iraq.

The way in which the country and the current administration have dealt with these national issues has outraged a number of American youth, and they have decided the time has come to remind the country that they too are affected by the choices made by their elders. After all, it is our generation who will inherit the consequences of the War on Terror, and it is our generation who must cope with the effect of global warming on our planet. These youths are fed up with the same old partisan battles that have been raging in the halls of congress for decades. They are tired of seeing democrats and republicans who always separate based on party lines, and refuse to reach across the aisle to get the job done, and they now understand that they can make a difference. The youth have seen with their own eyes what can happen when one chooses not to speak up. They were awoken from the slumber of political comforts and privileges granted to them by their elders, and confronted with a harsh reality. Today, these youth desperately want change, and they want it now.

It is this call for change by the youth that has had the biggest effect on the current race. When Senator Obama announced that his campaign would focus on a new type of politics, a politics of hope, young people from around the nation, republican and democrat, rallied around this first term senator from Illinois. Despite Obama’s “issue” of inexperience brought up by other candidates, Obama’s call for change struck a chord in first time voters. They joined his campaign, and for the first time in far too long, re-took their place in politics, in effect forcing the other politicians to listen to this call for change. Senator Clinton of New York, a staunch advocate of the need for experience in for the presidency, is now also speaking of the ways in which she would be able to bring change to the country. This block of youth voters has become larger than it ever has been in recent years, and candidates vying for the presidency are forced to take them in account when planning out their campaigns. This becomes evident as politicians turn to the internet more than ever before. Candidates have their own websites, Myspace pages and Facebook groups. YouTube has become an invaluable tool, and a bitter enemy as everything a candidate says is recorded and can be played back instantly anywhere across the nation, at any time of the day. While door-to-door campaigning is still a powerful tool, it seems as though this generation has turned to the internet to get their candidate-of-choice’s message across (yet another sign of the changing times).

The need to cater to this large voting block has opened up a completely new window, and has changed the presidential field entirely. No longer can a candidate ignore the youth or this call for change, for the people who are demanding this matter in the upcoming primaries and caucuses, and when November shows up and the time to elect a new president arrives. And I think that it can be agreed that no matter what political party he or she comes from, the 43rd president of the United States will be forced to listen to the demands of a new generation of Americans: a generation which has been waiting listlessly in the shadows of their parents, frustrated with the lack of progress.


Milligan, Susan. "Youth Voters a Force in '08 Race." Boston.Com. 13 May 2007. The Boston Globe. .

Image from: NY Times

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Clichés are the Best Medicine: High School Musical

JESSICA PENZIAS ‘08

For a little context, High School Musical’s pedigree includes such films as Zenon: Z3 (“The Zecond Zequel”) and Brink, so you can be excused for underestimating it. This high school comedy, in which students often break into enthused song and dance, is often ridiculed by those over the age of 11. These people tend to mock the convenient plot lines and the not-so-subtle lessons the movie provides. The movie enforces such clichés as “what goes around comes around,” “tomorrow is another day,” and “All good things come to those who wait.” Above all, the film promises a happy ending complete with a dance number no matter the circumstances.

Cinematic quality aside, certainly no critic can question the commercial success of the Disney Channel Original Movie. For the Disney Channel, its viewership was topped only by that of its sequel, which was the most watched cable broadcast in history. The film also incited a concert tour; is currently touring as an on-ice production, created two hit CDs, and sold countless DVDs. To everyone who stares cynically at these facts and even attributes the downfall of American integrity and the brainwashing of American youth to the Disney corporation—and there are people who do (cough *Mr. MacDonald*)—I will not respond with a cliché. Instead, all I have to say is: DO judge a book by its cover.

While many adults question the High School Musical phenomenon, in doing so, they miss the point of the film. I urge these people to accept High School Musical for what it is. High School Musical is not a success because it has profound insight, or needs an analytical eye. It is a success because it, in itself, is a cliché. It has been seen before. It is simple. It is repetitive. It is repetitive. And overall, it is reassuring. The predictable plot lines, simple characters, and catchy songs do not need to be analyzed.

There is beauty and safety in clichés that children immediately connect to. High School Musical’s simplicity allows the viewer to be reduced to a childlike state—to accept what they see before them because they have seen it before. Personally, I find it refreshing to watch an unoriginal story and to hear lessons that I have already learned. Frankly, if you are one of those sad people who are still resisting the phenomenon that swept America, all I have to say is, “if you can't beat them, join ‘em.”
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When the Pen Fails

SAM O’REILLY '09

It is an almost universally accepted truth that the pen is mightier than the sword. Ideas are stronger catalysts for change than violent acts. Logic is generally more effective in persuading people than violence. These ideals are embodied in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, in which everybody is given the right to protest, petition, and speak freely. America is a place where the pen is mightier than the sword, because the right to use the pen is unfettered, and one piece of writing can change the opinion of the people. But what about when the pen fails? What if a person is convinced fully that what he has to say is true, but those with power refuse to listen? If that person has no doubt in his mind that he is correct, and if the pen genuinely does fail, is he justified in using the sword as a last resort?

Imagine being a devout Muslim leader in the Middle East. You have dedicated your entire life to a cause that you believe in to its very core. No matter how hard you try to demonstrate the righteous virtues and love that Islam teaches, the world continues to view your religion as that of an extremist. You want to change the world through love, but the American media does not pay attention to anything good happening in or coming from Muslim countries in the Middle East. The people of some nations may have a fair opinion of Islam, but the average American citizen does not fall under this category. The average American citizen knows little about the core reasons for modern religious conflict. The average American knows that Muslims blow stuff up as a way to create change, but rarely consider what was so drastically in need of change that a human being felt it necessary to resort to violent action. Then again, would Americans pay any attention to the struggle of Muslims if their own lives were not in danger? How many people could really point out Afghanistan on a map or knew who the heck Osama Bin Laden was before September 11, 2001? It is becoming more and more apparent that the only message that America will bother to pay attention to is that of a violent nature.

Islam in The American Media

Do the American people really have that terrible a view of the Muslim world? It is hard to understand the viewpoint of an entire populace unless one were to go to some non-partisan voice of the people…Bill O’Reilly! Yes, Bill O’Reilly has an hour-long show every day, has published numerous books, and has a daily talk show as well. The words of Bill O’Reilly must resonate with some large group of people for him to be able to express his opinions in such a vast arena. One could rely on the words of Bill O’Reilly to judge the nature of a populace. When Bill O’Reilly said on national television, “"I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is. The big lesson is that we cannot intervene using ground troops in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do, is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds; ain't going to work. They're just people who are primitive." One cannot make the sweeping generalization that Bill O’Reilly embodies the opinion of the everyday America. One can and should however be alarmed that such a violent and ignorant message is part of mainstream American culture.

What kind of message is America sending the Muslim population by having radicals such as Bill O’Reilly on the air? What kind of message is America sending to the Muslim population when the bad guy on 24 is always Arab? America is not sending the message that it legitimately is concerned about or is willing to listen to the problems concerning Muslims throughout the world. The American people sub-consciously promote the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists through passive acceptance of such typecasting in the media. The American media does little to report on and consider the ideals of moderate republics, but has a heyday whenever some radical blows something up.

Religious Wars

Religious wars have changed over the years. The root of many historic conflicts lies in religion and religious ideals. Unlike modern religious conflict, many historical wars consisted of unified nations facing off on battlefields. Today, conflict over religion is as wide spread and intense as ever. Innovations in communication during the 20th century have changed the nature of religious conflict and given power to terrorists. The people who are victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks never intended to fight a war. They were just shopping or going to work and in the process became casualties of a war that knows no borders. Terrorists brought the war to the streets of New York City and to the doorstep of capitalism. Civilians were the targets and civilians were the casualties. September 11 destroyed two towers, killed 3,000 in a country of 300,000,000, but most importantly, instilled a sense of fear in the American people. Terrorists could never possibly stand up to the might of the American army, and therefore resort to fear as a tactic. Religious war is no longer fought on identifiable battlefields, but on the streets of every city in the world. It is a media battle over which side can make their people despise the enemy more than the other. It is an intimidation battle over who can make the other feel more threatened. Which side can make a man genuinely scared for his life and that of his family? That is the real battle. It is a guerilla war that neither side can genuinely win.

It is not a war that can be won because it is impossible to fully wipe out either side. Even if terrorists miraculously destroyed America, some other similar power would arise. There will always be some kind of imperial power, weather it be Rome, Great Britain, or America. This empire, almost by definition, will have people that hate it so much that they will go to extremes to hurt it. Yet even if the new empire that arose after America was not as strong or oppressive, some group of radicals would find a way to blame everything on that country. Radical energy will be directed towards the most powerful nation, regardless of its nature. The nature of the war in itself makes it impossible for either side to win.

Americans view terrorists as people too indoctrinated with a backwards ideology that they cannot even be reasoned with. This, incidentally, is how many terrorist leaders would describe Americans. They would say that America is too set in its views and too content with ignoring the rights of Muslim people. These people may be from such countries as Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are identified with their religion. Many Americans clump the entire Middle East into a religious group, and furthermore identify that entire group with violence. The most alarming aspect of the stance of the everyday American is the lack of initiative to learn about Muslim culture and the expectation that Muslims should stop using violence and realize that the American way is the correct one. No wonder these alarming circumstances go both ways. Even if Americans may not view the war in Iraq as a holy crusade, many Muslims do.

Many believe that the religious world conflict is past the point of negotiation. It is an endless cycle because the American government has proved incapable of being realistic with Muslim leaders. This causes some Muslims to use violence, which in turn hardens the stance of American leaders. The cycle continues, resulting in more deaths each day. Both sides expect the other to one day smarten up or just give in, without even considering the possibility that they themselves could be wrong. America tries to represent itself as the side with morals, and hides its own terrorist tendencies.

The Nature of Terrorism

“Terrorists use fear and intimidation to usher in change.”

If one were to accept this statement as fact, then America would be categorized as the biggest terrorist in the world. America holds a nuclear arsenal that, if employed, will destroy military targets and civilians alike. The nuclear arms that America can launch at the drop of the dime are too powerful and not accurate enough to physically spare civilian lives. Over 180,000 lives were lost when America dropped the first two atomic bombs on Japan, but the general consensus in our society is that these losses were acceptable in a time of war. America scares much of the world. At any given point of time, America has the capability to level every square inch of any nation. It is as if a permanent gun is held to the head of every individual in the world. If America does not intend to use such weapons ever again, then why have they not been deactivated? Why has America led a movement to put down these weapons for the safety of humanity? The reason that America does no such thing is that its nuclear capabilities give it a higher standing in the world. America is logically more powerful with nuclear weapons. Other countries are less inclined to stand up to the United States because of fear. Doesn’t all of this sounds like terrorism and intimidation on a very large scale?

Americans fail to see that their country has taken a path that is viewed by many outside their country as similar to that of terrorist groups. For instance, the imprisonment of people that may or may not be terrorists in Guantanamo Bay violates the Constitution. According to the organization “Iraq Body Count,” the war in Iraq has taken over 75,000 civilian casualties.[1] Despite these indisputable violations of human rights, Americans act proud and frown down upon Muslims as if they are ignorant. Americans view their nation as a righteous one, and struggle to see why anybody could hate them.

The biggest problem is the inaction of the American people and politicians by making little attempt to understand the root of the conflict. It is as if this war between America and Islam started so long ago that nobody bothers to ask when and why it started. It is rare that an America leader proposes trying to understand why so many people hate America with such a passion. America must study its own actions in trying to understand the conflict.

The war in Iraq has taken far more innocent lives than terrorist attacks ever have. Do American politicians believe that killing more innocent people will stop all of the violence? Do they genuinely believe that turning a deaf ear to logical Muslim leaders and only focusing on killing the radicals will fix anything? Unfortunately, violence seems to be the only way that Muslim leaders can get the attention of American politicians and citizens alike. The cultural and political ramifications of terrorist attacks are much greater than the physical damage, for they can be seen across the country. America only seems to pay attention when something blows up or somebody dies. Nobody wants to hear about trying to understand Muslim culture as a means of pursuing peace. Terrorist organizations can only get their point across with violence. There are many different groups to blame when a terrorist attack happens. Although the American people are not entirely at fault, they should study their own nature as a means of understanding and in turn preventing attacks.

Conclusion

So what about the original question? If the pen fails because those with power refuse to listen, must one make them listen? Must one sacrifice the lives of the innocent people to amplify the message that one knows is right and knows will ultimately make the world better? Both Americans and people from the Middle East “know” as a fact that the other side is simply ignorant. The other side simply won’t listen to logic. Perhaps the mightiest weapon isn’t the pen. Perhaps it is the ability to read what the pen has to say. Maybe it is the ability to listen to others and learn from them. But until people on both sides learn to stop talking and actually listen, the sword will be seen as the only way. Until humans learn to listen, neither side will put the sword down, because each side believes it is holding the sword of god.

[1] Iraq Body Count. 2007. Iraq Body Count. Nov 4, 2007. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

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The Fall of the Mixed-Grade Advisory

MADDY KIEFER ‘08

Most seniors remember the mixed grade advisories that were disbanded in September 2005. Upon our promotion to the upper school in 2004, we were put in advisories with upperclassmen, which, although daunting at first, was eventually an experience that many of us appreciated. Older students provided us with all sorts of advice for surviving high school, from choosing class to prioritizing our responsibilities. Mixed grade advisories gave us the chance to hear first-hand about the stress of junior year, the complicated college process that followed, and the ultimate decision of choosing which college to attend before we had to experience it ourselves. They weren’t trying to scare us, but, rather, to prepare us. When questioned about what it was like when multiple grades were represented in his advisory, Peter Gow, the Director of College Counseling, who has been working at Beaver for over twenty years, recalls, “I remember some great examples of good advice and important lore being passed down in those meetings from older students to younger ones.” He does believe, however, that “same-grade groups can be great ways for advisors to work together on issues related to grade-level concerns.”

A year later, however, few were happy to hear that new advisories were separated by grade. Toph Tucker, a senior who was in a mixed-grade advisory until last year, says, "I know that the administration worries that older students will intimidate freshmen or some such thing, but having some representation from higher grades was one of the best things about my advisory." Toph and I, who were both in Mr. Whitten’s advisory for three years, had such an amazing time in our mixed-grade advisory that we were furious that the incoming freshman didn’t get this opportunity. Instead, they were essentially being cut off. We knew that keeping all of the freshmen apart from upperclassmen was a mistake. The freshmen, however, considered themselves lucky. The idea of having to spend half an hour with the “big kids” every week wasn’t appealing, so there were no objections from them. When asked his opinion on being in an all freshmen advisory, Willy Tucker, Toph’s younger brother, states that he was “pretty happy” about being separated from the older students. As a reply to this comment, Toph remarks, “He just doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

One of the benefits of having older students in our advisory was that we were able to make friends in other grades and connect weekly. Mr. Gow recalls that he “certainly saw inter-grade friendships develop.” These days, the only interactions that most freshmen have with other grades are in extracurriculars, where they tend to isolate themselves and simply stay with the other students in their grade. By contrast, we could more easily branch out from the seventy or so people that we had class with every day and enjoy time spent with these other students. Since the end of the mixed-advisory era, there has been an increased separation between the grades. Hopefully this separation won’t reach the extreme that it has with the middle school. For a school that preaches a community without divisions, such separation in advisories is counter productive.

Currently, the only normally scheduled time that upper and middle school students are together is at All School Meeting once a week. Aside from that, upper schoolers occasionally visit the middle school wing to use the computer labs, but high school students are not even supposed to be in the first-floor middle school hallway. We are almost at the point where they might as well be two separate schools.

Although the Middle School is not involved in the current Upper School advisory problem, and although it hasn’t yet reached the tipping point, these issues are becoming a pattern at Beaver. It is important for the school to recognize the negative effects that these changes are having on the student body, and for it to make strides to correct them. The first two lines of Beaver’s school song read, “Stand we now to hail thee/Beaver, loyal and united,” but the unity of our school is at risk of deteriorating. If the school administration continues to make these choices to separate the grades even further, however, the only occasions that the grades at Beaver will mix will be in the hallways. If it reaches that point, our small school will seem all the more lonely, and our close-knit community as we know it today will cease to exist.
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