Dialogue is the only way to instigate social change. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn understood this when they co-authored their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide in 2009. The book is a series of stories, woven together by carefully crafted argumentation and solidified through factual evidence and extensive research. The married couple wrote the book as a passionate call to arms against the violence and oppression suffered by women in the third world. This book is an essential read for any global citizen.

The book begins with an introduction that discusses why protecting women is so important, as well as why women’s issues aren’t given much attention. WuDunn and Kristof then give us a breakdown of what they think are the most pressing issues: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality. The rest of the book is divided into these three parts, each part filled with the stories of girls and women who have endured that abuse personally.

About a third of the book is storytelling, and these women don’t just tell tales of sorrow and failure. Many of them have success stories, stories about the trials they’ve faced and how they conquered them.

Now that we have our newly built field, what is the next “phase” of physical improvements for Sonoma Academy?

In the original plan for the school, there were going to be seven buildings built, but even with $40,000,000 to spend, there was not enough money for permits, workers, materials, etc. In the end, just three buildings were built.

Even with the number of classrooms SA already has, some teachers find themselves without a definite “home” on campus.

When asked about this need, Head of School Janet Durgin said, “I know a lot of students think that we are desperately in need of classrooms and it’s true that we do not have a dedicated classroom for each teacher, but that’s really an inefficient use of space – to have a classroom sitting empty for a double period every day.”

In terms of performance space, the plan is to build a new theater while keeping the Fitzsimmons Black Box Theater for movies, small meetings and shows that do not require a very large stage. The location of the new theater has not been determined.

Another wish for our future campus is, as Durgin describes, “some kind of eating facility.” This place wouldn’t be a cafeteria, but it would be a place with better meal options for students.

“What we’ve begun to imagine,” Durgin said, “is much more than a place where we make food, use our garden and teach cooking, but a place where students can learn about food and food systems, its relation to the environment and food equity.”

There is currently no designated eating place for SA students. The new building will be open all day long with coffee, a stage in the corner and even games. “It is not just a cafeteria,” said Durgin, “it is a hub of student life.” To keep with our school’s connection to nature, seating will also be outside.

For athletes, there aren’t any short term plans because of the $1,000,000 field investment, but long-term ideas exist for a pool, baseball field and some other far away facilities. For those interested in technology, a suite of studios will possibly be built for robotics, experimental engineering, podcasts and films.

So, where does the money for all these ideas come from? Our own community has given all the money in the past and will hopefully do so again in the future. This way, our own school has a say in what is added. When contacted, two sets of previous donors declined to state any things they would like to see added, but one can assume it would be similar to those ideas currently floating to the top. Those original plans pictured above will be used as inspiration for the new buildings as well. “The fact that we have them certainly helps the architects because there is a lot of base information,” Derice Hogle, Director of Finance and Operations mentioned, “but they don’t have to recreate it.”

On September 29th, the architects presented to the Board of Trustees and will do so later to the students. Durgin and Hogle have promised a first scoop on plans once the Board has made progress. As for now, they want your ideas. Durgin said, “It is kind of exciting; the ideas that have come up. I think the students are really going to like it a lot.”

The Sonoma Academy soccer teams faced a new challenge this year, as the construction workers hurried to put the finishing touches on the new Chris Ziemer field.

“We learned during the summer that our project was delayed,” said Athletics Director Chris Ziemer.

His namesake, the Chris Ziemer Field, has been under construction since mid-July, but the administration quickly realized that it would not be completed in time for the 2015 season opener.

“There’s just layers of permitting,” said Ziemer, when asked to comment on why the field hadn’t been finished in time. “I looked into other field options in the area.”

The other option he mentioned turned out to be the field at Sonoma State University. They were more than happy to welcome the high school soccer players, and had a positive effect on the teams, according to girls’ soccer captain Sally Ziemer.

“We’re spending more time together on the bus rides,” she said, “it’s also kind of fun to be training and playing games on a college campus. You see all the college teams and people just walking by.”

Sometimes the college teams practiced at the same time, Sally said. One of her co-captains, Chloe Colbert, also expressed her gratitude for the soccer teams’ temporary home.

“SSU was awesome to let us use their field,” Colbert said, “and it worked out well every time.”

As to how the teams adjusted to the commute for every practice, Colbert says they did just fine.

“It was kind of rough in the beginning, just [because] it was a big transition,” she said. “So that was kind of hard, but it became really easy, and we just kind of got used to it.”

Now that the field is finished, finding a place for the soccer teams to practice is no longer an issue. Earlier this summer however, the FIFA Women’s World Cup brought to light another issue with turf fields. This was the first year that FIFA used turf fields for the games, and many of the players complained of extensive burns due to sliding on turf instead of grass. Chris says this is just one small part of a bigger picture.

“Any field you have, there’s going to be pros and cons,” he said. He said that although the players will have to be more careful when they slide, the previous field suffered from overuse. Rocks and mud pits were hidden dangers that any team needed to watch out for.

Chris said that although “soccer purists” prefer real grass, the advantages to having a turf field are more cost-effective. The new field will be an all-weather field, although he did say that temperatures will be much higher on sunny days because of the materials used to make turf. According to an SA press release, the field, which is made of eco-friendly Futrfill, will be “up to 30 degrees cooler than rubber.”

“If I had the choice between turf and nice grass I’d pick nice grass over turf,” said Sally, when asked if she had any concerns about a turf field. “But then again, turf is nice because, you know, the bounces are cleaner.”

When asked about sliding on turf, Sally didn’t seem too concerned.

“If I slide on grass I usually just get one cut, [whereas] if I slide on turf it rips off whole layers of skin,” she said. She plays on turf with her club team, however, so she’s adapted to these sorts of injuries. She said, she thinks that turf might keep some girls from sliding, but other than that it wasn’t going to be a problem.

“I guess it kind of depends [on] how into the sport you are,” she said.

“I feel like [you’re] just as likely to get hurt on a grass field, especially the field we had just because it wasn’t always up to par, there was always lots of holes,” Colbert said. “We’d be more likely to twist an ankle. This is going to be very smooth.”

This summer, students from Sonoma Academy went on many foreign adventures, but not all were for vacation and fun. Some students took volunteer trips to help people in need.  

Sophomore Ysabella Richard traveled to Nicaragua, to do volunteer work for children and adults. She helped garden for a public clinic, and helped young children at school.

“The whole experience was fantastic,” Richard said. “It felt really good to do something that matters.”

The garden gave fruits and vegetables to the poor. The garden also gave fruits and vegetables to women who worked in the clinic making medicine. This was one of her favorite aspects of the work.

She was there for almost a month. During that month, she only got sick once.

“Yeah, that was the only part that sucked,” she said, “but I tried to get by it, and did anything I could possibly do. I was not going to let this one little thing get me down.” She stuck with it, despite a cough, headache and fever.

She visited a small town called El Bálsamo, and talked and played with the local children.

“I think that was my favorite part, talking to the people that live in a place that is foreign and unique, and a place that I think is beautiful,” she said. “Playing with them was also fun.”

Senior Simone Gutermuth also volunteered over the summer with a friend. They traveled to the Dominican Republic to help children with something they love: art.

“It was kind of hectic, children doing something they never had an opportunity to do before, but it was great seeing the smiles on their faces,” Gutermuth said. “It was great in every way.”

Something else she brought with her also positivelyaffected women in the Dominican Republic: bras. She collected donations of bras in Sonoma County, brought them to the Dominican Republic, and gave them away to those who needed them.

“Their poverty level makes it hard for them to buy everyday things and so donating these bras made me happy and warm inside,” she said.

The yearly schedule frenzy begins months before the actual school year starts. Director of Academic Services Oona McKnight works tirelessly to put our schedules together during the summer months, only to be met with dozens of requests to change schedules immediately after they are sent out. Of course, McKnight is not the only one who experiences stress from this process; year to year, students are inevitably afraid of their schedules not being perfect, and any imperfections are immediate sources of anxiety.

However, this year, the stress of scheduling seems to be continuing throughout the year for many students, rather than ending after the add/drop period. This year, the prerequisites for certain classes were changed, making it so that underclassmen could take more challenging courses earlier on in their high school careers.

This change begs the question of “why?”, and while the simple answer that we’re all given is that our school feels that underclassmen can handle harder classes, I have my own theories. The first of these is the concept of grade inflation expanding from grades to course load, or, “AP inflation.” With college acceptance rates slowly shrinking year to year, there is a sentiment, especially in a highly academically charged school like SA, that Bs are the new Cs, and Cs are the new Fs. If a student has a C- in a class at our school, their parents are notified, and the student must go through constant dialogue with their teacher in an attempt to raise their seemingly horrible grade; essentially, the student is treated as though they are failing. As is constantly forgotten, a C is supposed to mean that a student’s understanding of course material and overall performance in a class is “average.” The idea that a student should not be getting a C, by direct relation, means that average is unacceptable.

Of course, a C doesn’t necessarily mean “average” anymore, as it is supposed to, due to grade inflation. Many people would tell you that it is completely possible to get an A in a subject with a relatively average understanding of the course material. This fact alone is proof that grade inflation has caused a warped sense of what it means to do well in school. That warped idealism has spread from grades to course load, and it has become normal for a student to take multiple AP courses in classes that they are not necessarily experts in for the sake of their college application.

It’s easy to assume that taking an advanced level course in a subject that you dislike or do not particularly understand simply for the shiny AP label is unhealthy. Even so, students in the past have been able to cope with the AP system for a year or so, taking the hardest APs during junior year (which is usually the hardest year of high school when it pertains to course work), and having a more relaxing sophomore and senior year. However, it seems that AP inflation is spreading across grade-level boundaries, causing sophomores to feel the need to take previously labeled “senior” AP classes, such as AP Statistics, two years earlier in their career, leaving space in their schedules in later years to take more AP classes.

This AP inflation is no particular fault of SA, but is rather a statement about American society as a whole. Students across the country are made to feel inferior for taking classes that do not have the coveted AP letters in front of the title. Because of this, many high schools are doing away with the AP curriculum, but the number of schools that are doing so is inconsequential when compared to the number of schools pushing their students to take APs in order to get into college. In essence, I would like this piece to serve as a reminder that AP classes are not required. They are not required to have an acceptable college application, they are not required to have a good GPA, and, most of all, they are not are requirement to be a smart, well-rounded and fully capable high school student.

Governor Brown declared a State of Emergency on Jan. 17, 2015, and directed all officials to take any necessary actions to immediately raise water availability. That was almost nine months ago, and the state is still struggling.  

“From big to little, it all matters,” said Janet Durgin, the Sonoma Academy Head of School. According to reports from faculty and students, SA has made big improvements that can make a significant contribution in fighting the severe drought affecting our state.

Let’s start with the new Chris Ziemer Field. The estimates of the amount of water that will be saved are quite amazing; over 2 million gallons per year. That’s the biggest amount of water the school is saving in one haul. But all the little things happening around campus are helping a lot as well.  

The school has put in, as you might have seen, a water dispenser for refilling water bottles. This new dispenser saves over 10,000 plastic water bottles from being used. These bottles could potentially harm fish, birds and other animals that might ingest them. Plastic water bottles can also impact the air and water by releasing toxic chemicals both during production and after being discarded. In addition, had disposable bottles been used instead, much of the water would likely have gone to waste.  

The school is also cutting back on watering plant life around campus. The trees, shrubs and grass around the school might look sad and dry, but these are decisions that Durgin feels are extremely necessary.

Facility Manager, Mike Raudenbush, is also on top of this issue. He is in charge of the water system that runs through the school. He checks for leaks and any other problems, to minimize water waste.

The school intends to continue looking for new ways to increase its water conservation. “The faculty is working on putting together a ‘Task Force,’” said Ellie Dwight, Assistant Head of School. In addition to addressing water conservation, the Task Force will also seek ways to reduce energy use and increase recycling, according to Dwight. New initiatives are constantly being proposed, and SA asks for participation of all students in saving the most amount of water it possibly can.

This summer, a few Sonoma Academy students returned to campus in July to work at the Sonoma Academy Summer International Institute, a summer camp for international students ages 10-17 from China. The institute is an English immersion program designed to help international students learn more about not only the English language, but also American culture and what it’s like to go to high school in America.

    “It wasn’t meant to be a camp; it was a learning experience,” said Margie Pugh, Director of Student Support and head of the institute. “The whole program was based on trying new things and experiencing [American] culture, not on how well the students could speak the language. We really wanted to emphasize that there were no grades and that everything we did was meant for learning.”

    There are many differences between Chinese and American culture, but our schooling systems are particularly different from one another. Here at SA, a typical day lasts from 8 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., with a 40-minute lunch break. In China, a typical school day runs from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m., with a two-hour lunch break. It is also typical for students to have “evening sessions” of school until 9 p.m. or even as late as 11 p.m.

    “The program was specifically directed towards students who were considering studying in America and had begun to learn a bit of English. Their levels of speaking ability varied a lot, but for a lot of them, you could tell they really liked it here,” said Pugh. “One girl in particular told me about how bad she wanted to come here to SA just after the first week. She told me about how hard it was back home and how much pressure there was to get good grades. She seemed really happy to be in a more relaxed place.”

    Three students from the institute, Ray Ling, Vanessa Xu and Felix Nie, began school as freshmen at SA shortly after the program ended. The rest of the students returned home to China with their teacher. All of the students were interviewed briefly at the end of the program, and all of them expressed their positive feelings towards the program. Ray, Vanessa and Felix said they were excited to be attending SA in the fall.

    “Overall, the program was a huge success,” said Pugh. “There were some bumps in the road, since it was the first year, but it went even better than I was expecting. I had the dream team working with me, and it made it a really memorable few weeks. We definitely plan to continue the Summer Institute in the future, but I’m sure this year will stick in my brain for a long time.”

    The team of students working at the camp consisted of three Teacher’s Assistants: seniors Caleb Richards, Lailah Meyer-Long and Crisitian Isbrandtsen, and three Support Staff: seniors Sarah Maliarik, Jake Lawson, and junior Audrey von Raesfeld. The teachers in the program were Suzanna Luttrell, Cassidy Brown, Benjamin Mertz, Brandon Spars and Eric Moes. Daily English lessons were taught by Suzanna in the morning, and in the afternoon students met with either Cassidy, Benjamin or Eric to take science, music or geology, respectively. Brandon made an appearance every Friday to share stories and help the students learn new vocabulary. The TAs and Support Staff helped facilitate games and activities, and assisted the teachers with their respective subjects. On Wednesdays, the students traveled to different locations in the area to learn more about the history of Northern California. Destinations included Jack London State Park and Point Reyes National Seashore.

    “The students were apprehensive and pretty scared of being judged at first,” said summer TA Cristian Isbrandtsen. “It was particularly hard to get them to open up to us because they all spoke the same first language, and they could easily communicate with each other and not us. But as the days and weeks progressed, it was amazing to see them come out of their shells. I think the Summer Institute was a huge success, and will continue to help international students in future years.”

California was ravaged by yet another wildfire this summer that burned through 76,067 acres of Lake, Napa and Sonoma Counties, as reported by the California Department of Forestry on Oct. 3.
“Even though it was a sunny day originally, the fire had kind of obliterated the sun,” said Pat Brock, a resident of Cobb, Calif. whose house was completely destroyed by the fire.
The fire began on Sept. 12 in southern Lake County, and as of Oct. 6 the fire was 100% contained. Over 19,000 residents of Lake County fled the fire, which destroyed nearly 2,000 structures, 1,280 of which were homes, and killed four people, reported the Press Democrat on Oct. 4. On Sept. 16 the Press Democrat reported that about 900 people were staying at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga. Brock was one of those people.
“I looked out my window and there was this red glow, and I went down the road and there were two different fires going at the same time,” she said. “I just grabbed my overnight bag because I didn’t think I was going to be gone forever.”
Luckily, Brock said, many were willing to help.
“It’s been great here, everyone’s been terrific. They feed you very well, they provide showers, you can even drop off your clothes and they wash them for you.”
She said that the volunteers at the fairgrounds did not want the victims to wait on themselves at all, and that even the motorhome she was staying in was lent to her by a stranger.
Stefanie Hahn from Berkeley was a volunteer at the fairgrounds. According to her, there were many other people like Brock who were staying in donated motorhomes. Hahn herself was there of her own volition.
“I heard about the fire and showed up here just looking for ways to help. I’ve been cleaning up trash and looking to help in any way that I can for the past couple of days,” said Hahn.
David, who declined to give his last name, and whose ranch in Lake County burned down in the fire, said that the response evacuees have received has been incredible.
“It’s what America should be like,” he said.
The Sonoma Academy community is pitching in to help as well. On Sunday night, Athletics Director Chris Ziemer received an email from Rylee Bowen ‘18, saying she wanted to help.
“Riley sort of started the movement and the conversation,” said Ziemer.
They raised almost $10,000 on the first day. The most recent total was over $27,000. Ziemer says as soon as SA got the word out, incoming donors spread to the North Coast, with contributions coming from as far as Dublin and Eureka.
They’ve already cut the high school a check. “We coordinated with their school principal,” he said. “They get a check that is going to be used to replace displaced students’ athletic gear, school gear; whatever they need.”

What is the best superpower? Is it the ability to fly? The ability to sling webs from your wrists? The ability to read minds? As good as those may be, they are hardly close to the best superpower: the ability to control time. The possibilities are as endless as time itself; where do I even begin?

For one, you wouldn’t need to study for any tests. Just pause time, go check your notes for the answer, unpause, and write it down. Unnoticeable by any teacher, it’s the perfect way to ace a test. I don’t classify this as cheating, and here is why. Notes aren’t allowed on tests because notes aren’t allowed in ‘the real world,’ but if you can pause time in the real world, then how are you cheating? You’re not. Let me give an example to illustrate this idea. Let’s say you want to be a surgeon and you’re taking a test to enter medical school. Cheating on that test to raise your score is wrong because surgeons hardly have time to check notes to see what to do next. However, if you were to pause time while taking the entrance test and check your notes, that is completely fine because you can do the same thing in your job and would make a very good surgeon. Same thing goes for sports, just pause time halfway through a play so you can catch your breath then unpause and keep on playing. If you ever find yourself in a fight, you’ll never lose. If you’re in a crunch for time, just pause and drive to your desired location. No traffic, no problem. But time control isn’t limited to pausing; it also includes the fast forward and reversal of time as well.

We’ve all had those moments where we wish we hadn’t said something, and we’ve all done something that we wish we hadn’t. Well, with time control, why not just go back in time and change what you said or did? If you accidently urinated your pants in class, it basically didn’t happen. However going back in time is where the dangers of paradoxes come into play which is why I wouldn’t recommend going more than a year into the past. Even if your intentions are good, like to prevent 9/11, the effects could be catastrophic. What if a victim of 9/11 gave birth to one of the most evil humans of all time? What if you went back to the assasination of Martin Luther King Jr. and killed James Ray, his assassninator, but it turned out that Steve Jobs was a product of Ray’s actions? Now we don’t have iPhones, and a world without iPhones is a world without happiness.

With these features in mind, time control is obviously the ultimate super power. Smarter than Iron Man, faster than the Flash, and stealthier than Batman, a person with time control would be unstoppable.

While time travel may seem fictional, the advancement of science and technology may actually allow for the creation of a time travel machine. However, the amount of time and effort that such a machine would require, well, ain’t nobody got time for dat.

A recent study published by the Washington Post in late June 2015 revealed that non-Hispanic white millennials were pretty much just as racist as their predecessors when it came to being prejudiced against blacks. With the recent rash of police attacks explicitly targeting the black community, I can’t really say that I’m surprised.

There’s this idea that race doesn’t matter anymore in this shiny new modern society of ours. If recent news hasn’t yet convinced you that on the contrary, race is still a big issue nowadays, then I really, really hope that the results of this survey do. Allow me to recap.

31% of non-Hispanic white millennials think blacks are less hardworking than whites, compared to 32% of Generation X (our parents’ generation).

23% think blacks are less intelligent than whites — while only 19% of Gen X do. An instance where the younger generation is actually more racist.

38% of non-Hispanic white millennials, and 40% of Gen Xers, think black people are less well-off than white people simply because they lack the motivation, are lazy, or whatever name you want to give it.

So much for hopes that we’d be moving towards a society where this sort of thing doesn’t matter.

I’m inclined to blame the “colorblind” race rhetoric that has been preached rather extensively. When taught growing up that race doesn’t matter, that you can get anywhere if you work hard enough, and then learning that minorities as a whole are less well-off than white people — well, it must be their fault, because they’re not working hard enough. They can overcome any obstacle if they work hard enough, right? If they’re living poorly, it must be their fault for not working hard enough. Or, if they’re not working hard enough, maybe they’re just not intelligent enough to move up the corporate ladder. Whatever it is, it’s their own fault. Right?

Incidentally, according to another study published by the “Washington Post” about a year ago, one in four Americans think that the main reason behind inequality is simply that poor people don’t work hard enough. (On the contrary, 63% of people in poverty eligible to work are already working. The other 37% would include the people who are still looking for a job.)

It’s easier for people, I think, when they think that someone’s fate must have fallen upon them because of something they did. Admitting to a systematic inequality pervasive in American society is tantamount to acknowledging that however hard you work, you might not get anywhere. Or that you might be ignored or overlooked despite your achievements or qualifications all because of your race. Or that, in the case of white people, even if your work isn’t as as good as your non-white peer’s, you might get something — a job, a promotion, a larger salary — that you didn’t earn, just because racial bias falls in your favor.
Still, the idea of being “colorblind” is like imitating the excellent and most wise sages, the ostriches, and burying our heads in the sand to ignore the problem. What a tried and true way of solving problems.

Ideally, the generation following the millennials (a.k.a. Generation Z, a.k.a. us) will be more conscientious than their parents, will educate themselves on important and relevant issues and will work to create a better society. However, with the way things are going, with Donald Trump declaring a plan to build a wall at the Mexican border and people still justifying the deaths of unarmed black people by saying “They did something wrong in the past!” or “They looked threatening to the officer!” my hopes are pretty much going down the drain.