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SLAMedia is a publication of the news for the Science Leadership Academy community. Writers come from the student body in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. We work in unison to create a functioning paper with biweekly postings on a variety of events.

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Jayla Wright

Movie Review: Glass

February 4, 2019 by Jayla Wright Leave a Comment

Eric Valenti

Staff Writer

On January 18, 2019, the sequel to M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 film “Unbreakable” and 2016’s film “Split” hit theaters. We have all been reunited with our hero in a green poncho, The Overseer (Bruce Willis), the brilliant mind Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) and the new powerhouse the Beast (James McAvoy).

If you haven’t seen “Unbreakable” or “Split” I highly recommend you view those prequels first. However, if you just want a quick refresher on both films: “Unbreakable” follows the story of David Dunn, a man who can’t feel pain, so he can go through things like a train crash and come out without a scratch. Dunn soon faces a new type of enemy: Mr. Glass. He has brittle bone disease, where the slightest touch could break him.  However, he possesses a powerful intelligence that puts Dunn into a series of puzzles and has him running around Philadelphia in a frenzy. In “Split,” three girls are kidnapped by a man with dissociative identity disorder (more commonly known as multi-personality disorder) and he begins to reveal a new violent personality, referred to as the Beast.

First up: We all know that M. Night Shyamalan’s films are notorious for being filmed in every corner of Philadelphia. This time the film is centered around South Philly where I have lived all my life. It is always a thrill to see things being filmed in my area. Once while walking home I actually witnessed a shot from the movie right before it was filmed! While watching “Glass” I kept thinking “Woah, that’s the way I walk to school!” and “There’s the Melrose diner in the background there. I used to eat there all the time.” Each recognized place was a jolt of lightning running through my body.

What struck me most about “Glass” was its new and incredible depiction of mental health. This doesn’t mean that overall it’s a good thing. The personalities living within James McAvoy’s Beast persona is an attempt to prove that people with mental disorders exist and that they’re spectacular. Unfortunately, the Beast’s only way of doing this way is through violence, more specifically eating people and crushing them with his bare hands.

David Dunn, or the Overseer, wants to show the world his abilities too, but in a peaceful way. He disagrees with the Beast and Mr. Glass’ ideologies. Rounding out the cast is Sarah Paulson, who plays Ellie Staple, the doctor assigned to examine these fascinating minds. She begins to decipher these inconceivable beings and their powers.

The relationship between the three main characters is something like a comic book. Observing the Beast and the Overseer is similar to watching Batman and Superman. You support them both when you watch them fight, even though their beliefs about how to protect the world are completely different: one who wishes to remain a mystery and the other who wants to be shown in order to be understood and respected.

Mr. Glass is the mastermind or the guy in control of everything even though we don’t know it. Each of the three main characters has a different companion as well, to demonstrate a different relationship for their character. It’s a way for Shyamalan to show the heroes’ alter ego. David Dunn and his son, Mr. Glass and his mother, The Beast, and his best friend. It’s easy to connect to these relationships in particular because the actors did a great job of illustrating the language in a way that feels both natural and real.

Samuel L. Jackson especially stood out in this film because of the delivery of his lines. The scene where he speaks to one of the personalities within the Beast is enchanting. One of the personalities is a nine-year-old boy and Jackson is able to say his lines in a way that sounds like he’s talking to a little boy and telling him that he truly is a hero, even compared to the raw power of the beast.

I wasn’t familiar with McAvoy at all and never saw a film with him in it besides “Split.” His performance of all 24 personalities is too real. It truly feels as though there are 24 different people in one room, each with their own quirks and ways of dressing. This is also credited to Shaymalan’s directing and writing.

Shyamalan’s films are notorious for having twists and getting extremely low ratings because of it. But I believe the issues are rooted somewhere else. It’s the audience that he’s trying to reach. He’s trying to tell a story of mental health patients who believe they are superheroes. So he’s trying to reach the mental health community. A community that is represented in two ways in media. Unpredictable and violent. I believe Shyamalan is not trying to break this stereotype but trying to add a new perspective for people to look at those with mental health issues. I believe that a lot of his movies just try to add new perspectives to different issues rather than trying to add a solution.

Though it wasn’t a solution and even added to the stereotype that people with mental health are violent I believe that it empowered these neglected minds. Shyamalan takes ordinary Philadelphia, a place with huge neglect on the mental health community and tries to make Philadelphians and all that see this film understand that we should try to look at this community not as outcasts but as people with abilities we just struggle to understand. For a lack of a better word, they’re superheroes.

Filed Under: A&E

SLA Students Off the Grid

January 17, 2019 by Jayla Wright Leave a Comment

Jayla Wright

Copy Editor

Photo Courtesy of Jayla Wright

With social media so prevalent in our lives, it’s hard for a typical high schooler going throughout our day without it. We can’t even remember a time without Snapchat or Instagram.

In 2018, adults have spent around 10 to 11 hours a day looking at their screen. Teenagers spend around 9. However, there are some teenagers who buck the trend prefer to stay off social media.

Sophomore Jon Rodebaugh and Junior Emmet Tsai-McCarthy are two such students —  a couple of the seemingly few people completely absent from social media. Neither of them has anything against it. They simply consider social media engagement as unnecessary for their lives.

Living separately from social media can cause cultural norms to clash with social media frequenters. Everyday actions such as mindlessly scrolling through apps such as Instagram or Twitter, can have an unintended impact on the interactions happening in real life.

“Sometimes when I’m trying to have a conversation, they’re just flipping through their phones looking through social media” stated Rodebaugh. “it feels like I’m being ignored.”

Rodebaugh continued, “I feel like if you’re with a group of people you shouldn’t have your phone out unless you’re showing someone or it comes up in conversation.”

This splitting of attention between technology and our companions has gradually become the norm, but Rodebaugh sees an impact.

“I feel like our relationship building and our communication as people has been struggling because of social media,” Rodebaugh explained “Because we have social media I feel like we get the mindset that we don’t need to communicate with people.”

Tsai-McCarthy has a different idea on social media’s effect on people.,

“I don’t think it’s something that people should really worry about too much. I just don’t think it’s a huge issue,” he explained. “it’s not as big as like ‘oh it’s turning all of our next generations into mindless beings.’ I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“People like to say it’s making us more antisocial though I’ve seen quite the opposite because of social media, they have connected more,” he explained. “And yeah, people can get antisocial and again, it just depends on the person. There also benefits to social media.”

There’s a ton of debate on whether social media is harmful or good, however, most would agree we would benefit from checking our screen time and behavior online.

Filed Under: News

My Declassified Wisdom Teeth Removal Guide

January 15, 2019 by Jayla Wright Leave a Comment

Eric Valenti 

A&E Editor

On January 4, at 9 am sharp I had four teeth brutally ripped from my face.

Okay, It sounds harsher then what happened. But if you ’re planning to get your wisdom teeth out soon, might I recommend a few things?

Delete Instagram and Snapchat

Yes I know, I can’t go a day without at least swiping through Instagram at least once either but trust me on this one. If you enjoy making posts and even recording the occasional live video, this is a danger zone. Not even after fifteen minutes of getting my teeth removed, I was brought to the CVS parking lot where my Dad picked up my medication and left me alone in the car. Big mistake. I filmed a ten-minute live video which consisted of me trying to read comments and explain what it felt like to get my wisdom teeth removed. I was drooling and laughing,  too high to realize where I even was. I was forced to remember, though, when I read the comments from my friends later: “How ya doin buddy? and “Are you a little high?”

Pain and Medication

Moving on. A big warning: the pain is unbearable for the first forty-eight hours. When I originally got home I was mostly numb and talking about a bunch of crazy stuff because of the drugs they administered during the surgery. But when I was done resting and forcing myself to eat mashed potatoes and other flavorless mushy foods, I began to feel a small pain on both sides of my face. I knew that the pain was inevitable but I wasn’t expecting to feel like two drills were digging their way through my tooth scars. What I’m trying to say is, make sure you get your medication as soon as you can — and get ready to scream from the pain anyway.

Get your food together and get used to eating mush

For the first days after the surgery, my food options were limited. You can’t chew anything or suck on any straws. Chewing can open your stitches and so can sucking. My food for the first five days consisted of mashed potatoes, smoothies, lentil soup, smaller sized pasta, and rice. Get used to never really feeling like your filled and wanting so many other things to eat besides what’s in front of you.  Now that I’m healed, I never realized how much I missed seasoning and being able to chew my food. One thing that was fun to eat, though, was ice cream. Whenever I wanted just a bit of flavor, I would grab my phone and ten dollars from my Christmas money, order a pint of cookie dough from Grubhub, more specifically the restaurant Millie’s, answer the door in boxers and with blood in my mouth (no judgements when your dying) and just enjoy what I could.

Let yourself rest and don’t worry about what you can’t do

At the time of my surgery, I still had projects and other miscellaneous homework. I tried to push myself to get my work done and inevitably failed because of how horrible the pain was. So this advice is a little bit shorter but all I have to say is: just let yourself rest. It ’s hard to restrain yourself and letting yourself fail but you have to do it. If you push yourself too much after critical surgery you could be in bed way longer than you want to be. I tried to get my work done as well as trying to talk to my family… and I ended up making my mouth bleed two hours longer than it’s supposed to.

Get used to your new temporary lumps and bruises

By day three of my recovery, I was finally lucid and had enough strength to leave the house. I hadn’t even looked in the mirror for those two days but all I expected was a bruise or two. WRONG!!! It looked like I had two watermelons in my mouth, that’s how swelled up I was. These lumps were complimented by two huge yellow bruises on my cheeks and the lack of sunlight from those two days made me look like some sort of chubby yellow ghost. Only suggestion for this is trying to sleep with an ice pack on your face and pray that your lumps go away. Luckily, I only had to go to school for one day with my new lumps and was able to hide it by sitting with my hand on my face so no one noticed, by which I mean everyone noticed.

Cleaning Mouth Routine

My final piece of preparation advice is the cleanest piece of advice. When brushing your teeth, go extremely slow when close to your wisdom teeth holes. If you brush too hard you could make them bleed. So be careful. Your new friend is known as salt water rinse. Step one get a teaspoon of salt. Step two, get a cup of water. Step three, combine the two together in the cup. Finally, drink up and swish the water around your mouth and spit. Voilá, your mouth is pure. Enjoy doing this after every meal for one month!

It’s been ten days since my wisdom teeth were removed, and I actually feel pretty great. It honestly does feel like some sort of weight was removed from my gums or something. I’m back to eating normal food and back to my weird awkward self.  When it’s your turn, just follow this guide and things should be fine. Remember: Take your meds, clean your mouth properly enjoy the mushy food and for heaven’s sake don’t film an Instagram live video. You’ll regret it!

Filed Under: Op/Ed

The College Fair Experience

January 11, 2019 by Jayla Wright Leave a Comment

Brendan Hall

Staff Writer

Throughout the United States, there are over 2,000 accredited four-year universities. Understandably, high school students have difficulty narrowing down their selection due to an abundance of choices being thrown at them. While taking a tour of the campus is ideal, applicants may not have the ability to travel the distance due to it being out of state, or too expensive.

A solution to this problem has been college fairs. In college fairs, representatives of universities meet with interested students. Students would typically have a chance to be accepted on the spot, or without a fee. There is also an opportunity for personal questions to be asked and answered directly at these fairs. Despite these benefits, SLA’s center city campus does not have its own college fair as opposed to other schools, including SLA Beeber.

“I think access to more colleges would be really good for students, especially ones who don’t pay attention to alerts from Mrs. Hirschfield, or who aren’t very proactive on the college process…” Senior Avi Cantor stated on college fairs.

While there is not a college fair that takes place at SLA there is another opportunity to assist students in the college search.

“I really work hard on inviting college recruiters to come meet with students… The other thing with fairs while I think it could be valuable…it could also be very limiting… depending on the school they might have a bunch of students standing around…although I think it’s good to expose kids to new schools of interest the one on one interactions” SLA college counselor Mrs. Hirschfield explained in response to why the center city campus does not have a college fair.  

While personal meetings can be an important experience some students still desired the opportunity for a fair.

“One on one meetings are definitely helpful, but having a college fair would allow you to expand your college search. And find out what you like and don’t like about a lot of schools at one time,” Cantor continued.

While SLA does not have its own college fair there are opportunities for SLA center city students to do fairs outside of the campus. There is one the junior class does each year with Masterman at their campus. There is also the opportunity for the college fair at the school district headquarters, where students throughout the city are free to participate in. Students of the senior class for 2018-2019 have been to these events.

“I was able to learn more about universities and the college process from attending the national college fair,” SLA senior Jakob Klemash-Kresge stated.

Generally, attending a college fair can only benefit a student pursuing a college education and provides a platform for those who need to be informed about college.

Filed Under: Features

SLA’s Breakup with TFI

January 7, 2019 by Jayla Wright Leave a Comment

Photo taken by Amelia Benamara

As of the 2018-2019 school year, SLA has made a major shift in its freshman programming and its relationship with The Franklin Institute.

 

When SLA first opened in 2006, the museum was a major partner of the school — as indicated by the prominent sign expressing their partnership with the Franklin Institute.

 

Before the school opened, Principal Chris Lehmann worked closely with the Franklin’s staff and board to be able to live out the vision he had for the school.

 

“In the planning year of the school, my office was actually in the Franklin Institute,” he explained.

 

For the past ten years, Freshman attended STEM-related mini-courses at the Franklin Institute on Wednesday afternoons. The goal was for incoming students to have an experiential learning process when transitioning into a high school setting.

 

“We wanted to give the freshman hands-on learning experiences outside of the school environment, and being able to use the Franklin as our partners was a great opportunity to do so because they had so many valuable resources at their fingertips,” Counselor Zoe Siswick explained.

 

However, in the past few years, the financial situation of the museum changed. The Franklin Institute went through a new strategic plan in the year 2016 with the new CEO, Larry Dubinski, changing their focus on youth programming including where SLA fits into the plans. One result of these changes is that the Franklin decided to end the Wednesdays at the Franklin program.

 

“SLA was no longer a priority to spend the amount of money the partnership cost them,” Siswick continued.

 

There became new priorities on the part of both organizations.

 

2018 marks the first year that SLA does not continue with the mini-courses that are usually organized at the Institute. Instead, newly designed mini-courses are located in the SLA building, a setup pioneered by SLA Beeber.

 

“What this allowed us to do was take a much more active role in the programming the mini-courses for the [current] freshman class,” Lehmann stated.

 

“The feedback we are getting from the freshmen is that the excitement about them is still very high even months into the school year.”

 

“I like having it at SLA because I don’t have to go anywhere and because there are many options for mini-courses,” said Freshman Rebecca Cassel-Siskind, who is currently enrolled in the debate mini-course. Other courses include African Culture, Mental Health Issues, and Philosophy.

 

The mini-courses held at the Franklin had a mix of opinions when it came to student feedback. The end of that program gave SLA staff, including Jeremy Spry, the opportunity to get involved with the students more based on their feedback and design plans around their interests more tightly. On top of that, it is much more convenient for students to access having them take place in the same building.

 

“Some kids really loved it, others didn’t, and that is one of the issues with the amount of energy the Institute put into making them happen for so many years,” Lehmann continued. “Some pieces were successful, whereas others weren’t as successful as we liked.”

 

Some upperclassmen were clear that they consider the new mini-courses an upgrade.

 

“I didn’t like it at all, I thought that the TFI mini-courses could have been a lot more engaging and it was just something I just did for the grade, not because I was looking forward to it,” Senior Alexandria Rivera said. , “When Sophomore year hit, my classmates and I were so relieved that it was over.”

 

Using the feedback from past projects, the new mini-courses are designed so that the teachers worry less about content and more about their ability by managing the program, to help the instructors design something aligned with the SLA plan.

 

The partnership with The Franklin Institute is still continuing in other ways.  

 

Student memberships are still valid, there are opportunities for SLA to take part in the Franklin’s Award Week events, and the programming for students through STEM Scholars is still available.

Filed Under: News

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