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Column: Tamir Rice

April 18, 2017 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Tamir Harper

Staff Writer

I hear it, see it and feel it as I run my hand across the piece of paper. I question do I correct you or allow your ignorance to continue. But when I allow your ignorance to continue I beat myself up inside because of a message I attempt to deliver and cringe every time you say it. But when I do correct you and inform you I get excited because I have educated you about a young man that was shot killed for no reason.

If you haven’t already figured it out, my name is Tamir Harper, but I like to say Tamir D. Harper so that those that are ignorant are reminded of the fact that my name isn’t Tamir Rice.

For those of you who have forgotten, Tamir Rice was killed by Chicago police three years ago when he was armed with an Airsoft Gun and the 911 Dispatcher failed to relay clear information to the Police Officer.

For people like me, the confusion is funny because I am not the only Tamir in my world, although I might be the only one in yours. In my few years of being in school, I have had over 8 schoolmates with the same name with varied spellings. Between all of us, we all were different. Each of us had different traits, from being loud to very quiet or tall to short. The Tamirs were on different tracks, but I do not believe any of us were on track to being shot and killed by a Police Officer.

But something I don’t express is how privileged it is to be named Tamir, and to be confused with the person whose life was unjustly taken. I get to uphold the legacy of a brilliant young man. Every white man that call me Mr. Rice cringe ten times harder because I correct him. I correct him, but tell him how privileged I am. When adults read my resume and then say “please welcome Mr. Rice,” I walk up to them and say “thank you.” I’m privileged because every time you hear the name Tamir Rice you hear about the things he could have done if his life wasn’t taken.

So let me drop some knowledge for those that don’t understand what I’m saying. It’s like having a powerful name like Queen Bey. My nickname used to be Mirmir, but now it’s Tamir Rice. The name that some just say or even write on tickets for events. The name Tamir must now be held to a higher standard. All of the Tamir’s in the world must walk with their heads high and push through the barriers we encounter. We are carrying the name and the reputation of Tamir Rice with us.

Underground Rappers at SLA

April 6, 2017 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Deja Harrison

Staff Writer

Mixtapes and Eps seem to be a huge thing at SLA recently. Whether it’s a serious album or one just for laughs is seems as though we all take some form of interest in hearing them or talking about them when they involve people from the school. I decided it was time to talk to these artist and get a better idea of their music and what it´s all about.

¨ It just comes to me, i blirt off of what comes to my head ,¨ is what Junior Opoku Kwatang had to say about his mixtapes. He started rapping in the 6th grade as a form of self expression.

¨ I started making beats just beats and I realized I was really good so I started to write rhymes to go with them. It started working really well so then I started doing it as a pastime.¨

He believes that his songs are very deep and from a place in his heart. Much like another fellow Junior Mehki Friend who describes his song as ¨wise, playful and memorable¨.

¨ I just want people to relate to my raps. I rap about my life and the things I´ve seen in the world.¨

Mehki likes to listen to beats and write during most of his free time. He sees a future in rap for himself but that it not his main goal from it.

¨ Right now it´s just for fun, but if it happens in the future it happens¨.

Ahmed Ahmed is sophomore and relatively new to the rap game.

¨ I just started last year but I already like the feeling I get from it. ¨

Ahmed uses rap to get his emotions and feelings out without actually having to say them outloud. He

Describes the music as his escape from the real world. He believes it’s the perfect way for him to express himself.

Mehki, Opoku and Ahmed are just two of the many underground rappers at SLA. Other rappers in the school include Husian Kegler, Ijustice Avery, Imani Williams, Christian McCormac, Luke Risher etc. Everyone seems agrees that the music is for fun and a nice way to express themselves. Rap for them is a form of self expression. With all the talents in the school is there room for a possible collaboration between all the rappers? How epic would that be?

SLA Teachers Participate in “Day Without a Woman” Protests

April 4, 2017 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

by Maddi Extebeste

Staff Writer

On January 21st, 2017 the “Women’s March” took place in Washington D.C. After the success of this event, the same organizers coordinated the “A Day Without a Woman” event in Philadelphia, which would take place on March 8th 2017, for the same purposes as the previous event: promoting solidarity and liberty. As Technology and Art teacher Marcie Hull said “this events represents human rights from birth, that everyone is born free.”

On the day of the event, the female teachers first met outside of school and stood in front of the main door holding a banner which manifested their support of human rights (especially women’s rights) and solidarity.After the school day started, female teachers went to to English and Creative Writing teacher Amal Giknis’ house, to do research and talk about the points there were presenting at their meeting at City Hall in the afternoon.

Once at City Hall, they met politicians who worked there, and had meetings with the city council to ask more fundings and present the points they wanted to talk about. Each teacher went with the person who represented their neighborhood.

Government and administration

The event was partially in response to an expected decrease in federal education funding, which will negatively affected schools in Philadelphia, especially for the children who don’t have many economic resources

As Senior Fatu Castillo stated, “it’s something has been taken to the people who needs it the most.”

The new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, doesn’t really believe in public schools, and sees them as a waste of money. The policy is that schools should have a certain percentage of progress to keep working, and for example public schools which not meet those expectations could be shut down, or turned into a private or charter school.

Ms. Hull explained: “What if the school can’t progress much more because it has already very good results? This law would be a rule against success.”

She also explained that education could be the “easy-target” for the government because 75% of the teachers are actually women, and that America society doesn’t value women’s jobs as much as they do male’s jobs; Hull added “the government has a too patriarchal reasoning yet; the society wants to continue what Obama and others pioneered, but they don’t let it progress.”

English and Journalism teacher Larissa Pahomov explained “the biggest factor is money, but the government should provide equal funding to all the different departments like law enforcement and the streets’ departments.”

For example, teachers’ salary hasn’t increased in four years. Before these economic “cuts” in education in 2012, SLA had almost twice as many Spanish teachers and a librarian. The lack of languages teachers is one of the reasons why Rosetta Stone program was introduced.

In the summer 2012, all secretaries and counselors at SLA were fired, like 4,000 more people working for the SDP, and didn’t know if they were going to get their jobs back the next school year.

Possible Consequences

These events sometimes have consequences for the people who protest. On “A Day Without An Immigrant” some demonstrators got fired., At SLA, male teachers volunteered to cover their peers’ absence. They got to the building early but t they stayed inside when classes began. The female teachers appreciated this effort on the part of their colleagues.

“I’m lucky for being in this community and in this union which believes in women’s liberation,” said Ms. Hull.

They finally didn’t invite students to join them in their march to the City Hall because one of the purposes was to make students “have a normal day at school,” Hull said.

Moreover, the teachers who went to protest took a personal day, and as the School District of Philadelphia said, “teachers can take personal days for self expression”.

SLA Runners Talk About Their Coaches and Goals

March 31, 2017 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Aaron Watson-Sharer

Editor

At Science Leadership Academy, running is especially popular. With three growing programs which gain many athletes it isn’t a surprise they’re always competing across Philadelphia.

In the Spring, the school has Track and Field. The team is more speed and strength based than Cross Country or the Students Run Philly Style Club, which focus on longer distance running. The races are long, but still much shorter than your stark 5K in cross country.

What are some of the other differences between the groups? Senior runner Jared Bauer has been running for both Track and Cross Country since his freshman year. Senior runner Ella Petersen has been on both teams since sophomore year, when she transferred from Central High School.

The team’s approach to both training and competition is very different. In cross country, they practice for timing their 5K’s and “train on half mile intervals. In track we do a lot more short work, which is a lot of modified 800’s (meters) in track.”

One contains more sprints and the other is more distance. Bauer’s favorite race is the 1600 meter race. The drills really do cater more to a sprint speed than cross country, even if you run the two miler like Petersen.

“I like it because the two mile is too long and eight laps gets boring running in circles and I’m still pretty good at the 16 because it’s still a distance race and I can go at a nice speed for the last couple of laps.” Said Bauer. Petersen disagrees as her go to is longer distance with the two mile run.

The head coach of SLA track isn’t an SLA teacher. Mr. Johnson, parent of Junior Malachi Johnson, used to coach for Temple University’s track team. The team loves having a coach with such experience and expertise. “He really knows what he’s doing and he’s the one who really designs our workouts,” Bauer explained.” Petersen said “He really knows the drills that’ll make you a better runner.”

Another helpful addition to the team has been History Teacher Dan Symonds and Student Teacher John Taylor-Baranick, who have been helping out as informal assistant coaches. Mr. Symonds and Mr. TB often work with distance runners opposed to Mr. Johnson who works with the sprinters.

“I really like Symonds, I get a history lesson every time we go on a long run and I really like getting to learn something.” They both appear to be very talented runners, as Jared suggests Mr. TB can a mile in we’ll under five minutes. Both runners agree that Mr. TB and Mr. Symonds are very encouraging and really believe in their players.

In fact, Mr. TB is a student teacher from Penn, who is preparing to become an English teacher on his own. In fact, as a student teacher, he volunteers as a coach for SLA’s running teams. I was curious why he volunteers his time and he only said “it’s really fun, I love running and going outside. I really like the team.”

I asked Jared Bauer as a senior what his goals are for his last high school sports season.

“I just want to run a 1600 meter race in under five minutes,” he said. “ If I can make states that’d be really cool but it’ll be harder to do. Petersen has a different goal. Hers is to “create a
better team bond.”

Their first track meet was postponed and they will have their first track meet Thursday April 6th.

Morning Gymnastics: What I Do In Order To Be On Time

March 31, 2017 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Aaron Watson-Sharer

Editor

The phrase is “If you’re on time, you’re late, and if you’re late, you’re fired.” Well at SLA, we have four latenesses equals one detention instead. Surprisingly, I’ve never had to attend a detention at SLA. 8:15 A.M. has become a staple in my head over the years; just get here by that time and the phone call home won’t come so I won’t get aired out by my mom. That’s my only objective when I my alarm goes off at 6:55 A.M.

I wake up and take a 25 minute shower that feels like only seven minutes. It’s now 7:20 A.M. I’ve got 22 minutes to get out the house or I’m late. SLA is unique in Philadelphia as we have no uniform, which I love. The next challenge is to make an outfit on the spot. Most of the time it’s just a hoodie with some pants or basketball shorts and a pair of Nike sneakers but even that takes a good five minutes to put together (often because my clothing smells like it hasn’t been washed or has some random stain). Now it’s time to give myself a quick once-over to make sure nothing is off with my face. Ears are there? Check. Eyebrows? Check. Bags in my eyes from exhaustion? Check. My hair is pretty used to it’s look so I push it back twice and to my right three times. My appearance suggests I’m ready for school. It’s now 7:28 A.M. I have 14 minutes to leave the house.

Here’s when my mother sends me a text reminding me to go to school. It’s not unusual so I shrug it off. It’s 7:30 now and I go to wake up Luke. Luke has a hard time getting up some mornings. You have to scare him to get him up. He gets woken up at 7 A.M. but always goes back to sleep.

“Luke it’s 7:35!” “Get Up!”

“Oh {expletive}”

This is when I proceed to go pack a lunch and Luke turns into Usain Bolt. I pack the usual. The peanut butter and jelly, the protein bars, pretzels, yogurt and probably leftovers from previous nights. I tend to need 3000 calories to stay among the living. I have this packed and then pack my baseball bag. For a practice, that means just a glove and cleats because I don’t feel like having a change of clothes. It’s now 7:40 A.M. I’ve got two minutes.

These two minutes go about 50 times faster than a math class. Oddly enough, in just five minutes, Luke’s left the house. The competitor in me kicks in and I bolt out the house and walk to the trolley stop.

Like usual I’m two minutes late to my stop, which still gives me a solid chance of being on time. I know 7:53 A.M. is the magic time where the only way I am on time is if SEPTA conductor code name “Jerry Rice” is driving. The driver gets his name because of his surprising resemblance to former football player Jerry Rice. He’s very fast and hasn’t let me down before.

If everything goes as expected I get on the trolley at 7:50 A.M. I’ve got 25 minutes. Before my senior year, there was always one person who I knew if they were on my trolley I was late. That was Micah Henry. He accumulated almost 200 lateness’s (if not more) in his SLA tenure and the sight of him on the trolley was equally exciting as it was frightening. I didn’t want to be like Micah, my Saturday mornings weren’t meant to be spent in our cafeteria.

The trolley lands between 8:06 to 8:14 P.M. If it’s before 8:12 A.M., Benjamin Simon, who also rides the trolley, classifies the extra minutes as “leisure time.” When there’s leisure time no matter how short, I get a good conversation in with Benjamin before school. When it’s too late to enjoy that leisure time, I speed walk to school. I see other kids run and even though I could be late, it gives me a good chuckle. I never run to school unless I have three lateness’s from that month. If it’s 8:15 A.M., I celebrate the on time and get ready for class even though I’m late to that.

SLA has provided me with a glimpse of how I’m going to function everyday in college and has brought understanding to how I’m geared from the moment I wake up. That start time 8:15 A.M. isn’t a when school starts. It’s a countdown. My weekdays are geared to successfully reach school before this time, which I failed to do yesterday, when I acquired a 14th lateness.