Op/Ed

Opinion: Why Culture Day Matters

June 5, 2023 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Nora Garg

Guest Writer

SLA just recently started planning for its first-ever Culture Day hosted by the Students Of Color Association, which was founded this school year. To provide context, it was declared much needed by students of color at our school, who were surprised that the only Culture Day we had was a diluted part of Spirit Week. Even though it’s understandable that due to all that’s happened in the past few years, our school wouldn’t have time to organize an event like this, consensus says it’s definitely been long due!

The process started with a proposal crafted for Mr.Lehmann by the students in SOCA (Students Of Color Association). In this proposal, we included why our school must have a Culture Day. It would give opportunities for minorities to interact with each other in a school that lacks immigrant culture, and reserve a day for us to stand with each other. So often, all talk associated with minorities is negative, but we need space to show off our cultures and heritage that run so deep in our roots. We would learn more about the cultures of our student body, as well as help students of color to accept and engage more in their identities as well as connect more to them.

When the email was first crafted, Culture Day only included a food market and students coming to school in cultural clothing, but soon it turned into so much more. After getting Ms.Ustaris involved, we’ve obtained workshops; lessons; and a whole school day dedicated to Culture Day. This is a huge step in offering all the students at our school more insight into different cultures and introducing them to new food and music.

As this process has played out, it’s already helped to build a sense of community and help students find their crowds. More and more students show up at the weekly SOCA meetings, and the date even had to be moved because seniors wanted to take part. Every meeting, I’m seeing more and more students bond over things they usually don’t talk about during their school days, and I’ve seen students who tend to be shy participate more confidently in discussions and really take the lead in planning and organizing.

The SOCA is thrilled that we have a whole day devoted to appreciating different cultures and making space for them in our school, and I feel such a sense of gratitude knowing this would help teachers to be diverse educators and understand their students better. Additionally, all the proceeds would go back into SOCA to fund teach-ins, trips, and more opportunities for students at our school to expand their horizons.

Am I a Phone Addict?

May 27, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock

Student Writer

Am I addicted to the games on my phone?

With almost every teen, you can take a glance at their phone and see that they have social media. One major thing when people talk about teens and their phones is their addiction to social media. But what about their addiction to phone games? What games are they even playing? Which is worse: playing games or scrolling through Instagram? There are many assumptions when it comes to phone games.

In my personal experience, I have never stuck with a game for too long. Every month or so, I would switch games. First it was Subway Surfers, then Sudoku, then the Smurfs, then My Mini Mart, then Wordle.

With most games, I would obsess over them for a while and then eventually get bored of them. One of those games was Candy Crush. In September, I was obsessed with the game for a few weeks, then I eventually burned out of it. In all of my free time, all I wanted to do was play Candy Crush. I would close my eyes and envision swiping candy.

But recently, however, I have gotten back into the game again. One reason that this game really works is how social it can be. When you have friends on the app, you can share lives, compete on levels, and work together to win rewards. Sometimes, I’ll get a text from a friend needing a life, and once I send it, I’m wound up in the app again.

I feel like a lot of teens are addicted to their phones, but I think that being addicted to a game like Candy Crush is better than being addicted to social media. For example, when I’m deeply in a Candy Crush wormhole, I’m not sucked into social media. With social media, you never leave an app feeling satisfied. Social media feels much more negative for me. But with phone games, the worst you could do is waste money. If there are two options for wasting time, I would go with the games. While they aren’t quite productive, they are entertaining and have less negative effects.

Though Candy Crush is my favorite game, the options vary. Looking at the App Store charts, the #1 most grossing app game of all time is Candy Crush. The list follows with Roblox, Royal Match, Clash of Clans, and Coin Master. Other games such as Pokemon Go and Homescapes are also on the list. I think that most of these games are not super popular among me and my friends.

So am I an addict? I think so. But is it that bad? I don’t believe so. I think that there are many worse things that could be consuming my time. While games aren’t the most productive thing, they entertain me and are better than many other things, and I think that’s enough.

Column: Do Clothes Affect How Someone Is Treated?

May 27, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Leticia Desouza

Staff Writer

SLA is one of many Philadelphia high schools who doesn’t have a uniform for their students. Though having the ability to wear any type of outfits can be a good opportunity for students to fully express themselves, how others react to our clothes can be quite uncomfortable and even traumatic.

During this current academic year of 2021-2022, students have been back in person where they share the building with Ben Franklin High School. A staircase is shared by both schools, and Throughout the year, many students from the SLA side have been harassed while using the staircase. Some students have reported they’ve been catcalled, others reported that they were verbally assaulted, and others have reported being touched inappropriately or even followed out of the stairwell and into the halls — cornered, blocked, and even grabbed.

I don’t have comprehensive evidence about what the girls were wearing when they were harassed — but based on my conversations, there does seem to be a pattern of girls getting harassed when they are wearing more revealing clothes. However, I do personally have experience with how your clothes can impact how you are treated. There were a couple of times where the weather was warm so I chose to wear something more revealing to keep my cool during the school day, but when I went to use the shared stairwells, I got unwanted attention that felt uncomfortable. Weird looks and stares make up most of my experience. There weren’t any verbal harassing comments, just weird stares that often felt uncomfortable. I noticed that this only happens when I wear something more revealing than usual. When I dress more down and casual, I don’t get the unwanted attention.

Many girls at SLA also speculate that the reason why these events happen is due to what people are wearing, but in my eyes, I find this claim places the blame on the wrong party. As a very diverse society, people have different views and likes when it comes to how they like to express themselves with clothes. Some people enjoy dressing more formally, while others enjoy dressing more casually. Some like showing more skin while others don’t. This preference is up to the person who is going to wear it. In my eyes, this shows that the current harassment can happen to anyone no matter what they wear.

There is no problem with a specific style of dress. Someone’s preference of clothing shouldn’t affect how they are treated by individuals around them. If one is comfortable in their skin with what they are wearing, it shouldn’t be a problem as they are dressing the way they want for themselves.

The problem isn’t the clothes, but the people who judge others because of what they are wearing. In today’s time, we often see people who think it is necessary to make comments about what others are wearing. This is often present in social media like tiktok, instagram, snapchat, and many other big platforms that allow users to comment. It is clear that people are often treated differently or judged by what they are wearing which can often cause dangerous and uncomfortable situations.

Many have reported these instances to school staff but most cases go unheard of. Throughout this academic year, students have been constantly experiencing the harassment that comes with the outfit they chose to wear. To make students more comfortable, school staff should become more aware of these situations and take steps to reach a goal that will decrease the numbers of harassment. As of recently, nothing has been done to stop these harassments. If they continue throughout the next academic year and are more heavy, parents might have to step in to make sure their children are safe. Staff should also educate those who are the ones who are harassing as no one should be mistreated just because of what they are wearing.

Life After Being Separated From My Dad

May 27, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Staff Writer Dinah Soloway

During the 2020-2021 School year my dad had a severe case of COVID-19. It started in November of 2020, and he spent over 3 months in the hospital, finally being released in February 2021.

To this day we do not know the real reason he got COVID. I also later caught COVID myself, with all my family having to take on the challenge of self-isolating from each other and the outside world in our apartment.

After just about two weeks of first contracting COVID, my dad was rushed to the ER at PENN’s hospital by ambulance because he couldn’t breathe. To have my dad in the hospital in an induced coma with a breathing tube in, felt like the worst thing in the world.

But even when this was all happening, I still attended online school from my bed. Each morning I would get up, fix my hair and stay in my pajamas and realize that my parents weren’t there or healthy enough to go to work while I had to stay at home in school.

During the long weeks of online school and covid, I had my best friends to talk to both about my emotions and highlights of the day. My family was really lucky to have a nice support system of close friends who made food deliveries since we could not break quarantine. Including my bunch of family and friends, I could rely on my advisor Ms. Pahomov with her weekly check-ins during online school.

To make things even less fair, all my other family members who were already over 16 at the time could visit him in the hospital, but I could only use zoom to see my dad laying in his hospital bed.

When he did finally come home after hospitalization, He slept for almost another full day. Then began the long road to improvement. My dad had arranged physical therapy with a Penn doctor who would come to the apartment and work with him to do some stretching. Slowly he got better but there was one thing that never changed: his lungs will always have a harder time working smoothly. Simply put, he is not the same person he was.

My family made it through hell, and now I am back at school in 10th grade. Taking regularly timed classes with my friends trying to look at things with a more positive attitude than last year. There are times when I worry about my dad’s long-term health, but I try to ignore his health issues and just focus on the moment that shows he is taking care of himself after the event.

Even writing this column has been difficult. I’m not used to openly telling people what I have been through in my lifetime. When I tell people these things about me I want it to feel sincere and not intentional.

However, I can say writing this article feels like it gave me the extra push to put myself out there.

Harassment In and Out of The School Building

May 26, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Gabrielle Hart

Staff Writer

Since starting in person at SLA this year, my eyes have been opened to a new perspective on different aspects of the school community — But not in a completely good way.

My first year of highschool was virtual and there was little I could work with when imagining what my life would look like when we returned physically. However, that didn’t stop me from looking forward to meeting new people and understanding SLA as a whole. There are a lot of good things about this school — [list a few of them here] However,I also think some people here tend to use all of this goodness as a way to sweep the things that need to be improved, or at least openly discussed, under the rug.

One of these things is harassment, of multiple forms. I realize it’s not easy for the staff here to regulate issues amongst a school of 500 students, let alone two schools sharing one building. However, all instances of harassment issues need to be taken seriously. For example, There are many times where unwanted interactions in the shared stairwell or the first floor — unpleasant moments that I’ve since become immune to — have occurred not just with me, but with people, specifically girls, at this school.

I can recall a time where I was headed to the fifth floor girls bathroom on SLA’s side when a student from Ben Franklin High school came over through the doors to shout and pound on the girl’s bathroom door for me to come out. I wouldn’t say this situation scared me or made me feel unsafe and this is only because things like this happen all the time. But this did leave me questioning why this is something that me and other people have to experience and have become so accustomed to.

Whether it be catcalling, following, touching, or shouting this kind of behavior would never allow anyone to feel comfortable in a school environment. But despite the fact that these instances of harassment have been brought to both school’s attention, almost nothing has been done to regulate it. It would be safe to say that there is a mutual agreement that nothing can be done so us students have to just deal with it like we have been.

And while the instances of stairwell harassment seem to mostly be between the two schools, SLA students also turn on each other. Online bullying in the form of ‘jokes’ is another issue that I’ve specifically noticed at SLA. It seems like students are completely unaware or disregard when the line is crossed. This is definitely not what I imagined would come from any student at SLA — but I also think it’s precisely that mindset that gives some students the space to get away with this bad behavior It’s been bad enough this year the health teacher had to have multiple classes teaching us how these actions do entirely much more harm than good.