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Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
May 31st, 2011By Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
Recently, the National Art Honors Society participated in a charitable organization called The Memory Project.
The Memory Project is an international program in which students from schools in the US, Canada, and England draw portraits of children who are underprivileged or living in unfortunate circumstances. The children WA drew pictures for were living in an orphanage in Indonesia.
The Memory Project is run by a man named Ben Schumaker. While on a trip to Guatemala, Schumaker met a man who had grown up in an orphanage. The man explained to Schumaker how he had nothing to remember his childhood by. This inspired Schumaker to start the Memory Project.
“I had always enjoyed doing portraits in high school, so I thought it could be pretty powerful to get art students involved in making portraits for the kids,” said Schumaker.
The WA students received pictures of kids from around the world who have been orphaned, neglected, or disadvantaged. Then they drew or painted the child’s portrait and sent it back to the child for them to keep. Many students from WA participated in the project this year.
The students who drew the portraits had to be at an advanced skill level. The AP students couldn’t do it since all their work was going to a portfolio. Two years ago, Pobuck had the honors kids do it, and this year the NAHS was a perfect fit. In total, the Memory Project has created more than 30,000 portraits from schools in the US, Canada, and England.
Pobuck first heard of the Memory Project from a CNN special she was watching four years ago. Immediately, she was inspired by the idea. Every year, the National Art Honors Society does something for charity, and this year it was the Memory Project.
Most of the disadvantaged children are left with almost nothing to call their own. This means not only do they have no possessions, most of the time they have no family.
“They are displaced either because of economic issues, war, or family hardships,” said Pobuck.
This highlights the meaning of the Memory Project. The self portrait may not seem like a big deal for children living in the US, since the average child has a fair amount of possessions. But to kids who have literally nothing, a portrait of themselves is a personalized memory that they will likely cherish forever.
Kids of all ages receive the portraits. Each child has their individual reaction. Teenagers are described as taking their portraits and opening them in private places. On the other hand, the younger kids are described as opening their portraits proudly and showing them off to everybody.
Usually the students get a thank you letter from the kids. But this year, Schumaker’s parents were in Indonesia and the students made a video. They were dancing, singing songs, and saying thank you.
“The children were so excited and appreciative. Especially this one little girl who was dancing,” said Pobuck.
“Now the whole thing keeps going thanks to teachers like Mrs. Pobuk who help their students participate. I’d like to thank her and the students at Westford Academy for having such a valuable hand in the effort,” said Schumaker.
For more information, visit www.TheMemoryProject.org
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Blood Wedding Stumbles Through Opening Weekend
May 5th, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
A man is soon to be married, and he is happy with his wife to be and convinced they are in love. What this man doesn’t foresee is the calamity that is destined to occur on his wedding day. This is the premise of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding.
Blood Wedding, starring Teresa Langford as La Novia, Will Clark as Leonardo, Chris Kandra as Le Novio lived up to the high standards of WATA performances.
WATA Blood Weddinig Poster
Blood Wedding is described as having a plot line similar to Romeo and Juliet, where there is a pair of lovers who shouldn’t be together. But it also has more of a mature mood with betrayal, violence, anger, and as the title suggests, bloodshed.
The costumes were all black on the bottom and white on the top. This black and white was the general theme of everything. During the second half, there was a slight adjustment in the wardrobe, with the addition of the color red. This combination had a great effect since it reinforced the mood. The red added more emphasis on the intensifying of the plot.
The play begins with dim lighting and a fast-beat Spanish guitar tune. The silhouettes of dancers appear and they start a dramatic dance. Their first number was one of the prettiest. Although, it is hard to say, since all of them were wonderful.
By far, the best element was the way the dance was incorporated in to the play. At times it was subtly and elegantly done, mirroring a scene that was simultaneously occurring. At others times it was edgy, prominent and suspenseful. It was worth watching solely for that.
The set was another interesting element. There were two slightly elevated checkerboard platforms on the front of the left and right sides of the stage. Each scene only took up half the stage, alternating between each panel. In the background, there was an elevated stone path with a wooden ramp down the center. The path was often used for events occurring or people standing in the background of the main scene. The ramp was where some of the most climactic scenes took place.
The performance had its kinks. During the first half there was a thumping noise that made it impossible to hear the dialogue. Multiple crew and cast members later revealed it to be a speaker malfunction from referred to as “Phantom Beats” since it began during last year’s production Phantom of the Opera.
According to a cast member, the actress playing La Vecina, or the neighbor, Jennifer Rigby, broke her toe during the Saturday night performance. She apparently injured herself walking off the ramp. But being the dedicated actress she was, she kept on going as if nothing happened. In fact, I didn’t even notice that anything was wrong.
Besides being hard to hear, some of the scenes were also hard to follow. That’s not entirely WATA’s fault, as the play is packed with complicated dialogue and symbolism, but perhaps some metaphors could have been portrayed better.
Also, at points the similarities in the structures of the scenes got monotonous and boring, relinquishing its hold on the audience’s attention.
When I went Saturday, the theater was almost empty. Its hard for the people involved in the play to be motivated when nobody shows up.
“We haven’t got the best showing. Hopefully we can publicize more and people will come next week,” said freshman Rachael Madhur who played one of Les Muchachas, or girls.
The upcoming shows are Friday, May 6 and Saturday, May 7 at 7:30. Tickets are $8 for students and $12 for adults.
Hanna: Adapt or Die
April 18th, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
Finland is in the Arctic Circle. It is a barren land covered with snow and trees. Life is scarce. Hanna, played by Saoirse Ronan, has lived her entire life in an isolated cottage in the Finnish wilderness.
Hanna’s father, played by Eric Bana, has kept her in the woods her entire life. She has only heard about things such as electricity and music from the encyclopedias. Erik Heller, her father, reads to her at night. He trained Hanna to be faster, stronger, deadlier, and always ready for an attack. She is taught to be fluent in every major language. In other words, he trained her to be an assassin.
Hanna and her father, Erik Heller
Ronan’s performance as Hanna is amazing. She plays the unknowing girl who isn’t used to human interaction. But she also plays the girl who was trained to be a killer. Her strong character is well portrayed. It is impressive how Ronan can play diverse roles. Ronan also portrayed Susie in The Lovely Bones, but in that movie she plays the victim.
The beginning of the movie was a glimpse of Hanna’s life in Finland. But it’s slow moving and the timeline is confusing. Only until Hanna says she’s ready and Erik goes out to dig up what will change her future, does the movie start to pick up pace.
The lapse of time still continues to be confusing for a little while, but soon the movie embarks on nonstop action and suspense since there was a constant threat looming over Hanna. Also,there is a lot of killing. Someone dies every ten minutes of the movie. So, this isn’t a movie for people who like happy endings or don’t like death or violence.
Hanna is rated PG-13 so none of the deaths are actually shown. The movie is violent, but not gory.
Throughout not only the action sequences, but the entire movie, the camera perspective is constantly changing. It’s not like most movies, where the camera is the same view, as if the audience is watching in front of the action. Hanna is seen from all sorts of perspectives; birds-eye view, a jumbled and confused camera work that adds to the chaos, and is sometimes within the center of the action.
The actual fight sequences themselves are well choreographed.
Hanna’s goal is to find Marissa Wiegler, played by Cate Blanchett and kill her. Marissa, a no-nonsense CIA leader, killed Hanna’s mom and Erik’s girlfriend and they want revenge.
Cate Blanchett is a successful actress who has been in many movies including the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and I’m not There. She does a wonderful job of portraying the villain, and she is also seen doing in the Narnia movies. The indifference with which she plays her character makes her truly hate-able.
Cate Blanchett as Marissa Wiegler
Despite being a serious action movie, the director, Joe Wright, does a wonderful job of incorporating humor. The dialogue of some of the more light hearted characters Hanna befriends on her journey, caused moments of laughter through the audience. All of this was done without disrupting the continuity of the plot.
The end of Hanna is not satisfying, but it’s not supposed to be. Most people won’t see any closure, but there is in the development of Hanna’s characters and secrets revealed about her.
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Stuggling to Stay Silent
April 15th, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
The most frequently asked question yesterday was “Are you being silent?” and for around 200 students, including me the answer was a nod.
I maintained my silence throughout the day, almost. Perhaps there was an accidental one word slip, or breaking to ask a teacher a question. But this was a difficult task.
My teachers were very supportive. Some of them asked students to raise their hands at the beginning of class in order to identify if they were being silent that day. Others just went with the flow and accepted silence as it came. Most of my teachers congratulated my peers and I on our efforts. The ones who were especially prepared had white boards and dry erase markers ready.
I started of with a small notebook so if I had a question I could write it down and pass it to a friend to ask for me. It was easier if we happened to be using laptops in class, or had class in a lab. That way I could type up anything I wanted to say. At times, though, I had to resort to miming out what I wanted to say. This technique didn’t work out well due to my poor miming skills.
Conversations while walking down the hallway, mostly consisted of a friend having a one sided conversation. They were surprisingly accepting of this role. Or, if I was with someone who was also doing the vow we would just walk side-by-side in silence.
“I was a little frustrated with Aditi because she never talked to me and I got bored. But I didn’t bother her too much about it because I know it was for a good cause,” said one of my friends, freshman Nicole Pristin.
“I remember us walking down the hallway, next to each other. But I felt like strangers,” said another friend who also took the vow, freshman Kelsey Anderson.
The hardest was during lunch. As soon as I walked into the lunchroom, I could hear the loud drum of chatter. After I found my friends and they started talking, I immediately began to feel the urge to join the conversation. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a pen and paper with me, so there was no way to communicate.
My first slip up occurred during a geometry quiz. I was so consumed with the quiz, that I didn’t even remember that it was the Day of Silence. I got up to ask my teacher a clarifying question. Only a while later did i realize I had broken the vow.
The second time was during world history. The teacher had asked a question and nobody else raised their hand. Being the eager class participant I am, my hand shot up and I talked while answering the question. Again, I only realized my mistake after it happened.
At the end of the day, I was restless from not having talked all day. As soon as the last bell rang, the first words out of my mouth were “Oh, thank god!”. After that I talked nonstop to makeup for all the conversation I had missed.
“My friends would be laughing but I couldn’t join in…I felt like I couldn’t express myself,” said Anderson.
Despite the fact that I did accidentally break my silence, I think I understand the concept of the Day of Silence. It was hard not being able to say what was on my mind, especially when I wanted to say it so badly. As a result of keeping silent, I also noticed that I felt withdrawn from the world, even as people tried to include me. As the day went on, I started to feel isolated even when I had someone talking to me, simply because I didn’t talk back. And this was just one school day.
“I talked to you the same amount I do everyday. I treated you the same, too,” said Pristin.
It is important that all people, not limited lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender and questionings students, don’t feel the need to be silent. Hopefully, yesterday demonstrated that WA is an accepting society and nobody needs to hold back their identity or be silent
Preparing for the Day of Silence
April 12th, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
During lunch today, many students visited the Gay Straight Alliance table for last minute sign ups for either participation or to pledge their support for the Day of Silence.
During the Day of Silence, students take a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-sexual comments, bullying and harassment. It is meant to show that Westford Academy’s community is welcoming and supportive of LGBTQ people.
“People learn how hard it is not to be yourself. Its a learning experience because gay people aren’t free to say what they want for their entire lives sometimes. For the students participating its just one day,” said Susan Beers, advisor of GSA, in support of remaining silent.
Though the nationwide Day of Silence is on Friday, April 15, WA students have decided to hold theirs tomorrow because of scheduling conflicts.
At the sign up table, you write your name and on the column next to it, you indicate whether you are going to be a participant or a supporter. Most people feel that they will not be able to resist talking to their friends all day, so they don’t sign up. But it is important to know that while you may not be able to participate, you can sign up to be a supporter. Supporters can talk, but they are also showing positive feelings about the cause.
In the third column, students write the actions that the will take for this cause. Participants have written things such as speaking up against harmful terms and LGBTQ related swears.
After signing up, students can write their names on a cloud that will later be cut out and posted on a bulletin board. There are also rainbow ribbons students pin onto their shirts during the day.
So far, there are around 163 people participating and 12 official supporters. But more people often join the day of, and not all the people wrote their name on the piece of paper who support the Day of Silence. This amount is more than 2010, but a lot less compared to 2009 and 2008.
“I think this was in response to the threat to stop the Day of Silence. The opposition made the students more eager to take a stand,” said Beers.
The students at the stand remarked that a lot more girls had signed up than boys, and the grade with the most sign-ups was the freshman class. Beers speculates this might be because girls are more socially aware and that many of the upperclassmen have done it in the past all ready.
Unfortunately, some people don’t participate in the Day of Silence because they believe in the cause, but because they see it as an opportunity to avoid participating in class.
“Most people think it’s slacking off when its for a serious cause,” said Kaylee Champa, a member of GSA.
If your silence is interfering with your school work, you are required to break it. For example, if you have a speaking exam in a Foreign Language class, you may not use the Day of Silence as an excuse to skip it. However, most teachers at WA are respectful of students’ decision to take the Vow of Silence.
After school, there is a Breaking Silence party, in which students can celebrate their accomplishment of remaining silent throughout the day. The day after that, Thursday April 14, is the Day of Action.
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Virtually Nobody at the Virtual High School
March 31st, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
Virtual High School is a program that is currently in obscurity, but one of the school’s goals for next year is to have more students involved in it.
In VHS, students log onto their accounts and experience online sessions of a class. They still are assigned homework and projects and have to take tests and quizzes. They can also communicate with their teacher, but only through email.
VHS can be found on the school website under the Program of Studies. It is an alternate method for students to attain credits or to try a class that they can’t in a live classroom in WA. VHS has a wide range of courses, of which at least fifteen aren’t offered at WA. For example you can learn Russian, American Popular Music, Application of Logic, among others.
VHS began from a government grant. It was the one of the first programs of its kind. At it beginning it was highly popular. The software the enable it to work was sophisticated and difficult to use for that time period.
There are two situations in which WA students choose to take a VHS class. Either the specific course they wish to take isn’t offered at WA or because the course that they wanted didn’t fit into their schedule.
“If VHS offers the course then the students can take it,” said coordinator of VHS Larry Guidetti.
Students can take a DLT and go up to the library and take their online sessions right in school. Or, as some students opt to do, they can take the classes independently at home.
There aren’t a lot of students who are taking VHS courses. The problem is that most students don’t know about them and that WA has a large enough selection of courses as it is.
“I don’t know what that is,” said freshman Braley Degenhardt, when asked about VHS.
Though it doesn’t cost the students any money to take these courses, it does cost the town. The town pays for 10 spots each semester.
“For the past few years it has been under-inscribed,” said Guidetti.
Last semester, there were originally five students signed up for VHS. But three of them dropped out. Right now during the second semester there are six people taking one.
“Students drop out for two reasons. Either it isn’t what they thought it would be, or it’s too much work,” said Guidetti.
Due to the lack of participants in VHS, the school board is skeptical of whether or not it will continue to have VHS next year. This detail will be finalized at an upcoming board meeting. It will depend on the budget the superintendent chooses.
“As of now, we will be having VHS next year,” said Guidetti.
So far counselors have been privately recommending these courses to students. In the future the school plans on getting the message out to everyone via the morning announcements or mentioning it when an entire class is together in the PAC. The plan is to talk to the incoming freshmen next fall when it’s time to sign up for courses.
“I think its unfortunate that the schools hasn’t been advertising this as much. If kids new this was out there they would be interested,” said curriculum head of the English Department, Anita Goldberg.
“It just hasn’t caught on the way the school expected it to,” said Guidetti.
Also, like any other thing there are drawbacks to VHS. Being limited to an online course, the students aren’t actually interacting with their teachers or their classmates. If students have a question they have to email their teacher.
Secondly, according to Guidetti, in a world in which face-to-face communication and standard social interactions are becoming obsolete, offering online courses to teenagers is encouraging this technological isolation.
“You can get a degree online for college, and now you can take courses for high school online, too,” said Guidetti.
Despite this, the VHS program at WA is a rare opportunity since not many other schools offer it.
Goldberg used to be a teacher at VHS. She taught a class about 20th Century women writers when she first started.
“I started at the inception of the program. It was really exciting because these were the first online programs we had anywhere. The software as ground breaking at the time,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg has a differing view about VHS. She is skeptical of that the disadvantages of VHS really exist. And Goldberg’s opinion comes from personal experience.
“I knew my VHS students just as well, if not better than my other students,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg also countered that these online courses don’t isolate you from the world, but broaden your view of it.
“You meet people from all over the country and, literally, all over the world,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg explains that she had students from Africa and even China. In fact, she is still in touch with some of her VHS students. Se also described an instance of some students that she had that lived in California, and in the same class student that lived across the country. This group got to know each other so well that they arranged to meet each other in person and went on a trip together.
There is more information about this program at the VHS website, http://www.govhs.org/.
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DECA Slams States
March 29th, 2011Aditi Patil
Staff Writer
Last weekend, 108 Westford Academy students returned from the DECA Massachusetts State Competition.
This year, 200 students joined DECA [Distributive Educators Club of America]. For that, WA won the Gold Level Award for increased membership. It was also recognized for being the 2nd largest chapter in Massachusetts. These are only two out of 70 achievement awards that were won by WA.
“I didn’t anticipate these many people joining the club this year. It makes me happy,” said DECA advisor, John Rogers.
At the Massachusetts States competition there is a collection of all the students that placed top seven in their district group. This year it was more than 1600 students representing 62 high schools.
“There are always a ton of people at states. It’s a good environment. Usually there aren’t many freshmen at states. But this year we had four of them come,” said Rogers.
“But none of the freshman got into the next round,” said one of the freshman who qualified for states, Abby Cianciolo.
“I’m proud of myself for making it to states. And I hope that next year, when we are sophomores, other kids in our grade will make it,” said another of the freshmen, Jayne Pilachowski.
There were 22 sophomores, junior and senior students who qualified for the internationals. This year will be the 65th anniversary of the ICDC, of the International Career Development Conference. This conference is a meeting of students from all over the world. In total, there are around 14,000 people altogether attending, including advisors, alumni, and business people. According to Rogers it is a great opportunity for students hoping to learn more about the field of business, especially since representatives from actually businesses attend.
John Tutti and Mike McHugh holding trophies
Rogers has no qualms about this year’s performance. His only hopes for improving next year are expanding the club.
“Next year I hope that everyone joins. And then everyone maybe we could also have everyone go to states,” said Rogers.
The two freshmen, on the other hand, found some areas in which they’d like to improve. Both wanted higher scores next year.
“I have no regrets since this was my first year. I can prepare better in the future,” said Cianciolo.
Since there was such a myriad of people who qualified for states, there were two buses full of students. The students all stayed at the Marriot Coakley hotel. Dean Adam Goldberg among some other volunteers were supervising. They got back late on Sunday, March 13.
“The hotel was fun and nice but there were also many people which made it hectic,” said Pilachowski.
“I guess I’m glad that we are back at home,” said Rogers.
Its seems like Roger’s aspirations to accumulate more member for DECA next year are all ready in the process of coming true.
“DECA was fun and you learned a lot. I’d advise joining if you were interested in that sort of thing. There are also good opportunities for scholarships,” said Cianciolo.
“I’ve all ready signed up for my business class next year,” said Pilachowski.
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