The Paw Print

A news publication created by Baruch's College Now high school journalism class

Uncategorized

Killing Creativity

by Leave a Comment

“He who marches out of step hears his own drum.” 

-Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey and his merry band of Pranksters boarded a bus called Further in 1964 to spread their message of nonconformity, preaching individuality and creativity. Drugs ruined this message, so it was not able to break through to mainstream society. That does not mean that what Kesey was saying was bad, it just got lost in translation. 

It is our job to finish what Kesey started and make sure this message breaks through. We need to save individuality to progress as a society. Schools are partly responsible for the conformist society we live in today.

Conformity can be as mundane as lining up for lunch, sitting in rows, and being told when to talk and when to stay quiet or it can be as grand as grading every student on the same rubric. 

A rubric’s main job is to assess students and their work by giving a clear set of criteria for them to follow. This sounds good in theory, but nowadays, schools have rubrics for everything: group work, peer discussion, Socratic seminars, papers, essays, projects, and participation. Thus, rubrics in all of their glorious uses are partly responsible for society holding blind conformity as gospel by grading every aspect of life inside the classroom and only rewarding perfection or anything close to it. That’s not to say that we should just throw away every rubric. It is important to set some standards but schools have taken it too far.

Firstly, rubrics raise the issue of whether or not kids sitting in AP and honors classes are actually smart or if they are good at memorizing criteria. There is a difference between students who can memorize standards and students who are smart and creative. Innovation cannot be measured with a checklist, so it is rarely rewarded in our school system. To do well in school, you have to conform.

Secondly, these rubrics are extended to teacher performance so much so that lecture classes are frowned upon. I understand the school’s desire for us as a student body to collaborate, but this does not allow teachers to do their jobs: teach. According to etale.org, “[Rubrics] risk turning the role of the teacher into that of a grader, leaving less room for the teacher to be an authentic ‘reader’ of student work.” This is perpetuating a reward system that values teamwork and meeting requirements more than understanding the content and deep thought, thus creating busy work that does not allow students to form their own opinions.  

Furthermore, rubrics teach students the value of perfection which is unrealistic in the real world. Matt Suarez from Penn State commented on this saying that a student who gets two questions wrong on a 10 question quiz would receive a C; which for a lot of students is not ideal. “Nobody is perfect, so to expect that from people who are going through potentially the most stressful times of their lives is not the best way to go,” Suarez says. Rubrics put young people on a scale that punishes imperfection which is ridiculous. 

Finally, rubrics discourage creativity. According to Conformity and Learning from BBN Times, “Conformity – by its very nature – relies on reapplying solutions from the past, but with more careful control and greater intensity. What we really need is the unleashing of the creative genius that makes us human. Not the direction we have been taking as we have succeeded in quashing it, almost to extinction.” Society can not move towards innovation without creativity. Rubrics are flawed because they look for a cookie cutter work and that’s what they reward.

It does not make sense for schools to accustom young minds to follow a checklist. That is not say that structure is bad, it is to say that you can not find innovation in the walls of a rubric. Grading students this way sets them up to be followers, not leaders or innovators. 

Not everyone will be the next big tech genius or artist but everyone should have the opportunity to step out of march to hear how their drum beats.

Do you hear your own drum?

This is a test

by Leave a Comment

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. Matt Gonzales, Director, The School Diversity Project, New York Appleseed speaking at an event titled, The Harm of Segregation: Why where we live and learn matters. The October 23rd evening event took place at St. Ann & Holy Trinity Church located on Montague Street in Brooklyn.

“The curriculum taught me that white people captured me and took away my freedom. Why would I want to learn this?”

That goes through the minds of many black students as they sit in social studies class, says Jamaal Bowman, principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in Co-op City.

Cornerstone takes a different approach. While many schools begin their study of black history with American slavery, Cornerstone reaches back to Ancient Egypt’s African roots. His students, Bowman told a town hall on education in the Bronx last month, learn that they “are descendants of kings and queens, not descendants of slaves. That’s a big difference.”

Parents, students and educators at the town hall are part of a larger conversation about how to make schools welcoming and relevant for all children—not just the white, middle-class ones. Equalizing resources and even integrating schools is not enough, says Matt Gonzales, NY Appleseed’s Diversity Project director. We, also, he says, “have to do deep work so all kids who enter the classroom are uplifted.”

Nelson Luna of the Bronx, now a first-year student at Columbia University, agrees that’s not currently the case. “When you don’t see yourself, you don’t feel connected and you don’t feel passionate. You feel out of place,” says Luna, a co-founder of Teens Take Charge, which organizes students to speak out about integration and other issues.

Living Crisis in The City That Never Sleeps

by Leave a Comment

By N’zingha Cesar

The cost of living in The Big Apple has skyrocketed. In the last 4 years, It’s become almost impossible for middle-class families to rent or own a home.

Every year the rent and mortgages in New York increase. Although, the cost of living depends on where you live, New Yorkers across the board are paying increasingly high bills. Families lose their homes and are left figuring out where the next place to lay their head is. “ I went to renew my apartment lease and realized the rent was raised to $5,000 a month. It clicked to me that it’s time to buy a house and stop renting for that much,” says Nadine, a resident of Cunningham Heights.

Cunningham Heights Apartments has always offered reasonable rents (1 bedroom, for $1700 a month). But recently, residents have complained they can no longer reside there because of how high the rent is.

“I’ve lived in this apartment complex for 30 years and I’m questioning if I should stay here because every year I’m paying more and more for rent and it’s difficult,” says an anonymous resident .

The residents of Cunningham Apartments aren’t the first or only people to complain about rent increases in New York. According to Curbed New York, Queens’ median rent is now $2,850.

“I’m from New York, I love living here but I can’t stay here,” says Martha Johnson, a resident of Forest Hills, Queens.

Many relatives and other people who are New York natives who wouldn’t want to move anywhere else, now feel like they’re forced to leave because of the expense. The urge to leave Proves how unnecessarily expensive New York has become.

Seems like New York has become a city for just the rich.

The Last Straw?

by Leave a Comment

By: Devan Adegbile

 

According to USA Today, “Within the last year, cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Fort Myers, Florida, Malibu, California, and Vancouver have banned the use of plastic straws, while others, such as New York, are moving in that direction. Companies including Starbucks, American Airlines and Disney, have announced that they’re eliminating plastic straws.” City Councilman, Rafael Espinal, has introduced a bill that will ban plastic straws in restaurants, stadiums, bars, and cafes across New York City.

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio agrees that plastic straws must go as they are bad for the environment. According to Eyewitness News, Espinal referenced an incident in Spain, in April, where a whale washed up on the shore with over 60 pounds of trash inside the stomach..Espinal hopes to spread awareness about how our everyday use of plastic ends up in landfills and can wash into the waters, affecting many sea creatures such as turtles, fish and whales. If this bill is passed, anyone who acts against this bill will be fined $100. The only exception to this bill would be the people who need a straw to drink due to a disability or medical condition.

 

A young woman who works in New York City said she supports the bill. “I feel that the ban on plastic straws is a great start, especially because the concept seems to really be taking off and becoming very popular with big businesses. With that being said, I am a little skeptical because straws make up such a small amount of the plastic used overall. I definitely feel as though the ban on plastic straws is a step in the right direction and I’m hopeful that we can continue to reduce our plastic usage even more as time goes on” she said.

 

According to Eyewitness News, if we continue our plastic use, by 2050 there will be more plastic floating around our oceans than there are fish in the ocean. Only 9 percent of waste is recycled. “I don’t believe there are any huge obstacles. It’s not like plastic bags, where consumers felt it was important for them to carry out their groceries. A straw is not a necessity for most New Yorkers, so I think this is more of a change of thinking.”.

 

“Americans throw out an estimated half-billion plastic straws every single day” said Espinal in Eyewitness News.  

 

“Personally, I am all for the ban on plastic straws – it’s a small step but it’s one in the right direction. The state that our planet is in right now is scary and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I fear for our future generations and what they will have to go through due to our carelessness in protecting our earth. I hope that this ban can bring more awareness to the subject and help to eliminate harmful products in the future.” said Sinead.

 

This proposal does not ban environmentally friendly straws such as aluminum or paper straws. According to USA Today, “Aardvark paper straws debuted in 2007, as the anti-plastic movement began to emerge. In the 10 years since reintroduction, the company has seen year-over-year growth”. “This last year’s growth, however, is beyond anything the company could have expected: 5,000 percent.” It is said that due to a bill against plastic straw use the demand for an alternative paper straw use is higher than ever before.

 

What is Summer Streets?

by Leave a Comment

You’re riding your bike in the crowded New York City streets to get food because you are starving and haven’t eaten anything all day. You come up to a stop light for what feels like forever and get annoyed, wishing you could just ride through the light without getting hit by a car. Well…you can!

 

Summer Streets is an annual celebration that takes place on three consecutive Saturdays from 7am to 1pm in Manhattan. You can freely ride your bike, walk on the side, or run along Park Avenue between City Hall Park and East 72nd Street and Central Park with no cars in your way.

 

Summer Streets gives New Yorkers the opportunity to experience the city in a whole new way. It’s a way to encourage people to take a more enjoyable and sustainable form of transportation. According to the Summer Streets website, “In 2017, nearly 300,000 people took advantage of the open streets.”

 

Five rest stops along Park Avenue offer activities such as yoga, dancing, food stops, a 30 foot zip-line and more! The best part is that it is entirely free. Summer streets is for all ages, not to mention it’s a way to start your Saturday morning. This year Summer Streets takes place on August 4, 11 and 18. Some riders even go to Summer Streets every year so they don’t miss out on anything.

 

Despite the fact that it was pouring rain, I went to Summer Streets on August 4 with my dad and rode my bike, stopping along the avenue to ask workers there some questions.

 

A volunteer at Summer Streets standing beside a table filled with New Yorkers making origami and learning how to ride bikes has been working at Summer Streets for the last five years. “People love Summer Streets in the rain. We had two young boys learn to ride bikes in the rain and they were ecstatic. I think this separates the rain lovers from the rest of us,” she said.

 

She continued to explain that, despite waking up at 4:30, she loves that she can share her joy of bicycling with everyone. “I would recommend Summer Streets to everyone, There is something for everyone here,” she said.

 

On the other side of the street, riders could get a customized helmet and take pictures in a tent. One of the volunteers working in that area had just started volunteering for Summer Streets that day. He goes to Stuyvesant High School. “Of course I would recommend Summer Streets to anyone, it’s super fun and brings people together. You can ride your bike in the wide open street with no cars. I went with my family to Summer Streets every year and this year I decided to volunteer,” he said.

 

According to the Summer Streets website, “Summer Streets is modeled on other events from around the world including Ciclovia en Bogotá, Colombia and the Paris Plage in France and has since inspired other such events around the world such as Ciclo Recreo Via and London’s Regent Street Summer Streets.”

 

How Some Small Businesses are Surviving West Village Gentrification

by Leave a Comment

It’s not news to New Yorkers that neighborhoods around the city become less and less affordable by the day. But in one of the most historical and gentrified neighborhoods in New York, small business owners are doing all they can to keep from being the next one to fall.

Gentrification of the West Village began in the late 1990s and by now has already pushed out most of the diverse local businesses that had been there for years. Most of them were small family restaurants, clothing stores, bodegas, video stores, bookstores and bars.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, most remaining small businesses were forced out by building owners as the housing market collapsed. Once the economy recovered, these small businesses couldn’t return due to the staggering price of rent. They were replaced with multi million high end retail companies like Burberry, and large food chains like Starbucks which could afford it.

Gentrification has been happening throughout the city for years and in most neighborhoods all traces of its original local business roots have been wiped away. But in the West Village, business owners are fighting back.

“Cones”, a family run ice cream store on Bleecker Street in the West Village has been in business since the 70s. The store owner Jeremy has been fighting off the gentrification of this neighborhood since he first bought the storefront. In a recent interview he was quoted as saying that they “have maintained a strong customer base for many years” and “Good reviews from larger sites like Zagat and Yelp have put us on the map.” Business here has been improving for years because of their strong presence online and connections with customers, he said.

In fact one of the greatest methods of fighting gentrification is the choices that we as consumers make.  For example the decision to purchase food or coffee from a small coffee shop means you have favored that business over a chain coffee shop like Starbucks. The more power and business we give to small stores, the more profit is diverted to them from other large corporations that might run them out of business.

This is the basis behind many small stores in the West Village’s plans to combat increasing gentrification: Continue to be better than the competition and offer an alternative to the identical look and feel of a chain store that doesn’t change no matter where you are.

For the West Village it will take many years to reverse the effects of gentrification but in other parts of the city the fight to prevent it from spreading is in full effect.

‘Baruchians’ Fight Back Against the System

by Leave a Comment

“Between the new curriculum, exchange trips, dress code, an entire year of ap calculus gone to waste, allowing discriminatory teachers to teach our classes, completely disregarding the arts programs, and so on, we are pretty upset!” a Baruch junior stated.

With the loss of art programs, international exchange trips and funding for several outstanding teachers, Baruch College Campus High School students finally have enough. The demanding outcry for change within the community has grown in numbers over the past couple of months.

Several juniors have been put through unexpected changes within their assigned classes such as Eunjoo Jung, a rising senior. “I know a lot of people are being upset with being forced into AP’s or not having a chance at an AP they’d like to be in,” he said.

Numerous issues emerge as many complaints by students have been sent to the authorities. However, student representatives have noted that many of these problems have gone unnoticed.

Although student schedules cannot change, programs such as the arts, band, drama and much more have been cut.  One student noted, “It’s true that nothing can be changed anymore with the curriculum next year however it is our responsibility to take back student-elective classes.”

Even though some students feel the need to “protest” so that their voices can be heard, others may disagree. It was agreed that schedules were changed to comply with the AP classes in one’s schedule. A junior of the Baruch community said, “The new curriculum wasn’t changed to satisfy all 410 students. It was built because there were so many complaints about having school period 0 and 9 and how students were getting random freezes in their schedule.” Protesting would lead to the conflict being, “stretched out to more than it really is” creating more problems and fewer solutions.

Gas Leaks: Whose Fault is IT? NYCHA OR Con Ed?

by Leave a Comment

Throggs Neck tenants are fighting to survive the rest of summer, as they deal with a gas outage that started Friday, July 28 in two connected apartment buildings.

Tenants fail to understand why and how this happened as the cause remains under investigation. The first meeting was held on Wednesday, August 2 when tenants met with the neighborhood President Monique Johnson and NYCHA representatives. They claimed the buildings gas would be back on by the end of August. No representative from Con Edison was there.

ConEd has had a total of 217 gas leaks in NYC in the year of 2017 alone.

One tenant who happens to work for Con Ed claimed fulfilling that assumption is not possible. As NYCHA ignored her response, she explained to the tenants that she has seen records showing ConEd came to turn off the gas yet she doesn’t see that they’ve processed the next step. The young woman explained that in cases like these there are numerous steps that have to be taken. She explained, “first they cut the gas off, then they investigate to see where the leak is coming from, then there’s a process where they have to put in a notice for a construction permit, which alone can take up to 30 days by itself.”

One tenant argued, “If the paperwork alone is going to take up to 30 days you [NYCHA] know my gas is not going to be cut on in 30 days. We’re going into 2 or 3 months now.”

There will be weekly meetings with updates on how the process is going.

In the meantime NYCHA has teamed up with City Councilman Mark GJonaj to offer support to tenants while the gas is out by holding free weekly fish fries and barbecues in their local center strictly for those without gas. NYCHA has also given out hot plates to each household.

The meeting also discussed opportunities for tenants to receive extra food stamps as needed, even for those who may not meet the requirements to receive food stamps. NYCHA also discussed assistant programs for seniors who are homebound and for those who suffer from illnesses that prevent then from being able to cook and shop for themselves. These programs consist of food delivery services such as Department for the Aged (DFTA), Meals on Wheels, and God’s Love We Deliver.

While NYCHA may think it has won over the people with all the extra help, tenants still left the meeting uneasy about when their homes are going to be safe and normal again.

Why Can’t You Say the N-Word?

by Leave a Comment

 

Asian, Middle Eastern, and Hispanic people in urban areas have seemingly become comfortable with using the N-word as their expression of friendship with black people which is in many ways insulting. This word has never been used to describe or belittle them and there is no need for it to be part of their vocabulary.

In the Oxford dictionary black (adjective) is defined as “of any human group having dark-colored skin, especially of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry.” However, black should be defined as people with undeniably African or Australian Aboriginal features such as wide noses, thick lips, kinky hair, and darker skin because they are the “niggers.”

Many people use the excuse that their ancestors were black to use the N-word. A “Negro” is defined as “a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara” also relating to black people. Therefore, if someone’s race or culture is technically not black, these derogatory terms do not apply to them.

A black person may use the term as they wish. This is a word he or she cannot escape from because it’s been deeply embedded into this country that this is what “black” is and this is how the world will always see “black.” We are the so-called “nappy haired, horse mouthed, black bucks” that white America shaped us out to be. But we’ve come to own the stigma of being black in America and we have even reclaimed ourselves by referring to ourselves as “Niggas.”

Some people feel like since they’re being friendly, it’s fine to say the N-word. But that isn’t necessarily the case. For example, if two friends from the Middle East were joking around and calling each other terrorists, it would be funny to them being that it’s a word they’ve both felt personally victimized by. However, had one of those friends been of another race, it would be seen as an ignorant remark being that other races are rarely, or never, accused of being terrorists.

Many light-skinned Hispanics that I have confronted about using the N-word say, “but my ancestors were black,” to which I respond, “good for your ancestors.” Simply put, Hispanics are a mix of multiple races and peoples, whether they be African and Spanish or Native and Spanish or African, Native, and Spanish. Therefore, that makes them not one or the other but all. You are not black, your ancestors were. You have been able to escape the same reigns of terror black people have face. There are even black Latinx people who experience racism in their countries and are called “Negra/o” because they cannot escape their black ancestry. They cannot escape because the black African blood runs through their skin and features.

For mixed race people, possibly half black and half white, it is how white passing you are that determines whether or not you have the choice to say the N-word. If your features are predominantly black, you are prone to grow up manipulated by white America, you will fear their system. If your features are predominantly European, you have an advantage and are likely to have privilege.

A black person may as well be defined as someone who is manipulated by white America at birth. Someone angered and insulted by the terms “Nigger” and “Negro.” A person whose dark skin and African features apparently defines the content of their character. A person so connected to their African ancestry that they would have either been on the plantation or in the house looking after the white man’s child. And if you can’t personally relate to any of this… You’re not black.