1. Eskimo Bros.: Patrick Finney, Hayes Gorecki, Julian Cooper, Sam Perkins, Tashaun Byrdwell
Perhaps no team will have better chemistry than these brothers, and this above all makes them a force to be reckoned with. Coupled with natural athleticism, it’s difficult to predict that they won’t at least make the final four. Sam “Big Smooth” Perkins once sunk twelve consecutive threes in a game of 21 at Powell Barnett park, and the strangers he was playing with were in awe. As far as the other eskimos go, they will be just as strong on the perimeter as they are in the paint, and they have few weaknesses if any. Also they’re generally pretty good-looking.

2. Mission: Bangout (Charlie Sawyer, Kellen Bryan, Nils Whisman, Patric Greeley)
Led by self-proclaimed ballers Kellen “Lean” Bryan and Patrick “The Machine” Greeley, “Mission: Bangout” is guaranteed to threaten everyone that gets in their way. They have a lot of potential, and are arguably the best junior team in the field. Charlie “Mean” Sawyer will also present a threat as, while standing next to Kellen and Pat, he is nearly invisible to the eyes of opponents, and will easily be able to sneak in some uncontested baskets.   Nils “Green” Whisman might also be able to deal out some nasty shots from downtown; that boy has range. This group of mean lean green fighting o’ fourteen machines is on a mission: to bangout a March Madness championship.

3. 28 Ballers: William Zhou, Carl Justice, Nick Berry, Lamar Johnson, Justin Arkills-McClain
This is far and away the most unlikely assortment of teammates in the tournament, but regardless, they will probably win a few games. While William has never and will never be known for his basketball abilities, he rows and thus has strong arms. At the beginning of last year, Carl participated in open gyms and played well against the best athletes at Garfield; surely his talent will result in success against the mostly-horrible teams in this competition.

4. The D-League: Peter Walsh, Aidan Chestnut, Quinn Ballbach, Eli Wilson, Henry Bates
One of the new sportswriters told me that this team is “pretty good,” so I trust him. My problem with this team is the name — what does the D stand for? And why does it merit a league? Newsflash: these five boys aren’t a league, they’re a team, and it’s exactly this word confusion that leaves them vulnerable for a first round exit.

5. Raining 3s: Aidan Montefisher, Spencer Cook, Dylan Yamamoto, Justin Leonard, Jonathan Tanbesse
That a team of puny freshman team was able to procure a five seed shows the quality of this year’s tournament, but regardless, the four/five seed matchups will likely be pretty interesting. This team may or not be an exception. As far as analysis, all I can say is that, if this team plays like their “Raining 3s” team name suggests, it will probably be a pretty dull and uncreative style of basketball.

6. Matzoh Ballers: Aaron Schechter, Isaac Rubenstein, Marco Bornstein, Jake Shields, Mira Klein
In keeping with the Semitic tradition of having traditions, these Menschs and Mira have brought back the pride of Sinai by rekindling the Matzoh Baller’s legacy.  Like their predecessors they make up for their lack of basketball skill with so much thrift and wit that they could be a sleeper pick. However, the x-factor will be their physical fitness as some of these players might have been overly fond of the burning bush.

7. Black and Yellow: Deja Dunn, Mykesha Hall, Katrina Kuo, Naomi Truuu, Amira Jessie
Even though this team of diversity may have to face one of the best opponents in the opening round, don’t rule out an upset. They have girls’ varsity talent and they actually know how to play team basketball, something almost every other team doesn’t know how to do.

8. Trumpet Section: Tommy Renehan , Caroline Sheffield, Charlie Feig, Patrick Mogan, Dergen be Koch
Discriminatory gender roles that have stymied the female sex for centuries will be flipped with definitive ferocity when the “Trumpet Section” takes the court next week. Caroline Sheffield, the lone woman on the squad, is a known sharpshooter and had been running daily for months to up her endurance for the tournament. Make no mistake; she will be running the show. Supplementing Sheffield and her outside shot will be the athletic sophomore Mogan, who can reportedly dunk, and mystery freshman Renehan, who is the x-factor and whose performance will make or break the team. Big men Feig and de Koch don’t offer much in the way of basketball skills, but we’ve been told they have other “talents.”

The Little Mermaid

1. $avad 4700: Ali Weliyow, Marvin Lilly, Lalo Falanai, Jamala Myers Jr., Lloyd Proctor  Jr.
While many of these players thrive in different sports, the athleticism will almost certainly transfer over. Former player of the issue Lloyd “Kel” Proctor may be the most well-rounded athlete in the tournament, thriving both on the turf and the track. One time someone told me that Lalo “Shaq” Falanai is a bouncer at a club, and whether or not that’s true, he’s definitely built for it. Also, Jamala put on a three-point shooting display during last years games.

2. High Price: Tahier Seid, Ibrahim Edo, Mohammed Borbor, Israel Zemeadim, Jalen McGruder
Surprisingly enough, there are no varsity athletes on one-seeded teams, and only two in the entire tournament. Has Garfield realized that two-on-three is a disadvantage that having a varsity player doesn’t make up for? Or are varsity athletes too busy with their actual basketball season? We may never know the answer, but what we know is that Jalen McGruder is incredibly clutch, and he is noble enough to compete alongside inferior athletes.

3. Birkenshots — Andrew Schwartz, Alex Ivanoff, Jokichi Matsubara, Kai Greene, Andrew Collins
This team isn’t terrible, however the possibility that they will play in Birkenstocks moves them down to a third seed. Schwartz moves them to a seventh seed, and they are redeemed by the athleticism of the remaining four. Ivanoff has stamina to keep the passing going. Matsubara and Collins could score, but only if kicking is allowed. Greene has some actual skill and will at least carry their team past Brown Chicken Brown Cow.

4. Four Squares and a Squeenie: Jupiter Breuner, Joey Woletz, Henry Chapman, Samad Bounthong, Max Smith
Long ago, I spent a little over two hours walking along Skyline’s Plateau golf course with young Jupe at my side. By the time the match had ended, I felt like it wasn’t a beautiful meadow I’d strolled through, but rather Jupiter’s soul. When I was there, I learned some about his competitive instincts and much about his intense hatred for the Los Gringos team. “I’m looking to bring the ruckus and start some fights,” he said to me before I returned to reality. I don’t know anything about the other players.

5. The Gringos: Henry Hayes, Carson Jones, Miles Paddock, Simon Butz
Henry Hayes happens to be part of two very exclusive clubs — the first/last name alliteration club and the two-first-names club. Unfortunately, this kind of excludes his fellow whites (unless there are the people with the first name ‘Butz’), and that may cause a significant chemistry problem, one that will definitely prove to be insurmountable. Is it obvious that I don’t know anything about any of these people? That’s why they’re a five seed. Expect their first match to result in either a win or a loss.

6. Brown Chicken Brown Cow: Angel Sarmiento, Ajene Kalyan Ellen Huynh, Henry Liu, Merrisa Ng
Gender diversity is a wonderful thing that proves to be beneficial in all kinds of facets of life, basketball included. When our brilliant team of writers came up for the seedings for this tournament, Brown Chicken Brown Cow had one critical element working against them: we’ve seen Henry play basketball before. Henry “Asian Kai Hinnant” Liu reminds me a lot of the NBA athlete Kwame Brown — he’s monstrously big and pretty athletic, yet he somehow manages to be bad. Unless Liu has been developing his post game over the past year, expect a hilarious, uncompetitive team.

7. Stupid Team: Oscar Burney, Caleb Stocker, Rohin Burney, Sarah Sherburne, Anna Carlson
This convocation of popular freshmen seems to have little to no potential and their name would indicate a severe deficiency in Basketball IQ. Expect the girls to be too busy swooning at Rohin’s accent as he expresses befuddlement towards a sport not played with feet to do anything. Caleb is tall and could be a post threat while Oscar is good at tennis and is rumored to play tenacious and gropey D.

8. Cla(i)rebears Unleashed: Claire Baker, Claire Lawry, Clare Fuget, Cla(i)re Duncan, Clare Einberger
This team has a pentagon next to their name in the bracket. This is because their team name was initially gonna be “Pentacla(i)re” and it was changed at the last minute. Which one is funnier? You decide! For “Cla(i)rebears unleashed,” text JOKE1 to 873862. For “Pentacla(i)re,” text JOKE2 to 873862. If you don’t care, then haha you read something you don’t care about and you can never have the time you just wasted back. Oh, and also if Clare Einberger can “Einburglar” some basketball steals, then expect this team to still lose, because come on.

In retrospect it all seems so easy. Had I just not bet on red twice, and had that bastard dealer Arthur not gotten a goddamn twenty-one when I had a Jack and a Queen and $10 on the table, and had I only listened to Coach Caroline, who on multiple occasions physically tried to pull me away from the game while I was ahead, I would have made some serious cash. The thoughts won’t go away. Even as I write this, I can feel the Clearwater beckoning, it’s siren tune luring me back.

I entered the Clearwater Casino with a plan. When the betting began, it’s unnerving how rapidly that plan, like my money, dissipated into cigarette smoke-filled air. Rational thought is not as dependable as it might seem. Reason is no match for emotion. As the night approached its end, I looked around the casino. The red and orange flashes of light splattered metronomically upon the poor souls below; the illusion of merriment was razor-thin. Why would we subject ourselves to this? How did we get here?

The drive to the casino went smoothly enough. As usual, my driving was impeccable; “Can’t Tell Me Nothin” was the soundtrack, sound on sixty, bass on five. We zoomed off the Bainbridge ferry and down highway 305. Caroline bellowed something vaguely resembling the song’s chorus. The rest of us quietly awaited our destiny.

We were the five musketeers. Catherine Carey: the avant-garde art maven. Evan Barley-Greenfield: the cocksure simpleton. Gus Rasch: the perspicacious smooth talker. Caroline Sheffield: the barbarous gambling coach/backup-artist/photographer. And then me. Andrew Schwartz: fearless and muscular, dressed to the nines, my $4 blue Value Village blazer making clear to our fellow gamblers that we meant business, and the turquoise Crocs on my feet serving as a warning to Big Brother up in the security room that we weren’t to be messed with. Who could stop us?

Five hard-hitting journalists, each with a role to play, captive to the vicissitudes of Lady Luck.

Evan

Our long awaited gambling binge was finally at hand, but in keeping with our newfound adulthood we did the responsible thing and decided that each person should lose no more than fifty dollars. Then, having already made peace with our money, we entered.

Immediately I was sent into sensory overload: my nostrils were filled with a pungent odor of tobacco and depression, my eyes were blinded by an endless sea of flashing slot machines and my ears were constantly assailed with “cheery” music.

We were in. Ready to start winning and accomplish my goal of buying a Bentley with my profits, I stepped out confidently onto the casino floor. A field of slot machines occasionally punctuated with card and craps tables, the gambling arena was an impressive sight. Its inhabitants were not however, as every other slot appeared to be in use by an overweight, chain-smoking and middle-aged white person.

Like the nervous and inexperienced teenagers that we were trying so hard not to be, we walked awkwardly and aimlessly around the casino for a while. With no idea how to acquire chips, we were a little non-plussed. We tried to blend in and casually observe a few games, but our apparent youth and naiveté garnered us some weird looks from our fellow gamblers. After Gus and I determined that we could conveniently get chips at any table we located Andrew (who without our supervision had wandered off and gotten lost) broken down weeping under a roulette table. We slapped some sense back into him and then informed him that it was now time to gamble

Gus

We walked up to the five dollar blackjack table and laid down twenty dollars apiece. The dealer was a hulking mass of gristle, and his face shone with sweat as he dexterously flipped our cards out in front of us.

“Jeee-sus, do y’all even know how to play this game?” he shrieked as Andrew placed a bet. As noted by the tag pinned to his bulging red shirt, this strange, energetic specimen was named Romeo. Romeo continued to mock us as we steadily lost our money at his table, making his negative remarks just jovial enough to not warrant aggression.

Romeo embodied the casino. An absurd, excited character that bellowed at you as you won and lost (but mostly lost), and aggressively did his utmost to keep you playing. As he dealt, Andrew and I quickly made money on our first twenty dollars of chips, winning several hands and jumping up to thirty. We then proceeded to watch our money fall like a declining stock graph, spiking at times but generally sloping towards nothing.

Evan

I decided to slow it down. Although blackjack was fun, the inevitability of losing soured it for me. I needed a new game. Having heard somewhere that craps had the best odds in the house I suggested we try our hand at shooting.

To put it simply, craps turned out to be pretty complicated. Steeped in our hood dice heritage, we were overwhelmed by the myriad new options for betting. However, I had a trick up my sleeve in the form of my extensive Settlers of Catan experience. Betting like I was trying to maximize my production of sheep and brick, I slowly turned $20 into $37. Like an Amish person who marvels at their first brush with the wonders of electricity during their Rumspringa, I was blown away by what I’d been missing. At only $3 below my starting amount, this was the second most money I would have that night.

 Andrew

It was so fun, so disgustingly thrilling. Making money felt so entirely doable. And so even as I knew my ever-pragmatic Coach Caroline was right when she advised me to pull out, find a different game, I just couldn’t bring myself to walk away. I was no coward. I was on a roll, you see. The gambling gods favored me.

As she diligently sketched the back of the man at the slot machine across from us, Catherine noted that, at age 18, we were all in the gambling danger zone. Our prefrontal cortexes were still years from full development; our judgment was suspect, and the effects could take hold with little resistance. But I could resist, I thought. I was, after all the, pinnacle of reason, the epitome of rational thought. I was confident; I knew my dice-rolling talents were unmatched. Here, Catherine joined in the fray but Caroline remained a spectator. I suspect that at the time she lacked the courage, the mental fortitude required to put it all on the line.

We took a break to explore, and we explored ourselves into a company holiday party where the food was good. As a journalist, I took it upon myself to get to the bottom of this gathering, find out exactly what it was these people thought they were doing. I sat down at a table with two men and a woman. They were talking serious business, so I didn’t attempt to enter the conversation. Then the two men left. The woman remained.

Lauren was her name, and she was in the firefighter training video business. She didn’t like Hemingway and had never read Hunter Thompson. The question wasn’t whether or not she was coming on to me (you should have seen the look on her face when I interpreted to her the meaning of Jake’s impotence in The Sun Also Rises), but when she would invite me up to her room. At least, that was the question, until a young man with square-rimmed glasses interrupted our conversation. His name was Trey, he said, and he was her husband. I extended my hand, asserting my alpha status by facing my palm downwards, such that his would be on the bottom. Nice to meet you Trey, I said. I’m Andrew. Nice to meet you Andrew, he said back.

Students who take part in the froshing tradition tend to disagree on where the line should be drawn that separates friendly froshing from violent and harmful hazing. Softer forms of froshing include throwing condiments at freshman, dressing them in silly outfits, or pushing them into the lake, while harsher forms include paddling freshman, forcing them to drink, or having them box one another. Currently, the administration does not distinguish between the two, and all froshing circumstances are treated seriously.

“My first reaction was denial. I didn’t believe what was happening,” says Chandler*, a Garfield junior who was caught froshing over homecoming. He was one of 10 students who were emergency expelled this fall as part of the administration’s attempt to decrease froshing-related accidents.

After a series of meetings with the administration, Chandler was issued a two-week suspension, as well as community service requirements and a behavioral modification class.

Now back at school, Chandler is torn between the benefits and consequences of froshing. Despite this experience, he continues to believe in its positive nature.

“I still don’t think the administration and the PTSA acknowledge how mutual froshing is. All these underclassmen, they wanted us to frosh them. There’s just as much pressure to frosh as to be froshed.”

Nevertheless, Chandler recognizes the administration’s predicament. “In the end, we were loitering in a public park, messing with freshman. This was a really poor representation of our school,” says Chandler. Despite his situation, Chandler believes emergency expulsion was the most effective punishment.

“The administration is in a really tough situation. I got the feeling that they threw a net over everyone, and just used me as an example for everyone else.”

Unlike students, the administration is forced to deal with the aftermath of froshing. Thus, they focus on the faults of froshing which can be both dangerous and illegal. Lenora Lee, an assistant principal at Garfield, recalls last year’s homecoming when a freshman was left in a bush, and nearly died of alcohol poisoning.

New cases of froshing continue to surprise the administration each year, she says. “This year, [Garfield] graduates were involved in froshing, which we’ve never seen before.”

Despite some of the harmful activities associated with froshing, many students value the comradery. “It’s a tradition we should keep,” says junior Trent*. Froshing is often associated with sports teams and school clubs, and thus it can help bring the younger and older students together.

“Froshing is a bonding experience for everyone involved,” says junior Lindsay*.

Though Trent and Lindsay approve of some forms of froshing, they also understand that it can get out of hand.

Moderate supporters of froshing are quick to draw a line between “good” and “bad” froshing. This line is not universal however, and students within the moderate group disagree on where it should be drawn.

“Froshing goes too far when freshmen are forced to do things that relate to drugs or physical harm,” says senior Blaine*. Based on typical froshing activities, this could include drinking, smoking marijuana or paddling.

Students who are entirely in favor of froshing, however, do not view drinking or paddling as going “too far.” Junior Brad,* who recently froshed on Homecoming, falls into this category. Despite the fact that drinking is illegal, he believes it’s a pivotal aspect of the froshing experience. “Drinking makes everything more fun.”

Other students base the appropriateness of froshing on individual freshman experiences. “Froshing goes too far when the underclassmen feel uncomfortable,” says junior Scooter*. “Froshing seems really harmless at first but can progress to be pretty dangerous.”

Froshing has become more dangerous in recent year. Jonathan Stever, a marine biology teacher who graduated from Garfield in 1985, remembers froshing from his time at Garfield. Freshmen were froshed by upperclassmen on Homecoming and Purple and White when Stever was at Garfield as well.

The tradition was not as prevalent back then however, and he didn’t participate.

In response to recent parent, student, and district pressures, the administration has adopted a no-tolerance policy towards froshing. This policy pressures students to frosh later in the day and further away from Garfield. The most harmful froshing incidents now occur off school property.“That’s when froshing can become dangerous,” says senior Helga*.

In order to justify the froshing tradition, students criticize preconceived notions held by parents and the administration. “Parents don’t hear about the time when a kid got ketchup poured on their head. Parents hear about the rare time when a kid goes to the hospital,” says junior Dudley*.

Though many students support at least some aspects of froshing, there are others that are overtly against it. Freshman Brock* shares some of his negative memories from Homecoming. “The upperclassmen didn’t know what to do with us,” says Brock. “They just got drunk and started paddling people”. Brock’s experience was not one he wishes to repeat on Purple and White. “It just started getting old after a while.”

Despite his negative experience over Homecoming, Brock has not entirely ruled out froshing. He plans to get froshed again in the spring but with a more carefully selected group of upperclassmen.

“Froshing can be a fun time if no one’s getting hurt,” says Brock. The “fun froshing” Brock refers to includes bonding with upperclassmen who have planned out activities and refrain from paddling.

Other students more opposed to froshing than Brock view the whole tradition as useless. “Froshing is unnecessary, stupid, and silly,” says Junior Brent*. “It’s an excuse for upperclassmen to mess with incoming freshmen”.

Though conflict between students and the administration seems to have increased in recent years, Lee says the administration’s policy on froshing hasn’t drastically changed.

It appears as though Garfield is caught in a vicious stalemate. Garfield administration has a no-tolerance policy and yet students continue to frosh. This past homecoming, the administration’s policies may have led to a record low turnout at the homecoming dance, costing ASB around $4,000.

High-ranking ASB member Brady* points the finger at an uncooperative Garfield administration. “The administration has refused to allow any type of dialogue between parents, students, and administration.” According to Brady, the administration’s no-tolerance policy on froshing is increasing antagonism between students and staff. “[Their policy] creates a vacuum of leadership regarding what is appropriate and inappropriate.”

Lee says that students are entitled to their opinions, declining to comment on this accusation.

In the short term, it appears as though the fate of froshing lies in the hands of the students. Yet according to Brady, ASB currently has no power to draw a distinction between friendly froshing and violent hazing. The conflicting attitudes of students and the administration are not bringing Garfield any closer to a solution. Thus Dudley believes the upperclassmen will have to set a positive example for the rest of the school. “If future classes stop the violent mindset, then froshing can be a fun time..”

Garfield junior Daga Abdella was excited as day one of her freshman year began. She was entering an exhilaratingly different world; at Tukwila’s Foster High, she was ready to make a new home, something she hadn’t truly had for quite some time.

It was first period, and the teacher asked everyone to talk about their summer. The class went around in order. Daga’s turn approached. All of a sudden, she was nervous.

There was a problem, one that might just derail her presentation and, she was realizing, make school in general a tad troublesome: she didn’t know English. Or, rather, she knew three words: hello, thank-you, and sit down. The girl before her said “pass.” Daga, relieved to learn that this was an option, did the same.

“People don’t know about you,” says Abdella. They don’t understand your situation because you can’t talk to them.”

Her second period was no easier. The teacher asked her to read. She focused hard on the page, recalling that in her home country of Eritrea, you’d get hit if you didn’t do as the teacher said. She still could not pronounce the words. Her classmates were whispering. She knew what they were thinking; she knew that they were judging her. She spent the next week eating lunch by herself, unable to connect with her peers, the barrier of language leaving her alone in this foreign place.

Daga is one of over 500 refugees in the Seattle School district and one of the approximately eleven thousand students in the district without an english speaking backround. Seattle and its suburbs are a major hub for refugees and other immigrants from all around the world. Foster is the nation’s most diverse high school; 98118 is the nation’s most diverse zip-code. The Columbia City, South Rainier Valley area that the 98118 zone encompasses is, according to the latest census, home to 58 languages.

Any reputable study on immigrant acculturation lists education as one of the primary variables in determining how a displaced kid will ultimately fare in America. School, obviously, is where they learn. But far more important than academic learning in school is cultural learning. It is here where they are forced to speak English; here where they can get in tune with the latest pop trends (Abdella’s favorite artists are Rihanna, Chris Brown, and Beyonce); here where they pick up — and maybe even influence with their own ethnic flavor — the “correct” way to behave. But in order for this type of cultural education to become a reality, they must overcome the language barrier.

“When I came here, it was difficult to talk to people, express your feelings, tell them what you want,” says Abdella. [People] judge you because you don’t know English, or they will say that [you don’t] know English because of some problem. They make things out of you that you’re not. They might put you in regular English, but I don’t speak English. It’s hard to ask questions, talk to the teacher.”

Garfield senior Mohamed Hilow, who grew up in a village in Ethiopia and then spent two years in Nairobi before coming to America in eighth grade, has had similar issues. “People make fun of you basically because you have an accent and your English is not that good,” he says. “They looked at me like I was dumb, but I don’t really care, you know? I know that I came here to learn something. I don’t really care about the way they judge me.”

“When you think about all unwritten societal rules and expectations there are for the average high school student… it’s no wonder that many of our ELL (English Language Learners) students struggle to ‘fit in’” says ELL teacher Alicia Arnold. “There are dress behaviors, slang language, knowing what the social norms and cues are that many ELL students have difficulty understanding.”

And then there’s the academics.

Lacking the basic awareness that forms the core of our education — implicit knowledge of science, math, history, literature, language that the average American kid has been absorbing since birth through his or her surroundings — enrolling in say, a regular science class is a formidable challenge for someone who may barely speak English, much less understand the context for learning that native-born Americans take for granted.

Hilow, who was in my biology class freshman year, recalls the struggle: “It was really tough. I stayed after school almost everyday, trying to get a better understanding of what we were doing in the class.”

Abdella, for her part, makes up for the late start through summer courses and the extra effort is starting to pay off: last year, she won student of the semester in her world history class.

“You know at the beginning everything is hard because you are coming to a different culture, different language, different place,” says Abdella. “But the more you get used to it, the more it gets better.”

A key turning point in Abdella’s development came after her freshman year when she transferred to Garfield. “At Foster there’s a lot of refugees, more people that don’t speak English,” she says. “I have friends who speak my language there. At Garfield, I don’t know a lot of people who speak my language, so I talk to them in English and that helps me improve.” She says the school has been good to her, and a lot of that is thanks to the work of ELL teachers like Arnold and Gretchen Sloan, who have done much to make Garfield a positive and accepting environment.

“My whole childhood I was mistaken as a boy and I felt I was a boy and I wanted to be a boy,” he says. “It was frustrating. I knew I was a guy.”

When most baby girls are born and their rooms are filled with “it’s a girl!” balloons and pink stuffed animals, they never again question their gender. Their double Xs have determined their fate, and there is no reason to consider themselves anything but little girls. But for a few Garfield students like Cayden, their birth certificates don’t tell the whole story.

So what is transgender, anyway?

“I officially came out as transgender this summer,” he says. Cayden was born biologically female but identifies as male. His gender was obvious to him, even if it didn’t match the body he was born with.

This is generally what being transgender (or “trans”) means. Though the transition can involve hormone replacement treatment (HRT) or sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), it doesn’t always. Transgender is often confused with intersex, where someone is born with something between strictly male or female genitals and reproductive organs, but transgender describes the relationship between someone’s gender identity and biological sex, rather than their physical body.

Some people know that their gender contradicts their body from childhood, but others don’t realize it until much later. In fact, the average age for SRS patients is 42.

“As a kid I sort of liked the idea of being a girl but I wasn’t especially adamant about it,” says junior Jane Lance-Hunter*. “I don’t think I actually realized it might be a legitimate thing until I was in 8th grade or so. I didn’t come out to anyone until 9th grade, and then I just transitioned this year. Garfield is an incredibly accepting school. It’s easy to ignore [negativity] when there’s such a supportive community.”

Being Trans at Garfield

Being the first in the state to form one, Garfield boasts a large and active Gay-Straight Alliance. Once a week, students meet to plan events, discuss current political issues, and offer support. In addition to the GSA, Garfield also has Superqueeroes, a confidential support group led by GSA co-chair, senior Marilynn Paleso’o, who also identifies as transgender.

“The faculty is great at tolerating and accepting trans-identified students, but sometimes it can be hard for them to confront other students that disrespect LGBTQ-identified students through derogatory words,” says Marilynn. “I hope to supply training to help them to do so because everyone deserves a safe learning environment.”

Every spring, the GSA conducts what are called freshman forums in every freshman language arts class. This is a chance for students to learn about and discuss gender and sexuality, the goal being to foster acceptance and understanding. They also create a list of “safe staff” who are open to talking about these topics with students.

Sh.……he?

“If you’re confused about someone’s gender, just ask them! I think as long as they’re polite about it, it never hurts to just ask.” says Cayden, “A question that is easy to ask is just what pronouns they prefer. If somebody asked me that, I wouldn’t hesitate to answer at all: I prefer male pronouns.”

Some transgender people prefer to go by their assigned pronouns, the opposite pronouns, or no pronouns at all. Alternative pronouns have even been created, unaligned with any specific gender. Some people prefer to use “ze” in place of “ he” or “she,” or “hir” in place of “him or “her.” It all depends on the person, so it is important to ask.

“At first it was really uncomfortable being at home with my family,” says Jane. “They would frequently use the wrong pronouns or forget to call me by my new name, and it took a lot of getting used to.”

The Trans Transition

Aside from the social transition, many transgender people have to make decisions regarding their physical transition.

“I plan on starting testosterone sometime soon,” says Cayden. “Testosterone will basically be like going through male puberty, just at a very late time. My voice will drop, I’ll get facial hair, and all that fun stuff. I’m looking into chest surgery, but since I’m so young, chances are I’ll have to wait a while for anything to happen.”

Hormones and surgery can be very expensive though (SRS can cost as much as $20,000), so many people use binders or padding to modify their bodies.

“I have not started HRT yet, but I cannot wait to begin! When I do, I will be very prepared mentally and emotionally,” says Marilynn.

The Bathroom Dilemma

Washington State law protects the rights of people to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, but in public places — and particularly at school, this can cause awkward-ness.

“From both boy and girl perspectives there would be tension with how I present myself,” says Marilynn. “It’s necessary for Garfield to have a [non-gendered] restroom for students, regardless of who they are.”

Currently this issue is being handled by the Garfield Teen Health Center, which opens its doors for any trans student who needs to use the bathroom, but this is only a temporary solution.

“I understand that a lot of people feel very uncomfortable using non-gendered bathrooms, although I personally never have,” says Jane. “It’s sometimes awkward at school; the school rules don’t really say what to do as far as bathrooms for trans students.”

Gender-specific bathrooms perpetuate the gender binary — the idea that there are only two genders and that people fit into one or the other. This dichotomy is rejected by many who view gender as a fluid spectrum, as opposed to sex.

Sex, Gender, and Expression

As the saying goes, “sex is between your legs, gender is between your ears.” Sex is defined as the physical expression of your genes, while gender is how you define yourself. This is also different from gender expression, which is how you express your gender identity. For example, someone’s sex could be female, their gender could male, and their gender expression could be masculine.

It is difficult to name the exact number of transgender people, both because of the range of the spectrum and because of suppression. Many people who might identify as some degree of transgender just don’t feel comfortable enough to come out. The prevalence is certainly increasing though. Since our society is becoming more and more comfortable with the idea, fewer people feel they need to hide who they are.

“It’s scary and a lot to deal with but you just need to be brave and confident and be yourself from the very beginning,” says Cayden. “Also, don’t worry about what people think of you because all that matters is you’re happy with who you are.”

To anyone struggling with gender identity, Marilynn adds that “You are not alone. It does get better.”

*name has been changed

“I didn’t have a second period or a language class,” Bogaard says. “Garfield [turned] two French II classes into one French III class, so some people were left without a language. I tried to sign up for running start but their class was full.”

Bogaard’s two language credits are just enough for Garfield’s graduation requirement, but won’t look good on college applications.

Overcrowded schools and cut classes are just some of the ways Washington’s public school students have been affected by the state’s cuts to education in recent years — and the projected $1.4 billion cut in the next two years didn’t calm anyone down.

On Nov. 28, Governor Christine Gregoire held a special session to discuss potential cuts to the new budget. Beginning with the walkout on Nov. 30, Garfield students have been active in protesting these cuts.

Garfield history teacher Jesse Hagopian attended this special session, joining hundreds of other teachers and protesters” with the intent of voicing his opinion: no more cuts to education.

“The state [has] already cut $2.7 billion from the state’s education budget over the past three years,” says Hagopian. “We have seen our coworkers laid off, teacher salaries cut, schools closed, classrooms swell in numbers, student transportation eliminated, counselors cut, and course offerings disappear.”

Hagopian says these cuts are violating the state’s “paramount duty,” as stated in its constitution, to make “ample provision for the education of all children” residing in Washington State.

At the special session on Nov. 28, Hagopian was arrested for disorderly conduct.

“But I think they got the wrong guy,” says Hagopian. “It was the state legislature whose reckless behavior has limited the futures of the students of Washington State.”

The arrest of Hagopian incited frustration among Garfield students who, later that night, created a Facebook group titled Free Mr. Hagopian! The initial point of this group was to get Hagopian out of jail.

After Hagopian posted bail that night, the group changed its focus to planning a Garfield student walkout on Wednesday, Nov. 30, to unify student voices and bring attention to the issues Hagopian was protesting in Olympia.

“The arrest of Mr. Hagopian caused many Garfield students to examine what he was protesting and drew our attention to the proposed budget cuts to public education,” said senior Maya Troll, who contributed to the organization of the walkout.

“When [the students] took action to fight for their own futures, it was beyond inspiring,” Hagopian says.

Through mass social media networks, the walkout group grew quickly — reaching 1000 members just 24 hours after it was created.

Students walk out

On Wednesday, Nov. 30, hundreds of Garfield students gathered on Alder Street for the walkout, chatting excitedly with their friends and hoisting signs that read, “education is a right,” and, “fund our futures.” With every minute that passed, the group grew larger and the air more tense.

The massive crowd began marching down Jefferson at 12:30. Every car’s honk provoked a round of screaming from the students.

“No more cuts to education; we are the future of our nation,” students chanted in unison.

Accompanied by several police officers on bicycles, the group continued down to Seattle City Hall, its final destination where students were greeted warmly by Mayor McGinn and other supportive onlookers.

Lukewarm reception

Many opponents of the walkout took issue with the intentions of the students participating.

“I think a lot of people originally got on board with the walkout, myself included, almost solely for the purpose of not having to attend fifth period [on] Wednesday,” junior Evan Barley-Greenfield says.

However, Barley-Greenfield commends the walkout leaders for providing information to participants beforehand educating students about the reason behind the walkout.

“I was able to learn more about the problems we and future students will face in our educations because of the lack of necessary funding,” he says. “I began to understand that this issue was actually important and bigger than just an excuse to skip class.”

Senior Mohamed Adan argues that if students only wanted to skip class, they could do that any other time.

“The willingness of so many bulldogs to march in the cold and up and down steep hills all the way to City Hall shows that [the walkout] was a movement by mature, passionate students who care for their future,” says Adan.

Garfield English teacher Mark Lovre says that even if there were students participating merely to miss fifth period or be with their friends, it’s the numbers that matter.

“To the outside eye, nobody can tell,” Lovre says. “Who cares?”

Garfield administrators generally supported the walkout’s cause.

“[The students] are fighting for their future… [and] exercising [their] right [to the freedom of speech] and by all means [they] should do that,” says Mr. Howard.

The movement spreads

The Nov. 30 protest was covered by The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, The Stranger and Seattle Weekly and mentioned in an interview with Hagopian on Countdown with Keith Obermann.

The Garfield message inspired other high schoolers. Tacoma student August Wimberger helped organize a similar walkout at Stadium High School on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

“I saw some pictures [of the Garfield walkout] on my news feed from some friends I had on Facebook and it completely influenced me,” says Wimberger. “I wouldn’t have done it without the Garfield one first so it was a chain reaction.”

Wimberger said the Stadium walkout, “went pretty well.”

“We had over one hundred kids [protesting] and the administration was surprisingly helpful,” he says. “They told all the staff to not try to stop kids from walking out and that if students brought in notes from their parents, their absences would be excused.”

The Tacoma School District has also felt the pain of cuts to education in the past years.

“We’ve had health classes with eighty kids in our gym; kids couldn’t get into the science classes they wanted because [those classes] were overcrowded and [the students] had to take extremely basic lab science [courses]; and some of our language classes have been cut as well,” Wimberger says.

Stadium and Garfield aren’t the only schools who have taken a special interest over the budget cuts and the special session.

Junior Obadiah Terry says that after the walkout, the group of Garfield leaders quickly grew to include students from Nathan Hale, Ingraham, Ballard and Roosevelt as they showed interest and offered their support.

He says the more students involved, the more noise will be made, and the more likely it will be that the legislators hear the students’ message.

The body of student leaders has evolved into a group called SWaC — Students of Washington for Change.

Said spokesperson Maya Troll, “SWaC’s main goals are to make sure the voice of students is heard well before the emergency legislative session ends and [to encourage] youth [to] continue to play an active role in safeguarding their right to education.”

Inter-school meetings over the last few weekends have led to the planning of other events involving raising awareness around budget cuts.

Ballard and Nathan-Hale High Schools have hosted letter-writing events to state legislators in opposition of budget cuts.

Garfield held an after-school teach-in on Monday, where students wrote letters to legislators and speakers discussed solutions to some of the education funding and budget deficit issues.

Some of these solutions included looking at our state’s tax system.

During this special legislative session, one of the things Governor Gregoire has proposed is a temporary half-cent increase in sales tax that would expire in July 2015 and raise approximately $1.5 billion.

Looking forward

A second student walkout was held Wednesday by members of SWaC in collaboration with students at UW, Seattle University and various community colleges. The hundreds of protesters marched from Red Square in the U-District to University Heights center, where the office of Washington Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp, is located.

Though less Garfield students attended, preliminary reports put the number of total attendees at more than last month’s event.

The protest received national media coverage.

SWaC members say this isn’t the end of student efforts to fight education cuts.

“We are already organizing to take our message to Olympia,” says Mohamed Adan. “The [special] session only lasts for thirty days, so we have to move fast if we want our voices heard.”

“We have to show up in full force to send a clear message to the elected officials in Olympia,” he says. “Slashing funding to educate the next generation of Americans is not the solution to our problems, but just a way to create even greater problems in the future.”

“Being seventeen years old is the worst age, politically speaking,” said Garfield senior Zach Ward.  At this point, high schoolers are the most involved in politics, but have the least true voting power.

With true Bulldog spirit, however, several Garfield students, organizations, and alumni are overcoming the barriers against high school students and discovering their own way to become involved in politics.

“Too often it gets to this debate between different opposing adult forces and the voice that’s lost is the actual students saying ‘hey, I can’t get textbooks’” says Toby Crittenden, a ‘00 Garfield graduate who now works with the Washington Bus to get students involved in politics.

The Washington Bus is an organization that works to get young people out to vote and involved in politics, including high schoolers, college students, and others in their twenties.  They support youth-driven politics by helping register voters, working on campaigns for young candidates, and promoting awareness.

The Bus’s emphasis on youth leadership is driven by the people in charge.  According to Crittenden, the staff at the Bus has more people below 30 than those above 30.  This unusual demographic allows the Bus to make politics more accessible to high schoolers, and give them support and motivation to get involved.

As new educational measures center on Seattle Public Schools, and in particular Garfield, adults are making more and more changes to policy that primarily affect students.

The School Board elections are directly related to all public school students.  The decisions made by the School Board affect the types of curriculum in schools, student’s rights, determine the educational budget, and many others.  The results of the School Board’s decisions are felt by high schoolers sitting in class everyday, but not by adults, who only hear about classroom and school-based issues if their children come home and complain.

“People throw these big concepts around, where it’s really felt almost always the most is in young people,” says Crittenden.  Adults don’t experience the impacts of their votes daily, so students have taken the initiative to make their own voices heard.

“I think voting is the single best way to be political, but it’s far, far, far from the only way to be political.… Voting is the output, but what are all the imputs?” says Crittenden.

In order to give students political voices, Garfield graduates Lucas Smith, Jesse Seidman, Alex Jonlin, Caleb Raible-Clark, Lucas Smith and Tal Levy created Senate Bill 5621 while they were students at Garfield.  The bill, sponsored by Senator Scott White, would lower the voting age in school-related elections to 14.  This proposal was an attempt to get the political voice high schoolers are denied, but it was not passed by the Washington State Senate.  In 2005, another bill to lower the voting age, this time to 16, was rejected.

As adult voters and legislators continue to deny students the right to vote, Garfield students have found other ways to make their opinions known and prepare themselves to be educated and inspired voters once they turn 18.

“Everything is political in life.  There are some places where that’s glossed over, and there are some places where that’s more apparent, and I think that becomes very apparent at Garfield” said Crittenden.

Garfield is home to many organizations and individuals who have become politically active before they can vote.

The Junior Statesmen of America, a national organization with many chapters at high schools all over the country, focuses on discussing issues around the world so students are more politically aware and informed about recent events.

JSA, as well as the activism at Garfield, “definitely helped me get more into it (politics) and helped me get more involved” said Haley McFarland, a Garfield senior who is the secretary of JSA.

“I got involved with JSA because I did not know much about how our country was run and the politics and the social and economic issues of our day, and I wanted to know more” said Sam Kennard, a Garfield senior and the treasurer of JSA.  One of JSA’s strengths as an organization is their informative nature, and that it’s not a prerequisite to know anything about the topics discussed.

Each week, Garfield JSA members have discussions on various subjects from human augmentation to the death of Osama Bin Laden.  They also participate in state-wide conventions, organize debates in which students can debate both sides of prominent issues, and host sessions with local adults who are involved in politics, such as School Board candidate Sharon Peaslee.  Although Peaslee did not win election to the School Board over incumbent Peter Maier, students involved in JSA were able to meet a candidate and formulate an informed opinion in this School Board race.

The leaders of JSA are also working to organize a debate between Garfield teaher Hersh Mandleman and a local Tea Party candidate, according to Kennard.  This debate will provide a example for JSA members on debate techniques for conventions.  However, it will also be an informative session about Seattle and Washington State issues that relate to all students and local community members.

“I’ve really enjoyed going to JSA and being able to hear people who have political views that are very different from the ones I have, and it’s not just ‘Oh, they’re idiots, we’re right,’ there’s some fact in a lot of different political beliefs” said Ward.

The new Garfield club by senior Tamara Boyle and sophomore Mohammed Jagana, Youth in Government, creates a mock-Congress and helps students better understand the political system.  In this program, students write up state-related bills and present them to their peers.  In the spring, they take these bills to Olympia and participate in a four-day mock-legislature where each student acts a part of the state government.

Youth in Government “is actually what got me interested in [politics]” said Boyle.  “Being involved in that really made me say ‘Oh, I should do other things’.”  As a result of her involvement in Youth in Governement, Boyle also got involved in student government and interned on Patty Murray’s Senate campaign.

Sophomore Lalah Muth was inspired by a teacher from Youth in Government in eighth grade who would come into her classes and help her class write and debate bills in order to better understand the political process.

“I thought ‘well that was really cool’… and I thought it was kind of fun… and when I got there it was even more fun” said Muth.  “It’s kinda like college.  You’re practicing for something to be better at something else.… If you ever wanted [to create a bill] you would know what to do.”

Debate groups and mock-government groups such as JSA, Youth in Government, and other groups such as Mock-Trial and Debate Club all help high schoolers with the inter-personal skills, political awareness, and government understanding that will help create savvy voters.  Some other Garfield students have gotten involved in today’s politics, instead of waiting for their eighteenth birthday.

Garfield juniors Jasmine Burr and Kian Vesteinsson are both on the advisory board of Seattle Young People’s Project, another youth empowered organization that advocates social justice for youth and engineers projects such as Queer Youth Space Seattle, works towards education reform, created a youth art collective, and fought the old WASL achievement test.  The organization is mostly run by Seattleites in their twenties, and the Board is made up of students under 17.

“People say ‘Oh yeah, it looks good on your college application,’ and I’m like okay, that’s great’ but I don’t want to just do it because it looks good on a college app, I want to do it because I like it, and for this specific program it wasn’t just about empowering youth, it was about getting them more into politics” said Burr.  “At Seattle Young People’s Project, you get the truth about things, and you get more into the community.”

“When I hear the word politics, I don’t really want to talk about it, mainly because it’s just so much.… I used to not care, and now I actually do care, I’m like, well, what is this law going to do for my community, what is it going to do for me, how is it going to benefit me, how is it going to affect my community.… I’m more aware of things going on in my community and around the world, which is really great” continued Burr.

Garfield’s ACLU club is also working with local state chapters of the national organization to promote student rights and civil liberties in Washington State.  Garfield seniors Maya Troll, Anna Jacobsen and Sierra Kaplan-Nelson have all “revitalized” the Garfield ACLU chapter, and are working to spread awareness about student rights in school, fighting against the death penalty, and fighting for the legalization of marijuana.

Their main focus is on student’s rights, especially at Garfield.  Troll, Jacobsen, and Kaplan-Nelson, along with junior Jack Noland are working to spread awareness about the privacy rights that students have, as well as fighting for rights that students should have, according to the leaders.  Their focus is on the random searches the Garfield administration conducts.

ACLU also focuses on informing students of their political system and the various civil issues, and is “dynamic and doing things,” such as working with New Approach Washington, a organization focused on legalizing and then regulating marijuana.  They also work on letter writing campaigns, gather signatures for initiatives, and organize assemblies to promote awareness about issues the ACLU takes a stand on.

“Speaking out …isn’t necessarily a political interest, but a civil duty” said Jacobsen.  Garfield students have taken her statement to the next level, and tied together their own political interests in voting, and been able to vote vicariously by creating change in their communities and influencing the opinions of many others and encouraging adults to vote.

“Unless we say it, no one else is going to say it for us” said Crittenden.

To Get Involved…

JSA — Meets Tuesday at lunch in Mr. Madelman’s room

ACLU — Meets Friday at lunch in the Library

Youth in Government — Talk to Tamara Boyle or Mr. Martin

Washington Bus — www.washingtonbus.org

Seattle Young People’s Project - www.sypp.org

In the words of co-president Michael Rosenberger, “coding is often thought of as a very solitary experience, involving dark basements and piles of mountain dew cans.” Though this may  be somewhat true, programming club exists to show everyone the other, more social side of computer coding that isn’t necessarily reserved for nerds.

“I’m a member because I love having a place to design, implement and discuss computer programs with friends,” Rosenberger explains.

Rosenberger is one of many students who meet after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays in room 115 to work together on programming projects and teach each other about computer science in general. Anyone with interest is strongly encouraged to participate.

“We are happy to teach anyone, regardless of programming experience,” insists Rosenberger. “Anyone can program if they have the dedication to do so.”

Currently, the group is working on developing a three-dimensional vector-based particle simulator with support for chemical interactions between particles, which will have applications as an engine for both video games and scientific research. All I can say is damn, no wonder Garfield kids are considered some of the smartest in the city.

Meets every day at lunch and after school, room 115a

ACLU Club

Garfield senior Maya Troll is president of the school’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter, a nationwide organization committed to protecting the freedoms of individuals in our country.

“Its been a major force in history; for example, ACLU was involved with Brown vs. Board of Education,” Troll says. “ACLU issues today include drug policy, criminal justice, race and gender equality, gay rights, immigrant rights, and really anything that infringes on our constitutional rights.”

According to Troll, the club was surprisingly inactive when she joined last year.

“Since [then], the club has grown and everyone is more committed,” says junior Jack Noland. ACLU’s big goal for the year is working on abolishing the death penalty in the state of Washington. Noland says, “I like the connection to local and national issues and the feeling of changing something I feel is injust.”

Meets Fridays at lunch, library

Lucid Dreaming Club

Though inception may be impossible, lucid dreaming is not. A group of Garfield students have been testing these muddy waters through sharing their own personal experiences at lucid dreaming club. Lucid dreaming is when a person in a dream state becomes aware of the fact they are dreaming and begins to control what they see and experience.

The difficulty comes in remaining in a dream state after one realizes that is where they are. As it sounds quite difficult, I was not surprised when I asked if all the club members could lucid dream and was met with the response, “Well…we want to.”

The high level of control and exertion required to lucid dream means it might as well be as possible as inception.

“If you can occupy your mind with something else, like spinning in a circle, you can stay asleep,” says junior Martina Hildredth.

The weekly meetings have brought together this group of students. “The greatest part is the people,” says junior Isabelle Marshall.

“It is fun,” was sophomore Camille Soloman’s deep insight into the club’s character.

Meets Tuesdays at lunch, choir room

Drama Club

Each year, students can see their peers perform in five different shows, full of talent, drama and plenty of laughter. Four times a year, Drama Club puts on “Dramatic Paws,” a show composed of one-act, student directed plays. Anyone can be in DP, and even students with no acting experience are encouraged to audition. In addition to this, Drama Club puts on an annual winter show, with auditions for this years show, Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap, on October 31st and November 2nd.

Meets Fridays, monthly

Amnesty International

Seniors Jasmine Ramezanzadeh and Rachel DeCordoba are beginning their second year as co-presidents of Garfield’s Amnesty International chapter. The global organization works to end human rights violations all over the world, such as the holding of political prisoners, (widespread existence) of poverty, and violence against certain populations because of race, gender, or affiliation, etc.

“The biggest events [that we participate in] are letter write-a-thons and protests; there was recently one over the Troy Davis case,” says DeCordoba. “We work on educating students around certain issues because many high-schoolers don’t think about these things usually.”

DeCordoba and Ramezanzadeh both first got involved their freshman year, when the club was a decent size but fairly inactive. Since then, the club has expanded greatly and shifted its focus.

“We are trying to concentrate more on raising awareness than raising money,” says Ramezanzadeh.

Junior Sadya Ahmed says, “What keeps me going back to Amnesty is there are so many interesting issues that are discussed that I want to help with. One of my goals is to come up with ideas that our club can do to change the law in Saudi Arabia of women not being allowed to drive.”

Meets Tuesdays at lunch, room 236

Robotics Club

Big things are brewing in room 115a after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This year, Robotics Club is working on constructing a robot that can stack crates together and fill them with racquetballs — one of the challenges for this year’s annual FIRST Tech Challenge competition.

“The competition is great because there are just a ton of people there and the robot contests are really exciting,” says sophomore member Mack Beveridge. This year the team is hoping to make it to state for the second year in a row. But to senior George Matter, the real fun in robotics club isn’t in winning medals.

“I am a part of Robotics Team because I don’t get a chance to design and build things in the same way elsewhere (except perhaps computer programming, but that’s not at all tangible the way a robot is),” says Matter. “[I like] that feeling when you hold a robot in your hands and can say ‘I built this out of nothing more than some spare parts and an idea’.”

Meets Wednesdays/Thursdays after school, room 115A

18 minutes and 26 seconds later, the 56 passengers aboard United flight 175 plummeted to their death, destroying the south world trade center tower, leaving hundreds more civilians dead. It was 9/11 2001, and America was under attack.

Though she was not actually in New York at the time, Garfield student Olivia Dack will forever be affected by the tragedy of 9/11. Dack lost her father who was at a business meeting in the world trade center that Tuesday morning.

“I knew my dad worked in the buildings and once I heard it, something kind of dropped in my gut,” Dack says. “It was really surreal when I look back on it now.”

Unlike other children who have lost a parent, Dack was forced to deal with the public nature of her father’s death. “On the news, I heard that some people had escaped and I always had hope that he would come back. It took me a year or two to understand that he was gone. I was just severely confused,” says Dack.

Though most of us cannot fully comprehend what Dack experienced, we can all learn from the events of 9/11. “I don’t expect pity, just the ability to relate almost, even if the other person can’t. I have always wanted the person who I’m talking to, to ask me questions, or simply talk; it makes me feel less alienated and more open,” says Dack.

Other students are linked to 9/11 in a less tragic way. Garfield senior Kayla Kerr was hoping to celebrate her 7th birthday on 9/11, before America was attacked.

“I remember I woke up to my mom crying and I couldn’t figure out why, because it was my birthday. I didn’t really know what was going on since I was so young.”

Though Kerr’s 7th birthday is ten years behind her now, she still feels the effects each year.

“It was more of a memorial than a celebration for years after the attacks. It’s almost bittersweet when your birthday is a day for remembrance of nearly 3,000 victims.”

*****

Garfield history teacher Hersh Mandelman was routinely listening to the Tuesday morning news when he first heard of the attack. “I was shocked,” he states simply. He immediately called his brother and sister in law, both of whom lived in the New York area. They were safe, however, and his friends who worked in the tower had not arrived at their office yet.

Jonathan Stever, another Garfield teacher, recalls his memories of 9/11. Like Mandelman, Stever’s first reaction was total shock. “After I got over the shock I was saddened and a little angry by the reality of what happened,” says Stever.

“I tried to help students understand what had happened. Many students understood what was going on, many others were confused and somewhat disconnected.”

Garfield math teacher Jeffrey Nomura was on his way to school when he learned of the first plane crash. “I felt on that day that any problems I may have had were nothing compared to what the people in New York City were going through,” says Nomura.

Susan Derse, principal of Garfield at the time,  took a moment of silence to honor those who had died in the attacks, and classes resumed shortly after. Though the North tower collapsed while students sat in their first period seats, most were too distanced to really understand the importance.

Mandelman was teaching a European History class where students wrote in a daily journal. “I told my students to write in their notebooks that their lives would never be the same again,” recalls Mandelman.  “Today the world has changed.”

*****

However, many students do not understand that change. Despite living through the event, most Garfield students were too young to comprehend it. Having just turned 6 at the time, I don’t even remember where I was that day.

So I created a survey.  I wanted to know how many students knew the basic premise of 9/11. When asked where the planes crashed, only one in eight students named the twin towers, the pentagon, and Pennsylvania, and only one in four had a rough idea of how many people died. With answers ranging from 200 to 500,000, it’s clear that many of us are uninformed.

“My students at that time, they didn’t get it yet. They didn’t get the importance, and most still don’t,” says Mandelman.

9/11 was the Pearl Harbor of our generation, and yet because it was so recent, many curricula do not cover it yet. The generation behind us will study it in their 7th grade history class, and the generation before us was old enough to understand it at the time. And thus the current high school generation is left in the middle, old enough to remember, but too young to understand.

*****

This was not what Rebecca Black had in mind when she sang “Gotta get down on Friday.”

In this age of modern technology, Alan, a Garfield junior, learns about parties mere hours before they start.  His connection to these gatherings is often distant, and whether it’s the ex-boyfriend of a friend’s sister, or the cousin of a mutual acquaintance, Alan has often never met the actual inhabitant of the house.

Jeremy*, a junior at another local high school, has been in the position of “actual inhabitant” once before, and for Jeremy, once was enough.  Having had little experience organizing parties or opening his house to strangers, Jeremy decided to take advantage of the fact that his parents would be out of town by having a bunch of people over.  He saw it as “a fun way to get to know kids from other schools, and maybe some upperclassmen from my own school.”

During the week leading up to the party, however, he began to realize the potential hazards of such an event.  Word of the party got out days in advance as opposed hours, and Jeremy began to hear horror stories about uncontrollable numbers of kids, thefts, and property damage.  Succumbing to the peer pressure to hold the party, Jeremy did his best to mitigate the hazards he faced by locking valuables and fragile objects in his car and taking other precautionary measures.  “I thought for some reason that I could keep it smaller and under control.  I was wrong.”

Alan tells me that he never goes to parties intending to steal. “The opportunity just comes.  I’m never like looking for stuff.” In most cases opportunity manifests itself in the form of an iPod sitting unattended on a shelf or a cellphone on a table.  There is no motive, no malicious drive, just a spontaneous way to add thrill and excitement to his night.  Alan sets the scene like this: “I’m probably walking around, chilling with a couple friends, talking about stuff.  When you’re on some substances definitely, and you’re just off the mode.” All of a sudden, something catches his eye as it sits unprotected on a table and he thinks “hey, there’s some stuff right there – how ‘bout this?”

Other times the theft is the result of a chain reaction.  “Most of the time if somebody takes some stuff, that leads to another taking some stuff, you know, and then a bunch of people are taking stuff,” says Alan.

On the night of his party, Jeremy definitely suffered from the chain reaction effect.  “I became more and more panicked as the night went on,” says Jeremy of the increasing chaos that was taking place in his house.  “I gradually realized that there were just way too many people in my house to keep under control.”  Whether he knew it or not, things were starting to disappear, and a circling police car in the neighborhood did little to improve his situation

Existing law creates a number of barriers that prevent police from intervening in parties held at private residences.  Though complaints from neighbors and noise often make it easy for police to locate parties, it is usually difficult for them to enter without the express permission of the home owner or a 911 hang-up from inside the house.  Often just the presence of police in the vicinity is enough to scatter guests, but in Jeremy’s case it was not.  “The onus is kind of left on the individual,” says Seattle Police Department spokesman Mark Jamieson on why police have trouble preventing thefts before they occur.

In hindsight Jeremy reflects, “I probably should have called [911] myself late in the party; it was one of the few options I had left.”
When Alan wakes up in the morning, he remembers that he has a new iPod, and that it isn’t his.  To be sure, Alan already had an iPod, and he has neither the need nor the desire for another one.

Over the course of the following days, Alan’s stuck.  He feels bad about taking the stuff but has no way to return it.  “It’s hard to give stuff back because there’s all that guilt and you’re scared of the consequences.  Even if you want to [give it back] it’s easier just to hold on to it – or get rid of it.”
Most of the time the loot gets resold, though Alan is earnest when he says that the money that a used iPod can fetch isn’t a factor in his decision whether or not to take it.  If he’s unable to resell the goods, Alan says that sometimes they just get misplaced, “left in a car or something.”

Seattle Police spokesman Jamieson suspects that most of the theft that occurs at parties goes unreported to the police, especially when it occurs on a smaller scale.  Jeremy ultimately chose not to pursue those who took his stuff.  A few days after the party, a police officer came to take inventory of what had been stolen, but he admitted that there was little that the police could do to investigate further.  However, some homeowners go to great lengths to recoup their losses.  For this reason, Alan’s biggest concern is having parents try to track him down.  His fears are not unwarranted.  Following a recent party in Bellevue, parents hired a private investigator to track down those who had stolen their possessions.  After removing students from Garfield classrooms, the private investigator used intimidation and hearsay to question students about thefts that had occurred.

Despite the risks involved, one theme came up again and again in my conversations with Alan: fun.  Contrary to common assumption, theft for Alan is neither mean-spirited nor premeditated.  The fact remains though that stealing is a crime that hurts real people like Jeremy.  Beyond the damage to his house and the monetary loss of the thefts, Jeremy describes the loss of his parents’ trust as one of the hardest consequences of the episode.  “I felt pretty awful when my parents got home and I had to tell them what happened – they completely lost faith in me.”

While Jeremy vows never to host again, history teaches us that there will always be another party.  Where unattended iPods abound, opportunity will continue to present itself Alan or others.

*name has been changed to protect identity