What were your favorite sports in high school? Why?
I enjoyed golf and tennis because they were individuals sports where I was competing against myself or one opponent, but I also loved playing basketball too for the team experience.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Rhode Island, which is about 40 minutes south of Boston.
Other than sports, what other interests did you have as a kid?
I truly fell in love with taxidermy. Have you ever stuffed a dead cat? It’s a passion of mine!
5th in the state and 32nd in the nation: BSGE’s US News and World Report rankings are in. Last year, the ranking was higher in the nation, at 28th place, yet the ranking in the state stayed the same.
So what do people think of this? Some people thought that this was significant to this school, and this ranking often affects people’s decisions to stay or leave. Reid Papafloratos ‘21 believes that there may be an obvious reason for the decrease in ranking this year, saying that “A lot of the specialized schools are taking away a lot of our eighth graders, soon-to-be ninth graders.” He’s hopeful that next year the rankings will go up when the new ninth graders come in.
On the other hand, some people don’t think the ranking is necessarily a good representation of the school as a whole. Mr. Mahajan, who has been a French teacher at BSGE for many years, has seen the effect of rankings on his students’ mindsets. “It’s nice to rank high, but sometimes you attract the attention of students that may not be really committed to our mission,” says Mr. Mahajan. “If that means that we get less of that and students are staying here for high school, then maybe a lower ranking is better.”
Tim David-Lang, the school’s guidance counselor, agrees. He believes that it’s not the rankings that determine the school’s excellence. As a result, relying on rankings to decide which school is best for someone isn’t the right decision. “A lot of us suffer from what’s called confirmation bias, so what that means is that when we’re looking to make a certain conclusion, we’ll go around and cherry-pick the information that we want,” he explains.
So what do you think about this year’s rankings? Do they matter at all?
Students may have noticed that recently, teachers have been attending International Baccalaureate conferences in other parts of the country. They attend conferences like these every few years to adjust the curriculum of their courses after the IBO makes changes to grading criteria, content, or course structure.
Ms. Jennifer Dikes, the IB coordinator and 12th grade IB History of the Americas teacher, has been to several of these conferences. “To be a part of the International Baccalaureate, schools are required to provide their teachers with training in the IB curriculum and the IB philosophy,” she says. According to her, teachers have to go every six to seven years since every curriculum changes within that time span. IB teachers from across the country meet to discuss ideas on teaching and resources. Everyone who teaches a Diploma subject are sent to IB-specific training at least once.
This year, a sophomore named Nicole Rodriguez decided to adopt a pig and a sheep for her personal project to save both animals from animal abuse. Nicole has been vegan for over a year, and has always been passionate about animal rights. She has used the personal project as an opportunity to raise money to sponsor Otis the pig and Claria the sheep.
“Earlier in the summer, I went to a vegan expo which had a display on Sanctuary Farms. I knew instantly that this is what I wanted to do my personal project on,” Nicole explains. Although she was already vegan, she was inspired to do more than simply refraining from eating animal products. So she successfully guided two animals to a better life.
Fundraisers are not uncommon in BSGE, especially with all the bake sales that take place. But recently, two eleventh graders, Lucia Zhu ’17 and Moshan Guo ’17, have taken a different approach to fundraising.
They have created the Aesthetic Arts and Creativity Club, where students make handmade crafts to donate to charities. “Once you’re in eleventh grade you have to do a CAS project and I think it’s a good opportunity to do something outside the community or outside the school to raise awareness,” explains Lucia.
“Ice skating with my friends and my Valentine.”
-Chloe Pan ’20
Even though learning the content is said to be the most important part of classes, students still feel a nervous anticipation as report cards and parent-teacher conference come closer, no matter the grade.
It seems expectations are different for each student as well, especially for the first semester of the school year. Mohammed Rahman ‘20 explains that he thinks he will do pretty well, but when asked what specific grade he expects to get, he said “an average of around 4s and 5s.”
“I mean, it depends on your definition of ‘great’…For this semester, I just want to pass, really… ” says Jonathan Chen ‘21. “I expected…fives and sixes, but nope! I got hit with threes and fours.”
The BACC Rag 