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New Teacher Profile: Victor Hernandez

October 12, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Meymey Seng

Staff Writer

With a goodbye, there’s a new hello. Victor Hernandez is Science Leadership Academy’s new Algebra 2 and Computer Science teacher who says he is from “everywhere but nowhere”. He came from teaching pre-calc and Algebra 2 at Esperanza Academy for three years, which is a big adjustment for him, but he’s looking forward to working it out.

“He’s very confident and knows what he’s talking about. A creative, thoughtful, and kind person,” said Co-Principal Aaron Gerwer.

Positive Energy

Something that immediately struck Mr. Hernandez was SLA’s energy when he first came to EduCon a couple years ago. All of the teachers, students, and other participants were very enthusiastic, which is something that he has not seen in many schools.

“There was an energy here that’s noticeably absent in a lot of other schools so it really intrigued me once I started finding out why people were interested I realized that I had that in common with them and I was like oh that seems like a place where I would get a lot out of it.”

Teaching Style

He plans to keep the curriculum in Algebra 2 similar to past years since it has gone so well. However, he plans to bring in projects that he has given his past students while incorporating them in a way that would best fit SLA.

What does he want kids to learn? He would like students to “have a context of a new concept before they start learning skills because if you don’t know where a skill fits in outside of this classroom, it’s very hard to keep track of.”

For Computer Science, he will modify the class based on what he knows from programming and also on the different students that he is working with, because everyone has a different pace.

“Something new that Mr. Hernandez did that I like is letting us put assignments in a table folder rather than just coming around to collect it,” 10th grader Harlem Satterfield said. “I can’t imagine having a different Algebra 2 teacher!”

Background

What does coming from “everywhere but nowhere” mean? Mr. Hernandez was born in Colombia, then went to Saudi Arabia, to California, to Massachusetts, and now lives in Philadelphia.

“I’ve lived a lot of different places, but none of those are places I’d call home,” he said. He was always going to new places and haven’t lived anywhere consistently but now he has a wife and a son in a house he can call home in South Philadelphia.

Life Before Teaching

Before going into teaching, Mr. Hernandez did many other things. When he was fourteen, he was a foreign exchange student in a school in Southern California. In college, he was a radio DJ. After that, he got a job as a software engineer at Apple but later decided to get a teaching certificate.

Music, Movies, and Extracurricular Activities

Aside from teaching, Mr. Hernandez is a music fanatic. He listens to a huge variety of music such as underground rock, punk, late 80s and early 90s hip hop, jazz, latin music, and more. In fact, he used to be a radio DJ in college which is exposed him to a lot of music. Not only does he have a passion of finding new music, he has a similar passion towards both old and international movies.

He would watch way back to silent movies to the transition of having voice which would be in the 1930s, especially American Hollywood productions. Other types of movies he enjoys are French movies, post World War 2, Eastern European, and so much more. Although, he is not a big fan of the new movies that has recently been coming out.

Back to School Night & What’s NOT Back To School

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Darius Purnell

Co Editor and Chief

On Monday September 19th and Wednesday SEptember 21st, SLA welcomed parents and students to Back to School night. Families teachers, staff, and faculty all joined together to enjoy food and answer questions to give a rundown of the plans for this new school year.

Orientations and sharing of food wasn’t the only highlight of the nights, the Student Union and Home and School Association prepared a campaign to gain awareness from teachers to gaps in the school’s budget, to show what the school is still missing and needs help fulfilling. The event was called “What’s Not Back to School Night.”

SLA Reflects on Teacher Diversity

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Tamir Harper

Staff Writer

What should the teaching staff at SLA Center City look like?

Teacher diversity affects the entire school community in some way, shape, or form. Racial diversity in education has been a huge topic in recent years. Publications like Mother Jones have reported about the pushing out of black educators in Philadelphia and other cities. So how does SLA Center City ’s staff stack up? Should it be more diverse than it already is?

Currently, 40% of SLA teachers are people of color. However, 11% of SLA Center City teachers are African American, and only one of them is an African American male. This is higher than the national average, where only 7% of public school teachers are African-American, but lower than the Philadelphia average, where 25.32% are African-American. And it’s proportionally much smaller than the student body at SLA, where 34.9% of students identify as African-American.

Teachers have mixed feelings about this situation. Physics Teacher BJ Enzweiler said that SLA Center City is “not as diverse as we would like to be”.

Junior Saamir Baker is an African American male who feels his education is impacted by this situation. “I wish there were more Black male teachers that could relate to what I was personally going through on a racial scale.”

White students also wish for more diversity. Junior Eli Block was asked if SLA Center City had enough Black teachers. “I wish we had more teachers with different backgrounds so that could mean more diversity, or people who aren’t so generic — Black, White, Hispanic or whatever.”

All students interviewed for this article has the same viewpoint: that the SLA Center City teaching staff is not as diverse as it could be.

So how does the administration feel about this?

Principal Chris Lehmann agreed with the students: “I don’t think it’s a good thing that we only have three African American Teachers.” He noted that nationwide, fewer African Americans are going into the teaching profession, which makes it harder to find new staff to hire.

When asked about maintaining the diversity of SLA Center City teaching staff, Principal Lehmann stated “it’s something that we [the hiring team] have been working hard at.” He also explained that “we [the hiring team] have made it a priority to recruit African American Teachers, but it’s not easy, there are fewer African American going into the profession.”

Mr. Lehmann described that the hiring process at SLA Center City is very particular. The hiring team usually consist of everyone from that subject department, any other staff that choices to sit on and one SLA Center City Student and parent. In describing this process, Mr. Lehmann stated that there has been times where the hiring team came to a consensus to not hire an African American teacher that Lehmann was very interested in.

Acknowledging that SLA is small, with at most a couple of teachers hired every year, how does it balance its need for educators qualified to work in this kind of school with it’s need for more African-American teachers?

“Hiring is never a perfect process, it depends on whoever is available during a given season.” Said English teacher Larissa Pahomov, who sat in on most of last year’s hires. “Last year was made even more difficult by the fact by some positions we could only hire teachers that were currently employed by the School District of Philadelphia.”

This situation continues to get attention not just within the school, but nationally. Now-graduated student Noah Caruso was interviewed by Melinda Anderson in the Atlantic Magazine.

“Now a rising senior, Caruso looks back with appreciation on his ninth-grade year in Kay’s class. “He’s the most inspiring teacher I ever had by far,” Caruso said, recalling Kay’s emphasis and commentary on fraught topics such as present-day racism. “He definitely pushed us to really think about these social issues [that] weren’t talked about before in my life because everyone grew up in the same area,” he continued. “We were all white … and everyone had the same opinion.”

This article is the first in a series exploring issues of diversity at SLA Center City . A future article will talk to the African-American teachers on staff. Keep checking SLAMedia.org and follow us on twitter for a follow-up interview on the lack of teacher diversity at Science Leadership Academy at Center City and in the School District of Philadelphia.

New Teacher Profile: Dan Symonds

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov 2 Comments

Ella Petersen

Staff Writer

Though History Teacher Dan Symonds might be new to SLA, the core values of the school are not new to him. An activist since his high school years, Mr. Symonds strives to defend public education in the time of budget cuts and political control.Having worked in some of Philadelphia’s more underfunded schools, he’s seen firsthand the things that make the School District of Philadelphia the neglected place that it is.

An Activist

Mr. Symonds’ interest in political movements is not limited to Philadelphia.

“Lately, I have been inspired by the actions of water protectors at Standing Rock, of high school athletes raising consciousness through national anthem actions, and of workers in India staging the largest strike in human history,” he said.

Mr. Symonds grew up in the era of George Bush Sr. and remembers reading about the war on terror in the newspaper. As a result, at a young age, he came to the realization that as a privileged individual, he could not simply watch these things go on in the world. He wanted to do something about it.

“If you don’t have official influence through corporate or state entities, dissent, protest, organizing and direct action are natural channels for building strength,” he remarked.

His passion for education is even apparent in the classroom. A freshman in his African-American history class, Orlando Aguayo, said, “He is open to our ideas and opinions and I can tell he cares about my education.”

Outside of the Classroom

Though Mr. Symonds spends a great deal of his free time involved in political activism, that’s not the only thing he does. “I like to dance. I think dancing is an important thing to do in life. I’m a terrible dancer, but if you don’t like dancing, you’re not that fun and I think as a bad dancer, it is so important to dance,” he said, laughing.

Mr. Symonds is always looking for an opportunity to travel. He tends to do most of his international travel over summer break. This past summer he went to Hungary, Denmark, Poland, Serbia, and Germany with some friends.

He can also be a handy-man when he wants. He explained, “I take a good deal of pride in knowing how to fix stuff, so right now, I moved into a house with friends and tiled some of the bathroom, put my own doorknob in, put in shelves.”

When it comes to music, he is not picky about genres. In college at Swarthmore, he used to have a radio show. “I like hip-hop, electronic music, especially disco, I think disco matters, and a lot of weird old country folk,” he noted.

Perfect Fit for SLA

Hiring Mr. Symonds was not a difficult choice, because he already thought like the SLA teacher. History Teacher Pearl Jonas, was a part of the team that interviewed Mr. Symonds, and she only had good things to say about him.

“We are always looking for someone who is going to do well here in a project based learning environment, who’s interested in collaborating with other teachers, who seems to just get SLA coming in,” she explained. “He was very genuine and you can tell that’s how he thinks about education and about learning, about kids, so that really made him stand out.”

Mr. Symonds is not used to being in a district school with resources. He is still trying to adjust to an environment where teachers and students are prepared for class.

“This school year feels like my first year teaching again, because this is the first year I get to actually teach stuff as opposed to putting out fires, both literally and figuratively,” he said. Working in other district schools, he recalled that he has “seen more nonsense, oppression, and anti-student happenings than [he] cares to remember.”

Despite this, he seems to be adjusting well, as he raved about SLA’s environment: “SLA is a happy place, and many schools aren’t. I’d like to see the ethics of this school exist in other parts of the district. I’d like students to not dwell on how good they have it, but on what can be done to ensure that others are afforded the same opportunities. SLA is proof that school does not have to be horrible–that it can even be beautiful.”

Here’s What You Missed at the Club Fair

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Fatu Castillo

Staff Writer

Hey, do you remember all those awesome booths at the Club Fair during the first week of school?

If you answered yes, then sit down you liar! Science Leadership Academy didn’t even have a Club Fair this year! Isn’t that sad? Think of all the lonely pamphlets that you’ll never get to use as random bookmarks, all the miserably cardboard presentations that’ll never have their papers start to peel off, and all the club heads that’ll never desperately try to have your name on their signup sheet. Not to mention all the upcoming artists who’ll miss out on a chance to express their creativity.

You can stop crying now, because this article is going to introduce you to all of the artistic clubs at SLA. Unless you’d prefer to express your creativity by scribbling in the notebooks during class. That was how Picasso and Shakespeare first started out their careers.

Art Club

Art Club was co-founded in 2014 by Zoe Andersson with her friend Xavier Caroll their Sophomore year. Meetups happen every Tuesday during Y-Band, that means no X-Banders allowed, in Hull’s classroom.

“It was kinda just a way to do art during a lunch band that we didn’t have a lot to do,” said Senior Zoe Andersson, “And then a lot of people started to join.” You don’t even have to be worried about your nonexistent art skills! Each meeting is spent working on something new, ranging from crocheting to clay sculpting.

“You don’t have to consider yourself talented” Anderson said, “We love you anyways.” If you happen to make any true atrocities then you can always forget about them come the next meeting.

“Come to Art Club,” encouraged Andersson, “It’s a great time, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we’ll love you and it’s great here.”

Poetry Club

Just how long has SLA’s poetry club been around?

“It’s really, really old,” said Senior director Otter Jung-Allen. “It was a thing way, way before I got here.”

Meetups happen every Thursday in room 308.

“We have snacks,” Jung-Allen offered, “We always have snacks”. You won’t be the only one coming in just for the pizza at first. Don’t worry if you suck at poetry either, the entire year is geared to help you channel your inner Edgar Allen Poe.

“The goal of the club in general is to produce better writers,” stated Jung-Allen. Once the year winds towards Feburary though,you’d better expect to take up arms for Poetry Slam, where you perform your writings on stage, representing SLA. Science Leadership Academy has already knocked out a win back in 2014.

“So for anyone who’s debating on whether they wanna come to Poetry Club,” Jung-Allen stated, “There’s is no harm in trying it out and saying that it’s not for you, it will be for you, it’s very rare that we have people drop out just because they don’t like it.”

The Fourth Floor Literary Magazine

Founded in 2012, the club is managed by three directors: Kate Kopf, Emily Stephens, and Jack Sugre. Meetups happen every Tuesday during Y-Band, in 505, and X-Band, in 504. Each meeting, the members of the club sort through artworks, short stories, and poems all submitted by students.

“We will accept any submission” Kopf stated, “But not all submissions will make it into the magazine”. Here are some of the lucky few that were featured in the past:

And if you that’s not your piece of cake, then there’s always their fundraising section. “We’re always looking to keep the SLA community engaged”, Stephens said, “We’re always looking to expand for fundraising.” You can always work on your bartering skills while selling snacks.

“Just come and check it out”, Kopf encouraged, “You might find new experiences, it’s a great group of people, if you interested in art or writing or learning new skills and being together with a great group of people then this is the place to do it.”

If you didn’t find any of the clubs interesting, then I guess you’re outta luck. If the arts aren’t your thing, go join Sports Data and Analysis Club.