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Massive Art Installation Depicts Story Of American Nonviolence
By Audrey Lutz
Ms. Switzer and her History of Nonviolence class made an outstanding art installation depicting a visual timeline of nonviolent movements in American history. The project is the culmination of many years of preparation, research, and development.
After involving Ms. Story, an upper school art teacher, they decided to make a timeline following events through history. We were standing in front of the artwork when we spoke and she said, “If I were to go back 20 years when I first started teaching about non-violence I would not have known half of what is up here.”
Each student made individual tiles that show non-violent activists and researched them to gain a better understanding of who they are and how they affected history. I was able to speak with Leah Cox about her involvement with this project. “I was a student in the class, so I helped with brainstorming and making the background,” she said. “If you look at the board, on the far right, there is a collage of non-violent organizations and above it there are doves. I made both of those.”
Ms. Switzer said that the installation is a way “of visualizing all of the interconnected complexity of non-violence in American history.” Everything is connected one way or another, and this installment shows all of the historical branches.
As we started the interview Ms. Switzer implied that “Non-violence isn’t just about creating peace and justice, it’s creating conditions where violence is less likely.” This art is meant to show that peace is possible and that people are willing to risk their lives to stand up and say, they want a better society.
There are 14 different non-violent movements that are represented on the board, but the art piece starts with the Indigenous people in the United States. “What my students discovered is that from a very early point, Indigenous people in the United States had non-violent peacemaking kinds of cultural technologies, and a lot of the non-violence that evolved came from seeing the way the Indigenous people resolve conflict,” said Ms. Switzer.
The Indigenous people are the true roots of America and the first people to teach non-violence. “Many people think that the Indigenous people were just bows and arrows, but they had such a complex life,” said Ms. Switzer.
Next, we move on to the Quakers and Anabaptists. “The historic peace churches (the Quakers and Anabaptists) came to the United States to escape persecution.” The Quakers and Anabaptists lit the fire for the anti-slavery movement. “They believed that there is a god and somehow that god is present in all people, so then anytime you’re unjust or violent to another person, you’re being unjust and violent to god. So that sort of theological premise motivated them to confront slavery first.”
Everything is connected in history and this board is illustrating that. “So we have this early women’s movement that starts, and those same women became the leaders of the suffrage movement.” Ms. Switzer then shows me how the branches connect everything together.
As we keep moving down the boards we are introduced to the pre-civil rights which of course leads us to the all mighty civil-rights movement. They tried to include as much as they could, but the board can only hold so much. The board includes the majority of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Finally, we come to the final board with the Black Lives Matter movement “as the most recent manifestation,” with its focus on anti-racism. “We have anti-racism, kind of having these moments of surging and then receding and then surging over time, but always there.”
People have always been fighting against racism in history. “A takeaway that one of my students realized is that since the 1600s, there have been people, white people standing against racism, all the way to the current time. And since 1730-1740 every year someone has been born in America who has fought against racism.”
At the end of the final board, there are many pieces of art. “We have this collage of doves and it sort of represents the future for hope and peace,” Ms. Switzer said. There is a collage of different activists, and then finally a mirror “because we wanted people to get to the end of the installation and say, well what can I do to make a more peaceful future?”
Under the mirror, it says “The Future of Nonviolence is You.”
This project was a semester-long idea, yet the idea mainly came to fruition right around thanksgiving. As Ms. Switzer usually has a much bigger class she doesn’t do big projects like this one. This year she only had 9 students in her History of Nonviolence class, so Ms. Switzer asked them if they wanted to do something more creative than they normally couldn’t do with a greater number of students. “We talked to Ms. Story and we started brainstorming options. My students wanted to work together so we developed this idea, which was much more complicated than we were expecting and I didn’t know if we were going to finish.”
They started making it right after fall break and only had until exams to finish. “Towards the end of the last 2 weeks of class, this project was all we did. The students came before school, after school, and during lunch. They spent so much time on this and it’s incredible.” Leah Cox, a student who worked on this project, said that “There were times when we would have to come during our free periods, and we would work together and collaborate throughout the whole process.”
As the artwork started to finish they brought in Ms. Story again to take a look. “Once Ms. Story saw the project coming together she said that we needed to get this in front of other audiences.” Then came talk of where this outstanding project could go. They are considering the Hartfield Jackson airport, which has a section where they display student work; the Center for Civil and Human Rights; and even the history center of Atlanta. “Right now the chief of the marketing department – Janie Beck- is working on finding out if this could be a traveling exhibition.”
Ms. Switzer is so proud of this piece and it has only made her think of what she could do in the future. “I’ve been trying for years to know how to organize this incredibly complex history and the more I taught the more I realized that it’s not just the history of non-violence but the histories of non-violence, and I’ve always struggled to make sense of it all visually. And the fact that they were able to create a way of visualizing it is amazing, not only to me but to them and future students.”
This project was huge, not only for Lovett but for the future of Ms. Switzer’s class. This artwork alone holds so many important people, dates, and moments in history that are not talked about in the history books.
The students had to work so incredibly hard to get this project completed and it brought them closer together. “I think that this bonded my class,” she said. “We would see one another so much during the day that our close proximity to each other almost forced us to get closer.”
This artwork will be displayed in the art gallery hall until the end of February. After that, no one is truly sure where it will end up but, hopefully, wherever it goes it will inspire people. “We’re trying to create a better world,” Leah said.
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Opening Doors To Black History
By Malaya Madison
While the Upper School offers engaging experiences for Black History Month, like a special chapel service, catered soul food, a jazz assembly, and a screening of Hidden Figures, the other divisions took part in their own activities that delivered powerful messages
In 1926, Black History was celebrated for a one-week period, which has since grown into a nationally recognized month.
For the ninth year in a row, students in lower and middle school learned about celebrated Black history in their classrooms with a door-decorating competition. This year, the theme was “A century of Black History Commemorations.”
Teachers were given a list of historical figures to choose from, and then it was showtime!
The doors were officially displayed on February 24th, from 5 pm to 8 pm.
In Middle School, the doors are mostly decorated during advisory, but in lower school, they are decorated at any time of day.
Curious to see what these devoted students had created, I paid a visit to the other divisions.
While I was on a tour of the Lower School, I encountered Ms. Sarah Griffin, a 5th-grade teacher, who was very excited.
Her class created a beautiful door about Ella Fitzgerald. The door had a stage attached to it built from a cardboard box and a microphone made with construction paper. The door offered a cool interactive experience, allowing users to play different Ella Fitzgerald songs by Ella Fitzgerald using buttons.
“I really love that it brings the class together to celebrate stories that may not always be told. It’s a really cool experience,” Ms. Griffin said.
This excitement wasn’t limited to teachers; many students felt the same.
I spoke to Aliya Claybrooks, a fourth grader, about why she liked designing the door in her classroom.
“What I like about doing a door is it’s really fun, and you get to talk about it with your classmates about people with black history and how they changed the world, like slavery and stuff,” she said.
Viewers who came through the show voted for a door in each grade using posted QR codes.
The contest wasn’t limited to doors; if teachers had access to a space, they could decorate it as well. They used their students’ faces and comments to make the doors fun and interactive.
In the 3rd-grade hallway, I stayed at a few doors for about 10 minutes.
When I was coming up the stairs, one of the volunteers told me to beware of the door she was about to show me. She told me that this teacher always goes all out.
The door was about the Marine Biologist, Ernest Everett. This teacher constructed an entire demonstration of rocks, coral, sea animals, and more. She even made an aquarium to decorate with her students’ faces. She used a Galaxy Light from Amazon to make viewers feel as if they were underwater.
Another 3rd-grade teacher made a door about Ruby Bridges, asking her students how they would feel attending school where they didn’t belong.
In Kindergarten, they studied Garrett Morgan, who invented the traffic light. She built a car and designated a corner of her space as a street. The information on this door presented statistics showing how the traffic light has saved many lives.
The teacher lounge was decorated to celebrate 100 years of black excellence. Using black paper, the teachers rolled it into beautiful curls.
In Middle School, the doors that stood out to me the most were those of Ms. Faulks and Ms. Reed. Ms. Faulk constructed a door about Althea Gilson. This door featured her accomplishments in medals, and what really caught my eye was a large tennis ball.
Ms. Reed’s door was on Katherine Johnson, a main character in the movie Hidden Figures. Ms. Reed created a ladder and painted her door green with construction paper to resemble a chalkboard.
Food for the event was catered by Bryan Hospitality and featured Caribbean-style dishes such as jerk chicken, black-eyed peas, and feta.
Jazz Legacy Art hosted a jazz show, and the performers delivered wonderful music to fully immerse the audience.
The doors were impeccable, and to my understanding, they get better every year.
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Pots and Poetry: A New Road Taken
By Isabella Ying
Just as ideas in English class tend to arise, Ms. Rosenstein and Mr. Smith’s “Pots and Poetry” project was inspired by a book. In this case, it began with a “Christmas gift” left on Ms. Rosenstein’s desk with a note signed by ceramics teacher Mr. Smith. The gift was a book called Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person, written by Mary Caroline Richards. Pots and Poetry is a part of the “U-Pick-the-Poem Project/Presentation” in her course, AP English Lit & Comp: The Mind is a Fascinating Thing.
Originally, Ms. Ro believed that Mr. Smith approached her about the project because his ceramics class’s pots would look more interesting for the Signature magazine. But she understood that Mr. Smith intended there to be “a whole other level” to why he wanted to do this.
Ms. Ro believes that just like the author of that book, Mr. Smith sees “a very philosophical, almost spiritual connection…between poetry and pottery and human beings.”
Creating art, according to Mary Caroline Richards, a poet herself, is about feeling “connected to everything and everyone. It’s philosophical.” Seeing that the project requires students to choose a poem that “speaks to you,” perhaps engraving poetry onto a pot actually does, after all, serve a purpose—that being to connect humanity with words and art.
Once Mr. Smith and Ms. Ro conjured this idea, they had high hopes for the ceramic–literary art fusion to be “engaging” for the students. Their hopes were fulfilled during the fourth and fifth periods of Wednesday, March 11th, in the ceramics classroom.
For the last period of the day, Mr. Smith started period four off by explaining the artistic process. You must choose a pot, perhaps perfect, or else with “wabi-sabi” (a Japanese term connoting the beauty of impermanence or imperfection) from the array produced by the ceramics class, then carefully paint or engrave lines—a few favorite phrases, or all of them, or just one—from your poem. The goal: to speak to the world about how your chosen poem speaks to you.
He picked up several pots as examples, these having been made during period five. He held them out, some with and without colors.
With that, Mr. Smith released the AP Lit students to explore their artistic prowess and voices. With, of course, a word of caution. “Be careful… they’re soft so you can carve into it, but they’re also very fragile… use two hands to pick them up,” he reminded the seniors.
First, the students crowded around a table at the front of the classroom to decide which pot they wanted to inscribe their poem on. Once the students had settled in, pots rotated on pottery turntables as they assessed how to dress them, a humming chatter becoming a steady background noise for the period.
As Siena Raponi worked on detailing her pot with her chosen poem, “The Moment” by Margaret Atwood, she reflected on how ceramics provided a “creative outlet” to visually represent the poems, based on “how you can express your color, or what it means in your own person.”
Hollis Fann, like Siena, used colors to connect her poem and pot. She painted colors in a pattern to match the rhyme scheme of her poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. Hollis grew up reciting poems and, having written about this one for her college essay, she was emotionally attached to it. The poem is about “the choices we make in life and coming up onto a divide in the road and having to decide between two different paths,” despite knowing that the “wrong” path could lead to unwanted endings.
An imperfection in her pot that Hollis found was a ridge, which she used to symbolize the “bend in the path.” Based on Mr. Smith’s instructions, he clearly would approve of the sculpting error that Hollis capitalized on, as he observed how students tend to “want to make perfect pots, but for this, I told them to embrace imperfection of things.”
To show an example, he displayed a pot that wasn’t the most visually appealing, but was very “interesting” because the student had etched their poem’s lines in a wavy spiral around it.
Ms. Ro, along with Mr. Smith, assisted the students with their ceramics endeavor. When several students asked her how many lines they needed to add, she assured them that “I want you to do what feels good to you.”
Blake Waller, who happens to be the only boy in the entire class, had another interesting representation of his poem with his pot. Blake wrote his poem circularly around the rim, “so it comes full circle.” His poem was “I, too” by Langston Hughes, and his father recommended it to him.
The following Monday, students had to present their pots and poems in English class, and Blake explained how Hughes expresses hope for “a new day when Black people will be seen as equal in America.”
While Blake believes that progress has been made since the time of the poem’s writing, much is still necessary to complete the full circle that Blake etched the poem in on his pot.
He acknowledges that Hughes’s piece is “definitely aspirational,” with its high hopes for the future. It’s “a product of his time,” seen in “how Langston Hughes conceptualizes the future.”
After the project, Ms. Ro reflected that she would love to return to ceramics for similar escapades in the future. She recounted fondly how at the end of her fifth period class, “there were four kids up here and at 1:22 or three, they’re like, ‘I didn’t know the bell rang for lunch.’ And to me, that’s like a teacher’s dream, right?”
Ms. Ro looks forward to “bugging [Mr. Smith] again next year” about the project, and briefly pondered whether the students could use their own poems on the pot.
But, upon asking “excellent student” Olivia Simms if she’d want to engage in that, Olivia responded with a firm head shake of disapproval, Ms. Ro accepted defeat.
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A Bittersweet Salute To The Community Center
By Angelina Ricker and Micah Ingram
For many, including us, the community center basically grew up with us–from a place to eat lunch, to a place you go to avoid the rain, to a place you go to for dance class.
But let’s be honest, it’s seen its better days. And yet, despite its peeling paint, its vintage HVAC system that cycles between hot and cold, and its bathrooms that smell like the 1980s, the community center is more than a broken-down building.
As a result of the lack of modernity, part of Lovett’s master plan for the campus is to completely demolish the community center, starting this summer, and construct the Rita Anne Rollins Hall, hopefully to be completed by the fall semester of 2028.
Currently, faculty and students are preparing for the big change that will reshape how we get lunch, attend classes, study, and access certain resources.
We sent out a survey asking about your favorite memories at the community center and what y’all will miss most about it.
Surprisingly, many students and faculty provided thoughtful, unique responses that stood out to us.
Ironically, many at Lovett recognized that they appreciated the “Frankenstein-nature of the Community Center,” or that “it felt like our Hogwarts to me.” Ultimately, for many, the lack of uniformity transformed the simple building into a place of genuine character and belonging.
Another trend observed across some entries was the number of people who expressed sorrow and recalled the great memories they shared with their peers and colleagues.
Although the form was anonymous, one teacher expressed how, in the faculty dining room, they “had so many hilarious, meaningful, and idiotic conversations there with my colleagues over the past 23 years! RIP!”
Several students expressed sadness about their memories of the cafeteria, the “dark rooms” behind the jazz band room, the cozy rooms overlooking the pond, the theatre, and the photo darkroom.
But before all that concrete, drywall, bricks, and toilets are trucked away, we wanted to check in with some of the people most affected by this change.
We started with Ms. Northrup and Mr. Bowden, the high school librarians, whose home away from home is in the community center, and if you’ve been here recently, you can already start to see the change taking place within the space.
So one of the main questions they receive is precisely this: “So where are the books going to go?” Ms. Northup communicated that, for right now, they plan to relocate to the indoor track in Glover gym, which Ms. Northup likes to call “Ontrack” (get it? Because it’s on the track). (We like to imagine the 1980s teen movie version of this, where a ”nerdy” student goes to borrow a book and falls in love with a jock playing dodgeball.)
The new “On Track” system has several drawbacks, including limited space, flexibility, and access. But one of the main pros that is completely new is Ms. Northup’s and Mr. Bowden’s new delivery system, BookDash (similar to DoorDash). This system will enable books to be delivered to students’ advisories after online orders, rather than through the traditional checkout process at the library.
For the librarians, the demolition of the current community center is a bittersweet experience, and they expressed how they will miss the library dearly. And yet they can’t wait for the new amenities that will replace the broken, inconvenient ones now.
For example, the new and improved library will include more windows, natural light, a larger open floor plan, and more engaging activities.
‘If we need stuff from upstairs, we have the dumb waiter that’s older than I am, which doesn’t always work to get things from upstairs to downstairs. It’ll be exciting to have better temperature control and a space with windows,” Ms. Northrup told us.
On the other hand, they will sincerely miss the memories and the “welcoming environment” they created in the current library. Besides books, the library also provides board games, a sewing machine, Legos, and other fun crafts to do when you’re bored.
Additionally, many middle schoolers hang out in the library after school, and some high schoolers eat lunch there as well. “I’m going to miss having a space where so many people get to come and hang out,” Mr. Bowden says, “It’s one of the best parts of my job.”
Mr. Silvermann, the Film and Broadcasting director, has been here for 20 years, so if there’s anyone at Lovett who knows the community center, it’s him.
“I will certainly miss being so close to my Fine Arts colleagues, hearing the chorus singing and the band practicing, seeing the dancers running up and down the halls,” he said.
Despite being somber about the community center’s demolition, he also gave us some inspirational words about the major change to come, stating that “The positive thing is that our community exists with or without a building. Ideally, we spend each day in an effort to strengthen our connections– between students, parents, teachers, and administrators.”
He hopes that, through these modifications, he can rebuild the safe space he has enjoyed for the past 20 years, creating a low-key, low-pressure zone where students can decompress and fuel creativity.
While the dust of demolition and the hum of new construction are inevitable, it is clear that the community center has never been just a collection of bricks, peeling paint, or temperamental HVAC units.
It has served as a scrapbook for the Lovett community, and a building that somehow managed to feel like home for everyone from the quietest reader to the rowdiest lunch table.
As we transition to the “On Track” era and begin to navigate the logistics of BookDash and temporary classrooms, the sense of wistful melancholy among students and faculty is a testament to the environment that decades of Lovett students and faculty built together.
Ultimately, the fall of 2028 will bring a sophisticated new hub to our campus, but the legacy of the old center will persist in the stories shared across the new cafeteria tables. We aren’t just gaining a state-of-the-art facility; we are also mourning the spirit of a shared rusty, dusty landmark that provided the backdrop for so many students and faculty over the years.
While it’s hard to watch the rust take over, we aren’t just losing a building;
Ultimately, Mr. Silverman advises optimism. “Life is change… embrace that. Don’t try to hold on to it!” he said. Hopefully, this new chapter will create many more memories and opportunities for everyone in our Lovett community.
And decades from now, we can be sure that students will walk into the bathroom in the new center and think, this smells like the 2020s.
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Jamaal Barber Brings Printmaking To Lovett Gallery and Classroom
By Mariella Bishop
For Black History Month, Lovett celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Lovett Unity and Heritage Art Show with an exhibit of Jamaal Barber’s artwork. He visited printmaking classes in the Upper School, sharing his approach with students.
In a video accompanying the exhibit, Dr Alison Wynn, Lovett’s Director of Belonging, said, “This exhibit focuses on family and love, is a really powerful way to show black history month, it shows we can come together as a community and the impact of the black community.”
While he primarily focuses on printmaking, in one of his recent projects, he used acrylic paintings and mixed media.
He enjoys teaching others about printmaking, what it means to him, and how you can express so many things through the medium
”Part of being a teacher is knowing that this person has something able to say, if not you wouldn’t be in an art class,” he says in the video. “But nothing has given me the joy that I get from printmaking, so how do I give that to someone else? Part of that education is to reinforce that, support it.”
According to exhibit information, his story of printmaking began at a young age, when he was fascinated by the colorful illustrations in children’s books. When he was in high school, he decided to become an artist after reading about the life of Romare Bearden. He graduated with a BA in Communication Arts and won the 2002 JOSA award for drawing. He also won first place in Graphic Design for the Rebel Magazine. In 2004, he moved to Atlanta with his wife and two children. His fine art painting has been displayed at the Art on 5 and with the Mano-a-Mano art show. Things continued to progress in 2013 after he saw a screen printing demo at a local art store. After that, he started experimenting with printmaking, making it his primary focus.
Lovett was very fortunate to have him come in and teach the students the meaning of printmaking. He is very passionate about art and especially printmaking.
Senior Sloan Basley said she learned and felt inspired from Barber’s lesson. “I didn’t really know how he did his type of printmaking…so I learned that. And then also I really liked how there was a lot of contrast between the black and white and that was one that he made for us. So I thought that was really cool. “
Sloan’s art teacher Gina Reynoso shared some information about what Barber showed the class. From what she said, Barber is a very kind and considerate person who enjoys teaching. The students were excited to have a special guest teach and convey the message that there’s more to printmaking than meets the eye. Barber’s work has meaning, as most art pieces do; his pieces reflect on his childhood struggles with identity and race.
“He was able to talk to the kids more about printmaking and teaching. He teaches at Georgia State, and he also teaches at the Atlanta Printmaker Studio. What he brought in was just a portfolio of some of his work and then some of the students’ work,” she said.
Ms. Reynoso does printmaking herself in a studio where she met Barber. It was nice to get her take on seeing Barber come in and teach when she knows him personally.
“I remember seeing him in the studio when he first started working there. Jamal is somebody who really loves to share his knowledge, share his experience,” she said. “He’s very generous that way. And so I soon found out that all these other people that he was bringing into the studio were other artists, it might be painters, it might be sculptors, just somebody that he met who was curious about printmaking. So he would bring them into the studio to show them how to make prints and collaborate with other artists.”
While at Lovett, he not only showed the students his printmaking but also his technique. The students seemed interested in his work and how it was created.
“There were several works that were variations he would use, and the same thing with the students,” she said. “They would use the same image in different ways through multiple prints. So I think what was helpful for the students was just to see more how versatile printmaking could be.”
The students themselves weren’t the only ones who seemed to learn new things. Ms. Reynoso said she always learns from listening to other artists. “Sometimes it may not necessarily be like learning a new technique,” she said. “Sometimes it is. But in this instance, what I always appreciate is the fact I kind of learn new ways to think about the medium or different ways to explain things to my students.”
There were also a few lucky students who even got to keep his work. And he left an original print for the art classroom itself. So if you ever want to see a Jamaal Barber original design, you’ll find it in the art room.
“He brought a block to print and then he printed it,” Ms. Reynoso told me. ”I think that was really cool with the students. And then again, when you think about how generous he is with his knowledge and his work, there are two students that helped him print and he gave them those prints. They got to take them home.”
Jamaal Barber’s visit made a big impression on students like Sloan, who said she learned new printmaking techniques, expanding her knowledge. She thought it was cool to see the contrast that could be achieved just using one color. “And then how many prints that you can make with just one,” she said. “I thought that was cool as well. I mean he definitely showed me that printmaking had a bigger meaning.”
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Debate Team Takes On The “World”
By Tanisha Naik
After four years of developing Lovett’s debate program, Dr. Ezell has found a new direction for the team: World Schools.
“This year brought a big change that’s given me some clarity about the direction of the team going forward,” Dr. Ezell said.
In previous years, Lovett debaters competed across multiple formats, including Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum. While those formats will still be available, the team will now primarily focus on World Schools.
World Schools debates are called that because they are “literal world championships.” At the highest levels, in the larger tournaments, you are representing your nation, not just your individual school.
World Schools debates differ significantly from traditional formats. In the first round, teams of three to five students compete, with only three students speaking per round. Debaters learn the topic just one hour before the debate and must prepare without technology or outside help. “So it’s a much more casual and conversational style of debate,” he said, unlike other events where the speaking is very fast and technical because you could do a ton of prep in advance. “But it’s like anything else. With practice, you get good at it,” he said.
While World Schools may be more approachable, Dr. Ezell said that “it’s harder to get really good at it because the best speakers are really powerful and commanding, and they know how to manage the style of it really well.”
World Schools debates are not a very common format yet. Westminster is the only other school that has a significant presence of it at the moment, “and Midtown is starting to pick it up.”
In October, Lovett won the first-ever World Schools tournament held at Westminster, the first-ever held in Georgia. “That win felt like a nudge to move in this direction,” Dr. Ezell said.
Also, this season, Lovett’s World Schools team was a finalist at Midtown High School’s tournament and at Lassiter High School. At Midtown, the team of Cate Turner, Emily Mansurian, Amani Lakani, and Corbin Patterson went undefeated through the first three rounds before narrowly losing in the final round.
Lovett debaters are also succeeding in other formats. Senior Jackson Van Os won the Lincoln-Douglass division at the Midtown tournament. At the same time, the public forum team of Naomi Norlander and Sonu Mital nearly reached the elimination rounds at the Hart tournament.
I spoke with Naomi Norlander to check in on her season.
Naomi competes in all formats, including Congress, Lincoln Douglas, and World Schools. She prefers Public Forum.
Naomi said her season has been “a little rocky this year.” She noted that she won several awards and reached a higher rank at Harvard last year. Despite this, she has improved, especially in spreading (speed reading).
Her favorite debate topic is one she submitted herself. “It’s about whether or not this house, as the British government, would choose to unmask the artist known as Banksy, and whether or not people should try Banksy for crime submitted or keep him on mask and keep him protected,” she said.
If she had to choose an official topic, it would be “the House believes that the artist is separate from their work,” Naomi said.
Looking ahead, Naormi is excited about next year’s debate because she will be able to judge for the first time.
According to Dr. Ezell, many young debaters have also emerged as promising speakers. Freshman Amani Lakani has done really well in the World Schools format in its first year at Lovett, while Lee Wetlzer ranked 13th out of 80 speakers at a recent tournament.
Senior Evan Lee, the team captain, has also played a major role in making debate a more significant activity. In addition to developing his own debate skills, he has helped build Lovett’s debate community and served as a teaching assistant for the new Advanced Competitive Debate class. Evan also became Lovett’s first representative on Team Georgia, a statewide World Schools team.
Currently, Evan does not compete; instead, he spends his time coaching kids from Westminster and Woodward. “It’s fun, I love debate,” Evan told me.
In addition to coaching, Dr. Ezell also judges many tournaments, which is distinct from coaching. From a judging perspective, he has learned about ways of structuring cases that he would never have considered.
The rubric for judging a world’s round is 40% content, 40% style (which Dr. Ezell said is not really a consideration in the other format), and then 20% strategy. “But on questions of style, it’s trickier because it’s like what can sound like confidence to one judge might sound like aggression to another,” he said.
Looking ahead, the team still has several major competitions remaining this season, including First and Second Year Nationals at Woodward Academy, the international World Schools tournament in Houston this April, and a national tournament at the end of May.
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Mad For March Madness
By Valeria Benitez
When March rolls around, you’ll see Lovett students stressing about their four-year plans and
course requests for next year. But a more immediate worry for many is their March Madness bracket. Perfection, of course, is very unattainable (according to the NCAA.com, the odds of nailing every pick are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. To put that into a better perspective, a quintillion is also known as “a billion billions.”
You have better odds at winning a Powerball (1 in 292M), being struck by lightning (1 in 15,300), or being killed by a shark (1 in 4.3M). As crazy as it sounds, the NCAA also noted that you have a 23% better chance at guessing which of the Earth’s grains of sand someone has picked up than perfectly predicting the result of all 63 games.
Gregg Nigl of Columbus, Ohio, currently holds the record for the longest verifiable streak of correct picks. In 2019, he selected the first 49 matchups correctly before the second-seeded Tennessee lost to the third-seeded Purdue in overtime during the second game in the Sweet 16. He was on the Today Show, where he said his secret was watching lots of Big 10 basketball, as well as a lot of luck.
Want another fun statistic? The NCAA has estimated that if every American filled out a completely unique bracket that had at least a 66% accuracy, it would take about 366 years for the perfect bracket to come.
I walked into my APUSH class, and the whole class was yapping about March Madness. Savannah Jones shared that she is currently number 1 on her friend group’s bracket and has Florida winning (R.I.P. Florida didn’t make it out to Iowa, losing 72-73; who knows if she’s still number one). Then Jolie Aaronson said she had Michigan winning (maybe her visit last week to the University of Michigan had influenced that)
I then started chatting with Grace Schmidt, whose family members are huge Florida fans, and she said she was very sad that Florida lost because now her whole bracket is done. Unfortunately for her and many other Florida fans, their season is over.
On the other hand, Ariana Lotfi has Duke winning. Just because she likes the color (she knows nothing about basketball, except for the basics she learned from her talking stage). She chose the whole bracket based on the color of their teams/schools, and luckily for her, she has had better luck with Grace in her bracket. I asked her for advice on picking a bracket, and she said, “Just trust your gut and choose the pretty teams.”
During Lunch, I talked to senior Aidan Nash, who is very passionate about his bracket. Being a huge supporter of the North Carolina Tar Heels, he has done quite the unthinkable in his 2026 bracket: he has the Duke Blue Devils winning it all.
“I hate Duke, but they have a pretty good team this year, that’s why I have them winning,” he admitted. Aidan currently stands 25th in his bracket out of 50 friends, which is a pretty good standing considering the big upsets we have seen so far this season
He pointed to the first-round exit of the Tar Heels as a particularly “detrimental” blow to his bracket and his hopes for his favorite team. No. 6 seed North Carolina fell to No. 11 VCU in an 82-78 overtime thriller, after surrendering a 19-point second-half lead. He also cited the No. 11 Texas upset over No. 6 BYU as a major setback, having originally picked the Cougars and their star forward, AJ Dybantsa, to advance.
If you are really interested in his expert insight on the final four, he has Duke vs. Houston and Arizona vs. Michigan. Now, for some spotlight on his favorite players, he said Aj Dybantsa from BYU is one of them, as well as Elliot Cadeau from Michigan, a former Tar Heel standout now striving for the Wolverines’ championship.
Linc Perez, a sophomore who bumped into me on the way to the admissions office for a snack, told me he has Houston winning. He claims he also watches no basketball and only a few March Madness games, but he loves Houston. He watches no basketball and is making his picks based on what he knows and what he sees on social media.
Now, how did March Madness begin? It all dates back to 1939, when it was first held as an eight-team competition. Oregon won that inaugural national title, beating Ohio State 46-33 in the championship game. As time went on, the games expanded, and the tournament gradually grew into a 68-team event.
NCAA.com also states how March Madness was first used in a basketball context by Illinois high school Henry V. Porter in 1939, but it wasn’t associated with the NCAA men’s tournament until CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger used it during 1982.
Now, for those of you unfamiliar with anything about the terms “bracket” or “March Madness”, it basically takes over the sports world and turns a 68-team field into a three-week spring where men’s and women’s basketball teams see their season end in a single night. It might seem like a lot of chaos if you are not used to it, but if you’re like me, you love this chaos. There are games happening all day, and a bracket that you might think is perfect can change by the hour. But once you understand the concept, the format is not as complicated.
The bracket is a single-elimination bracket. If you lose one, your team’s season is over, and if you win, you keep playing. If you’ve ever filled out a bracket with your friends, then you probably understand this basic concept.
So how do teams get in? Both brackets, men and women, feature 68 teams. There are different brackets for both the women’s and men’s tournaments. Thirty-one of those teams earn automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments, while the other 37 are selected by a committee as a large bid. The group that is chosen as a bid is often chosen based on their record, overall performances, the strength of their schedule, and the quality of their wins. Once these teams are finalized, every team is assigned a seed from No.1 to No. 16 across four regions, with better teams at high seeds and more favorable matchups early.
You might think seeding isn’t important, but it is actually crucial to see how the bracket unfolds. Usually, a No.1 seed opens against a No. 16 seed, which is usually unfair, and games in the middle of the bracket are more even. These types of games are typically more fair, and the winner of this match will likely advance to face No.1 seed Michigan in the second round.
But before the main bracket starts, four teams play in the first four games, which serve as the final step into the tournament. This usually features the lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers as well as the last at-large teams that were selected.
Then the structure becomes much easier to follow, and the tournament goes from 64 teams to 32, then to 16, the Sweet Sixteen, then to eight, the Elite Eight, four, the Final Four, and finally two, the championship. Each round cuts the remaining teams in half, and there are no second chances. So one bad night or one bad play, and the season that started in the fall is over. The pressure is real.
Anyways, going back to building the bracket, I have talked to many of my friends who have said they built their bracket based on whichever team has prettier colors, cuter guys, or whether or not they like the school. As for me, I picked it based on who I think has had a good season, as I have watched many college basketball games this year.
I have Duke, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan in the final 4 (partly because I think they have had a good season, and partly because 3 out of those 4 schools I’m planning to apply to next year).
Even if the odds of that 1 in 9 quintillion bracket are stacked against you, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of a 16 seed pulling off an upset or buzzer beater and changing everything in a split second.
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In Praise of Physical Media
By Bridget Valls
In the era of Google, Spotify, and AI, there really is no need for physical media anymore unless you like to be old-school.
65.9% of people at Lovett said they access all or nearly all of their media online. Yikes! I hope these people don’t lose their phones anytime soon.
For people who do like to keep it old school, the majority turn to records and paper magazines.
Respondents to the recent survey (which included both students and faculty) offered many reasons why they preferred physical media to simply searching on Google.
One respondent is a bookworm and sounds like they have just as many books as our school library. (Maybe I am exaggerating a little) “I have a lot of books – like 150ish. I like reading because it feels more productive than doing something digitally, but it is just as entertaining,” they said.
Another respondent said they enjoy going “through my family’s old DVD collection to find old movies to watch.”
Some respondents are more focused on the sensory experience of having physical media: “There is nothing like the feel of opening an album, reading the liner notes, and smelling the vinyl,” one respondent said.
Another likes books and magazines because they can “hold them in my hand, flip through the pages.”
Yet another enjoys “the smell and feel of them.”
A few respondents think Spotify is a disgrace to all music and would rather carry around their albums and vinyls rather than have their AI DJ play a song for them.
“I collect vinyls! My current favorite record I own is actually a special release of “Mystery of Love” by Sufjan Stevens. This specific vinyl only had 10,000 printed, and I just so happen to be the owner of #9321,” they said.
Another respondent is so opposed to Apple Music that they have spent big bucks to stay old school. Instead of spending a sum that could nab them 2 fresh new pairs of Golden Goose Sneakers, they chose to use that money on something else. “It’s really fun to collect CDs, and I find it interesting to hang up the posters and look through the inclusions and things like that!! I have a huge CD and album collection (probably massing over 1,000 dollars.. oops),” they said.
One student had an interesting take that I think many other students would want to hear. If your parents take your phone before bed or put a time limit on your phone, it might be time to start collecting”because it works when the internet doesn’t and doesn’t use my screen time,” they said.
After hearing about people’s physical media collections, I had to find someone to interview to get a deeper look into why people chose to give up their room space for these collections.
Luckily, Ava Bakhtiary volunteered, and she was the perfect person to interview!
Her collection began with a shopping spree at Target. “The record player that I actually have now was on sale at Target, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s a really good price. Might as well just buy it,’” she said.
When asked about her collection, she said, “It’s not that big, but I have a lot of country music. I have a lot of classical music. Yeah, mainly just those two, but I do have some miscellaneous pop finals.”
As a huge country fan, I had to hear about these country vinyls. And she was quick to say that her very first vinyl was actually one of my favorite albums: Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time.
As someone who has only listened to this album on Spotify, I was curious to see if she notices a difference between playing it on a record player and on Spotify, and when she decides to use each. ”I use Spotify when I’m studying,” she said. “I do use my record player when I clean my room, though.”
While she uses Spotify every day, she says, “It’s nice to use my record player and listen to it, not on a digital device.” It sounds different to her, “but in a good way.”
She told me that her rarest vinyl is a single from 2017. “I believe only 10,000 of them were ever made,” she said. “I got it for my birthday, and I’m pretty sure from what I’ve seen online, a brand new version of it is a couple thousand.” I applaud her for not selling it because if it were me, I would sell it for a new Tiffany necklace in a heartbeat.
But Ava would never sell it because this vinyl is the most important to her. “It’s from one of my favorite movies. It means a lot to me. It’s one of my favorite songs. And my mom actually surprised me with it,” she said.
As for an album, she’s hoping to get her hands on? “I want the Charlie XCX Brat one,” she told me. “Oh my God, I want it, and I want it so bad.”
My newspaper colleague Valeria Benitez also has an impressive vinyl collection. “I have around 15 vinyls in my collection as well as CDs,” she said. “As a Swiftie, Valeria owns pretty much only Taylor Swift vinyls with a few miscellaneous ones.
It all started when she tried to get a signed Taylor Swift vinyl. When she failed at doing this, “I just bought an unsigned vinyl from Taylor Swift’s website, and after that, I just started collecting them,” she told me. Her dream vinyl is the Taylor Swift Paris Heart vinyl.
After hearing about these collections and why people prefer physical media, I finally understood one respondent’s answer: “Why? Because old stuff kinda just does it better.”
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Five Minutes With…Sophomore Soccer Stars, Barron and Duncan
By Ella Harvey
When I asked sophomore soccer players Barron Dreesch and Duncan Ford if this was their first year on the varsity team, they looked at me as if I had four heads.
“Oh please,” Duncan said, seeming appalled.
“Come on Ella, it’s our second year,” Barron replied.
So, in case you are wondering, this is their second year on varsity.
Along with Duncan and Barron, there are three other sophomore boys, Bryce Bennett, Benson Durham, and Tate Wildman, who are also large contributors to the team’s success.
To make the Varsity team, as an underclassman or in general, there is an intense, weeklong tryout process. They had tryouts with the entire program, including middle school, and there was a lot of “scrimmaging and open play.” Once they had made the team, their practice schedule has been “every day from 4:30-6,” Duncan replied.
Because they have a lot of practice time, it’s been challenging to balance this with schoolwork. Barron said he plans to go “to tutorial pretty much every day after school, and take advantage of the time.” Duncan’s reply: “I’m struggling.”
Duncan and Barron are also very close friends, both on and off the field (we all have English together, and I can safely say there is some good bromance between the two). They have known each other since they were about nine years old, even before they both came to Lovett. “We’ve played club with each other since like fifth grade,” Barron said.
Because they have been friends for almost seven years, they have good chemistry on the soccer field. “We are both midfielders,” Duncan states, “so we are always having to work with each other.”
In that position, Duncan explained that “he plays a little bit of defensive midfielder or centerback, but usually we’re more attackers.” Barron eventually spoke for himself and said: “We kind of start the attack, and bring it from the defenders to the forwards.” (While I played soccer once upon a time, honestly, I was still confused.)
Google’s AI Overview stated that “Midfielders are the ‘engine room’ of a soccer team, acting as the primary link between defense and offense. They control the game’s tempo, distribute the ball to create scoring chances, and help defend, requiring high stamina, passing accuracy, and tactical awareness.”
Doing all of that means that Barron and Duncan are playing “pretty much the whole game.”
It looks like their practice and commitment to the team are paying off. Their work ethic is also translating into wins because “this is the second time in 20 years we beat Westminster,” Duncan said. They were very adamant that I put that in here.
So what are their hopes for the season? Barron wants to “make a running in state better than it was last year,” and Duncan quickly agreed. Well, if beating Westminster says anything about this year’s team, then hopefully their wishes will come true.
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Visiting Scientist Mark Verson Talks Problem Solving And The Brain
By Parvi Anand
This past Friday, Lovett students had the opportunity to hear from guest speaker Mr. Mark Vernon, who visited campus to speak with Dr. Myers’ AP Psychology class. During his visit, Mr. Vernon also spoke with Mrs. Vernon’s anatomy class and Dr. Lamar’s neuroscience class, giving students a firsthand look at how neuroscience research is helping veterans recover from neurological and psychological injuries.
Many students may not realize that Mr. Vernon is also the partner of my favorite Lovett science teacher, Mrs. Vernon, who teaches chemistry, genetics, and anatomy! As someone who has taken three of her classes, it was especially exciting for me to see Mr. Vernon visit campus and share his work.
Mr. Vernon works with the Center for Visual and Neurocognitive Rehabilitation (CVNR) at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur, where he contributes to neuroimaging research projects focused on veteran health. His work combines several scientific disciplines, including physics, information technology, anatomy, and biology, to understand the brain better.
Although Mr. Vernon now works in neuroscience, his career began in a very different field.
“You started in physics and IT, then moved into neurology. What made you switch fields?” students asked during the discussion. “It was a little bit of circumstances,” Mr. Vernon explained. “There are certain things you like to do that utilize skills learned in physics and IT, and a lot of that centers around problem solving.”
After finishing work on a Department of Energy grant at Georgia State University, Mr. Vernon began searching for his next opportunity. Through a connection, he learned about research being conducted with veterans at the CVNR. “A friend knew someone who was looking for someone with a physics and IT background,” Mr. Vernon said. “It really boils down to not being afraid to say, ‘I know a lot about physics and IT, but I don’t know much about this yet.’”
At the CVNR, Mr. Vernon works on neuroimaging projects at the Atlanta VA that study the brain using advanced technologies such as MRI and functional MRI scans. These tools allow researchers to observe both the structure of the brain and how it functions in real time.
“Most commonly, veterans come to us with PTSD,” Mr. Vernon said. Using neurofeedback techniques, Mr. Vernon and his colleagues can help patients learn to regulate the activity of emotional centers of the brain, such as the amygdala. During treatment sessions, patients are shown when this part of the brain becomes highly active and are taught mental strategies to calm their responses.
One veteran discovered that thinking about a meaningful memory helped regulate his brain activity. “He found that thinking about dancing with his wife helped him regulate his amygdala activation,” Mr. Vernon said. “It’s something he could take outside the clinic and use in real life.”
Another patient experimented with visualization techniques to manage his brain activity. “He was a big anime fan,” Mr. Vernon said. “At first, he imagined focusing on a ball of energy and making it as small as possible. After about five sessions he switched strategies and started focusing on the alphabet. For him, engaging other parts of the brain helped ramp down the emotional center involved in PTSD.”
During the visit, Mr. Vernon also explained the physics behind MRI technology. MRI machines use powerful magnetic fields to interact with protons in the body’s water molecules, allowing researchers to create detailed images of the brain. Functional MRI can even capture changes in blood oxygen levels, producing snapshots of brain activity every few seconds.
The technology is both complex and expensive. According to Mr. Vernon, MRI machines cost well into the millions of dollars, and each research scan can cost around $980.
Despite the cost, these technologies are opening new possibilities for treatment. Mr. Vernon said he is particularly excited about emerging methods that help the brain heal without relying heavily on medication.
“Neuromodulation in general is something I’m really excited about,” Mr. Vernon said. “Things you can do without opioids or pharmaceuticals that can give lasting relief to veterans.”
These treatments include techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses magnetic fields to stimulate neurons in the brain, and other forms of neurofeedback that train the brain to regulate itself.
Before concluding his visit, Mr. Vernon also shared resources for students interested in neuroscience and research, including books, online datasets, and volunteer opportunities through the VA’s Center for Development and Civic Engagement for students ages 14 and older.
He left the class with one last important message: “Problem solving is really what connects it all,” Mr. Vernon said. “Sometimes you just have to be willing to learn something new.”
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Five Minutes With…Wrestling Bassist Elle Kaufman
By Zoe Robinson
Like any high school, there are certain stereotypes you come to expect from Lovett students.
Some people are theater kids, many are hardcore athletes, and plenty of people are academic weapons. Senior Elle Kaufmann, however, happily breaks many of these stereotypes in her daily life. As a strong scholar, wrestling champion, and talented bassist for the Ellington Jazz ensemble, Elle does it all.
As a wrestler, Elle not only stands out as one of the best in the state, but also as the only girl on the team for the past 4 years. While many people look at her role on the team and wonder what it’s like, Elle’s answer is fairly simple: “I’ve always just felt like one of the guys.”
The team’s camaraderie, alongside the hard work they’ve put in, has bonded them, but it’s always made it easy to be distracted from the labels put on her as the only girl. While the differences between them are there, when they’re working together, all they have to do is push each other. “They’ve always treated me really great, and I’ve always felt good about being with them when we’re together,” she said.
As a Lovett wrestler, Elle has also had an extraordinary career. “I’ve lost one match in my freshman year at the high school level [these past 4 years],” she told me as she recounted her successes. That incredible record required a lot of hard work, and after winning many titles, she is ending her high school career as a 4-time state champion in her weight class. “It doesn’t feel super amazing or weird because I’ve been winning… it just feels like I worked hard, you know?” she explained.
She also added an extra challenge for herself this year, deciding to move up a weight class despite being a shoo-in for state champion in her original weight class. “A friend of mine texted me and said she wanted to move up a weight class and asked if I was going to, and I said yes… but, funny story, she ended up staying at the class that I was already in so we would’ve been against each other anyway,” Elle recounted.
Wanting to give her friend a chance in her own league, Elle nobly decided to move up another 10 pounds to her final class, 155 pounds, because “she deserved a chance to win her own title,” she explained.
While the move was a big change for her, it all worked out in the end for both of them, earning the last titles of their high school careers without having to compete against each other. Alongside the title, Elle also solidified her 4timer reputation, closing out her Lovett career.
She’s also developed quite a reputation as a Lovett bassist in Honors Ellington Jazz – something quite different than the main activity she’s known for. “Everybody thinks of me as the girl who wrestles… I’ve just always loved to play guitar too,” she said.
For Elle, while wrestling pushes her and is what she’s driven by, music, especially the band, is just pure fun. “Music is probably the one thing that I love more than sports,” she explained. While being in Ellington certainly requires a time commitment, she enjoys it enough to stay engaged.
Speaking of time, most people wonder how Elle has enough time to be as locked in as she is to both of these pursuits and have a life. “You know how Hermione in Harry Potter has that time rewinder thing?” she joked, “that’s how I do it.” Realistically, according to Elle, there is no specific answer or method; all she has to do is just make it work.
Despite this impressive list of accomplishments, Elle doesn’t see any of what she does as particularly special – just what happens when you lock in. Despite being the only female wrestler on the Lovett team and one of their strongest, she wants her accomplishments to speak to her work ethic, not what she’s overcome.
“I just like to wrestle, and when people label it as ‘girl power’ and stuff, I feel like it takes away from what you enjoy doing,” she explained to me.
Coming from a family that loves wrestling and having a brother who was a champion wrestler himself, Elle has always enjoyed wrestling for the competition of it, and believes that others should feel the same. To her, the core reason to do something you love is that you love it, and any boundaries you break or trails you blaze are a secondary benefit. “You’re not a female athlete, you’re just an athlete, you feel me?” she said.
In short, while Elle Kaufmann wears many hats, she’s happy to just be known as someone who pursues what she loves rather than just one thing, and hopes that after graduation, everyone will remember her that way.