The Cistercian Informer Volume 52 | Issue 2 | October 2020 www.CistercianInformer.com In This Issue Meet Mr. West Ayden Kowalski, ‘21, who is our avid interviewer. This year, two new science teach- ers joined Cistercian. One is Mr. West, who teaches junior and senior IN NEWS: New Oscars Guidelines chemistry. The Informer caught up Photo From Creative CommonsPhoto Creative From Fixing racial bias in film with him to learn a little bit about one of the newest members of the Hawks’ nest. How did you find your way to Cis- tercian? So, this is actually kind of funny. In grad school, I was working for a Dr. Kroll who turns out to be the husband of Dr. Kroll here. And it IN EDITORIALS: Is Democracy in Photo From Creative CommonsPhoto Creative From was just about when the pandemic Danger? hit and everything kind of changed. name in for this year because I’ve Photo By Exodus What will the upcoming election lead to? We went to online school; we had always loved teaching more than re- So, and it goes to a little bit earlier a couple of weeks there where we search when it came to grad school, than grad school as well, because in didn’t really know what we were do- per se. And after that, a few inter- grad school I was a TA, mostly for ing. Around that time, I got an email views and I got the call from Father Gen Chem at first and then later for from Dr. Kroll letting me know Paul saying, “Hey, welcome aboard. P Chem, but I was constantly in the of a couple of openings at private We’d love to have you.” Pretty happy position of ‘I’ve got these students schools in the area, this being one of to be here, I must say. who I relate a lot to having just been Photo By Exodus By Photo them, and I had heard of Cistercian in their position, and they need to before because he had mentioned to How does your experience in understand these concepts to get the us that, ‘Oh, yes. My wife is head of graduate school inform the style of grade, get the credit, and move on.’ IN NEST: The Senior Compound science at an all boys’ private school your teaching? And so, my task was always to not A brief history of the world, leading up to out in Irving.’ And seeing that, I this moment just administer the labs, but do my thought, let me go ahead and put my Continued on Page 2 The Need for a Third Party force voters to do more research on Coby Scrudder, ‘21. candidates and to understand their STAFF policies, not just know which party Last month’s issue may have they belong to. With multiple par- Photo From Creative CommonsPhoto Creative From IN SPORTS: Americans Abroad WRITERS Making our mark on the international left you feeling like our system is ties, this could mean that someone Saish Satyal, Ayden Kowalski, Ethan scene flawed beyond repair. However, could vote for every political party Ramchandani, Maxwell Vaughan, there are many concrete steps that based off of the candidates that they Tarun Senthil-Kumar can be taken to save our democra- like, and that is how a representative cy. I think that there are five major democracy should function. SECTION EDITORS steps that could be taken to achieve 2. Redo Campaign Laws - Nest: Saish Satyal this goal, with some being easier to Right now, with the way that laws News: Ethan Ramchandani accomplish than others. are set up, it is harder to finance Arts: Mateo Ramirez 1. Remove political parties an independent than a main-par- Sports: Chase Frutos and the party-line vote from bal- ty candidate. So called “sore-loser Middle School: Mateo Ramirez lots - Currently, on the ballot, each laws” prevent qualified candidates Editorials: Mateo Ramirez Photo From Creative CommonsPhoto Creative From IN MIDDLE SCHOOL: Distance candidate has what political party from running as independents or Learning they represent next to their name. third-party candidates if they lose PRODUCTION One student’s views on its pros and cons This allows a voter who knows noth- in a primary. These laws allow for Layout: Mateo Ramirez ing about each candidate to walk in the minority of voters that vote in Digital: Ayden Kowalski and vote solely based off of the “D” a primary to stop a candidate who Pictures: Tarun Senthil-Kumar or “R” next to the candidate’s name. may have had large voter appeal Faculty Sponsors: Mr. Laurange, They don’t even have to fill in every across party lines. In addition to Br. Matthew bubble—they can bubble in just one these hurdles, third-party candi- bubble and therefore vote party-line dates also face the problem of not EDITOR-IN-CHIEF down the entire ballot. This system having as strong of a backing as Alex Smith reinforces the idea that it is the par- Republicans and Democrats. Both ty, not the candidate that matters. It parties have their own think tanks OTHER CONTRIBUTORS allows voters to not have to do any Photo From Creative CommonsPhoto Creative From IN ARTS: Cistercian BraveArtists and data analytics firms that only Santiago Ramirez, Emmanuel Barajas, A showcase of Senior writing! research, and simply vote with their work for them, which disadvantages Dominic Andrews, Beto De Los Santos, party. If we got rid of this, it would Continued on Page 3 Jakob Quarles, Josef Novinski Page 2 Nest The Informer Meet Mr. West (Cont’d) best using just a board and a marker afterwards. They’re like, “What was mental particles. Like at the very And then one thing I’ve heard is to help them understand whatever this about?” And in trying to work bottom, when you start looking into that you’ve described yourself as a it was in their lecture that perhaps out how to best present it to them, I what they call the standard model gamer in class. they were missing. was working out more optimal ways of particle physics, we start to find to give people the concepts such that that all reality, as we can perceive it Yeah. I haven’t described myself as But all this goes back to even fur- they can be understood because I anyway, is only composed of some that. My seniors have assigned that ther, when I was an undergrad. I, really think chemistry doesn’t have 13, 14 different particles that can be label to me. all the way back to Gen Chem, I to be complex, but a lot of the ways plugged into specific classes. And was constantly helping students it’s taught makes it needlessly so. it’s merely the arrangement and Oh. around me understand the concepts combination that gives rise to all the that we had covered in lecture. So, I guess just through all this experi- complexity we see at the level of our I suppose it’s not wrong. I do play it wasn’t really something I set out ence I’ve managed to find a pretty own life or the level of galaxies and video [games]. to do. Study groups just started to good balance between being techni- stars and whatnot. form. They were always asking me cal enough for the material to mat- Do you have any favorite franchis- to, “Hey, would you come in and ter, but understandable enough and Seeing all this chaos emerge from es or individual games? work some problems with us?” And relatable to the real world enough order and the order that forms from it would end up being me with a that people can understand it. that chaos was very interesting to So, I would say favorite individual group of five or six and I’m work- me. And then I stuck with it just game’s… shoot, so in terms of stuff ing on a little pocket whiteboard or What drew you to chemistry itself? really for an aptitude. It came down that I actually play regularly, I’ve some such. So, in a way, I’ve kind of to it, I was going to college. I had always been really big into fighting been training for this. I guess I was always good at it in to pick something and [if I had games. I have to say my favorite out school. There was just something chosen] a music degree, as much as of all of those is one called Street A lot of what I do in lecture is really very neat about the idea that from I would have loved to do it, my par- Fighter III: 3rd Strike from 1999. that same style of ‘I have a grasp these very basic pieces, all the ele- ents wouldn’t have been happy with It’s really old, but generally, [I play] of this concept and you all would ments you find on a periodic table, that. They said, “How are you going fighting games, Street Fighter, Tek- like to, so let me see if I can find a we get biological life forms, we get to make money with that?” Yeah. ken. I’m trying to remember what way to make this make sense.’ And all sorts of minerals and organic I’m not that good. else I really play, more obscure stuff. this has helped me refine methods, compounds that all have such wildly But if we’re talking best of all time, ways of presenting concepts that different properties.