Newton South student body gathers for public dialogue about

beliefs

WICKED LOCAL STAFF PHOTO BY KATE FLOCK

Carlton Kendrick speaks to a group about the impact of technology on our lives during the One School, One Book
event, “This I Believe,” at Newton South High School.

By Laura Paine/Staff Writer

Wicked Local Newton
Posted Sep 28, 2010 @ 01:15 PM
Newton —
The Newton South High School community believes in a great number of things, including
the ability of the students and faculty to find their passion, follow their dreams and work hard
to be great at what they do.
Over the summer, students at the high school read “This I Believe II,” a collection of essays
from people all over the world about their philosophies and core beliefs. The idea was created
by the nonprofit “This I Believe” in an effort to engage youths and adults in writing, sharing
and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives. South students were required to
write their own “This I Believe” essays as a part of the summer reading program.
Brian Baron, English Department chairman at South, worked with parent Julie Sall to put
together a schoolwide assembly and 15 guest panels covering topics such as the Arts;
Following Your Passion; Sports and Fitness; Real Science; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender (LGBT) and the World.
Keynote speaker Atul Gawande, a physician and author, told students about the infamous
Van Halen contract in which David Lee Roth put a clause requiring a bowl of M&Ms, sans
the brown ones, or the venue would risk forfeiting the show. Roth threw a fit in Boulder,
Colo., when there was a bowl including brown M&Ms and refused to play the show, because
if workers at the arena did not follow this rule, Roth’s interpretation was workers did not read
any of the rules, and band members risked getting hurt or killed because of the complexity of
their stage setup.
“Sure enough, when they went out to look at the stage setting, it fell through the floor,”
Gawande said.
He went on to say that using a checklist allowed Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to reduce their complication and death rate by 30 percent. He
asked students how they would handle the reality that there is more stuff out there than they
will ever be able to cram into their heads.
“Take pride in all that you know and all that you can learn, but also take pride in knowing
that you won’t know it all and you will have to find ways to make it possible to succeed to
spite it. No one’s brain can know it all. So walk away with one rule: no brown M&Ms.”
Baron put the event together for students to learn that reading and writing can affect their
lives in a profound way.
“I hope that there is one nugget that each kid gets, one pearl of wisdom, one idea that
pushes them in a direction they haven’t thought of before, to pick out some area that they’re
interested in and learn about it in a different way,” Baron said. “I hope that there is one
perspective that hits them, that they walk away and think about. There are a lot of things in
school that you don’t remember after, but events like this I hope hit home and [the students]
take something away from it and cause [them] to consider things in a different way.”
In the LGBT and the World panel, Newton South technical education teacher Jenn Stephens
sat before the students and told them about her experiences as a transgender woman. She said
she does not want to hide her past as a male.
“I need to be as open as possible because many transgender people are not,” she said. “I
celebrate my past. I believe when you are yourself you’re more comfortable with yourself.”
Stephens said coming out in Newton was easy, because of the kind of community Newton
is, and student panelist, senior Harry Neff, agreed.
 “South does a good job of fostering an accepting community,” Neff said. “My open
homosexuality has not been an issue at all.”
Ray Farmer, a junior, sat in on the Race and Ethnicity panel, which featured student
panelists Lillian Castro, grade 11; Jessica Naeun Kang, grade 12; and Jeffrey Alkins, grade
12, in addition to community members Chris Sumner and Rufus Faulk. Farmer said he
thought it would be interesting because he is mixed race.
“I liked the different ethnicities in the panel and the different perspectives,” he said. “I
learned all of the different perspectives and learned deeper into how my friends feel about
acceptance.”
Farmer said he learned a lot from the panel, particularly in regards to the way he treats a
friend of his who is of Asian descent and has a hard time speaking English.
“Before the panel, my friends and I would make fun of him jokingly, but we’re still friends
with him,” he said. “After Jessica explained her experience, the culture shock, I took it and
told my friend who was with me that we can’t laugh at him. I took into perspective if I was
going to a foreign country and I had to adapt and learn a whole different language. I took an
appreciation to how hard they try.”
Newton South girls varsity softball coach Dave Salett was a panelist on Following Your
Passion, where he told the students that he had dreamed of playing baseball and had been
scouted by the Detroit Tigers, but ended up going into business instead because his father
told him there was “no money in baseball.”
“He believed the things you pursue should bring you great wealth,” Salett said. “I have no
regrets, [but] it’s not too late to set the voices of your parents aside and do what you want to
do, hopefully with their blessing. There is plenty of time ahead of you and if you change your
mind about what you want to do, that’s OK.”
During the school-wide assembly, Principal Joel Stembridge read his own essay about his
belief that South is a wonderful school. He said that since he became principal he has
listened to many of the students talk about the things they love about South, without ever
saying that they actually love South.
“The truth is, South is us,” Stembridge said. “We create anew each year. To be clear, the
walls, the halls and its classroom do not give South its character. We the people make South
what it is and what it can be. We create and can recreate Newton South.”
He said he believes if everyone works together to embody the South that they want, they
can transform the school and told students they should go to games, plays and concerts to
cheer each other on and thank an adult for what they do. He suggested teachers should make
clear each day what they would do to help their students succeed and allow for an extension
when a student comes to them with a difficult week. He tells parents to give the teachers the
benefit of the doubt and to assume that they care deeply about their children.
“If every person here commits to acting in one of these ways, three times each day, that
leaves 6,000 acts a day and 1,080,000 acts for the school year, we can positively transform
South into a school that we can confidently say we love,” Stembridge said. “This I believe, it
is our responsibility, yours and mine and no one else’s, to transform South into a school
where we can honestly proclaim, ‘we love our school.’”

Laura Paine can be reached at lpaine@cnc.com.

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