american prep

You don’t like the way that works? Use it. Is that a little uncomfortable? Use that in your writing! You’re going to see so much growth when you look back at this in a year. Look, you can make use of everything, but you have to follow these sets of rules for now. Yes, that is true. Use that too! Why? Because you might get a B- or worse otherwise, and how are you going to explain that to your parents? Come on. We’ve seen so much growth in the past few months, especially compared to your quite frankly concerning first-semester performance. Are you going to relapse? Don’t stop now!

Now papers are passed around, some bright bleach-yellow, some bright bleach-pink. Some lucky students get a hold of plain white ones. Some don’t have anything printed on the other side. Students are required to return papers to the school for further use or recycling, but that doesn’t stop some from trying to get away with slipping that coveted one-sided white paper into their bags when they get it. Everyone knows that if the school catches you in the act, you can bet it’ll be hell to pay: that means a day’s mandatory detention during study periods, which can really get you behind on your workload. It’s said that a student who manages to take home all white paper with one clean side all semester is guaranteed straight-A’s: a rumor, of course, a stupid in-school in-joke, it has to be, but the correlation is impossible to ignore to anyone who really looks. After all, who can forget Joe Kravitz, that star of the school, national debate champion, who came back just the other day, years after his graduation, with a stack of old white one-sided paper? Ah, yes, the way he froze in horror when Administrator Shapiro told him he’d have a day’s detention for every sheet. How they both laughed afterwards! Within the next few months, good ol’ Kravitz donated enough money for the school to dedicate a brand new trophy case on the sixth floor in his honor. And then who could forget Chani Mendelson, returning to the school unable to divulge the details of her job at the CIA but more than happy to show off her briefcase full of those one-sided white pages? Then there was Eli Matos before her, and Abe Segal before him. These days, rumor is that the school’s faculty itself perpetuates the narrative, partly to bolster the school’s unique spirit, partly to weed out the sloppy troublemakers and strengthen the clever ones.

The students fidget, shuffle in their seats, eager to find out what will come this time. Then, from the front of the room: — Alright, would one of you start reading this damn thing? One student after another stands up, reads a few sentences, sits down, has another one pick up where they left off. The papers, aside from some typos and variations which will surely not go unnoticed by the student body, read: Dear Students and Families, linebreaklinebreak American Preparatory School at Himmelberg College will be hosting general review sessions throughout the coming week. These sessions are to be held from 4:30 PM to 8:30 PM every day from March 18, 2012 to March 22, 2012. Attendance is mandatory. Students will report to the auditorium beginning at 4:00 PM to sign in and out of the sessions. Students signing in after 4:15 PM will not be admitted. Students signing out before 8:00 PM will have their attendance voided and will have to attend another session. Failure to attend may result in a failing grade for several or all academic classes, depending on their respective instructors’ discretion. Please plan accordingly. Thanks, linebreaklinebreaklinebreak Administrator Joãozinho Shapiro linebreaklinebreak PS: First-year students taking second-year courses may be required to attend two or more review sessions. Unfortunately, there is no easy way for us to determine for whom this will be the case. Please consult your instructors.

The students nod one at a time, sign their names and ID numbers on the papers, and hand them up until they all reach the front of the room. The papers will be carefully checked against attendance records to ensure that they were universally read and not stolen. The penalty for appearing on an attendance record but not returning a signed announcement sheet varies from student to student, but lately, students caught in this way have been treated as if they were stealing papers. This policy is fairly new, introduced by Administrator Shapiro just last year, in the Spring semester. He believes that this will guarantee at least a certain degree of acknowledgment of his announcements—and besides, it can’t hurt to toughen the kids up a bit, can it? Under this policy, students truly serious about taking home one-sided white sheets have tried their damnedest to procure a volunteer position in the filing room, to which the papers all eventually make their way, bundled up in twine. The faculty isn’t blind, however, so they’ve instituted several checks against this: there is now an indefinite number of filing room supervisor volunteer positions open for students really serious about knocking out their community service requirements (it even allows access to the microwave, no less but no more than twice a week!) which involves checking rigorously for broken twine and reporting every sighting of it. There is only one known loophole left open now, requiring the most careful coordination. The new policy requires every signature and ID number on every one-sided announcement sheet to be redacted after they are recorded, which proved to be too much work for the regular filing room volunteers, necessitating a volunteer position of its own. The redaction volunteer is supposed to hand these sheets right to the printing room, but this position also has free access to a recycling bin, thanks to the inevitable slop of freshman filing room volunteers who allow a two-sided sheet to slip to redaction every once in awhile. Thanks to this, the redaction volunteer can discretely hand the one-sided papers off to the recycling room volunteer, who can safely stow them out of the building. Redacted sheets are generally agreed to be less valuable than the perfectly clean sheets of a year and a half ago, but they’re still something. And so the new, unprestigious volunteer position and the volunteer position that students once dreaded most now have the longest waiting lists. The faculty has taken notice and put in orders for more security cameras, but there is no reason to believe that this loophole will close any sooner than the beginning of the next academic year.

— Alright, if that’s it, you can go.

The students rise and begin sorting out, one-by-one. They pass quietly, clutching their books and binders, to the classroom’s designated closest staircase, noted on both sides of its door below its classification and schedule. This, of course, is not enforced, but for what would one want to waste steps and act otherwise?

They descend. Before two minutes, the whole present school is gathered on the ground-level, waiting for the auditorium doors to open. There will be a general assembly today at this time. Such was said on every morning announcement for the past week. Calls were made to the homes of students with histories of missing general assemblies.

Some few meters away, outside, beyond the security guard’s desk, stand some straddlers alongside students of Strauss arts, engaged in what would once be the devil’s work but today we are a progressive, secular school. The straddlers are pulled back in and given harsh warnings about which colleges may not accept them and which parents will not accept them for it; the Strauss Arts kids are left just a pair of paces from where they stood, for whoever might someday do the same for them.

Is there anything that Strauss kids do better? They have two to three periods of art per day, so they should theoretically be far beyond us. But this model doesn’t account for the frequency at which they seem to cut class, which is impossible to accurately estimate, given the school’s infamously flawed attendance model. They do lack a performing arts program, while we have a renowned one, but that is no fair comparison. The theoretical differences between a Strauss artist and a American Prep artist are murky at best. If we cannot approximate skill level, the next best thing we can do is to simply compare work samples, which do vary heavily but are better than absolute uncertainty. Surveying American Prep’s visual output, one can easily gather that pen-on-college-paper is the dominant style here: large amounts of stippling, informal production, informal presentation, hell to pay if instructors see you working on it. Meanwhile, charcoal, 4H to 2B pencils and the odd pastels seem dominant at Strauss Arts, although our sample may be unreliable, given the large amounts of student work that never once passes through the school. One may be surprised to learn that the gap in aesthetic appeal is slim at best: though a Strauss Arts student who actually attends school may receive a comprehensive training in anatomy, gesture, principles and elements of design, unbiased parties seem evenly split down the middle in regards to preference. — But my style will get me hired, a Strauss Arts student might reply. But will it? Commercial Art is well-understood to be an unsteady career. Many Strauss Arts students will realize this and enter more conventional disciplines. We at American Prep can and do self-study art. Strauss Arts students, however, may find great difficulties in switching to a discipline other than art. Abi Mendelson, posted on March 9, 2012, 4:14 AM. Strauss Arts students are outraged, and they say so. Our own find it harsh-but-true, and they say so.

Soon, the auditorium doors open, slowly but surely. The students of American Prep, all packed here on the ground floor and barely in the heating, dare not to enter until all three entrances are fully open. They file in slowly, as Assistant Dean Mark Vargas-Jones sorts his papers on the podium and intermittently stands stately, breaking now and then to cough or glance up and admire the still-not-quite-full art deco auditorium.

Neither too soon nor too slowly, the auditorium has filled up, and honored Assistant Dean Vargas-Jones may begin his address. As all students are required to have been informed (if you have not been properly informed, please find me in my office— you know where to find me— this isn’t difficult, folks—), general review sessions are coming up. Do not panic: you’ve done this before, unless you’re a freshman, in which case this may be a difficult week for you, I know, it’s difficult for all of us, but you’ll get through it, everyone does, trust me, if you’re clever enough to be here, you’ll be fine. This is a time-honored American Prep tradition and absolutely necessary to how we conduct ourselves as a school: do not envy your friends in less demanding schools because soon they will envy you. Make sure to coordinate with your parents and counselors around this time, it’s vital that you do so, it’s—

—and now a great shrill sound cuts from the back of the room right to the stage, and right through good Assistant Dean Vargas-Jones’ words, who pauses to wonder if this is really happening again damn it it’s been since nineteen-ninety-something and yes it is, it is a voice and it is screaming, what-for-who-cares. Assistant Dean Vargas-Jones puts on a half-grin half-pout, shrugs his shoulders, and paces about the stage while the security guard marches in from just outside, grabs the culprit who has now run out of breath, drags this child out of sight and hopefully to the nurse’s office probably to the Dean’s detention room, and the whispers die down tentatively but quickly.

— Now, as I was saying—