Author: Milton Magazine

The weekly crossword puzzle of Margot Becker ‘20 was a fun and challenging Friday must-do for many students and adults around campus. Individuals and teams of students rushed each week to complete the challenging 15×15 published on the inside back page of The Milton Paper. Becker gave out prizes in a variety of categories and emailed out the names of all those who completed the puzzle correctly. Even after remote learning from home began after March break, Becker continued to email the puzzle to the Milton Academy community and run lists of the winners. “I wanted it to be that if you send it in and it’s right, you get a reward of some kind, regardless of your speed,” Becker says. “I started a ‘beautiful completion’ prize’ for the best-looking puzzles. My whole aim was to encourage everyone to do these, have a good time, and get something out of it.” Becker says she began making crosswords her junior year on her own, first just sketching some and then making 5×5 puzzles, or “minis.” Using a software program called Phil, she progressed to the “midi” size and then to the more difficult 15×15 format, which is the size of the New York Times weekday crossword. Becker’s love of crosswords started early. “I’m from a crossword family,” she says.  “My grandfather did two a day until the day he died.” ...

A “remarkable” number of student writers and artists were recognized by the Massachusetts Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the nation’s longest-running competition to identify creative talent among students. Thirty-one students earned 43 writing honors and 19 students earned 34 art honors. In writing, Anne Kwok ’21 received numerous awards in poetry and fiction including three Gold Keys, one Silver Key, and one Honorable Mention. For her poem “Aubade For My Sister,” she also received an American Voices and Visions Medal, the highest regional Scholastic honor. “It is one of the more abstract poems I’ve written,” says Kwok, who was taking the creative writing course and the poetry half course. “I’m experimenting with new forms of writing and exploring different poetry forms.” Last fall, her work was also recognized by the Foyles Young Poets competition, when she was awarded Commended Poet. Kwok says she has always loved writing, but at Milton she has more opportunities to write poetry. She has also enjoyed having visiting poets on campus,including Gregory Pardlo, who spent time in her class: “I’d been struggling a lot with appropriating someone else’s voice, and he told me it’s about finding the individual story and to focus on that.” Erica Yip ’20, who earned a Gold Key and a Silver Key in poetry, was also a finalist in the 2020 Young Arts National Competition for a play script adapted...

Using research conducted on three continents, Jana Amin ’21 has been working for nearly two years to deepen the understanding of a 20th-century Egyptian princess whose story was only partially told. Princess Fawzia Fuad, at one point the queen of Iran, received worldwide attention for her beauty—she was often compared to Western movie stars—during the coverage of her 1939 political marriage to Iran’s crown prince, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Amin’s research of Egyptian documents unveiled a more complex princess than the one portrayed in the British and American press—a nurse who was involved in Egypt’s health care system and a leader who galvanized Egyptian women to fight for their rights. Amin’s work was featured in an exhibit at the American University in Cairo (AUC), and she conducted research in Egypt, the U.K., and the United States. “Cecil Beaton, who was one of the photographers for the British royal family, went to photograph her in Iran,” Amin says. “He described her as a ‘fair-skinned princess with sad eyes,’ and the photos show her near a gate. It almost looks like she’s in a cage.And so it was fascinating to get a different perspective on her and to see some of the different roles she played.” Amin’s interest in Fuad began during the summer before her sophomore year, when she attended a history camp run by The Concord Review, a publication of...

Even when they’re fully committed to a character, the best improvisers bring their own personalities to their performances, says improv performer Gemma Soldati ’09. Soldati and her comedy partner, Amrita Dhaliwal, visited improv classes taught by Peter Parisi, a teacher in the Performing Arts Department, before spring break. The performers shared the joy and connection inherent in clowning. As students improvised chickens and horses, and took audience cues for their characters, they added telling flourishes: a Shakespearean flair, comic movement, and a confrontational “neigh.” “These things are real; they’re part of who we are,” Soldati told the students. “You have to bring the truth of who you are to the stage. You’re not going to be successful onstage if you’re trying to hide.” Clowning allows performers to play with power dynamics, absurdity, poignancy, and hilarity. A good clown—in the commedia dell’arte tradition rather than the big-shoes, red-nose tradition—can be a conduit for all kinds of emotion. Soldati and Dhaliwal have toured with their two-woman show, The Living Room, in the United States and internationally, winning the Best Comedy award at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe Festival in Australia. Playing off each other and creating a story doesn’t always result in humor, Soldati says. “It’s not a competition to see who’s the funniest. You need each...

“How would you engage in your life if you knew you were wonderful just as you are?” the clinical psychologist Adia Gooden asked Milton students. “I want you to think about what you would have the courage to do if you knew you were worthy.” Gooden, the director of community programs and outcome measurement at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, visited campus in January as the Talbot Speaker. She spoke with students about the issues of imposter syndrome and low self-worth, the feelings that make even the highest achievers feel unworthy in their day-to-day lives. Imposter syndrome makes a person feel they don’t belong in a place, even when they have been specifically chosen to be there. For students at a selective school like Milton, or for adults in their workplaces, that feeling can manifest in different ways: People may “make themselves small” and fly under the radar for fear that others will discover they don’t belong; they may procrastinate on tasks they feel unqualified to complete; or they may put unsustainable pressure on themselves to be perfect. Low self-worth can affect anyone, Gooden said, and she believes it is at the root of many mental illnesses. People are constantly exposed to messages—internal and external—that tell them they’re not adequate for various reasons, and those in marginalized communities are especially vulnerable, she explained. Struggle and discomfort are normal,...