Features (Page 33)

Alumnus Matt Martz had, in 2008, created the Student Symphonic Orchestra of Fairfax that was made up of only Marshall students; now it has students from more than 15 different schools.

The Student Symphonic Orchestra of Fairfax is beginning its fourth performance season and the program’s season opener performance, free, is on Mar. 24 at the Redeemer Lutheran Church.

Through each performance, Martz has enjoyed watching the gradual improvements with the music.

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“If you ask any of my students if I’m weird, they might say yes.” Correcting himself, English teacher Jason Tamborini said, “They will say yes.”

Tamborini, a new teacher this school year, recently moved from Massachusetts, where he taught special education after earning a master’s degree from Emerson College.

“I just felt like I needed a change of venue,” he said. “It was time to do something different.”

Here, Tamborini is involved with theatre, and he helps “build sets [and works] with some of the students.”

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It is sprawled on the bathroom stalls in sharpie and on the tops of desks in pencil. It covers everything it touches — roads and bridges and garage doors. Sprayed by artistic teenagers or painted by gangs to claim territory, it can be found from downtown DC to rural Great Falls.

“It’s a misdemeanor to do graffiti,” school resource officer Tom Harrington explained. “You can be charged with the removal of it, and that can go into the thousands of dollars, depending upon … how big it is.”

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Three teachers come home to babies ages two months, one year and two years, respectively. Each has a different perspective on the realities of being a parent. IB co-coordinator and history teacher Matthew Axelrod became one of the newest parents at Marshall when his daughter Natalie was born on Jan. 12.

“Babies are just loud and they don’t have a schedule. From one of the books we read [it] seems babies don’t develop a sleep schedule until they’re between two to four months old,” Axelrod said.

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According to a 2008 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau called “Reasons For Not Voting, By Selected Characteristics,” 21 percent of people from ages 18 to 24 cited “Too busy, conflicting schedule” as a reason for not voting, followed closely by “Out of town” and “Not Interested.”

However, contrary to those statistics, there are seniors who will be voting.

In the week of Feb. 6, Virginia voter registrars came during IB Topics classes to help eligible seniors become registered voters.
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There is still, though, a huge swath of dating abuse victims and potential victims who do not have the same national and international attention that some are, rightfully, receiving: men. Young men and minority men are at particular risk for dating abuse. In 2008, 13 percent of male Latino seventh-graders reported that their partners, according to a study by the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, had physically abused them.

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In search of the kind of charity work he had been part of in his past, senior Ryan Moore drew from his roots.

Before coming to Marshall in his junior year, Moore spent three years in Beijing, China, where, at the International School of Beijing (ISB), he was actively part of Nightingale, one of the school’s charity organizations. Nightingale is affiliated with the Ping An Medical Foster Home.

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Though substitute teacher Barry Finkelstein calls himself “an open book,” his colorful past, which has had a great influence on him, has only recently been revealed.

According to Finkelstein, his personality and style of teaching are the products of his life in the military and his work for the federal government.

Finkelstein spent 36 years in the government: five in active duty and in the Navy, 27 with the Internal Revenue Service and four with the Department of Justice. His first tour with the U.S. Navy was as a line officer aboard a cruiser in Vietnam.

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