New Teacher at Galileo
Reply
By Maggie La, Editor
Category Archives: FEATURE
Book Review: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Senior Nick Toy reading The Metamorphosis
By Nicholas Toy, Staff Writer
From Nature to Teacher
Backpacking all over California, identifying plants, and seeing exploded trees, Science teacher, Mr. John Rivera, spent 16 years in the United States force service, 8 years doing various recreational jobs and the other 8 years as a botanist. Although he has experiences working as a wilderness patroller and a fire fighter, nothing is more satisfying to him than a good day teaching in a classroom.
Galileo’s Aspiring Musician: Shun Trenholm
About a year and a half ago, Senior, Shun Trenholm, began busking, or perform publicly, on the streets of San Francisco. Shun has had an extreme love and passion for music since his childhood. He has been playing guitar since age thirteen when his dad bought him his first electric guitar, and recently taught himself how to play the piano. He started playing music publicly in hopes of creating a career in music, having an audience to play for, and sharing his love of music with his community.
Meng Khaul: New Year Class
By Kelly Huyuh, Editor
Futurama’s Four Year Growth Spurt
By Carrie Huang, Layout and Staff Writer
Love At Galileo
By Jolene Ding and Emily Chu, Staff Writers
Valentine’s Day is a day that is full of love and the Pendulum wanted to present three love stories about some teachers who fell in love while working here at Galileo.
Galileo Welcomes New Principal
By Jeffrey Hu, Staff Writer
A former athlete, new Galileo principal, Mr. Marcus Blacksher, was once a football player as well as a wrestler and track runner at Woodrow Wilson High School in San Francisco. Mr. Blacksher never wanted to play football when he was younger, but his mother forced him to participate in order to learn about discipline and structure, as well as to keep him occupied rather than being negatively influenced. Mr. Blacksher learned to be persistent and to be positive when facing life’s obstacles through sports. With this lesson in mind, it helped him to confidently confront any challenges.
Not only did he learn to face difficulties through sports, but he also learned that he should not quit when things got too hard, instead he should keep moving forward. Following this life lesson, after he graduated from Wilson High School, he attended St. Mary’s College in Moraga and majored in English.
After college, Mr. Blacksher was originally an English teacher, a dean and football coach at Thurgood Marshall High School for five years. He then became a dean, assistant principal, and football coach for Mission High School for four years. For one year, he was principal of Maxwell Elementary School. He later returned to Thurgood Marshall as an assistant principal.
After being the assistant principal at Marshall for one year, he accepted the opportunity to become Galileo’s 17th principal. Mr. Blacksher said, “When the Galileo opportunity came up, I was just ecstatic to be interviewed for it and excited to be given the job.”
The selection committee hired Mr. Blacksher because they liked his personality and experience on the administration. One of the people in the selection committee in hiring Mr. Blacksher was Galileo’s secretary, Ms. Bettie Grinnell. Ms. Grinnell stated, “We like his energy, and the fact that he wasn’t going to change everything that worked so well in Galileo. We also like the fact that he grew up and was educated in San Francisco.” The committee was impressed that Mr. Blacksher enjoys being with the staff, students, and faculty and supports the staff’s opinions. Most importantly, Mr. Blacksher is willing to take on any challenges.
So far, teachers have felt good about Mr. Blacksher’s impact on Galileo Academy. “He’s a visible principal and that’s good because he can see what is going on around the school and he knows the students,” said art teacher Mr. Huynh. Math teacher, Ms. Carter, added “I like the fact that he walks around and he has a positive presence.”
As Galileo’s new principal, Mr. Blacksher hopes to make Galileo the best academically and spirited high school in San Francisco as well as see every student go to college. He is currently working along side with the staff of Galileo to help encourage more students to excel in higher level classes. He hopes to see more African American, Latino, and newcomer immigrant students to not only take more challenging classes, but also to attend a four year college. Mr. Blacksher supports these students by giving the foundation of learning during their freshman year.
Awesome Autumn, Awful Attendance
By Clarissa Lee, Editor
Sadie Hawkins
May I Have This Dance?
Extravagant ways Galileo students ask out their dates
By Crystal Cheng, Staff Writer
Galileo JROTC Reigns Once Again
By Carrie Huang, Layout and Staff Writer
Student Spotlight: Mr. Fix-a-Lot
By Diane Cho, Staff Writer
Galileo’s Pathways
Media Arts
By Sandy Wong, Staff Writer
Futurama After-School Program: Everything a Student Needs
By Annie Kwok, Staff Writer
Autumn Ball 2009 “Us Against The World” Chocolate, Dancing, and Karaoke
By Jasmine Golparast, Staff Writer
Winter Origins
Christmas:
Nothing says
Christmas time
more than a fragrant
young fir tree
adorned with twinkling
lights, smiling angels and
bright colored ornaments.
Poinsettias, with their rubycolored,
star-shaped leaves, are
ubiquitous holiday decorations during
the Christmas season. While the
tradition of kissing under the mistletoe
is a long-standing and
Christmas tradition,
the mistletoe
plant itself is anything but
romantic. The tradition of sending
Christmas card greetings to friends
and family.
Hanukkah: Each night
during Chanukah Israelites
light candles in a special
candelabra called a Menorah. The
center candle, called the Shamash, is
always the first candle placed in the Menorah
and the first candle to be lit each night. The
remaining candles are placed and lit in a specific
order depending on the night of the celebration. When
placing candles in the Menorah – the Shamash (center) candle
is placed first. Then that
night’s candles are placed
in the Menorah from right to
left. When the candles are lit, the
Shamash would be lit first and then is
used to light that night’s candles – from left
to right. And as the candles are lit each night a
special prayer is recited.
Kwanzaa: First day On the first day of Kwanzaa the
black candle is lit in the
Kinara. The black candle represents
the first principle -Unity.
On the second day the black candle
is again lit, as well as the farthest red
candle on the left. This represents the
2nd principle of Kwanzaa -Self-Determination.
On the third day the black candle is
lit, then the farthest left red, and then the farthest
right green candle. This represents the 3rd principle
of Kwanzaa – Collective work and responsibility. On the
fourth day the black candle is lit, then the farthest left red,
the farthest right green. And then the next red candle on the
left. This represents the 4th principle of Kwanzaa – Collective
economics. On the fifth day the black candle is lit, then the farthest
left red, the farthest right
green, the next red and
then the next green candle.
This represents the 5th
principle of Kwanzaa – Purpose.
On the sixth day the
black candle is lit, then the
farthest left red, the farthest
right green, the next red, the
next green and then the final
red candle. This represents
the 6th principle of Kwanzaa
- Creativity. On the seventh
day the black candle is lit,
then the farthest left red, the
farthest right green, the next
red candle, the next green,
the final red and then the final