January Edition

Letter from the Editors:

Guess what Needham High!?! We are officially halfway through the school year! Congrats on (hopefully) making it this far. As you celebrate this major accomplishment, we suggest you check out the latest Hilltopper's edition! Sit back and relax as you read about topics like Don't Look Up and the climate crisis , Breitbart's September article attacking NHS, the 2021 All School Read, and more!

xoxo,

Talia, Alex, and Bayley ♡

Courtesy of Alex Goodale

We Finally Had a Snow Storm: A Photo Journal

By The Hilltopper Staff

January 2022 saw not one, but TWO snow storms! Global warming who? Just kidding... climate change is real guys, please believe science. Unfortunately for students, one of these storms was on a Saturday so we did not have a snow day:( Either way, enjoy these photos!

Courtesy of Vecteezy.com

Don’t Look Up: A Metaphor for the Climate Crisis

By Christine Mittaz

Don't Look Up was released on December 24, 2021, just as 2021 climate reports were emerging. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and many other A-list actors create what has been described by movie critics as any genre of movie from fantasy to disaster, but seems most fittingly described as a political satire. The estimated $110 million dollar film is an allegory for the climate crisis, specifically satirizing the denial and continuous ignoring of proven scientific evidence.

Courtesy of Breitbart's Website

Breitbart Cares About Mr. Sicotte's Sexuality

By Alex Goodale

In an article published September 16th, Breitbart, a conservative news source, published an article accusing Needham Public Schools of “indoctrinating students” with leftist ideology. Ironically, the way the article describes Needham High School is… good. Though it uses a negative tone, the article nicely summarizes Needham’s goals to create a more accepting environment and help students understand the importance of equality.

Courtesy of The Fulcrum

Navigating "Tough Conversations": Why was the 2021 All School Read Born a Crime Canceled?

By Bayley Basson and Talia Bloom

Last July, Needham High students and teachers received an email from Mr. Sicotte regarding the summer’s all school read. The administrators had settled on comedian Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, a memoir about Noah’s childhood through South African apartheid, but the school ultimately decided not to require this book. Here's why.

Courtesy of Monica Iriti

Riding the Bench: What’s It Like Being Injured as an Athlete?

By Sydney Baker

Regardless of who you are, being injured is the worst. Having a broken toe, torn ligament, or cracked rib is an absolute nightmare, especially if you have to go to school or work while injured. However, for athletes of all levels, being injured is not only painful and inconvenient, but also possibly season, or career, ending.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

The Importance of Mental Health Days

By Evie Lockwood-Mullaney

High school students deal with stress every single day. From projects to tests to worksheets to random things, there’s a lot going on. With all this intensity, something has to give: usually sleep, fun, or mental health. The latter is something that’s easy to forget about and brush to the side while prioritizing getting work done. But more important than high school grades, our mental health stays with us for the rest of our lives, so shouldn’t we learn to manage it now?

Courtesy of Vecteezy.com

Hilly's New Year's Resolutions

Hilly the Hilltopper

With the first month of 2022 coming to a close, I am here to discuss something that marks the start of every new year, New Year’s Resolutions. Now, I’m sure many of us made them, whether it was to get more sleep, take more time for ourselves, start going to the gym, etc. So, I’m going to share my New Year’s resolutions and let you know how well I am doing with them now that we are one-twelfth of the way through 2022.

Courtesy of Olivia Rodrigo

Top 10 Olivia Rodrigo Outfits

By Amelie Zosa

Olivia Rodrigo is a global sensation: an incredibly talented pop star, singer-songwriter, and actress. Her many awards, broken world records, and other accomplishments are amazingly impressive, especially as she is only 18. Her fashion sense is no joke either. Her wardrobe is constantly evolving. Here are my top ten Olivia Rodrigo outfits, (plus a few extras).

Courtesy of Medium.com

Elementary School Reading Levels: Helpful, or Hurtful?

By Emily Flanagan

In elementary school, there are twenty-six reading levels labeled A-Z. Each year, there was a maximum level a student could reach, and if they reached that level in the fall, they just wouldn’t be tested again come spring. They could read, so everything was great and they would be left alone (read: ignored) for the rest of the year. Is this really the best method?

Courtesy of Siena Uyenoyama

Fashionista of the Month: Siena Uyenoyama

By Amelie Zosa

Siena Uyenoyama (way-no-ya-ma), January’s fashionista of the month, has been one of my close friends since 2014, and so I’ve had the pleasure of watching their style change over the years. This interview was… a little more chaotic than interviews I’ve done in the past, but Siena shares a lot of their hot takes on fashion that I find to be really intriguing.

Courtesy of Sydney Baker

Absent Teacher Photo Journal

By Sydney Baker

So. Many. Teacher. Have. Been. Absent. (Although not nearly as many as students!). At times, it seems like every day, at least one of your teachers is gone–-- live love pandemic school. Please enjoy these photos of slips that present so much joy to students: the sign saying a teacher is absent.

Courtesy of Brain Injury Australia

Recovering from a Concussion and the Dilemma of Unseen Injuries

By Alex Goodale

Recent research showed that about one-quarter of teens report having at least one concussion. Concussions can have many lasting negative effects, are unfortunately normalized as being part of sports. What makes concussions especially complicated is that there is no sure-fire way to know when your brain is completely “back to normal," which presents a host of problems for students.

Courtesy of Showtime

A Detailed Review of Yellowjackets and the Brutality of Girlhood

By Sydney Baker

Showtime’s new series Yellowjackets opens with astonishing violence. In the first episode, the viewers are immediately immersed in the social hierarchy of the Yellowjackets, an elite girl's soccer team. At the end of the pilot episode, the girls board a plane that is supposed to take them to the national championship. Instead, it crashes in the Canadian wilderness. The season follows the girls' journies in their journey, and wow, it gets crazy.

Courtesy of Pinterest

Halloween: Problems with Cultural Appropriation

By Amelie Zosa

Halloween is involved with a number of problems, such as a lack of representation for people of color in the media. Though Halloween is great and fun in so many ways, it can also be rather problematic, especially in terms of costuming. Cultural appropriation is another very real, year-round issue rarely acknowledged by the general public. Many have taken part in cultural appropriation unintentionally, without even knowing it.

Courtesy of WBUR

Who Defines Success?

By Aliyah Borskiy

Success: some define it as winning at a sporting event, some define it as an A on a paper, while others define success as simply making it through the day. When school tells us to be successful, what exactly does that mean? What does it mean for you? What does it mean to your guardians? Coaches? Friends?

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