By Jason M.
There’s been a lot of change in Family One. They have a number of new students, but they stick close to basic AA. “Family One is very happy to have the new students from other families,” said family leader Robin Ducey said about the family. “They seem to be adjusting.”
Many students have been stepping up, including, Dan C., Andrew S., Matt W., Ethan M., Aneeb A., Georgia P., Natasha S., Andrew A., and Sheree B. Of these people Sheree received an RA pin on January 9, and Aneeb and Natasha got buddying and shadowing.
According to Ducey, Family One has been doing better since honesty day. “Honesty day was good. It seemed to clean the air for a lot of us.” Hopefully, Family One may live up to Andrew’s vision: “live as a family, love one another, and do what is asked of us.”
Not only is the family doing better on the program, but their academic performance has improved as witnessed by Aneeb, who scored a 97 on the Math Regents and Matt W. scored 100 on three of his finals and a 97 on his other final. The latest change in Family One is Ducey’s heart monitor experiment. The experiment was inspired by a book titled Spark by John J. Ratey, MD, a psychologist at Harvard, and deals with the relationship between consistent exercise and stress, addiction, and learning. A similar experiment was performed in Naperville Central High School in Chicago, with the results showing that consistent aerobic exercise increases standardized test scores. “I got permission from Argiros to experiment with Family One to see the effect of aerobic exercise, ordered heart monitors for everyone which will be distributed on January 31,” said Ducey. The experiment may also include the use of Dance Dance Revolution, a game that simulated dancing, for the Playstation 2. In addition to the experiment, Family One is very involved in other extracurricular activities such as the basketball team, debate, and Venture Crew.
