Cassidy’s Portrait Photography

By: Cassidy Russell ’25

This photo was taken of my brother for my photography class. We are working on portrait photography. Hockey is a big part of my brother’s life, so I wanted to incorporate that in the photo. I composed this photo in a dark room with a light on my phone for the red effect. It took a while to get the right shot, but I ended up loving the photo in the end.

Meet the New Hebron Review Editors!

By: Belle Beauchesne ’25 & Maja Mulley ’24

My name is Belle Beauchesne (right) and I am a day student. I have been attending Hebron Academy since 9th grade. I play soccer in the fall, hockey in the winter, and track and field in the spring. My favorite thing to do is travel and go on vacation, and I would love to visit and explore Europe one day. 

I’m Maja Mulley (left), I’m a junior day student. I started at Hebron Academy in 6th grade. I play field hockey in the fall and I’m on the ski team in the winter. In my free time, I love baking for my friends and family, and going on hikes with my dog!

Hebron Hockey Update (As of 2/14/23)

By: Ryan Johnston ’24

The 6-19-2 Lumberjacks Varsity Boys Hockey Team has been through their fair share of great triumphs and heart-wrenching losses. The Jacks came into the season with hope and energy with some wins early on and even proving they can hang with the big dogs only losing 2-1 to Holderness and 6-3 to Kent. The team started to shape up with catching a few wins before going into winter break with the team eager to hit the ice in January. With a solid return to play the team started to get back into the swing of things, we saw vital players to the team starting to take injuries. In a matter of a week the Jacks lost seven of their players including their starting goalie. This hit the team harder than expected, with Hebron going on an eight game losing streak. While most teams would roll over and take what happens Hebron has worked hard and started to show signs of promise once again. With players starting to join the lineup once again we have seen a spark among this team. Most recently with a 4-3 loss against Bridgton Academy they have proved they have not lost hope and will continue to battle. This next week will be big for them, going into playoffs the Hebron Lumberjacks will be the underdog. Can they shatter the expectations the league has set?

All Photo Credits to Blake Tripp ’24

Hebron Basketball

By: Caden Dufour ’24

Photo credit: Blake Tripp ‘24 
The Hebron 2022-2023 Basketball team started the season with high hopes and a willingness to give it their all on the court. The team, day in and day out, put in their hardest effort at practice, always going the extra step to improve their skills. When asked about the team, the 6’6 senior from Georgia, Giorgi Maglaperidze said, “the team chemistry has come a long way from the start. We are starting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses each game, connecting on a more personal level as a full team.” The number of basketball players was scarce, with only thirteen team members due to injuries in the season. However, these players were extremely dedicated to achieving excellence. Coach Amory Weld said, “this team has come a long way; towards the beginning of the season, games weren’t competitive, and teams had already marked Hebron as a win on their schedule. But as the games continued, the team found a spark. Making games extremely close, losing in the final seconds of numerous games.” As the mighty Lumberjacks reach the season’s final two games, the expectation for a win is unprecedented. The 5’9 senior, Corey Garvin, is “willing to do whatever it takes” to produce a win for the season and finish the season on a positive note.

Goodbye Moon

By: Jake Paderewski ‘23

Children everywhere put their naive minds at bay and get tucked in for bed time. Before drifting off to the land of their imaginations, many settle down and begin to listen to a “goodnight story.” For some it may be Doctor Seuss, others Shel Silverstein, but for the unfortunate – Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon.

From the soft illustrations by Clement Hurd to the vivid lyrics by Brown, parents think that children seemingly fall asleep in the sweet rabbit’s infamous “great green room.” While on the surface this book is short and sweet, once inspected a little closer, the true story emerges. 

This is first seen when one scans the first image, in which a rabbit is portrayed sitting in its bed. Upon further scrutiny, one can notice the clear foreshadowing giving away the rest of the book. Seen in the back are, in order of appearance in the book, the cow jumping over the moon, and the three little bears sitting on chairs, a comb, a brush, a bowl full of mush, a light, chairs, clocks, stars, air, and most revoltingly, noises everywhere. 

On behalf of the children of the world, I would like to personally say that this is appalling. For if I were to sit down with my father as a child and read this I would be outraged. For starters, if I am reading a novel, I do NOT want to have the entire thing spoiled in five seconds. To even glance at the illustration would ruin the entire story-telling process, and not to mention the child’s night. I guarantee that after being read this, ninety-nine percent of the kids sit awake and stare at the ceiling wishing that they had parents who loved them, parents who did not dare to put them through a reading of the horrid Goodnight Moon.

After they finally get over that (after many years of counseling), they would still be upset about the discontinuities thrown about the book. As seen on page four, there are a pair of mittens and a pair of socks set up to dry, but as soon as you turn over page thirteen, the socks are nowhere to be found. And guess what? Turn to the VERY NEXT PAGE, and guess who’s back… the socks! The audacity! Also, wander over to page three and tell me what you see, because what I see is a chair with no “quiet old lady who was whispering hush,” who seems to have magically appeared by page six. 

But, what is by far the worst sin this book has committed is the fact that the color pallets change on every single page. I know that almost every kid reading this book knows their color theory, so there is no doubt in my mind that they are disgusted with this aspect of Hurd’s illustrations.

After reading this too many times (even though one is already too many), I have concluded that this “book,” if I can even call it that, is overall horrible. Not a single person in this mortal plane would enjoy this. Overall, 0/10. 

-Jake Paderewski ‘23

Is Homework Truly Necessary and Beneficial to Students?

By: Belle Beauchesne ’25 

Homework is something almost every student has to deal with on a daily basis. Most teachers say that homework is necessary for students for different reasons such as practicing key skills taught in class, practicing accountability and responsibility, or simply just another grade in the grade book. But as we get older, we seem to have more and more homework each year, which poses the question of how necessary and beneficial it really is. Why should students have to go to school and work all day just to go home and continue to work all night? This is a question that has been debated for years, and we’ve interviewed both students and teachers to get further insight into opinions on the matter of homework. 

I interviewed Mrs. Waterman, the World Literature, Honors American Literature, AP English Language and Composition, and Independent Study: Women in Literature teacher, and found that she is definitely in favor of homework and sees it as a necessity to do well in class, and prepare for college. 

When asked about her general opinion on homework she responded with the following. “I think that homework is important, especially in an English classroom because reading is an individual pursuit and you interact with the text, you embody the characters that you are reading, and you live their experiences. We do that independently and as an individual. I think that assigning reading and then having kids annotate while they’re reading, answer questions while they’re reading, write questions while they’re reading, or draw a picture to interact with the text in some way is really important so that they can then come to class and learn from each other, ask their questions, challenge each other, and have all that material prepared for a really in-depth, sophisticated class discussion, activity, writing assignment, or whatever we do in class with that. It would be so hard for the class to move forward if you weren’t doing that independent leg work on your own the night before. The other reason I really assign a lot of homework and believe in homework is because I tell kids in high school you are in class eight hours a day and you have two hours to do homework at night time, give or take. But in college, which is what we are all preparing you for, it’s really an inverse relationship where you have class for only two hours but you spend about eight hours prepping for that class. The volume of homework that you are going to receive at the institutions where you guys are all hoping to go off to and attend one day just exponentially increases so much so I think if we’re not assigning homework at this level we’re doing you a disservice for what comes down the road.”

After talking to Mrs. Waterman about her thoughts on homework, I asked her if teachers should have a timeline for grading the assignments.

“I always say to my students that I feel that homework is important, so everything you read I read, and everything you take the time to write down, put pen to paper, I will take the time to read, grade, and evaluate, so I spend a huge amount of time doing homework myself. It takes a really long time to provide thoughtful commentary on student work. I’m backpedaling here because I make the same New Year’s resolution to myself every year, I’m going to be better about getting feedback to kids on time and returning their papers to them and their grades to them, so yes I think absolutely there should be a fair amount of time to return the assignments. In my own experience, I’ve taken so long to return a paper to a student that they get it back and they are like ‘what is this,’ ‘I don’t even care about this anymore’ and so all the time that I spent giving that feedback is lost because the kids don’t even remember or care anymore. So I think that yes, timely feedback from teachers on homework is really important. Should the school set limits, I don’t know how effective that would be but I think teachers have their own internal timeline where they are saying ‘oh man I have to get this back to my kids’ and I don’t know a single teacher who hasn’t had that exact thought.”

Next, I decided to interview Mrs. Ragatz, the Honors Chemistry, and Chemistry teacher because I know that she is on the no side of homework being beneficial to students. I interviewed her over email, and here is her response when asked what her opinion is on homework and how necessary it is for students.

“There are several reasons I’m not especially fond of homework. 

  1. Students who already understand the concepts being covered frequently don’t need the homework, so it becomes busywork. Students struggling to understand the concepts in the assignment become discouraged, frustrated, or are practicing mistakes in their problem-solving. For students who need practice, it’s much better for them to have help in the classroom than to practice mistakes outside of school. 
  2. Although it’s not as much of a problem at schools like Hebron Academy, it can be inequitable. Some students don’t have stable home lives and may have to work or take care of family members after school.  In 2016-2017, over 2500 Maine school children were homeless at some point in the school year. This problem has increased with the affordable housing crisis and the pandemic. Homework magnifies the problem of socioeconomic differences that affect access to education. If you are struggling just to survive, doing your chemistry homework isn’t really a big priority, and not doing it negatively affects your grade. 
  3. Students are already over-committed with respect to time. If students take 6 classes and every teacher assigns 30 minutes of homework, that’s 3 additional hours students must spend at the end of the day, after all other time commitments have been met, focusing on school work. It’s not healthy and it’s not sustainable. 
  4. Most importantly, I’m a scientist. I try to use data to inform my choices in the classroom. With respect to homework, especially for younger students, research shows that it doesn’t do much to improve student achievement or outcomes for their education, except for a handful of studies that show a tiny bump in standardized test scores. It has been shown to have negative effects on mental health and family relationships. I can provide a list of references if it would be helpful.”

So, after seeing two sides of the argument from two different teachers’ perspectives, what do you think? Do you agree with Mrs. Waterman, that interacting with the class outside of it greatly benefits students and prepares them for college, or do you agree with Mrs. Ragatz, that students have enough on their plate and the extra load of homework could cause unnecessary stress, especially when science shows it’s not beneficial?

Filling the Frame

By: Cassidy Russell ’25

This photo was taken in the fall, for my photography class. At the time, we were working on composition and learning how to operate our cameras. This was one of my early pictures, and it displays “fill the frame”. Filling the frame is achieved by composing an image with its subject taking up most of the space on the photo.

Is a Hotdog a Sandwich?

By: Mason Hatfield ’24

The mid-July sun is beating down so hard you can hear it. The croaking haze roars, giving way only to a gentle breeze and the sizzling of the grill. Minutes later, a still-crackling hot dog is placed on a bun and served. We have all had a hotdog at one point or another, and we have all had a sandwich at one point or another. Both hotdogs and sandwiches have been around for centuries, and hundreds of thousands of people have sunk their teeth into each numerous times. With their long and intertwining history, the question of what exactly is a hotdog has arisen. Is a hot dog a sandwich? After some extensive research and continuous in-depth thought, I have come to the conclusion that a hotdog is in fact a sandwich.

I know this conclusion may upset some people. If you look at the cold hard facts and set aside personal opinions, you will come to the same conclusion. I was once on the not-a-sandwich side and firmly believed that sandwiches and hotdogs were completely separate beings. One defining factor set this sword in stone for me; a sandwich requires two slices of bread. Then came along something that would pull that sword from the stone; subs. I’m sure you’ve been to a Subway sandwich shop. Subway sandwiches are undoubtedly sandwiches, right? Well, they have only one piece of bread, with a singular slice that gets stuffed with meat and whatever else you want. That sounds familiar. That sounds like a hotdog.

This astonishing revelation got me thinking, if we count subs and sandwiches then we have to count hot dogs, right? I needed an answer to this question so I did some research. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), a sandwich is “a meat or poultry filling between two slices of bread, a bun, or a biscuit.” With this definition, both hotdogs and subs can be considered sandwiches, finally settling the “beef” between Team Sandwich and Team Not a Sandwich. 

After unquantifiable amounts of research and thinking, I have come to the conclusion that a hotdog is undoubtedly a sandwich. The x-factor to this conversation is subs, if I never realized subs and hotdogs are eerily similar I never would’ve been enlightened to the sandwichness of hotdogs. Subs catalyzed hotdogs into the sandwich category.

Varsity Football 22-23

By: Kaan Usular ’23

“If you want to blame someone, look in the mirror.” Coach Vining

The coach and the players shape the mentality of the team. It has only been two years since I started playing football, and it is not that hard to see why team sports are a growth place for everyone who participates. Every year has a different story but only one thing always continues to be the same: Ambition to win. 

At Hebron Academy, I had a chance to play football for two Fall trimesters. In these two different years, I observed what elements make the spirit of the team. In 2021, we only had one win and this year we only had one loss. But why? Every individual person has a purpose in the football team even if they don’t play as much as they want to. They are all part of the team. We almost won all the games we played because teammates who didn’t play were giving water, screaming, and supporting the team every single minute. Every time a player made a mistake, there was a stronger connection to support and to keep going after those mistakes. I experienced that feeling in depth. I’m an offensive and defensive line. There was one rule that I’ve forgotten every time. An interior lineman in a two-point stance can shift and go in motion – as long as he never puts his hand on or near the ground. When I put my hand on the ground, I cannot lift it again. I had a flag four times because of the adrenaline that I felt inside my body. I wanted to crash every defensive line that played against me. I did it because there was no fear. 

All those long bus rides with Royce, winning or losing with my teammates, and the feeling of brotherhood. I will never forget the effort we all put into games that bring the championship to Hebron. 

Family on me, family on three, 1, 2, 3 FAMILY!!!!