In November, students in Elise Robichaud’s grade 3 morning and afternoon language arts classes collected candy and created cards for Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization that annually sends more than 150,000 care packages to U.S. service members, new recruits, veterans, first responders, wounded warriors and care givers.
The students also sent cards to local veterans, including Harker alumni who have served in the military. Then, in December, the students were treated to a surprise visit by one of the vets they had written to, who came to their classroom to personally thank them for their efforts.
“My little ones made 163 cards that were mailed out on Nov. 10, and they collected 72 pounds of candy! I’m very proud of them!” enthused Robichaud. The surprise visit from Captain Michael Gerold (a friend of fellow grade 3 language arts teacher Heather Russell), who was injured during his service, really brought the Veteran’s Day project full circle, she added.
“It is a rare opportunity when the students can see a recipient of their service projects, and it was a great experience for them,” Russell recalled.
The students collected 6.5 bags of non-chocolate candies, 17 bags of chocolate candies, and a bag containing toothbrushes, dental floss and toothpaste for Operation Gratitude.
Going the extra mile, Robichaud designed a PowerPoint presentation for her students, featuring veterans who are Harker teachers and friends of faculty members, saluting them for their service. Among them was upper school math teacher Anthony Silk, who several years back spoke to lower school students about his experiences in the U.S. Navy flying the electronic warfare plane the EA-6B Prowler. (https://staging.news.harker.org/math-teacher-and-veteran-speaks-to-grades-4-and-5-on-veterans-day/)
“I wanted my third graders to see some of the faces of the people who have served or who are currently serving our country, so I made this PowerPoint to share with them,” explained Robichaud, who had previously put out a request to staff to provide names of any military members they knew personally, so that the students could write to them.
“It means so much to the third graders to actually know some of the people who are getting the cards,” she noted.
Members of the Harmonics middle school performance group and Dance Fusion, comprising lower and middle school students, were thrilled to perform at CreaTV San Jose’s 2014 “CreaTiVe Awards Gala,” presented by TiVo, on Jan.10.
The fifth-annual formal evening event took place at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose and is slated to air on channel 30 in San Jose/Campbell on Jan. 17 at 7 p.m.
Dance Fusion instructor Gail Palmer called it “an honor” for the students to be featured in such a high-profile show. Harmonics and Dance Fusion each performed one song during the gala, which pays tribute to Bay Area video makers. A VIP reception preceded the awards show, where winners in 10 categories were announced.
“I thought it was really cool that we got to meet local people in the business,” recalled Harmonics performer Kelsey Wu, grade 8.
Other students said it was fun to be on TV and a great performance opportunity. Grade 8 student Aryana Far called the night “a very different experience from our normal shows.” She added that the audience was very supportive.
Founded in 2007, CreaTV San Jose is a member-based, nonprofit community media center that helps the residents, businesses, schools and organizations in San Jose to effectively communicate their message to a broader audience using our public and education television and Internet channels.
In mid-December, lower school students completed a service project culminating in presents under the trees of many families who were otherwise unable to afford them. While the massive toy drive was a grade 4 service project, many other lower school families joined them in donating toys, explained Ken Allen, lower school dean of students.
Grade 4 students went the extra mile by not only collecting toys, but also counting and loading them for delivery. At the end of the project, more than 275 toys were delivered to Sacred Heart Community Services in San Jose.
“We wanted to take a minute to thank those of you that have already participated in the fourth-grade toy drive. The items are continuing to come in daily and we are extremely grateful,” Allen said during the drive.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Football
Junior varsity B flag football (grade 5) went 5-1 in league (tied for first place). Team awards went to Eric Bollar (MVP), Rishi Jain and Anquan Boldin, Jr. (Eagle), and Raj Patel (Coaches).
Intramural flag football (grade 4) enjoyed their inaugural season of play. Although they do not compete in games, the boys learned a lot and had fun with their friends. Team awards went to Rohan Gorti (Eagle), and Freddy Hoch and Dylan Parikh (Coaches).
Softball
Junior varsity A softball (grades 4-6) went 1-5-1 in league (sixth place). Team awards went to Alexandra Baeckler, grade 6 (MVP), Brooklyn Cicero, grade 5 (Eagle) and Emma Crook, grade 5 (Coaches).
Intramural softball (grade 4) enjoyed their inaugural season of play. They did not play in any games, but the girls enjoyed learning and building skills. Team awards went to Brooke Baker (MVP), Keesha Gondipalli (Eagle) and Allison Lee (Coaches).
This article originally appeared in the winter 2014 Harker Quarterly.
In the fall the lower school library announced the formation of a new “maker space” after-school, drop-in program for students in grades 3-5. With the popular program, Harker has joined libraries, schools, clubs and museums throughout the country in eagerly embracing the educational maker movement and its do-it-yourself (DIY) mantra.
Ever since the inaugural program was held in the Bucknall library at the end of September, the lower school has enjoyed having its own maker space – a physical location where people come together to create. The convenient “pop-up” maker space goes up when in use and into storage between sessions.
The first maker space event attracted more than 20 students who had a blast creating mechanical toys called “brush bots.” A simple circuit with a pager motor vibrates and moves the bot across surfaces, such as tables and floors. The students built and designed the tiny robots from toothbrush heads, batteries, wire and adhesive. They were provided the basic components and a pile of miscellaneous materials to enhance and modify their bot. Students also could design habitats: small boxes that contained their motorized brush bot. The result, recalled the lower school librarians, was a dynamic and open-ended exploration of the principles of motion and energy.
Fourth graders Matthew Chen and Brandon Wang took their brush bots to the next level by designing them to do battle in an arena. In the course of their experiment, the pair discovered they needed to expand their bots’ habitat and were overheard making plans to incorporate paper towel tubes and use a table rather than a shoebox in their design plans.
Grade 5 English teacher Ann Smitherman observed that the “flexibility that these kids are showing when they’re trying to decide what to do and why things work like this is really important.”
A second maker event was held in the lower school library on Oct. 23. This time, the students created simple light-emitting diode (LED) critters. Students got creative with the types of critters they built, as well as the habitats they constructed. In addition, there was an “inspiration bin” on hand for students who preferred to tinker in a more unstructured way. The bin, and freedom of choice while creating, will be a staple at all future maker events, which will be scheduled throughout the school year on different days of the week.
During the second maker event, Tristan Goodwin, grade 5, had fun making a vibrating LED “fuzzbot” critter using a small motor designed during the previous brushbot-making program. “I just thought it was a good idea,” said Goodwin.
“The maker movement celebrates creativity, tinkering and experimentation in a collaborative environment where makers and mentors come together to use common tools and materials,” explained Kathy Clark, lower school campus librarian. “Our activities support our information literacy goals because creative thinking is a foundation for all information problem-solving; making physical things in a collaborative environment helps students to approach intellectual assignments in the same creative and methodical way.”
An enthusiastic creator and crafter herself, Clark recalled that after a year of planning and development, the lower school was ready to make its foray into the maker movement.
“When the students entered the classroom for our first maker event, all the initial questions were about how to make the brush bot correctly,” recounted Sue Smith, library director. “But after 10 minutes the conversations changed. ‘What happens if we add another battery? Why does mine fall over? I want to add stabilizers!’ Answers to these questions came from experimentation and collaboration among the students.”
The topic of how best to implement appropriate maker activities schoolwide (preschool through upper school) was a major theme at the fall meeting of Harker’s What’s New Committee. The committee comprises a dedicated group of teachers who investigate new ideas in education and their applications at Harker.
“Our lower school library maker activities have proven to be a good match for our students. It stimulates their natural creative inclinations in such a way that provokes and aids in the development of crucial problem-solving skills. They have to work through problems in a repeated manner of brainstorming, testing solutions, and returning to the original planning stage if their hypothesis is different than expected,” noted Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs.
With the rapid decline of classes such as home economics and woodshop, there was an awareness in the American educational system that more hands-on type classes were needed. According to WeAreTeachers. com, a website designed to connect teachers with the latest resources and knowledge tools, many schools throughout the United States are jumping on the maker movement bandwagon.
The maker movement, said the site, is a technological and creative learning revolution underway around the globe, utilizing new tools and technology, such as 3-D printing, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computing, e-textiles, “smart” materials and programming languages. Typical maker spaces feature flexible, computer-controlled manufacturing equipment for creating, cutting, and forming plastics, metal, plaster and other common materials.
In addition to being embraced by elementary school-age children, the maker movement also has caught on with older students and adults. Community-based, independently produced maker fairs are happening all over the globe; each year, thousands of people attend the World Maker Faire in New York City, the world’s biggest maker event. In fact, last September Harker News (Harker’s online news site) ran a story about Davis Dunaway, grade 10, who invented an award-winning grid, which he presented at the New York fair (https://staging.news.harker.org/rising-sophomores-project-featured-at-white-house-maker-faire/).
Nailing down a definition of the maker movement is eclipsed in difficulty only by trying to determine its origins, according to Clark. “In a nutshell, makers – whether they are MIT students putting in extra lab hours, members of burgeoning clubs in the Silicon Valley, or fourth and fifth graders at Harker – learn by making, crafting or tinkering,” she said.
Tinkering, she explained, has a long- established tradition in the United States. Its resurgence, in the form of the maker movement, is attributed to myriad factors including burgeoning DIY hobbyists, society’s growing participatory culture, increased accessibility to technology and an impetus to repurpose discarded materials. It is no surprise, then, that educators would seek to harness the inventive nature of the maker movement for classroom application, she said.
As for future maker happenings at the lower school library, Clark stressed that the goal is the process, not the product. “In fact, some months there will be no product – just experimentation and fun!” she said.
For many years, grade 5 math teacher Pat Walsh has spearheaded the annual fifth-grade food drive. This year, the effort took place in November and culminated with a delivery to St. Justin’s Church in Santa Clara, where several hundred bags of canned goods and other non-perishable items were used to make meals and food bags for those in need. Monetary donations, totaling $6,700, also were collected.
Walsh explained that that the holiday season is a good time for students to reflect on the good fortune they have been blessed with, while also making a concerted effort to improve the lives of others who are less fortunate.
This article first appeared on the Web log for the American Association of School Librarians. It is reprinted here by the kind permission of the author, Diane Main, director of learning, innovation and design at Harker.
When I work on family history research, whether it’s for my own tree or a friend’s, I often find I lose track of time, get totally “in the zone,” and sometimes even forget to eat and sleep enough. That combination of little successes and new challenges that pushes me to the edge of my abilities is something that is referred to as “flow.” If you spend a lot of time with kids, you will have seen it when they are playing video games and can’t seem to put them down. For others, it’s reading books or engaging in some hands-on hobby. Flow is the apex of engagement and motivation.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi pioneered the research into this phenomenon. He was looking into happiness, creativity and motivation, and developed what we now refer to as flow. Flow is doing what you love and what you’re good at, but still being challenged by the activity. We see this in education as well, but sadly we perhaps don’t see it often enough. It is generally thought that the integration of technology into learning environments tends to instantly increase learner motivation and engagement. While this may be true for a short time, unless the use of technology tools builds skills while also presenting appropriate challenges, it loses its motivational value.
As seen in this image from Wikipedia, flow exists at the intersection of high skill level and high challenge level. The emotions that exist in the other regions of the chart are not really what we’re aiming for in learning situations. This can be where games can swoop in to the rescue, as long as their introduction is meaningful and their use well thought-out. Sometimes, it’s great to just have gaming breaks, using games of all kinds, to “reset” the brain and ignite motivation. A quick round of charades or five minutes with Zombie Drop can be a great way to get kids to transition from one activity in class to another.
But there are some games that are becoming the platform for the learning itself, and that are being used for entire class periods over days or even weeks. One such example is MinecraftEDU. Most parents and educators have at least heard of Minecraft. The educational version MinecraftEDU is only available to schools, and it is quickly becoming THE destination for teachers and students who want to maximize learner creativity and engagement in subjects from history and literature to math and science. I teach a computer science course that functions as a survey of the field of computer science without focusing exclusively on programming. We use MinecraftEDU to explore concepts in computer science (such as subroutines, abstraction, conditional statements, loops and algorithms), to engage in the design thinking process by building homes for one another, and to explore introductory level programming with in-game robots called turtles. Instead of learning about our content, my students get the chance to be immersed in a virtual world they can manipulate and learn from.
An unexpected benefit, the first few times I used MinecraftEDU with my high school students, was the community building that seemed to occur instantly when we began to use the game in class. Students who had formerly kept to themselves and not spoken much in class suddenly appeared comfortable with me and the rest of their peers when they started interacting within the game environment. And since most of them had never played Minecraft before, they had a lot to learn, which they did by figuring things out and then teaching each other. Before long, my hesitant high schoolers were losing hours in the game world, building and communicating in ways none of us thought possible. I had stumbled upon a way to bring them to a place of flow. And now I’m hooked too.
Each year, the upper school Lead and Read program brings Student Council and Honor Council officers to the lower school campus to read stories to the grade 1 classes. The event takes place about eight times a year, most recently on Oct. 16.
The program was started by Gautam Krishnamurthi ’11 when he was a senior. His mother, Deepa Iyengar, continues to come a few times a year to read to the first graders in Cindy Proctor’s homeroom.
“Deepa came last week with the family dog, Scannon (bought at the Harker Fashion Show). The students loved having them both visit!” shared Proctor.
Fourth grader Amiya Chokhawala was awarded high honors by Johns Hopkins University for being among the highest-scoring participants in its 2014 international Talent Search! The award, bestowed by the university’s Center for Talented Youth, is based on a test that measures verbal and mathematical reasoning ability. Sima Shah, Amiya’s mother, noted, “This is a result of strong community work between Harker and family.”
In 2009 Liza Turchinsky, then in grade 3, now grade 9, was recognized by the center.
Grade 2 students recently painted and delivered colorful pumpkins to residents living near the lower school campus in an effort to thank them for being such good neighbors. The pumpkins were created on Oct. 24 and delivered the following week.
The pumpkin painting and delivery is an annual outreach and community service project for Harker’s lower school students. Last year the painting was moved to the art room, where it will remain. Students painted in the art room during their health education classes with members of the BEST staff on hand to assist in the effort, according to lower school art teacher Gerry-louise Robinson.
Robinson said the second graders enjoyed walking around their school’s neighborhood, leaving pumpkins and cards on porches – bringing about both the spirit of Halloween and the spirit of giving.