Question: What award show features eye-catching, creatively designed outfits worn by beautiful people delivering riveting speeches? (Hint … it’s not the Academy Awards …)
The answer: Harker’s very own Ogre Awards!
Captivating its audience, and giving other awards shows a run for their money in cuteness factor alone, was the lower school’s 16th annual Ogre Awards. Written and directed by beloved librarian Enid Davis, the production, held last month, starred 88 grade 2 students and their teachers (otherwise known as the Ogre Academy).
Outside the day was dismal and gray, yet the atmosphere inside the Bucknall gym where the ceremony took place was light and cheery. Purple and fuchsia curtains flanked the stage, which was decorated with gold and white balloons. An eager anticipation filled the room as guests piled in, with students taking their seats on one reserved side of the room and parents and other audience members the other.
The youngsters portrayed characters and creatures from the folklore of cultures worldwide, which they had learned with Davis. Although the Ogre Awards are a high point of the second grade year, it was a bittersweet event as Davis is retiring after some 18 years of service at the close of this school year.
All but one of the awards are bestowed upon fairy tale characters, with a special award going to a real person. The 2012 special Ogre Award went to Carol Sosnowski, who works in Harker’s shipping and receiving and copy center.
“Ms. Sosnowski was chosen because of the excellent service she gives to the library and to the entire school,” said Davis. “She types every title of every book that the Bucknall library orders into a database. And we order lots of books!”
Accepting her award, Sosnowski said it was an unexpected honor, and marveled at the dedicated team both on hand and behind the scenes, comprising volunteer faculty and parents helping out with technical direction, music, costumes, videography and choreography.
Folk and fairy tales featured in this year’s award ceremony came from such well known, endearing stories as Russia’s “Bony Legs,” (Baba Yzaga), China’s “Two of Everything,” England’s “Lazy Jack” and West Africa’s “Anansi’s Hat-Shaking Dance.”
Adding to the event was a special guest appearance by Brian Larsen, Harker’s production manager, appearing as the giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Towards the end of the show, the favorite story award went to the Russian folktale “Bony Legs.” Baba Yzaga, who elicited many laughs throughout the ceremony with her wonderfully witchy attitude, accepted the award on behalf of this story.
Concluding the event, Davis expressed how much she has enjoyed serving as librarian and running the Ogre Awards, and said that, despite her absence following retirement, the show – as the old saying goes – will go on!
A new contingent of visiting students arrived from Tokyo’s Tamagawa Gakuen last month, again experiencing the rich life of Harker students firsthand.
The 25 visiting high school students were on a nationwide tour of colleges, and took time out of their hectic schedules to tour Harker’s lower and uppe rschool campuses. They observed classes, spent time at college counseling and joined the junior class on an Eagle Buddies outing.
“The college tour was the first trip of its kind made by Tamagawa. They were visiting Stanford so decided they needed to come see us as well,” said Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education.
The Tamagawa teens were warmly escorted throughout the day by volunteer Harker students, including freshmen, juniors and seniors. They arrived in the morning and split up into two groups, one going to visit college counseling, the other observing such varied classes as theater, economics, English and Japanese. Then they regrouped as a team to join Harker juniors on a visit with their Eagle Buddies at the lower school.
“This was especially fun for them to observe, especially since they got to see the kids all dressed up for St. Patrick’s Day. They enjoyed watching them play various games and asked lots of questions about what the younger students were doing,” recalled Walrod.
After enjoying an outdoor lunch there, they returned to the upper school to finish class observations and visiting college counseling. Both Tamagawa teachers and students alike voiced how impressed they were at how many Harker students and teachers spoke Japanese.
Lower school parents rose to the occasion in late March to serve first and second grade families, students and teachers at the second annual Spaghetti Dinner. Head chefs Mustafa Gurleroglu (Emma, grade 2) and Justin Bronder (Sophia, grade 1) led a diligent and dedicated crew of parents who spent much of the day preparing bread, sauce, salad and, of course, mounds of spaghetti noodles. They later served it to the many hungry attendees lining up at the lower school cafeteria, whose smiling faces (and empty plates) indicated that the meals were well-received.
With their hard work done, the parents who worked the event sat down to enjoy the food themselves, while meeting and socializing with other Harker parents. Rainy weather kept the festivities indoors at the lower school gym, but the students nevertheless had fun playing with their friends and making new ones.
To celebrate the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, lower school students participated in a fun spirit assembly in mid-March. Students wearing green were rewarded during the homeroom “green with envy” contest, in which the homeroom with the most students in green earned spirit points. During the assembly, the students grooved to an Irish jig freeze dance, maneuvered their way through a hula hoop pass, and played “Captain of the Ship” – Irish style.
The teachers got into the fun, too, as they participated in a four corners trivia challenge. The fun continued throughout the school as students hunted for shamrocks around the playground and inside the gym building hallways and lobbies, and turned them in to their homeroom teachers for additional spirit points.
After the assembly, the Eagle Buddies from grades 4 and 11 broke off into groups and enjoyed lunch, conversation and play out on the lower school campus’ playground area.
Grade 3 history students spent a Friday in early February dressed up as historical figures for the yearly Dress for History Day. Students as well as teachers arrived dressed as historical versions of cowboys, miners, Native Americans and more.
Last week, the lower school held its annual Jump Rope for Heart event, which saw the students take to the fields and blacktop to jump rope, shoot hoops and enjoy other activities to celebrate their efforts to raise money for the American Heart Association.
The students had been collecting donations since January and had raised nearly $600 as of the day of the event. In addition to jumping rope, students also had the option of doing high jumps over a rope onto a mat, bouncing on a trampoline, running through an obstacle course and also dedicating a paper heart to someone to be posted on the “heart wall,” a tradition at every Jump Rope for Heart event. One of the students’ favorite activities was the “Tidal Wave,” which had the students run under a rope then quickly run back without getting the rope caught on their feet.
Donations are still being collected through March 30. Those interested in donating can contact lower school physical education teacher and Jump Rope for Heart coordinator Jim McGovern at JimM@harker.org.
The Grade 5 girls basketball team defeated St. Matthews yesterday in the semifinal game by a score of 41-14! They have earned a spot in the WBAL championship game taking place today at Pinewood, on Fabian Way, at 5 p.m.. Congratulations to coaches Michelle and Tim Hopkins and to all the girls for their amazing season and good luck today!
The children gathered for a recent assembly on kindness at Harker’s lower school campus closed their eyes in unison, listening for something they had never heard before: the sound of a smile.
“Show me a smile … keep your eyes closed … hear how a smile sounds,” instructed one of a group of student mentors from Harker’s upper school. Standing on stage before their younger peers, they laughed along with their enraptured audience, who immediately broke out in a chorus of giggles while trying to smile, eyes shut tight.
It was all part of Harker’s continued effort to have upper school students serve as mentors for the lower school children. The high school students, clad in white T-shirts and jeans, used a silly skit to demonstrate how random acts of kindness, such as a simple smile, are a great chance to reach out and make new friends. This group included sophomores Rohith Bhethanabotla, Arjun Goyal, Vincent Lin and Sahithya Prakash and juniors Neel Bhoopalam, David Lindars, Simar Mangat and Maverick McNealy.
Every year, the elementary school holds a winter assembly tied to a specific theme. This year’s theme – kindness – seemed like a natural fit to unite Harker’s oldest and youngest kids, and an opportunity for positive interaction.
“With the Eagle Buddies mentoring program being such a big success, we got the idea to have the upper school students come out, do some skits, and talk about being kind,” said Joe Connolly, dean of students K-5.
At the end of January, the entire grade 5 class at The Harker School presented “Summer Daze: Scenes and Songs from a Rockin’ School Day.” Originally written by Janet Gardner, it was adapted for Harker by Jennifer Cowgill, the lower school performing arts teacher who also directed the play.
The musical starts in an “Average Family Kitchen,” and takes the audience through the beginning of the day (a scene featuring a song called “I’m in a Daze”), and then through a variety of classes, such as history, English, math, P.E. and choir. The song and dance performances accompanying the scenes each had its own unique spin on an aspect of a school day, with song titles such as “I Love My Locker” and “Cafeteria Confusion.” One of the big highlights of the play – which proved to be a delight throughout – was that the students portrayed Harker teachers in any scene a teacher was called for. For instance, Ashli Jain, grade 5, in the scene “The Beginning of the Day,” played Kristin Giammona, the elementary division head. Zohaid Valani, grade 5, portrayed Jared Ramsey, a grade five social studies teacher, in the scene “History Class.”
There were three showings of the musical, including a special performance for the rest of the lower school.
Harker third graders enjoyed a memorable field trip Jan. 13, spending the day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. First on the agenda was attending the Ocean Explorers program, “Sharks: The Real Story.” The program, held in the aquarium’s gymnasium, helped focus the students for their visit with behind-the-scenes footage and “inside stories” from the deep seas.
After the presentation, the student groups were free to explore the aquarium on their own, and they took full advantage, enjoying the splash zone, jellyfish, touch pools, puffins and kelp forest. Jeannette Bhatia, grade 3 science instructor, said, “The children had a fantastic time with some of their favorite exhibits being the penguins and seahorses.” What an exciting, aquatic adventure!