After finishing as the league champions with a perfect 6-0 season, the grade 5 boys JVB1 basketball team lost a tough game to a strong St. Matthews team in the West Bay Athletic League (WBAL) championship game on Dec. 13, coming up just one point short in the 32-31 contest. The following student athletes and coach Steve Carroll are to be congratulated on their great season and inspired play: Vince Vu, Eric Andrus, Kunal Bhatia, Zack Fitzgerald, Arindam Ghosh, Michael Kwan, Michael Sikand, Shikhar Solanki, Aadith Srinivasan, Siddhart Chari and Brando Pakel.
Another lower school basketball team, the grade 4 boys JVC team, also went 6-0 and are the season’s WBAL champions, marking the first time since joining the WBAL that a Harker grade 4 team has won a championship. Congratulations to the team, coached by Jim McGovern: Viren Abhyankar, Jarett Anderson, Zack Baz, Chris Gong, Zach Hoffman, Hasan Jamal, Krish Kapadia, Charles Molin, Jason Peetz, Andrew Skrobak, Trevor Thompson and Jackson Williams.
Four talented students have their designs featured on the 2010 “Snowman-Grams,” sponsored by the lower school Service/Spirit Club. The ‘Grams went on sale Dec. 1 and the winning designers each received a free message. The festive holiday messages are sent from students and teachers to each other, each with a treat to accompany the sweet message inside.
In celebration of Diwali, parents of third graders transformed lower school social studies classes into a cultural learning experience on Nov. 12. Jolly Kalsi and Carla Hindie, parents of third graders Montek Kalsi and Liam Bakar, respectively, planned the day’s agenda to share the significance of the festival — a festival of lights celebrating the victory of good over evil. They told the story of Ram and Sita and offered a taste of Indian cuisine. Tere Aceves, director of K-8 volunteer programs, also invited friends to teach the third graders basic Bollywood dance steps.
Third-graders went to work before the Thanksgiving break on their annual Thanksgiving math project of planning a meal for 15. Students “shopped” for menu items via food advertisements and calculated the price of the meal. “It’s a great hands-on math activity with lots of comparison shopping and discussion, and the kids love choosing food and drinks for their “guests”! said teacher Stephanie Woolsey.
Storyteller Jim Cogan made his latest yearly appearance at the lower school in early October. His stories were based on the campus theme of compassion, and, as always, were highly entertaining and heartwarming. The audience of students and faculty greatly enjoyed the style of storytelling that has made him a hit with the school for several years running. His use of vivid sound effects and facial expressions once again filled the stories with imagery and character.
Third grade students visited Mission San Juan Bautista Oct. 13 to get a view of American history outside of the classroom. During the all-day trip, students not only received a tour of the grounds, they also learned about rocks at Tops A Rock Shop and bought an afternoon treat at Margot’s Ice Cream Shop.
“All in all, this gave the students three trips in one,” said history teacher Heidi Gough. “History and historical perspective, science — the rock unit is coming soon in class — and math [with] a chance to use money knowledge in a real world setting.”
Students were challenged to calculate their own tax before purchasing souvenir rocks and ice cream. Before that, they learned about the significance of the mission and its grounds through firsthand experience.
A trip taken by third graders every year, the visit to Mission San Juan Batista offered a taste of a historical town. The students were enamored by how old the buildings looked.
“Many did not even realize all they were learning!” Gough said. “Isn’t that what it’s all about?”
Three dozen fourth graders traveled across the hall to grade 1 classrooms as part of a traveling storyteller project for English teacher Colin Goodwin’s class.
“The project is based on traditional Japanese storytelling – kamishibai,” said Goodwin. “Before TV took over, there were kamishibai storytellers in Japan who would show up at a park, gather some children around them and tell the kids folk tales. To make the tales more interesting, the kamishibai tellers used poster boards to illustrate scenes from the stories. When they were done telling the stories, they would sell the kids Japanese sweets,” he added.
The student kamishibai told folk tales like “Momotaro (Peach Boy),” “Urashima,” “The Fisher Lad” and “The Tongue-Cut Sparrow.”“They all prepared kamishibai posters and, instead of selling the first graders candy, they gave them Japanese mocha,” said Goodwin.
On Oct. 13, the Class of 2015 participated in the annual freshman service day. In their advisory groups, they went to various sites including the Humane Society, Elkus Ranch, Eco Magic and the San Jose Family Shelter.
Serving as an introduction to community service, the daylong event “is also a nice way to go out with advisories and bond outside of school,” said Kerry Enzensperger, director of upper school community service.
At the end of September, Harker middle school parents attended preview night, where students and teachers offered a glimpse into high school life.
Nan Nielsen, director of admission and financial aid, invited seniors and juniors to speak about their experiences and favorite aspects of Harker. Allika Walvekar, grade 12, talked about Harker’s Conservatory while others offered views on football, foreign languages, mathematics and forensics.
After a warm welcome from Chris Nikoloff, head of school, and Butch Keller, upper school head, parents and friends were invited to visit departments and learn about the various clubs and activities offered at Harker, which range from Global Empowerment and Outreach to the Harker Business Club to Tri-M Music Honor Society.
Afterward, a formal open house gave the public an opportunity to check out the school, and a chance to speak to teachers and students about the Harker experience. The next open houses will be held Nov. 7 at 11 a.m. and Dec. 2 at 6:30 p.m.
Since the start of the year, students ages 10 to 13 have been involved in weekly sessions of the KidLead program, which uses a variety of methods to develop leadership skills in that age group.
For the past several weeks, students in the program have been taking 90-minute classes led by certified instructors who assist them in activities to improve qualities that are grouped into four color-coded modules. Each module has four sections stressing a value, an attitude, a relationship and a decision; for instance, the red module’s sections are ethics, honor, communication and power.
As of the second week of October, the class has been working on the communication piece of the red module. “We do simple brain-wake exercises like ‘untying a human knot,’ and play special versions of charades or Pictionary to help students understand the value of various types of communication,” said Greg Lawson, assistant head of school for student affairs and one of Harker’s certified KidLead instructors. “There are dozens of activities, all of which involve teams led by the students themselves, who are given opportunities to organize, direct, communicate and provide feedback to their teammates.”
The activities are overseen, but not led, by specially trained “Koaches” who also observe and guide the group discussions. Students also take home “Leadership Challenges” every week that parents are asked to sign off on in order to foster discussions with their children about the KidLead sessions.
Harker’s KidLead program began when its founder, Dr. Alan Nelson, contacted Christopher Nikoloff, head of school, to discuss the possibility of offering it here. Lawson researched the organization and began talking with Nelson to further explore the opportunity. “The more we talked, the more it seemed like a good fit for Harker, and particularly for Harker’s BEST program,” Lawson recalled. “It was an area that our parents define as important in the educational development of their children, and while Harker offers a good deal of practical leadership experience, this program offers us the chance to provide some developmental practice to support that.”
Harker currently has four certified trainers: Lawson; Joe Connolly, dean of students K-5; Keith Hirota, middle school history teacher; and Catherine Le, grade 5 science teacher. These experts are responsible for training the Koaches who guide the weekly sessions. “We’d like to expand the group, even double it in size to be able to offer multiple modules per quarter,” Lawson said. “This year we’ll inaugurate the program with 45 students involved, and we hope that many of them will see their way through the four-module course.” To accomplish that, the program will need to expand to include more sections. “We will also look forward to bringing Dr. Nelson to Harker on a regular basis to speak with our parents about how they can best nurture the leadership development of their own children,” Lawson added.
Although the program is still new, Lawson believes it has enormous potential: “All you need to do is look at the dozens of community service opportunities, sports teams, performing arts groups, extracurriculars in general, student government, along with all the team academics like Robotics, Future Problem Solvers, etc., to know that these skills have the potential to augment the development of this next generation of Harker leaders.”