This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The middle school production of the punk-sci-fi musical “Starmites” took audiences on a wildly colorful romp through a young teenager’s imagination on May 10-11 at the Blackford Theater. This energetic, rock music-driven story centers on a teenager who retreats into a world of comic book characters who then set out on a journey to find a powerful musical instrument.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Middle school singers sang about the ups and downs of being a kid at this year’s Spring Sing concert, titled “Just Kidding!” The show featured the grade 6 class and also featured middle school vocal groups Dynamics, Harmonics and Vivace, performing a series of songs about childhood from several famous Broadway musicals such as “Les Miserables,” “West Side Story” and “Hairspray.”
For the finale, all of the night’s singers stood together onstage to sing “Happiness” from “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.”
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The promotion ceremony on June 5 saw Harker’s grade 8 students begin a new stage in their academic lives, as they officially ended their journey as middle school students. The promotion season started on May 20 with a tradition begun last year: a luncheon for eighth graders to enjoy with each other and their advisors, this year held at a community center in Saratoga.
Head of School Chris Nikoloff welcomed the students to this year’s ceremony and congratulated them on the perseverance that led them to this juncture in their school careers. Grade 7 student Megan Huynh, who will serve as the middle school ASB president for the 2013-14 school year, led the students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before a special slide show was shown, compiled by grade 8 students Riya Chandra and Alexis Gauba, displaying memorable scenes from the 2012-13 school year.
Scott Kley Contini, biology teacher and assistant director of instructional technology, gave a special speech to the soon-to-be upper school students, encouraging them to welcome the many opportunities that await them over the next four years.
Following a special performance of the Cyndi Lauper song “True Colors” by middle school vocal groups Harmonics and Vivace, rising senior Arjun Goyal, who will be next year’s upper school ASB president, gave a welcome address to the Class of 2017, making sure that the students have much to look forward to in the 2013-14 school year.
The members of the grade 8 class then received their promotion certificates from Nikoloff and Cindy Ellis, middle school head, who made some warm closing remarks to the students. The ceremony concluded with a singing of “The Harker School Song.”
The Harker Eaglet, the middle school’s new journalistic website, officially launched in May.
Created by the Blackford campus’ newspaper club, The Harker Eaglet (mseaglet.harker.org) is broken up in sections for easy viewing, including news, features, lifestyle, tech, literary, sports and photos.
“The students had a great time creating The (Harker) Eaglet. In the future we shall be adding stories and photos on a weekly basis,” explained Kate Murphy, grade 8 English and expository writing teacher, who also serves as faculty advisor to the site.
Readers can subscribe to The Harker Eaglet to receive email notifications when new posts are made. Murphy urged the entire Harker community to check it out.
Vandana Kadam, middle school math chair, had her trigonometry students engaged in an interesting project in May. Separated into groups, students devised their own problems and solved them with the knowledge they had gained during their class sessions. To demonstrate how they solved the problems, the groups made posters and PowerPoint presentations. “The idea behind the project is to give students an in-depth understanding of the trigonometric concepts that were taught as part of the course and also see real-life applications of trigonometry,” Kadam said. “All students thoroughly enjoyed the project and did a fabulous job.”
For the first time, the middle school varsity-A tennis team (grades 6-8) has swept both public and private league championships, winning 5-4 against Kennedy last night to clinch the second title. The team went 20-0 for the season.
This is the first time the team has gone undefeated in both the regular season and the playoffs, and the first time the team has won both the private and public middle school tennis titles. “This is about as big as it gets in middle school sports!” said Greg Lawson, assistant head of school for student affairs.
Lawson added that over the last two years, the team compiled a 36-2 record and won three of four divisional titles. “Coach John Fruttero has done amazing things with the team,” Lawson added.
“Today was not the 9-0 against Menlo last week in WBAL championship match,” Fruttero said, “but special in a very different way. The team battled from being down 4-1 for the second time this season to win 5-4. It was amazing to see these kids grow and transform themselves into a united championship team, from the inside out. It was an honor to lead them in entertaining a couple of hundred cheering fans today. What a blast!”
In late April, grade 8 students Venkat Sankar, Arjun Subramaniam and Davd Zhu and grade 7 students Edgar Lin and Rajiv Movva traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Science Bowl, in which the team placed fifth overall among 46 other teams hailing from 34 states. Middle school science teacher Vandana Kadam called the placing “a huge achievement for a school that started Science Bowl just three years ago.” Remarkably, the team went undefeated for the first nine rounds of the competition, and were just two rounds away from the championship match.
The team also managed to place 12th in a non-academic portion of the event in which the students had to build a vehicle that could carry a container of salt a distance of 20 meters in the shortest possible time, powered by a lithium ion battery. The Harker team’s vehicle went the distance in 7.6 seconds, just over one second longer than the first-place finisher’s vehicle.
Not ones to let a trip out of state go to waste, the students also saw the many sights offered by the nation’s capital, including the Natural History Museum, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building.
David Zhu, grade 8, took fifth place in one of the toughest math competitions in the U.S.
Last Friday, student representatives from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, Department of Defense and State Department schools worldwide participated in the 2013 Raytheon Mathcounts national competition.
Each state is only allowed four competitors, making it much more difficult to qualify from California than other states; more than 250,000 students and 5,050 coaches participated in the opening round. For the national event May 9-12, 56 teams of four members each were invited to Washington, D.C.
Zhu was top scorer on the California team, with a perfect score of 46. The other California three team members were selected from a group of five students, all with 44 points, by tiebreaker. He was one of only four students nationwide who scored a perfect 46 in the State MathCounts competition. One of the others was the eventual national MathCounts champion.
In the National competition, the written round has two parts totaling 46 points. On Friday, 224 top “mathletes” competed over a two-hour period. Zhu, the only California team member to reach the top 12, scored 44 points, placing him seventh in the written round with the top 12 advancing to the countdown round. In the first part of the countdown round, “he beat his opponent,” said Vandana Kadam, middle school mathematics department chair, but was outpaced by his opponent in the next round, finishing a stellar fifth place at this year’s national MathCounts.
“This is a phenomenal achievement!,” said Kadam. “David has been extremely consistent in all math competitions during his middle school years and this is a perfect end to his MS math journey. Ranking fifth out of 224 top math students is no small feat.” Congratulations to Zhu on this major accomplishment!
Nineteen enthusiastic grade 7 and 8 students recently returned from the annual middle school trip to China, where they spent time with their buddies at the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai.
Adding to the excitement of this year’s visit to Harker’s sister school in China, which ran from March 27 to April 7, was the addition of the seventh grade student participants, who joined the trip for the first time.
Originally based around the grade 8 computer science class’ global issues forum, the China trip will now also incorporate the grade 7 historical component of learning about ancient China. According to Harker’s global education department, including seventh graders on the trip proved to be such a success that it will be the norm going forward.
To be able to go on the China exchange trip was a dream come true for grade 7 student Raveena Panja, who said that in Shanghai, spending time with her buddy Jasmine (who attends WFLMS) taught her a lot about Chinese family values.
“My favorite memory with Jasmine was when she took me to an outdoor night market – it was so pretty with all the night lights and everyone I met was so sweet and welcoming. Beijing was also very beautiful, for it holds the historical and traditional side of China. The Great Wall was breathtaking! Traveling to China exposed me to a new culture, allowed me to make lifelong friends halfway across the world and made me realize I am a part of a bigger global community which is filled with wonderful people, regardless of where they are from,” recalled Panja.
Greg Lawson, assistant head of school for student affairs, who headed this year’s trip, said that the Harker group of student participants was accompanied by four faculty member chaperones. One of the chaperones, middle school computer science teacher Abigail Joseph, had preceded the group to spend some rewarding time working as an exchange teacher at WFLMS.
“I most enjoyed watching the students engage in round-table discussions with their buddies on various topics affecting youth from homework loads and family rituals to United States-China relations. They were very interested in learning about and sharing with one another. As a teacher it was really wonderful to see two different communities collide and sit down at the table to have real dialogues about personal matters. This made me know the future of dialogue and deliberation is in good hands,” observed Joseph.
Upon their arrival in China, the students were warmly welcomed at the Pudong International Airport by their pals from WFLMS. From there, they hopped on a bus for the short drive into the city to meet their host families.
“The variety of experiences they were extended by their host families gave them all a marvelous glimpse into life in Shanghai, and these were augmented by our further travels. The students also had a chance to make regional arts comparisons, attending both the Shanghai acrobats show and the Beijing ‘Legend of Kung Fu’ spectacle. As usual, a highlight for them was the trip to the Great Wall of China,” Lawson reported.
During their time at WFLMS, the Harker students enjoyed attending classes with their Chinese friends and taking part in special activities such as making dumplings and creating culturally-based art projects. In fact, Harker and WFLMS students grew so close that as their time together came to a close, there were numerous touching goodbyes, speeches, performances and heartfelt promises to stay in touch.
After spending time at WFLMS, the Harker contingent prepared to depart for the next phase of the trip: Beijing. Their first adventure in Beijing consisted of a rickshaw tour of the Hutong, or ancient alleyways that once covered the city.
Next on the itinerary was a visit to the Great Wall of China. Taking a ski lift to the top of the mountain, they entered onto the wall. Many photos were taken of the renowned structure, and the students were thrilled to take a toboggan ride back down the side of the mountain.
The group returned to Beijing the next day and visited Tiananmen Square, site of the 1989 protests and ensuing military action. They then headed to the Forbidden City, where they were guided through several of its 980 palatial buildings.
After enjoying lunch, they went to Silk Street Market, a famous shopping center, where they had fun haggling with its many vendors. From there, they enjoyed a final outing to the Summer Palace, China’s largest imperial garden, where they rode a dragon boat to the palace’s pavilion.
The grade 7 and 8 students arrived back home in early April, feeling bonded and eager to share their trip experiences with friends, family and fellow middle-schoolers. And this year, the good news for grade 7 students is that they will have a chance to repeat the wonderful experience of the China trip all over again in grade 8!
Each spring, all three of Harker’s campuses hold art shows, giving students age-appropriate venues in which to display the special works they have completed throughout the year. The middle school art show is unique in that it hosts its opening reception off-site, over at the upper school.
Following a well-attended reception for the artists held in March, Harker’s middle school spring art exhibit officially went on display in the upper school’s main office lobby.
The beautiful gallery-style showing featured select student work of colorful paintings, ceramics, figurines, wire sculptures and mobiles. After a brief run on the Saratoga campus, it will be relocated to the Blackford multipurpose room.
Among the items on display were animal-themed ceramics, playful illustrations of sneakers and high-heeled shoes, small canvas paintings held on stands, intricate hanging glass designs and an array of sculptures depicting familiar scenes, including that of a diner.
In May, the middle school will host an end-of-the-year art exhibit at its Blackford campus, which is all-inclusive and will run through that month with an opening afternoon reception held on May 6.
According to art instructor Elizabeth Saltos, the middle school spring art exhibit (as opposed to the upcoming end-of-the-year exhibit) is equivalent to the AP art exhibit at the upper school in that it is a juried show.
“It involves all middle school grades but focuses on eighth because they soon will be at Saratoga. If there were a theme it would be ‘the most successful art evaluated in terms of aesthetics, craftsmanship, creativity and artistic merit.’ The work demonstrates the students’ experience through the exploration of the lesson parameters, and the end result shows their ability to transform materials into their own artistic statements, sometimes not an easy thing. It was very difficult to select out work,” she said, adding that it has been a “wonderful year for artwork” at the middle school.
Harker has long held an excellent reputation in the local art community (and beyond) for providing students with exceptional visual arts offerings. In the lower and middle schools, students learn drawing, printmaking, painting, woodworking, carving, ceramics and art history. In the upper school, fine art students can choose Study of Visual Arts as their mandatory yearlong arts survey course and select from a variety of drawing vehicles, as well as stone carving, bronze casting, ceramics and architecture.