The grade 7 national parks trip in late October saw The Harker School students and teachers traveling to some of the country’s most beautiful and historic places. Arriving in Arizona the morning of Oct. 23, the students and chaperones headed to Sedona, famous for its red rock formations. Some groups of students went on a jeep tour of the area, during which they learned about Sedona’s geology and wildlife. Later, they had dinner at Northern Arizona University.
After breakfast at NAU the next morning, everyone left for the south rim of the Grand Canyon. “The day could not have been more perfect,” said Lana Morrison, middle school dean of students, in a series of email reports. “People were seen from all over the world enjoying the incredible view of the Grand Canyon.” As they took in the vast panorama of the canyon, students hiked and jotted down notes in their journals.
The next day, in Monument Valley, located on the Arizona-Utah border, a wide variety of weather conditions greeted the travelers, including sun, rain, thunder, lightning and a sand storm. The group’s first activity was climbing the formation at Skull Rock. “In the beginning, some students seemed unsure of the climb, while others charged up the hill, which is made of red sandstone,” Morrison said. The students also heard stories about the Anasazi people, and climbed Honeymoon Arch. Next, they visited the Holaday family at the Moonlight Ranch, where they took part in the Navajo Cultural Program. “The members of the Holaday family traveled from three states to share their Navajo traditions with our Harker family,” Morrison wrote. Family leader Lorenz Holaday offered a traditional Navajo blessing to the travelers to conclude this portion of the trip.
On their way to Horseshoe Bend the next day, the rain cleared up just in time for some pictures to be taken. Later, at Glen Canyon Dam, they learned about the history of the hydroelectric dam, which produces 4.5 billion kilowatt hours each year. The group ate lunch and then drove to Utah’s Bryce Canyon, spotting snow on the way. At Bryce Canyon, they were met by Kevin Poe, ranger at Bryce Canyon National Park. “Ranger Poe discussed astronomy, global warming and the benefits of natural darkness and how to conserve sunlight energy,” Morrison wrote. At the Bryce Canyon visitor’s center, the students got to see several amazing celestial sights, such as Jupiter.
Activities at Bryce Canyon park continued the next day. The area’s famous hoodoos, rock spires formed by erosion, were a pleasant sight next to the light snowfall that the park had experienced a few days earlier. The group took hikes around several key areas of the canyon, such as the Navajo Loop. That evening, the bus groups each put on a skit for a special talent show. “It was extremely close,” Morrison wrote, “but congratulations, bus number two!”
The students spent the final day of the trip hiking through Zion National Park, which Morrison noted was similar in appearance to Yosemite. After their hike, the group headed to Las Vegas to catch their flight home.
The Harker School’s forensics program has been traveling across the country this school year, with students advancing to the finals from California to New York.
During the last weekend in October, the team traveled to Las Vegas, Nev., for the Meadows School Tournament, and to Stockton to compete at the University of the Pacific.
Six Harker students went to Vegas to compete in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, a one-on-one debate that places an emphasize on adopting a certain set of values, rather than focusing on solely on harm/benefit like in policy debate. One of the students in attendance, Chaitanya Malladi, grade 12, finished the preliminary round of the tournament with a 4-2 record, and advanced to the double octafinals (top 32) as the 22nd overall seed. There, says Greg Achten, upper school debate teacher, “he lost a close split decision to a student from Harvard Westlake.”
Over in Stockton, six upper school students and 13 middle school students competed in the Jon Schamber High School Forensics Invitational at the University of the Pacific. They competed in a wide variety of events, from Public Forum, Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu, Original Oratory and Humorous Interpretation. Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7, advanced to the semifinals in novice Humorous Interpretation. “This was a big step forward because we’ve been working hard to improve in middle school interpretation of literature events and this is some of the first fruit of that effort,” said Jonathan Peele, director of congressional debates and individual events. Steven Wang, grade 9, took third place in novice Extemporaneous Speaking while Matthew Huang, also grade 9, advanced to the semifinals in Impromptu Speaking.
Every year, Camp BizSmart, a camp that teaches entrepreneurial skills and attitude to students aged 11-15, holds a business plan competition for teams interested in featuring their own innovative product ideas. The winners of the 2011 contest were NeuroSky 5, six students who created a line of highly sophisticated sports gear called NeuroSport. Five of those students go to The Harker School, including team leader and CEO of NeuroSky Shannon Hong, grade 8. Annie Zhou, grade 8, Karen Tu, grade 8, Quentin Delepine, grade 7, and Joseph Krackeler, grade 7, rounded out the Harker students on the team.
As a result of their win, NeuroSky 5 was invited to present their winning solution atKeiretsu Forum’s sixth annual Angel Capital Expo in mid-November, where they had a chance to hear about up and coming ideas in various industries and visit with attendees. Randy Williams, the founder and CEO of Keiretsu Forum, and Sonja Markova, the managing director at Keiretsu Forum, introduced the Camp BizSmart group as the winning team, and presented them with their first place award. Following the presentation, the students were invited to lunch, and given a chance to share their idea with guests.
“The event went off beautifully and we were very proud of the Camp BizSmart grand finale team of students, many who are Harker students,” said Peggy Gibbs. “The students were recognized on stage by Williams and Markova for being named as the 1st place winner over 19 teams of students at our 3 locations.”
Grade 8 students went on their annual trip to Washington, D.C., in late October for an exciting and enlightening journey through the nation’s capital. The students were accompanied on the trip by Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs; Vandana Kadam (math); Chrissy Chang and Deb Shaw (P.E.); Andrea Millius, Jonathan Brusco, Tobias Wade and Cyrus Merrill (history); Kristen Morgensen and Brennan Brockbank (biology); Rebecca Williams and Kate Murphy (English); Bernie Morrissey (librarian); Susan Moling (Spanish); Raji Swaminathan (science); and Elizabeth Saltos (art).
After arriving late due to a delayed flight, the students and chaperones started their trip in earnest the next day with visits to Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg. “Specialized guides showed us what it was like to live in Jamestown in the early 1600s,” wrote Gargano in one of several emails to parents during the trip. Students saw how the first English settlers prepared food, made clothes and lived day to day.
At Colonial Williamsburg, a preservation of colonial America, the students toured several of its most famous buildings, including the Capitol, a recreation of America’s first capitol building, and the Governor’s Palace.
The next day started with a visit to Pamplin Park to learn about the lives of soldiers in the Civil War. Students also got a firsthand look into the lives of soldiers of the era by taking part in military drills and seeing a recreation of a military encampment. During the drills, students Hunter Riedel, Surya Solanki, Arjun Narayan, Cordelia Larsen and teachers Kadam and Brockbank acted as generals for the rest of the group.
During the road trips, groups of students gave presentations on the places they had seen or were about to see. Selin Ozcelik, Zarek Drozda and Sahan Narayan offered a retrospective on Jamestown; Kirsten Talbot, Anika Mohindra and Jasmine Liu talked about Colonial Williamsburg; and Shivali Minocha, Nick LaBruna, Natalie Simonian, Abhinav Ketineni and Antonia Salisbury discussed Pamplin Park.
That evening, the students were visited at dinner time by Amira Valliani ’06, who interned at the White House and currently works in office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She told the students about her job and about the function of the state department. “The students found it intriguing that Amira helps write speeches for Hillary Clinton, has top secret SCI clearance, and has met President Obama,” Gargano wrote.
Following dinner, the students visited several memorials, including the World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. memorials. “Prior to each visit, students on each bus educated us about the memorials we were about to see,” wrote Gargano. Research on the FDR memorial was presented by Anthony Luo, Calvin Kocienda and Anish Velagapudi; and Helena Dworak, Kevin Wang, Karen Tu and Elina Sendonaris spoke about the World War II memorial. The Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial was reported on by Selin Ozcelik and Nikita Ramoji.
Day four of the trip began with visits to the Iwo Jima U.S. Marine Corps memorial and to Arlington National Cemetery. They also saw the eternal flame at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy and memorial of the “Challenger” space shuttle. “The highlight, of course, was watching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, followed by the laying of the wreath ceremony,” wrote Gargano. “We are extremely proud of Darius Yohannan, Ashi Gautam, Panny Shan and Natasha Santhana, for representing Harker and laying the wreath with an inscribed ribbon saying ‘The Harker School’ at the tomb during this ceremony.”
During a bus ride to the group’s next destination, Adeli Li, Kristen Park, Jessica Liou and Maya Jeyendren presented information they had researched about the wreath ceremony and other memorials located at Arlington.
Later, the group went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., famous as the site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Following a presentation on the events of the day Lincoln was shot, the group went across the street to the Peterson House, where Lincoln died the next day.
At the National Museum of American History, students had the chance to stand at a presidential podium and deliver an inauguration speech, which appeared on a teleprompter. Helena Dworak, Naomi Molin, Kevin Wang and Kaushik Sankar all gave their own versions of inauguration speeches by Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The day concluded with the students attending a performance of the musical political satire “Capitol Steps,” which the students appeared to enjoy, as Gargano noticed their frequent laughter.
The students’ visit to the White House the next day was the most anticipated portion of the trip. Prior to their visit, however, the students spent some time visiting some of the memorials they had not yet seen, including the Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial (where the students created a rubbing of a name of a lost soldier), Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. Students had much to say about each memorial. Stephanie Huang, Luke Wu and Aparna Yellapragada shared a presentation on the Korean War Memorial; Kevin Wang, Helena Dworak, Kaitlyn Gee, Karen Tu and Eilina Sendonaris presented on the Vietnam Memorial; a presentation by Kaitlyn Gee, Shivali Minocha, Stephanie Huang and Aparna Yellapragada contained info about the Lincoln Memorial; and Anthony Luo, Calvin Kocienda and Anish Velagapudi reported on the Jefferson Memorial.
As one of the only tour groups at the White House, the students had the chance to take their time during the tour and examine the many rooms on the first floor. “The students were disappointed they did not catch a glimpse of President Obama but they seemed to appreciate the opportunity to see this important historical building,” Gargano wrote. The students received a primer on what to see in the White House in a pre-visit presentation by students Chandler Nelson, Eliot Gruzman and Shannon Hong.
Later that day, students visited the Holocaust Museum, the Newseum and the Air and Space Museum. “The FBI exhibit and the 9/11 video were the highlights of the Newseum visit,” Gargano said. A presentation on the American History Museum was given by Samali Sahoo, Jonathan Ta and Jonathan Dai; Shannon O’Shea, Jonathan Ta and Neel Jain gave a report on the Air and Space Museum; Kaushik Sankar and Kevin Hu presented on the Newseum; and Kristen Ko, Alexandra Dellar, Layla Walker and Wishu Murani gave a presentation on the Holocaust Museum.
That evening, the students attended a special presentation by Dr. Robert Stack, program manager at the department of energy. “He explained how he funds university grants and in doing so, he invests in research that he hopes will result in new technologies,” said Gargano.
The group made sure to pack a lot of activity into the second to last day of the trip. They first received a guided tour of the capitol building, and got to see a debate and a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. From there, they went to the committee room of the Office of Homeland Security, where they briefly met with Congressman Cedric Richmond of Louisiana’s second district. Richmond unfortunately had to leave early for another engagement, but the group’s guide brought in Congressman John Lewis of Georgia’s fifth congressional district to speak with the students. “He told the students about his times as one of the 13 original freedom riders and the difficulties he endured when he led a march of 600 people in Selma in 1965,” Gargano wrote. Lewis is also the only living speaker from the 1963 march on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famed “I Have a Dream Speech.” The students also learned that Lewis earlier this year received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Congressman Richmond then returned to give a presentation on how he became a congressman after doing public service in his local community. “He urged our students to believe that anything is possible,” Gargano wrote. “He spoke to us about the joys and frustrations of being a congressman and was also happy to share that he was the MVP during a recent congressional baseball game.”
That evening at dinner, the students enjoyed dancing and celebrated that week’s birthdays by singing “Happy Birthday” to students Vineet Kosaraju, Sahana Narayanan, Chloe van den Dries and Anish Velagapudi.
On the final day of the trip, the group headed to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, where they had quite a view. The students, Gargano wrote, “loved the view from his porch.” Afterward, they had lunch at Old Town Alexandria, Va. With some time left before their flight back home, the students visited the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. The students arrived home safely on Oct. 28 after a fun and richly educational week.
During the middle school trip week in late October, while Sahana Narayanan, grade 8, was visiting Washington, D.C., she received an exciting email from Dave Hart, the middle school instrumental music teacher. Hart was also away, participating in The Harker School’s teacher exchange program in Japan, but the news couldn’t wait. “Dear Sahana,” it read. “You have been accepted into the 2012 Western Division Junior High Girls Honor Choir! CONGRATULATIONS!”
His enthusiasm was well placed. The choir, part of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Western Conference, received auditions from up and down the West Coast, as well as from Arizona, Utah and Hawaii. According to Hart, “These conferences invite choral educators from around the West Coast to attend. Along with wonderful lectures and poster sessions, top educators are invited to work with [the honor choirs].” This year’s conference will be held in Reno, Nev., which means Narayanan will have the chance to work with a variety of excellent choral educators when she travels there in February.
Hart encouraged Narayanan, as well as other students in Vivace (a choir offered to grade 7-8 students by audition only), to audition for the honor choir. “To prepare for this audition, [Narayanan] asked for the guidance of Harker’s Jennifer Cowgill,” said Hart. Cowgill is a performing arts teacher at the lower and upper schools, and helped Narayanan put together what Hart called “a winning audition. She did a fantastic job working with her.” Hart says the audition process involved singing two scales to show the singers range and intonation. Then they were asked to sing one previously selected song (“My Country ‘Tis of Thee”), and one song of their choice.
“I was extremely lucky to have worked with Ms. Cowgill because this style of singing was relatively new to me,” said Narayanan. “She was so supportive and extremely helpful!”
Hart participated in choirs such as this one when he was in school, and found the experience very rewarding. “It is special when you get a chance to spend time with other people who have a similar passion for music. When I heard about the ACDA Western Division Junior High Honor Choir, I was excited to offer the opportunity to audition to the members of my choir. It didn’t surprise me that Sahana showed up to find out more. She has a great voice and she is quite a musician. Music just seems to hold a special place in her life.”
Narayanan feels similarly about the opportunity to spend time with other choral singers and educators. “Being around so many people who are extremely passionate about music is definitely something I’m excited about. I’m also honored to be representing Harker,” she said.
The audition process can be scary, and Hart acknowledged the bravery needed to participate. “You never know what will happen with these types of auditions. The hard part is putting yourself out there and giving yourself a chance to be selected. You have to be willing to fail [in order] to create new and wonderful opportunities for yourself. Sahana stepped up to this challenge, and great things happened for her.”
Narayanan viewed the chance to audition as something exciting and positive. “My decision to audition for the choir was partly motivated by having a fantastic time in Vivace,” she said. “Even though I was new to Harker, everyone was so supportive and encouraged me every step of the way. I was also driven to audition because this was a completely new and exciting realm of singing for me. For me, this is just the first step. Luckily, I get to pursue these opportunities throughout my time at Harker.”
Middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam was named the Mathcounts Coach of the Week on Nov. 8. She was featured in a Q&A interview on the Mathcounts website, where she mentioned that she has been a Mathcounts coach for 10 years and has coached teams to the Mathcounts National Competition three times, including the most recent championship in May 2011.
Founded nearly 30 years ago, Mathcounts is an organization that fosters the education of middle school math students nationwide by holding competitions at local and national levels. Through written and oral exercises in both individual and team competitions, students learn essential critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
In early November, Cyrus Merrill, a middle school history and social sciences teacher at The Harker School, gave his grade 8 history students the chance to speak with the special assistant to the nation’s deputy chief of staff/director of policy planning.
Amira Valliani ’06, said her job entails supporting Jake Sullivan (the deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning) in anything he needs, from putting together his briefing book to helping figure out his office’s strategies. “If you’ve ever watched ‘The West Wing,’ you’ve seen the people who walk into meetings and pass the characters notes saying that the President wants to talk to them,” says Valliani. “I’m the person walking into the room with the note, except instead of the President wanting to speak to my boss, it’s usually Hillary Clinton.”
Valliani started as a National Economic Council intern at the White House, and has written speeches for Hillary Clinton. Merrill says she spoke to the group while the grade 8 class was in Washington, D.C., and now the students have had the chance to interview her about the state department and how it functions.
Merrill says the call lined up with the students reading about the founding of the department under Washington. They had studied “the isolationist positions of Washington and the embargo of trade with all the world under Jefferson. The students asked [Valliani] about whether there are any isolationist state department staff, and she not surprisingly said, ‘not at all today.’” Additionally, Merrill says, “She pointed out that while there are no ‘embargoes’ in the language of the state department today (similar to what we had read about with Jefferson cutting off trade with all of the world to avoid war with Britain in 1807), the state department has been actively working on the similar idea of sanctions, especially with Syria at the moment.”
The day before the call, students brainstormed questions they wanted to ask Valliani. In addition to learning about isolationists and embargoes, students got some basic information on what her day-to-day looks like, including a picture of an atypical day, like the one Valliani talked to them on. When one student asked what she was doing that day, Valliani said, “Not much, because my boss is in Hawaii. But that’s why I have time to talk to you!”
Merrill elaborated on that, explaining that Clinton had just left for an Asian-Pacific conference in Hawaii.
In her more typical day of work, students learned that she has to access information constantly on vastly different topics. “In one day,” says Merrill, “she had to become well-versed in river environmental safety (for overseas efforts by the U.S. to encourage other nations to reduce pollution and runoff, etc.), as well as nuclear security issues. To do so, she relies on those in the state department who are experts in each of these fields.”
She also explained that she is a political appointee, meaning she will lose her job if Obama loses the election.
Valliani then talked to the students about treaties. They do not do many, as Merrill described. “It’s mostly ongoing negotiations, and contacts with different contacts in similar foreign agencies around the globe responding to crises,” he said.
Also on the topic of crises, Valliani told the students that, “they have CNN on all the time, because sometimes the news is faster than even contacts of their own with foreign issues that arise.”
In turn, Valliani asked the students questions. “What is the worst thing that happens if foreign negotiations collapse?” she asked. The students correctly answered, “War.” Merrill says she went on to describe how this is always a pressure to make negotiations work.
Merrill says he hopes the event made students realize “that these real world issues really do have an impact, and that there are a number of interesting careers involved in politics and foreign affairs.”
He will continue to keep history relevant through these interviews with people who work in fields in the present that have direct connections to what they have studied from the past.
This year alone, the students will speak with an Obama speechwriter right after the State of the Union address, a Federal Trade commission attorney about the government’s effort to deal with monopolies (in connection with the industrial revolution), a Latin-American journalist about perceptions of the U.S. in Latin America today (in connection with Teddy Roosevelt’s policies started 100 years ago) and civil rights activists. They’ll also speak with one modern artist and, “Hopefully,” says Merrill, “a rap musician about anger and urban tensions when we get to modern America.”
Merrill is always looking for interesting people. He is currently looking for people with connections to any government agency – especially the SEC, FDIC or a fashion or music historian.
The anticipated meeting between several grade 6 students and their buddies from Tokyo’s Tamagawa Gakuen took place on Oct. 18, when global education director Jennifer Walrod picked up the Tamagawa students from the San Francisco airport and took them to Half Moon Bay. There, they enjoyed lunch on the beach with their Harker buddies, whom they met in person for the first time.
The following day, the Tamagawa buddies observed classes and went on a scavenger hunt with their Harker friends. In the evening, the students all enjoyed a special dinner at Nichols Hall at the upper school campus, where they got to see a dance performance and watched a magic show by well-known Bay Area magician Jay Alexander.
Other activities for the rest of the week included a trip to Crissy Field in San Francisco, a visit to the lower school for an origami project with lower school students and a Halloween art project during a special assembly.
After spending the weekend with their Harker buddies, the Tamagawa students took a separate bus to Yosemite, where they met again this week for one last time before the Harker students head to Japan in the spring.
In mid-October, all of The Harker School’s grade 8 students learning Japanese became TV show hosts, celebrities, models and bodyguards right in their own classrooms.
Kumi Matsui, who teaches Japanese at the middle school, developed the Supermodel Project as a way for her students to learn how to describe physical characteristics and fashion in Japanese. Students pair up in groups of two to create a TV show in Japanese, with one student acting as the show’s host, and another student acting as a celebrity. Matsui says groups have even asked a few classmates to “take a role as an extra, such as crazy fans or bodyguards.” The rest of the class serves as the audience.
As far as celebrities go, Matsui says it’s up to the students to decide what kind of famous star they want to become, and “we’ve had an actress, actor, fashion models, tennis player and world famous criminal.” Each celebrity is able to choose his or her own outfit to wear on the show.
The students must take on the role of both TV show host and celebrity with different partners, giving them two chances to come up with TV show ideas, put together crazy outfits, and perform for their classmates.
Matsui says her original inspiration for the project was, in part, the Harker Fashion Show. By combining it with a Japanese TV show, the students got a chance to learn and practice new fashion-related vocabulary, not to mention come up with some fun ways to express themselves.
“Some of the students were so creative, and created very interesting and funny shows!” Matsui said.
Students in Cyrus Merrill’s grade 8 United States history class got a real-life example of how the constitution, the Bill of Rights, and especially the fourth amendment, applies to them.
It started with a police officer in early October. Rob Millard, a San Jose Police officer and Harker parent, came in to talk to the class about Fourth Amendment procedures and the Bill of Rights in practical reality.
“The police officer talked to us about many things I never would have thought I’d actually understand,” said Selin Ozcelik, a student in the class. “From appellate jurisdictions to catching criminals hiding under shadows for years, I started to really see what went on in our country. My dad turns on news radio channel every morning, and every word mentioned on that program seemed to be a more sophisticated language apart from the one I knew and spoke everyday. So, even the radio ended up making more sense.”
Later in the period, Millard asked Ozcelik if he could search her backpack. “I said yes, not sure where exactly he was going with that example. I later learned that without my approval, the police officer had no right although he had probable cause.”
The next visitors were two law students from Santa Clara University—Christopher Creech and Shikha Mittal ‘05—and they coincidentally also picked her backpack to search. “I confidently said no as the class around me laughed,” Ozcelik said.
Merrill says that Mittal—a student of his 11 years ago—mentioned that she and other law school students had an activity and community service goal of going out and teaching about the Constitution in the schools. She organized the speakers from among students at the law school.
This gave the students a chance to contrast “the police officer who spoke previously with the position of a lawyer discussing limitations on the police when arguing in court,” Merrill said.
Creech and Mittal were also able to help prepare the class for their final activity—a mock trial before a mock Supreme Court. For the first 10 minutes, they worked with the kids directly, brainstorming how to argue before the Supreme Court. Sahana Narayanan says this was her favorite part of their visit. “They gave us invaluable tips and pointers on our statements, and even explained to us how the judge would react in real life!” Then the law students got into hands-on examples.
They started by defining what the Fourth Amendment is—it guards against unreasonable search and seizure and requires a judicially sanctioned warrant that is supported by probable cause—and who and what it protects. It protects your person and your clothes, Creech said, “but why is it not illegal to just look you up and down?”
“Because then police officers would have to walk around with their eyes closed,” a student offered.
“Exactly!” Creech said. “It’d be ridiculous! That’s why it protects against unreasonable search.”
“Do people disagree about what’s unreasonable?” Merrill asked.
“All the time,” Creech said. “But if you can go before a judge and successfully argue what is and isn’t reasonable, then that becomes the law.”
Creech then took out a shoebox, which he gave to a student in the class. “Now let’s say I’m a policeman,” he said. “I’m looking for a stolen Ferrari, and I want to search your shoebox and see if it’s in there. Can I look in your shoebox?”
“Sure,” the student said, offering it back to him.
“But would it be reasonable?”
“No,” the student said. “But I said it was okay.”
“So now I can search it,” Creech said.
Finally, it was time for the students to become lawyers themselves. The law students came back to act as judges (along with Merrill), and Merrill’s class had researched, prepared, and were ready to present. “To think like a lawyer during the mock arguments was hard, but very fulfilling at the end,” said Narayanan. “I was defending a school that prohibited the wearing of armbands during the Vietnam War. This case (Tinker v. Des Moines) eventually lost in the Supreme Court! So I had to study arguments that would support my case as well as the cases that our opposing side would be using against us. That was the first step,” she said. “The second step was to actually tie those into the mindset of how people were thinking during the 1960’s. I had to make it relevant not to 2011, but to 1969 itself.”
Michael Zhao, another presenter in the mock trial, said, “The mock arguments allowed us students to truly grasp the idea and concept of how real arguments are presented in the Supreme Court.”
“Our debates combined all of the previous activities and made us analyze the information we received from each of the people who visited our classroom,” said Karen Tu, a student in Merrill’s class. “It was also hands-on and gave us a taste of what would happen in a ‘real-world’ scenario.”
It wasn’t just the material that the students learned—they also came away with a better understanding of why learning about the Fourth Amendment and about the Bill of Rights as a whole is important.
“As students, we often overlook the Bill of Rights as something that we need to learn for a test. Because of this, one often learns and forgets the material. By going through these interactive lessons however, I think that we will not only have a greater understanding of the concept, but also remember of the Fourth Amendment itself, as these lessons had a lasting impact on us,” Zhao said.
“We need to know what our rights are and what we or other people can or can’t do. By learning about them, we can protect ourselves and others with our knowledge,” Tu said.
Ozcelik added that, “understanding the base of our country helps students see where our modern society evolved from and the struggles it had to overcome to get here.”
Merrill said one of his goals in bringing in various speakers and organizing a mock argument was to give the students “the real feel that while the Constitution may not change, the interpretations of it might. Post 9/11, for instance, the courts have been much more permissive of invasions of privacy as the public and courts have moved towards prioritizing order and security over liberty and freedom.”
Narayanan said, “Ultimately, the whole act of listening to people of the law, whether they were police officers or lawyers, culminated to a very enriching learning experience that I will never forget!”