Middle and upper school student musicians performed this year’s Winter Concert at San Jose’s Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater Jan. 15-16. Dave Hart directed the middle school groups, starting with the Grade 6 Jazz Band, which kicked things off with pieces by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock. The Grade 6 Orchestra then took the stage, performing Soon Hee Newbold’s “Spirit of the American West,” the traditional folk song “Scarborough Fair” and “Russian Sailor’s Dance” by Reinhold Gliere.
The Grade 6 Orchestra’s cello section – made up of Rachel Broweleit, Nathan Wang, Rani Sheth, Jacqueline Yang and Jeffrey Yang, grade 8; and Andrew Chang and Elaine Xiao, grade 7 – performed a rendition of “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 Preludio Modinha” by Villa Lobos. Shortly afterward, teachers Teresa Orozco (flute), Pierre Dazin (violin), Natachia Li (cello) and Joshua Thurston-Milgrom (double bass) gave a special performance.
Next up, the Grade 7-8 Jazz Band played well-received versions of Jimmy Forrest’s “Night Train,” Horace Silver’s “Cape Verdean Blues,” “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard and more. They were followed by the Grade 7-8 Orchestra, which played the traditional “Amazing Grace,” “Variations on a Korean Folk Song” by John Barnes Chance and “Fandango and Alborada” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Upper school music teacher Chris Florio then took over as director, starting with the upper school’s Lab Band, which performed Ben Tucker’s “Comin’ Home Baby,” “Sky Dive” by Freddie Hubbard and others. The jazz continued with the stylings of The Harker School Jazz Band, which performed a set of songs by greats such as Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin.
After an intermission, the evening’s headliner, The Harker School Orchestra, played the first of several pieces, Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture to Candide.” The group then impressively performed Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol” in its entirety, followed by the rousing “Rodeo” by Aaron Copland. The orchestra then made way for flutist Victoria Ding, grade 12, who gave a solo performance of Cécile Chaminade’s “Concertino for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 7.”
The orchestra gave a fitting close to the evening with Camille Saint-Saëns’ stirring “Danse Bacchanale.”
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
A blustery early autumn evening set the stage for Harker’s 2015 Homecoming celebration, and the football team turned it into a great night with a 23-13 hard-fought win. This year’s Homecoming saw people from across the Harker community gather at the upper school campus to cheer on the Harker Eagles football squad as it faced off against Santa Cruz at Davis Field. In addition to the game, Homecoming offered a chance for Harker community members – students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff – to socialize and reminisce.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the whole community to get together,” said Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “From preschool to the upper school, everyone can come together as one community, to support our students in the game, but also in the various ways that they’re participating, whether it’s musically or through cheer or selling pizza.”
Attendees began arriving in droves as early as two hours before the 7 p.m. kickoff, enjoying a variety of food from Mrs. Carley’s Café and a delicious array prepared by the Harker kitchens – the staff had been at work since 7 a.m. preparing for the big event – alongside pizza and candy sold by Harker students. Lower, middle and upper school campuses had tables filled with confections and chips for parents and students to snack on, while Harker’s alumni of ce had a special area with white linen and great food, which enjoyed a steady stream of visitors. “It’s really exciting and everyone’s having fun,” said Elizabeth Yang, grade 9, who was selling candy to raise funds for her class.
Prior to the game, the early arrivals enjoyed special performances by Harker’s junior cheerleaders and the time-honored Eaglets fly-by. Just before the game, several of Harker’s vocal groups, directed by lower school performing arts teacher Carena Montany, sang “The Harker School Song” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The upper school jazz ensembles combined to provide accompaniment and the varsity cheerleaders maintained a steady blast of cheerful encouragement from the sidelines.
The first half of the game was hotly contested, with Santa Cruz reaching the end zone early, followed by a strong answer from Harker, which scored a safety and a touchdown to take a 9-6 lead at halftime.
During halftime, Harker’s cheer squad and varsity dancers gave energetic, crowd-pleasing performances. Shortly after, this year’s Homecoming court took the eld, with seniors Edward Sheu and Stephanie Huang named the 2015 Homecoming King and Queen.
In the second half, both teams pushed hard. Santa Cruz took back the lead to make it 13-9. Push literally came to shove in the fourth quarter as each team tried to hang on in fourth-down situations to get a drive going. Finally, with 10:40 remaining in the game, Harker marched down field and scored a touchdown to make it 16-13. For the next eight minutes the crowd was on the edge of their seats knowing if Santa Cruz found the right gap, the score would reverse, again.
Indeed, the ball changed hands several times, but neither team was able to capitalize until very late in the fourth quarter when Harker put paid to the match with a great run to make it 23-13 with less than two minutes left. Harker D was fired up and bottled up Santa Cruz, nailing the lid on the win. It was a great night out with a big, lively crowd! Huge congratulations to the football team, including coaching, training and other support staff for a great, well-fought game. Go, Eagles!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
Several Harker performing arts groups hit the stage at Santana Row on Nov. 17 to celebrate the start of the holiday season. The upper school’s varsity and junior varsity dance troupes, Dance Fusion and High Voltage gave exhilarating performances at the packed event, singing and dancing to time-honored holiday standards, at times updated for present-day audiences. Highlights included Kinetic Krew (the upper school’s first all-male dance troupe) performing to a dubstep version of “Jingle Bells” and Downbeat’s jazzed-up rendition of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
In response to a growing need, Harker has improved its bus and transportation system over the past couple of years in both the extent of its services and number of vehicles. The school now has a fleet of eight full-size school buses – three of them provided in the last year by annual giving – and has round-trip routes servicing the Fremont area and the Peninsula, as well as a home-to-school route from the Silver Creek area of San Jose.
Additionally, intercampus shuttles now operate every morning and afternoon, with morning shuttles traveling between the preschool, middle and upper school campuses, and afternoon shuttles reaching all four Harker campuses.
About 100 students now use these services, an increase of about 20 from 2013. Greg Lawson, assistant head of school for student affairs, credits the growing popularity of the service to both word-of-mouth and the stellar drivers. “I attribute the increase in ridership to our own drivers,” he said. “Since they very often run the same routes, the families and the students on those routes become very familiar with them and grow attached to them and appreciate the fact that they’re good, level-headed folks who are patient, safety-conscious and excellent drivers.”
Bus service also offers a level of convenience and cost-effectiveness not found in available alternatives, “particularly in some places where people up the Peninsula who work in the city can’t drive this direction,” Lawson added.
Harker parent Kalpana Jain noted her children, Alisha, grade 4, and Rishi, grade 6, have been riding the Peninsula bus since the service began in the 2012-13 school year and said it has improved the family’s commute dramatically. “We have found the bus service very convenient and the kids enjoy going to school with their friends,” she said. “We would rate it among the top few very important perks of attending Harker.”
Jain’s children have found it to be so enjoyable, in fact, that they opt to take the bus even when their mom is heading to school. “Kids love riding the bus to school,” she said. “The bus driver is awesome! There are days when I have to be at school in the morning, and the kids insist on taking the bus while I drive solo to campus!”
“[The bus service] saves me from driving up and down the Peninsula in crazy traffic,“ said Pip Sanders, parent of Zoe, grade 7, and Jenna, grade 10. She added that the bus line played an important factor in her family’s decision to have their kids attend Harker. “Other private schools on the Peninsula offered buses; when I heard that Harker did too, that changed the equation.”
“Traffic on the way to or from school isn’t bad, because I’m against rush hour,” said Jenna Sanders, “but on the way to picking me up, or the way back from dropping me off, my mom could spend more than double the time it takes to get us where we are supposed to be.”
Jenna has witnessed firsthand the significant growth in the number of riders. When her sister first began using the bus service from Harker to home, “it was usually just her and sometimes one other person. Now we have had as many as 15 kids on the way from Harker up to Los Altos.”
The expansion of the bus services began in late 2013. “When we decided to take on all the home-to-school routes, we knew we couldn’t do it with the existing fleet,” Lawson said. “It just wasn’t as reliable as we needed it to be.” Hence the decision to run more home-to-school lines was met with the purchase of more, newer vehicles.
Another key change was the acquisition of the Fremont line, which previously had been run by a charter company. This made it possible to more easily change routes as needed and reduced the amount of oversight needed to manage Harker’s buses as well as those of the charter company, explained Heather Armada, a longtime Harker bus driver who last year was named Harker’s transportation director.
Improvements to the buses themselves came later, to help drivers adjust to changing conditions. “We’ve just added two-way radios so that we can communicate with the drivers,” Armada said. “It’s easier to contact the drivers on a moment’s notice with these two- way radios.”
“In the morning particularly there are a lot of moving parts that we have to interconnect between the buses coming in from the outside that interconnect with the intercampus shuttle,” Lawson said, “and there are decisions that can be made on the fly – if one bus is going to miss the connection – to change things around a little bit.”
In addition to the bus lines, Armada also oversees the thorough maintenance of Harker’s bus eet and its sprinter vans and SUVs that transport Harker’s athletic teams to and from events. Coaches who drive these vehicles are approved to drive in accordance with safety standards.
Her role also requires her to plan out bus routes that can be changed as necessary to suit the needs of Harker families and also get students to and from school on time, which can be complicated, “like a jigsaw puzzle,” she said.
As with a puzzle, piecing together the edges of the route first makes the most sense. After that, it’s a matter of finding which pieces of the route to place between the edges. “It’s just a matter of finding out your location, the most people you can provide for and then your times, and how they all link up together,” she said.
The increased ridership and pleasant feedback indicate the hard work is paying off. The cost savings, which resulted from eliminating the chartered bus lines, certainly don’t hurt, either.
“We’re not as popular as we used to be with the charter companies,” Lawson said, “but we’re way more popular with our parents, that’s for sure.”
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the middle school visit between Harker and Tamagawa Academy in Tokyo, which has become a pillar of Harker’s global education program. In addition to giving students and faculty the chance to venture abroad and experience another culture, the relationship between the two schools has resulted in many new friendships.
“It’s amazing to celebrate the 20th anniversary,” said Tamagawa’s Michiko Horikane, an English teacher who has led the Tamagawa-to-Harker trip 17 times. Each trip yields something new to be discovered, she said, adding that she has always been impressed by the enthusiasm and hospitality of Harker’s students and faculty. “Tamagawa students can learn a lot of things through this exchange,” she added. “They are impressed with the kindness and hospitality, and they can learn how to express themselves and build friendships.”
In mid-October, 28 Tamagawa students in grade 5 came for a ve-day visit, during which they stayed with Harker sixth graders. They received a very warm welcome, being presented with a Halloween-themed cake commemorating the “20 years of friendship” between the two schools. Harker students lined up to greet their buddies with handmade signs displaying their buddy’s name written in Japanese. After being matched up with one another, each pair of students took a photo in front of a Halloween-themed backdrop before heading off to a special lunch.
The ensuing week was packed with activity, as Tamagawa students and their Harker buddies enjoyed a scavenger hunt, made T-shirts and created origami sculptures. Tamagawa students also headed to the lower school campus to read to a class of Harker’s younger students. Some time was also set aside for the Tamagawa students to meet and interact with Harker’s fth graders.
The Tamagawa students attended classes with their Harker buddies to get a sense of what day-to-day life is like for Harker students. They also participated in a number of classes, including Elizabeth Saltos’ art class and Gail Palmer’s dance class. Tamagawa student Miori Yoneyama remarked on the politeness she experienced from Harker’s teachers and how it made the classroom experience delightful despite the language barrier. “I did not understand the classes in English, but there were a variety of teachers – enthusiastic teachers, and the teacher who showed interesting videos through YouTube,” she recalled via a translation by Harker upper school Japanese teacher Yumiko Aridomi. “All these teachers talked to us nicely.”
The Tamagawa guests enjoyed many off-campus outings as well, including a visit to Cucina Bambini, a local children’s cooking school, to learn how to make American cuisine. That same day, the students headed to The Tech Museum, one of Silicon Valley’s popular tourist attractions.
After the Tamagawa students returned home, Harker students looked back fondly on the time they had spent with their newfound friends. Kavita Murthy said the visit gave her the opportunity to learn about the greatly varying personalities of the Tamagawa students. She reminisced about the time she spent with her buddy, Sayana, who greatly enjoyed both Japanese and Western cuisines, treating her to “both Japanese and Italian-American restaurants.” She also mentioned being proud to be part of such a momentous anniversary. “I felt special knowing that this exchange has been going on for a while and I had the honor to participate in it. This was a very fun exchange for both buddies!”
“It made me feel special because it was fun to learn about how they lived and learn more about their traditions,” said Harker student Syna Gogte. “I hope to learn more when I [visit Tamagawa in the spring semester].”
Malar Bala was thankful for the opportunity to spend time and bond with someone who spoke a different language. “This Tamagawa visit was a very unique experience,” she said. “It helped me understand how I could still make friends and enjoy my time with someone who doesn’t even speak the same language as me. I felt honored to participate in this exchange. The 20th anniversary is a big deal.”
Aside from her memorable experiences with Harker teachers, Yoneyama said she also enjoyed visiting the Golden Gate Bridge with her buddy. “I had not walked on such a big bridge,” she said. “I took a lot of pictures in the middle of the bridge, and it became the highlight of my homestay.” She added that she hopes to take her buddy to a similarly interesting Japanese landmark one day.
Upon seeing how Harker’s students had developed their time-management skills, Tamagawa student Hinano Yajima said she wished to learn how to manage her time more effectively as well. “I saw people buying snacks at the store and having fun during the recess, but they all went to their classrooms when the bell rang,” she recalled. “I thought that I must be more punctual and draw the line between play time and study time like Harker students.”
Yajima also fondly remembered after-school activities such as visiting an arcade and an outing to a local amusement park. “When my buddy comes to Japan to visit me in May, I would love to host her with the utmost hospitality,” she said.
“When we visited Harker for the first time, we brought six boys and six girls,” said Horikane, alluding to how much the program has grown in the past two decades. “Since then, we have been trying to arrange a better program every year.”
San Jose Mercury News – Jan. 16, 2016: Harker eighth grader Mahika Halepete’s letter about the importance of education for low-income students appears in the Readers’ letters section.
GoStanford.com – Jan. 11, 2016: Dakota McNealy, grade 12, is the subject of a story about his decision to play for Stanford in the fall of 2016. He will join his brother, Maverick McNealy ’13, on the Stanford squad. See also the coverage in Golfweek and Palo Alto Online.
San Jose Mercury News – Jan. 6, 2016: Harker is mentioned as one of the Bay Area schools that had semifinalists in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search
India West – Dec. 23, 2015: Senior Vineet Kosaraju and his friend are featured in a story about a board game they created to help teach coding to children.
Napa Valley Register – Jan. 2, 2016: Harker alumnus Will Jarvis MS ’97 is featured in article about Jarvis Estate winery, which he runs with his father in the Napa Valley.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
For some time the Raju and Bala Vegesna Foundation has generously supported various professional development activities for Harker faculty members, including the summer technology grant program, faculty retreat, Harker Teacher Institute and guest lectures from top experts in the field of education.
More recently, the grant has supported a unique opportunity called the Teacher Excellence Program, which will build on Harker’s already robust learning programs for faculty members.
The innovative program began this past summer and fall, marking a special time of enhanced learning and professional development for 14 faculty members. And, although their experiences differed, the teachers all shared a desire to bring back to their classrooms invaluable knowledge gleaned from their undertakings.
Individual grant recipients were upper school teachers Ruth Meyer (humanities/history), who served as a panel facilitator at a Yale University Conference; Susan Nace (performing arts), who attended a 10-day conducting symposium at Oxford University; and Roxana Pianko (humanities/history), who studied the Holocaust and traveled throughout Europe visiting related historical sites.
Group grants recipients were seven English teachers in grades 2-8, who participated in an internship program at Nancie Atwell’s Center for Teaching and Learning in Maine: Mary Holaday, grade 2; Heather Russell, grade 3; Kate Molin, grade 4; Kate Shanahan, grade 5; Ann Smitherman, grade 5; Patricia Lai Burrows, grade 6; and Stacie Wallace, grade 8. In addition, four primary math teachers participated in a Greg Tang Math workshop and conference in Missouri: Holaday; Grace Wallace, grade 2; Colleen Lindsay, grade 3; and Sejal Mehta, grade 2.
“The Raju and Bala Vegesna Foundation seeks to partner with best-in-breed enterprises and The Harker School certainly fits that description,” said Richard McCoy, director of the foundation. “One of Harker’s strengths is its world-class faculty, and we are pleased to be able to help support those great teachers through the Teacher Excellence Program that we have established.”
The gift from the Vegesnas (parents of Ramanand and Srivani, both grade 8) enabled Harker to support various new opportunities, explained Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement. “The mission of the teacher program is to enhance and further teachers’ abilities in a manner that has a direct and demonstrable impact on student learning,” he said.
“Harker firmly believes that an inspiring and informed teacher is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement,” added Rosenthal. “Ongoing professional development is crucial in that it keeps teachers up-to-date on new research on how children learn, emerging technology tools for the classroom, new curriculum resources, and much more.”
What follows is a more in-depth look at the educational opportunities made possible by the Teacher Excellence Program.
RUTH MEYER Presenting at Yale University
Meyer presented and served as a panel facilitator at Yale University’s annual “Psyche, Spirit, and Science: Negotiating Contemporary, Social, and Cultural Concerns” conference. She presented her curriculum, ideas and pedagogical techniques to like-minded scholars and got feedback from them during the gathering, held July 9-12.
“The Vegesna grant enabled me to visit an international conference of Jungian analysts and scholars,” said Meyer. “I presented a paper on ‘Memes, Teens, Dreams and Mandalas’ that showcased my work with the senior elective class I teach at Harker (Western Political Thought). I made a short lm with my students talking about their special connections to dreams and philosophy. We filmed just outside my classroom and students talked about the memes that they had created as part of a research project into individual philosophers. We called the project The Meme Wall,” recalled Meyer.
Jungian scholars and analysts mostly work on an individual basis with adults so there was a lot of interest in seeing teens talking about imagination and dreams, she noted. “I was also asked to chair two panels (Education and Democracy, and Female Iconography),” said Meyer. “This was a first for me and a very important experience. It meant that I was responsible for introducing three professional speakers on each panel and then guiding a 20-minute discussion afterward. Another big plus was being asked to write a book about education and Jungian scholarship. I’m working on it now and plan to dedicate it to the Harker community!” said Meyer.
SUSAN NACE Honing Conducting Skills at Oxford University
Nace attended a 10-day symposium in July at the Choral Conducting Institute at St. Stephen’s House, a college of Oxford University. The institute gave conductors the opportunity to hone their skills, working with James Jordan and the Westminster Williamson Voices, and James Whitbourn, a fellow of St. Stephen’s. The intensive daily program included master classes, seminars by eminent scholars, private tutoring, rehearsals and singing Compline at the end of the day. The institute ended with a concert conducted by attendees.
Highlights of the institute included lectures by esteemed conductors Edward Higginbottom and Stephen Darlington; singing at Sunday Mass at Christ Church Cathedral; observing rehearsals of the Christ Church Cathedral choir; inspecting centuries-old manuscripts at the Bodleian Library; and conducting music under the tutelage of the composer.
“As music teachers, we often do not get the opportunity for intensive study with deep internal reflection on and engagement with the music we conduct,” Nace said. “Working closely with professional singers on choral masterworks … afforded us an opportunity to focus solely on our conducting technique to become better communicators with those we do conduct.”
Nace, who directs Cantilena, Camerata and Acoustics, added that “to receive affirmation from scholars, mentors and peers is a rejuvenating and heartening experience that teachers need but often do not receive. This experience has not only given me new perspectives on conducting but also encouragement that I am a very capable conductor and teacher as well as a mentor to other musicians.”
ROXANA PIANKO Learning Lessons from Holocaust Exploration
Last June, Pianko traveled to Los Angeles to attend an in-depth, weeklong class on the Holocaust, run by a nonpro t organization called Facing History and Ourselves. The international educational and professional development organization’s mission is to examine prejudice and anti-Semitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.
By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives, explained Pianko.
After the class she took a solo trip throughout Europe visiting various sites related to the Holocaust and interacting with those affected by it. Pianko enriched her experience with travel to Krakow, Auschwitz, Lublin, Warsaw and Berlin to study, visit camps and museums, and interview survivors. Pianko said she plans to use the Holocaust to discuss diversity and empathy and expand various lessons she teaches in World History.
“The class I took was Holocaust and Human Behavior,” said Pianko. “We looked at how history is shaped by hatred, indifference and denial, as well as by caring, compassion and responsibility. Together we examined the range of choices that led to the failure of democracy in Germany and ultimately to the persecution of millions of Jews and other targeted groups. We investigated the complexities of human behavior, judgment and memory, and explored how we as individuals and members of groups can make a difference in the world today,” she added.
After returning to Harker, Pianko implemented Holocaust units in all of her classes. She is also working on planning two trips. “One will be to Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp here in California, and another will be a two-week Holocaust study tour to Europe that will be introduced in the summer of 2017,” she said. “Additionally I am working with the History Club on a project for April for Holocaust Remembrance Day that we are hoping will reach not only our wonderful Harker community, but will draw in the surrounding community as well.
“We cannot wait to bring these things to our young any longer, because the world is changing and we have to make sure it changes for the better now,” said Pianko.
Group Internship with Renowned Educator Inspires Harker English Teachers
The Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) is a K-8 independent demonstration school in Maine created for the purpose of developing and disseminating effective classroom practices. The school was founded in 1990 by renowned educator Nancie Atwell who, in 2015, was awarded the rst Global Teacher Prize, a $1 million award presented by the Varkey Foundation, which is associated with the Clinton Global Initiative.
The school is known nationally for its award-winning teaching, research-based methods, relationships of trust between faculty and parents, respect for children, and programs that engage students and prepare them for life beyond CTL.
Seven English teachers from grades 2-8 attended CTL, where they interned from Oct. 5-9. While there they worked directly with Atwell, learning perspectives on the art of teaching, as well as how to write and read critically. The internship program is structured to give visiting teachers the skills to make substantive changes in their classrooms.
Of her experience at CTL with her colleagues, Heather Russell said, “We have continued our collaboration and have made changes and improvements to student learning since we returned.
I’ve been to professional development opportunities before that enriched my teaching but the kind of collaborative energy and shared experience [at CTL] that has carried forward in our classrooms was powerful.”
“I have learned so much by going to the Center for Teaching & Learning!” said Mary Holaday. “I have come back with a wealth of information to apply in my second grade classroom. We have begun to have morning meetings as soon as the students arrive into Language Arts. We share some important information with each other, read a poem together and sing a song. I have begun writing poetry with the students on a weekly basis and doing mini-lessons that discuss different forms of poetry or different strategies used. We have book talks and roundtable discussions about what they have read, focusing on the comprehension skill discussed in class,” she added.
Lower School Teachers Attend Lauded Math Conference
Several Harker teachers participated in a Greg Tang Math conference, held in Kansas City, Mo., from July 21-23. More than 650 math educators were in attendance.
Tang is the author of “Grapes of Math” and “Math for All Seasons,” a series of books that help children gain the range of skills needed for higher math. His books challenge and encourage students to use creativity and common sense to solve problems, rather than merely formulas and memorization.
“I believe that by attending this conference, we have been able to develop more effective lessons by offering opportunities for students to explore, structure and document how a problem is completed,” said Mary Holaday, the only teacher to attend both this and the CTL conference. She noted that throughout the math workshop there was an emphasis on the importance of students sharing their methods to get to the answer.
“The conference far exceeded my expectations!” said Colleen Lindsey. “It will forever change the way in which I teach math. Greg advises that students must see that math makes sense. If it does not make sense, it is essential to rethink the methods and modalities we are using,” she added.
According to Grace Wallace, there were many highlights from the conference. Among her top takeaways was that math is a progression – moving from the concrete, to the pictorial, to the abstract. Also, that breakthrough comes from confusion and struggle, and that error is a natural part of the learning process.
Grant Recipients Share Gained Knowledge with Colleagues
“All of the current recipients determined ways in which they could meaningfully share their experiences with their colleagues,” said Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “Some have organized workshops for teachers in their disciplines or divisions. This allows a greater range of teachers to benefit from their experience.”
Nace and Pianko have shared their experiences during all-faculty meetings. Nace also organized a workshop for fellow vocal teachers, and Pianko and Meyer recently presented what they learned to their departments and have been doing guest lectures in their colleagues’ classes.
In October the group that attended the math conference led a workshop for all of the K-5 math teachers, and the contingent that attended CTL presented their findings to the K-8 English teachers on Dec. 2. There will be a formal reception in February where all recipients will give a brief presentation discussing what they did and how they shared their knowledge with both their students and colleagues.
“These grants are for special or rare opportunities,” said Gargano. “Harker supports many professional development efforts; however, this grant is for something particularly special that we would normally not be able to fund.”
Gargano reported that applications for the next round of grants are now being accepted and are due in early January. “Through the generosity of the Raju and Bala Vegesna Foundation, we have been given a wonderful opportunity to support unique and transformational professional development opportunities for faculty members each year,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
In conversations with alumni, I sometimes hear the following: “I was surprised to learn in college that I was not just a humanities person” or “I discovered in college that I was not just a science/math person.” One alumnus told me that math wasn’t his strong subject in school. He is now a world champion poker player using math, logic, psychology and game theory all at the same time.
I am grateful that alumni are making these discoveries at some point in their careers, but I wish that the divorce between science and math on the one hand and the humanities on the other didn’t happen in the first place. We need a movement to send them into marriage counseling, because they are a match made in heaven.
The original liberal arts, going back to the Middle Ages, were sevenfold: the “trivium,” composed of logic, grammar and rhetoric; and the “quadrivium,” composed of arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy.
According to Sister Miriam Joseph in her 1937 book “The Trivium,” the subjects of the quadrivium were no light matter, despite their deceptively simple titles. Arithmetic is not just two plus two – it is number theory itself. Music is not just Bach – it is the application of that number theory. Geometry is not just triangles – it is the study of space. Astronomy is the application of that study of space.
The former two disciplines deal in discrete quantities; the latter two in continuous quantities. Like Joseph said, no light matter. It appears then, that the scholars of the Middle Ages had it all – language, math, science, music – in one simple, powerful package called the liberal arts.
These arts were called liberal because they represented the education that befitted a free (hence the word liberal) person, and were intended to cultivate a free mind. They were to be the quintessential education of a human, hence their Latin equivalent in the word humanities.
I was talking with a theoretical physicist recently who said at some point theoretical physics becomes indistinguishable from philosophy. An entrepreneur told me that he was interested in artificial intelligence for his next venture and that the eld stirred questions of the theory of self and ethics. Recently Stanford announced a new joint major (not double major) called CS + X, meaning computer science plus a field in the humanities. It seems they understand how powerful and necessary this combination is.
It is my wish, therefore, that students graduate with both a deep expertise in a subject or two and an empathetic fluency across all subjects. A graduate like this is better than the beloved “well-rounded” student of the past. This new graduate is both well-rounded and deep – what colleges are calling the “well-lopsided” student. Students may be surprised to learn about themselves that they are more “well-lopsided than they thought.” They also may be surprised to learn how much all disciplines were valued in the past and will be valued in the future.
Harker’s Green Committee has not been letting the grass grow under its feet. Here are some of the group’s activities that are coming to fruition. But first, a special thanks to the advancement department, which pioneered using potted Christmas trees in lower school classrooms instead of cut trees. Once big enough, the organization Rent a Living Christmas Tree will plant them in city-designated areas. The 4- to 5-foot tall trees arrived Nov. 30 and will be picked up for replanting Dec. 18.
Earth Day plans across all four campuses are evolving. This year, the big upper school spirit rally and Earth Day fall on the same day, so the campus’ Green Team – led by president Akshay Battu, Karen Tu and Annie Zhou, all grade 12, and Kshithija Mulam, grade 11 – and Harker Spirit Club leaders Arben Gutierrez-Bujari, grade 11, and Layla Walker, grade 12, have joined forces to make the day momentous!
Meanwhile, the water-use reduction program is really driving down usage. Check out this graph!
Water Reduction compared to same period previous year (> 4/1/15)
Saratoga
Blackford
Bucknall
Union
May
45%
53%
68%
73%
Jun
54%
74%
75%
64%
Jul
50%
70%
52%
56%
Aug
30%
54%
42%
23%
Sep
16%
60%
40%
43%
Average to Date
39%
62%
55%
51%
Janet Rohrer, our facilities and hazmat safety coordinator, has led the development of a pest management program across the four campuses that will reduce the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides.
One of the most important, but little noticed programs, is the No Idling on Campus effort. The student-run Green Team had signs made reminding upper school drivers to turn off engines while waiting for students or at the red light; the signs will move to the lower school campus in December to expand that campaign.
The committee is happy to note that Harker kitchens are now using eggs from Glaum Egg Ranch, a local, family farm with cage-free chickens.
Finally, the dining area at the upper school’s Manzanita Hall was retiled using materials sourced from Azuliber, a company specializing in eco-friendly flooring.
Harker’s Siemens Competition finalists, juniors Evani Radiya-Dixit and David Zhu, have been featured in numerous media since the announcement of their win at the Region One Finals at CalTech. Check below to see some of the outlets that picked up the story!