This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Welcome back! After a long summer, the fall season is up and running, with cross country, golf, volleyball, football, water polo and tennis matches just now underway. The summer was not without news, however, as a Harker coach snagged a top award for the second straight year, lacrosse athletes were recognized for their academic achievements and a member of the Harker Board of Trustees grabbed the gold.
Fall Sports
Tennis The girls tennis team went 5-0 and was crowned Division 6 champions at the prestigious California Tennis Classic in Fresno. The girls earned their victories while battling 100 degree heat in early September. Congratulations, girls!
Volleyball Girls varsity volleyball lost to a strong Homestead team Sept. 5 at Blackford, one game to three. “They did really well,” said Brighid Wood, assistant to the athletic director, “and I don’t think you could ask a group of young women like that to represent our school any better.”
Water Polo Boys water polo won one and lost three at the Lynbrook Tournament Sept. 5-6.
Golf The varsity golf team took care of some old business this week: hanging the banners for last year’s league championship and the banner for winning the state academic championship!
Middle School Flag Football The middle school Varsity A flag football team, coached by Karriem Stinson, Jeff Martarano and Scott Rudolph, nailed it versus Menlo the second week of September, winning 14-0. The photo is from practice earlier in the week.
Football Our young football squad lost to Overfelt 38-21 in the season opener. Quarterback Keanu Forbes, grade 12, threw touchdown passes to freshman Nate Kelly and senior Christian Williams. He also ran 13 yards for a touchdown. Alyssa Amick, grade 12, kicked an extra point. The Harker cheerleaders did a fantastic job supporting the team, noted Dan Molin, athletic director.
Middle School Cross Country The middle school cross country team ran the Crystal Springs Relay at Hallmark Park in early September. Pictured are second place winners for grade 8, Lilia Gonzales, Aneesha Kumar, Julia Amick and Karen Krause. The grade 7 boys – Vedanth Sundaram, Grant Miner, Datha Arramreddy and Mihir Sharma – also took second, and grade 7 girls Anna Gert, Jasmine Wiese, Jenny Shaw and Gina Partridge, took third.
Lacrosse This summer, five Harker students were named as U.S. Academic All-Americans by the U.S. Lacrosse Association. Christine Lee, Mabel Luo and Brinda Perumal, all of whom graduated in June, and seniors Hannah Bollar and Allison Kiang received the honor. This past spring, those girls helped lead the team to a second place finish, including a redemptive victory against Sacred Heart Prep in the final game of the season to avenge an earlier loss. Off the field, the team claimed a CCS Scholastic Championship Team Award as well, finishing with a cumulative 3.67 GPA, the second best in the league.
Swimming and Diving Harker Board of Trustees member Martin Lundie won gold medals in both the 3-meter and platform diving competitions for athletes ages 60-64 at the World Masters Diving Championships in Montreal, beating out rivals from across North America and Japan. Lundie’s performance is a triumph of perseverance and dedication, and his lifelong passion for excellence, development and athletic competition sets a sterling example for Harker’s young sports stars. Last spring, the Harker swim team qualified for all of the relays at CCS and sent a solid half of its swimmers and diver Stacey Chao, now grade 12, to the championships. So check back in a half century to see if any Harker alumni can match Lundie’s success!
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Middle school drama teacher Monica Colletti traveled to New York City to spend a week training in improvisation with the famous Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe. The session concluded with a public performance in New York, which Colletti was more than happy to brag about!
Big things happened for middle school dance teacher Rachelle Haun, who performed at San Francisco’s Mission in the Mix with the Gems Dance Team, and also successfully auditioned for the Raiderettes!
Laura Lang-Ree, performing arts department chair, was busy on vocal duties with the Los Gatos-Saratoga Big Band, which performed at numerous venues over the summer. Her performance at the San Jose Jazz Festival landed her on the front page of the local section of the San Jose Mercury News. She also joined the roster at Halvorson Model Management, signing with the agency in their commercial and voice-over division.
In addition to starring in Harker’s “Happy” video, upper school dance teacher Karl Kuehn worked with San Jose’s Atlas School of Dance as both a choreographer and performer. He also helped out the Bay Area-based Ragazzi Boys Chorus, teaching movement classes and choreography in preparation for the chorus’ performances in South Africa in 2015.
Middle school music teacher Dave Hart was commissioned by Bay Area woodwind group Frequency 49 for his compositional talents. He also lent his expertise to the International Society of Music Educators composition competition, which judges pieces by students in grades 6-12. At the Stanford Jazz Workshop, he taught and performed “with a fantastic international jazz faculty.” He also performed with acclaimed pianist and singer Dena DeRose and longtime friend Taylor Eigsti, in addition to instructing the Stanford Jazz Mentors, a group of college students seeking to sharpen their skills as jazz educators.
At the Feierabend Association for Music Education (FAME) conference in Hartford, Conn., lower school music teacher Carena Montany learned a great deal by attending sessions and exchanging insights with other music teachers. Founded on the teachings of John Feierabend, a leading figure in the teaching of music and movement, FAME is an organization that seeks to spread his teachings to music educators.
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Middle school art teacher Elizabeth Saltos headed to Australia this past summer for Harker’s annual teacher exchange with St. Stephen’s College, a PK-12 school located on the Gold Coast in the Australian province of Queensland. Her trip started in Sydney, where she visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, rode the Manly Ferry for a scenic view of the city and went kayak- ing at Sydney Harbor. Later, she traveled to Cairns to go snorkeling and kayaking at the famous Great Barrier Reef, calling the experience “a big bucket list highlight.”
After visiting Michaelmas Cay and Fitzroy Island, Saltos boarded a plane to Brisbane and rode a train to the Gold Coast suburb of Coomera. There, she stayed at the home of St. Stephen’s College headmaster Jamie Dorrington.
During her time teaching at St. Stephen’s, Saltos worked in the school’s visual arts department, teaching blind modeling in clay, doing clay relief projects and teaching grade 10 students about cubist perspective. She also gave presentations on her own work to grades 11 and 12, and collaborated with students of St. Stephen’s art department chair, Samantha Reynolds, to create a silk-screen.
Saltos said that she found the grading process at Australian schools to be very unique. “The school awards a grade and then the students submit their work to a panel of educators statewide and these professionals award a grade,” she said. “The two grades are then averaged and this is the grade looked at for entrance into university.”
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Harker once again invited Bay Area educators to the upper school campus for the Harker Teacher Institute on June 7. Celebrating its 10th year, the event featured presentations by 17 Harker faculty members, who gave workshops on various ways to improve the learning experience in classrooms. It was also sponsored by the Silicon Valley affiliate of Computer Using Educators, an organization dedicated to the innovative use of technology in education.
The workshops explored many different tools and techniques. For example, lower school math teacher Eileen Schick’s presentation on Singapore model drawing demonstrated a visual method of solving word problems. Meanwhile, lower school English teacher Ann Smitherman demonstrated how using questions in feedback helps students better internalize the feedback they receive, and showed her use of comments in Google Docs to achieve this goal.
For his workshop on project-based learning, Juston Glass, business and entrepreneurship teacher, had attendees break off into groups and build structures using Tinkertoys to show how classroom projects can engage students and help them become more invested in the learning process.
Diane Main, the upper school’s learning, innovation and design director, showed how MinecraftEdu – an educational version of the popular computer game Minecraft – can be used to create classroom environments in which students learn how to work together to solve problems.
This year’s Harker Homecoming was another fun-filled event for the entire community. On an unseasonably hot fall afternoon, students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni arrived at the upper school campus in droves to socialize, enjoy fresh food prepared by the Harker kitchen staff, watch performances by talented Harker students and root for the Eagles. The bounce houses set up on Rosenthal Field were again a popular attraction for the younger attendees, while alumni gathered to catch up and reminisce. Prior to the game, the Eaglets fly-by and performances by the Junior Cheerleaders and Varsity Dance Team got the crowd amped. The Harker Pep Band kept the crowd moving throughout the evening.
Halftime opened with a performance by the Harker cheer squad, after which the Class of 2015 defeated grade 11 to take first place in the tug-of-war. Grades 9 and 10 faced off for third-place in the competition, with the sophomores coming away victorious. The crowd then greeted this year’s Homecoming Court, and applauded as senior siblings Shiki and Shreya Dixit were named Homecoming King and Queen. Topping it all off was a 51-6 Harker Eagles win over visitors Ribet Academy. Check out the video of the 2014 Harker Homecoming!
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome the classes of 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015 to the 2014 matriculation ceremony. Matriculation is a ceremony initiated with the first class of the Harker upper school, the Class of 2002. During this ceremony new students to the upper school take an oath promising to follow the Honor Code, a document written by students in the early years of the Harker upper school and updated periodically. The Honor Code outlines how students as a community wish to live together and wish to be treated by each other. Honesty and respect, for instance, are important tenets of the Honor Code.
Each year I begin matriculation with an aspiration I have for the students for the school year. Because I have basically invited myself to speak at both matriculation and graduation, and I have accepted my own invitation, I try to confine my remarks to one page of single- space, size-12 font. I am adapting my aspiration for you this year from a TED talk given by the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking Fast and Slow.” Kahneman begins his TED talk by pointing out that studies of happiness are often confused by a lack of clarity around which self’s happiness we are discussing, the “experiencing self” or the “remembering self.”
What are the experiencing and remembering selves? According to Kahneman, the experiencing self is the self who lives his life from moment to moment; the remembering self is the self who thinks about his life. The experiencing self is the self the doctor inquires about when he pokes you and asks, “Does this hurt?” The remembering self is the self he inquires about when he asks how you have been feeling over the last few weeks. If you go on vacation, the self who is enjoying each moment is the experiencing self; the self who is planning the vacation beforehand and recalling it fondly while looking at pictures afterward is the remembering self. The experiencing self is your life and the remembering self thinks about your life. What is my hope for you this year? My hope for you this year is that you achieve a healthy balance between your experiencing self and your remembering self.
We need both selves. If we only had the experiencing self, we would live like a piece of music in which each note has no relation to the note that went before or the note that comes after. I think we all know people like this, and in some ways kids live more as an experiencing self. We need the remembering self to have what the philosopher Alan Watts calls “resonance.” It isn’t much good to be happy unless you know you are happy. Memory and metacognition are forms of feedback that give life resonance, just as good acoustical feedback gives our voice resonance. The remembering self is a kind of a neurological echo.
However, we can live under the tyranny of the remembering self, especially in high school. The remembering self compares with others, makes judgments, sets expectations and plans. The remembering self, when hyperactive, can create the same kind of zaniness that occurs when we have too much feedback, like when a cave produces too much echo or when we are overthinking a performance. Here is one of Alan Watts’ favorite limericks:
“There once was a man who said though, it seems that I know that I know, yet what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know.”
Kahneman asks what kind of vacation you would choose if you could take no pictures and your memory would be wiped upon return? High school is a time for planning and preparing, but what kind of life would you plan if your experiencing self, not your remembering self, were choosing? Too often we choose a path based on the remembering self’s ideas, not the experiencing self’s intuition. Whichever path you choose, hopefully your experiencing self will have some say and will be there to experience the joy of your flourishing.Living too much with the remembering self can remove us from the life all around us. John Lennon sang in his song “Beautiful Boy,” “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” By achieving the right balance between the experiencing and remembering selves, we hope that you will find the life that is waiting for you, both this year and beyond. Thank you.
The Harker community’s efforts to meet a $10 million matching gift challenge to build a new events center are coming to a head, with the Oct. 12 deadline for donations fast approaching.
Last May, Jeff and Marieke Rothschild (Isaac ’14; Jackiel, grade 11) made a matching gift challenge that will, dollar-for-dollar, match all pledges to the capital campaign up to $10 million until the Oct. 12 deadline, though actual payment can be made through 2016.
To maintain Harker’s critical annual giving campaign during the Rothschilds’ challenge, the Board of Trustees and Board of Fellows will match up to $5 million in annual giving donations, but the boards’ matching funds from that effort will be directed toward the events center. This ensures academic programming doesn’t suffer while still adding to the events center challenge.
All Harker families will benefit from the new facility. Current students will be able to play or perform in the events center, while alumni and their families will return to campus to enjoy shows and games in the state-of-the-art spaces. The hope is that each family will contribute to the challenge, which will double their contribution and ensure the facility is built as soon as possible. Expected benefits from the new gathering spaces include increased attendance at games and performances, since it will be located in the center of the upper school campus, and thus augment school spirit and pride.
“As an athlete, having new facilities kind of motivates you a little bit more,” noted alumna Daniza Rodriguez ’13. “There is another place that you want to be and that just gets people excited.”
“It is always wonderful to have a dream,” said Gabrielle De Mers ’03, now an opera singer. “The idea of being able to go on to that next level – ‘I finally get to perform on stage in a real theater’ — that’s a really big deal.”
“Nothing would make a stronger statement to our community about our commitment to the whole child than the completion of the gym and theater complex,” noted Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
In the best-case fundraising scenario, the facility will be open to students as soon as fall 2016, a full year earlier than the best case before the match was proposed. Students will find the state-of-the-art theater and sports facility a huge step up from current facilities, several of which are located at Harker’s other campuses, requiring transportation just to reach them.
Pledges must meet the following criteria: first, pledges must be made between April 21 and Oct. 12, 2014; and second, pledge payments must be made in the years 2014, 2015 or 2016.
“Marieke and I looked at the Harker community [and] what the school has meant to our children,” said Mr. Rothschild when he and his wife made the gift.
The Rothschilds previously had made a $1 million gift to the school to help with the purchase of the Union Avenue campus. They decided to contribute again because they recognize the impact the events center will have on the entire Harker community, and the value in funding and starting work as soon as possible.
Not only will the events center have a direct impact on athletes and performers, but also numerous other classes, activities and events will take place in the center, freeing up space in other buildings.
Donors who rise to the challenge and make a capital gift during the match period will be recognized as a member of the Partners’ Circle, with their name added to an inaugural plaque in the atrium of the events center. With only three weeks left to secure the $10 million in matching gift pledges, Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, quoted the Rothschilds’ statement when the gift was made: “Together we can all make this happen. The sooner, the better.”
“Harker provides an exceptional setting where kids can unfold their potential and reach for the stars,” said Alex Franz and Keiko Horiguchi (Kai, grade 7; Maya, grade 5; Nina, grade 3). “We can see the strategic importance of the theater and gymnasium project for all of Harker, so we wanted to join the campaign to support this construction. The amazingly generous matching grant, which lets us double our contribution, led us to donate before the beginning of the next school year, and we wanted to support the best-case construction schedule, so we just decided to make the donation right away.”
Those interested in learning more about the proposed events center can visit www.harker.org/eventscenter to review the “Case for Supporting the Events Center” booklet. A video featuring a virtual tour and several members of the Harker community – students, parents and teachers – sharing the impact they envision the new building will have on the Harker community is also available on the website, alongside Harker’s Vision Statement, which illustrates how the construction of the events center is aligned with Harker’s overall strategic plan through 2020.
Those wishing to pledge now can visit the Giving Online page or contact Joe Rosenthal directly at joe.rosenthal@harker.org or 408-345-9266. The deadline is coming fast, so make the best use of your money now and double it by pledging prior to Oct. 12!
Computer science teacher Liu (Rachel) Yiran was the first foreign exchange teacher to visit Harker this school year from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai, China.
During her Sept. 15-26 visit, Liu spent time observing and teaching classes (including computer science, Mandarin, Chinese, history, English, acting and debate) at Harker’s lower, middle and upper schools. Reflecting on her observations, she called it a great honor to visit Harker.
“Harker not only provides excellent facilities but also rewarding curriculum, which benefits every student’s overall development. Teachers are professional and creative; they spare no effort in practicing Harker’s philosophy of pursuing excellence. I am deeply impressed by everything in Harker,” she said.
While visiting from Harker’s Chinese sister school, Liu also made time for sightseeing with several Harker faculty and staff members, who showed her such attractions as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Gilroy Outlets, Napa Valley and Carmel/Big Sur. A bittersweet farewell dinner the evening before Liu’s departure concluded her memorable time at Harker.
“Going to our world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium is always a big hit with our visiting teachers. Rachel took so many pictures of the exhibits and the information placards to share with her students back in Shanghai,” recalled lower school teacher Kathy Ferretti, who accompanied Liu to the popular attraction.
Established in 1996, WFLMS is located in the southwest part of the Xuhui District in Shanghai, an area regarded as an important educational location. For many years, Harker has had both a student and teacher exchange program with WFLMS as part of its ongoing effort to build progressive academic and cultural relationships that prepare students to become global citizens.
“I thoroughly enjoyed hosting Rachel. … She observed a large variety of classes and was particularly interested in seeing how our teachers used technology in their curricula. The students responded very well to her and many mentioned they enjoyed having her visit their classrooms. What a wonderful experience for everyone!” reported Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education.
In April, student siblings Aisha and Sania Rashid, now grades 7 and 4 respectively, helped launch their father Osman’s startup in New York City. The girls demonstrated the startup’s flagship app, Galxyz, a series of educational games that takes users on a sci-fi adventure.
Aisha also competed in the jumper show at the Santa Barbara National Horse Show, winning champion in the pre-child jumper category.
In early August, Apoorva Rangan, grade 12, earned first prize in the National Flute Association’s High School Soloist competition. The finals of the competition, which took place at the Chicago Hilton, featured eight performers from around the world, who first had to qualify via a rigorous screening stage. For her win, Rangan received a cash prize of $500 and a Geoffrey Gilbert Scholarship to continue her studies as a flutist. Notably, Rangan is also the first Indian-American to win the competition.
School has begun, and the fall sports season is underway! Harker tennis is off to a scorching hot start, while underclassmen are making big impacts already. Let’s get to it!
Tennis
The girls tennis team opened up its season by going 5-0 to become the Division 6 champs at the prestigious California Tennis Classic in Fresno, battling 100 degree heat to finish unbeaten! This week, they extended their hot start with victories over Santa Clara and Wilcox, to make them 7-0. The team will look to improve to 8-0 against King’s Academy on Thursday.
Golf
Freshman Katherine Zhu made her Harker debut a day to remember, finishing third in a 90-golfer field at Poplar Creek. Zhu shot an even par 71, leading the Eagles to an eighth place finish. Juniors Ashley Zhong and Daphne Liang also chipped in with scores of 85 and 87, respectively. Zhu continued her sizzling play by shooting a 3 under par 31 at Los Lagos to pace the Eagles to a 205-230 win over Evergreen High School. Meanwhile, Zhong’s 41 and freshman Vanessa Tyagi’s 42 contributed to Harker’s best team score ever at Los Lagos since scoring changed from four to five scores in 2010. Zhu’s performance is the best girls Harker round in history. Furthermore, on Monday, Zhu shot an even par 72 to finish tied for third at the Poppy Ridge Classic. The lady linksters finished in 12th place out of 22 teams. Liang and Zhong carded 83 and 84 respectively. With the pre-season tournaments and matches concluding this week, the Eagles are ready to start the WBAL season against Notre Dame San Jose on Monday at Los Lagos.
Cross Country
Last year’s rookie standout Niki Iyer, back now for her sophomore year, began the fall 2014 season with a strong second place finish at the Toro Park cross country meet on Saturday. Juniors Alex Dellar and Maya Jeyendran and junior Mary Najibi all ran around 23:00 for the girls, who finished in eighth, while senior Corey Gonzales, junior Jack Rothschild and senior Rahul Balakrishnan all ran well for the boys. Gonzales’ run was a highlight for the men, as his eighth-place finish landed him firmly in the top 10.
Water Polo
Both the boys and the girls opened up the year with tournaments, with the boys going 1-3 at the Lynbrook Tournament and the girls going 1-2 at the Wilcox Tournament last week. The girls’ performance included an 11-5 victory against San Lorenzo Valley. On Tuesday, the boys defeated Lynbrook 16-8. This marks the first time Harker has defeated Lynbrook in at least eight years! Congratulations, boys! The girls squad lost to Lynbrook 8-5. Anushka Das, grade 12, scored three goals.
Football
The football squad is off to an 0-2 start. Senior quarterback Keanu Forbes threw for two touchdowns and ran for another in a 38-21 loss to Overfelt in the season opener. Senior Christian Williams and freshman Nate Kelly each caught a touchdown, and senior kicker Alyssa Amick added an extra point in the loss. The team then fell in its second game to Del Mar High, despite touchdowns by Forbes, Williams, junior Johnathon Keller and sophomore Will Park. They’ll look for their first victory of the year this Friday at Swett High School.
Volleyball
This season started off with two challenges for the girls, who were pitted against top teams in their first two matches. They lost to a strong Homestead team one game to three in the season opener, then dropped their second game to St. Francis despite 12 kills from senior Shreya Dixit and seven from junior Shannon Richardson. This week, girls varsity volleyball defeated visiting Carmel on Tuesday 23-25, 26-24, 25-13, 25-12 behind 28 kills for Dixit. The girls host Willow Glen Thursday night.