Earlier this week, Harker parent Virag Saksena (Riva, grade 12, and Anya, grade 8) and his team at 10th Street Distillery were recognized on Facebook by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo for converting their business into a producer of hand sanitizer to assist medical personnel and homeless residents.
Saksena’s 10th Street Distillery normally produces single-malt whisky, but the extraordinary circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity. “Something clicked when I heard that first responders and hospitals that put their own lives at risk everyday were unable to get hand sanitizer,” Saksena said. “Our distillery has a never-ending supply of the key ingredient for sanitizer: alcohol. So it was a no brainer to help out by making sanitizer.”
Shifting from making spirits to hand sanitizers was not a quick and easy process, Saksena recalled. “Before we could start production, we needed formulation approved by [the] FDA,” he said. “We didn’t want to make something which was ineffective or possibly even dangerous based upon internet recipes.” The FDA’s requirement that hand sanitizers be 80 percent alcohol was one of the main obstacles, because whisky must be distilled below 80 percent to be in accordance with the law. “Our whisky is typically distilled around 70 percent and aged at 55-62 percent,” said Saksena. “So we had to figure out how to change the process to reach 80 percent-plus alcohol content.”
The original intention, Saksena said, was to donate the hand sanitizers, “but most hospitals and cities offered to cover our costs. They had the budgets but couldn’t find the product.” Moreover, California-bound trucks carrying hand sanitizer were being diverted to other areas by the federal government. “So they wanted local companies to produce the product,” Saksena noted. Each week about 500 gallons is being provided to the city of San Jose; 50 to 100 gallons are being sent to El Camino Hospital; and the city of Santa Clara is receiving 50 gallons. A nominal fee is charged to cover costs. “We are also working with homeless shelters and health care providers,” Saksena said. “Some have budgets and can pay for it, others can’t. One of the things we will be doing is to sell to commercial business providing essential services and use that to subsidize donations for charities.”
When the demand for hand sanitizer has comfortably receded, Saksena and the staff at 10th Street Distillery are hoping to “go back to doing what we do best: distilling single-malt whiskies.” As they began making sanitizers, Saksena was pleased to discover that their whiskies had been winners at the San Francisco Spirits Competition, earning Gold and Double Gold.
For now, Saksena said, “I feel blessed that we have found a way to aid our community in these trying times.”
Staying true to its adventurous spirit, the renowned Kronos Quartet filled the packed Patil Theater with sounds from the recesses of the imagination during Friday night’s Harker Concert Series 2020 season closer. The evening’s repertoire consisted of pieces that either had been written or arranged for the group by composers hailing from such countries as Egypt, Mali, Mexico and Turkey. No strangers to experimentation, the musicians came prepared with plenty of twists and turns, pleasantly surprising concertgoers with pivots such as replacing their bows with noisemakers during Nicole Lizée’s “Another Living Soul” and utilizing the distinct “whoosh” produced by whipping their bows through the air on Garth Knox’s “Satellites: III. Dimensions.”
Other highlights included a haunting rendition of John Coltrane’s “Alabama,” written in response to the horrific 16th Street Baptist Church bombing carried out in 1963 by the Ku Klux Clan, and a joyous performance of “Tegere Tulon: I. Funtukuru” by Malian composer Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, with the rhythm provided by audience clapping.
Harker has designated Feb. 14 as the inaugural Alumni Day of Giving, and one generous lower school family has committed to match gifts up to $1 million.
A strong endowment fund is a hallmark of a school’s financial stability, responsibility and viability, and all gifts made to the school by alumni go to Harker’s endowment fund. For this Feb. 14 Alumni Day of Giving, the school has set a goal of 200 gifts, of any size, from alumni. And one family, Louise and Fouad ElNaggar (Osiris, grade 2; Apollonia, grade 1), is so deeply committed to increasing Harker’s endowment that they have pledged to match each of those 200 gifts – no matter the amount – with $5,000 of their own, to contribute a total of $1 million to Harker’s endowment.
The school is working with GiveCampus to help promote the Alumni Giving Day and #LoveHarker campaign. Founded by a former Facebook engineer, GiveCampus is a platform that, as its website puts it, makes “philanthropy more social, more interactive and more fun … to bring people together in support of the schools, causes and initiatives that they care about.”
“It’s more about participation than the size of the gift,” said Kimberly Lobe, director of advancement. “By contributing to and growing the school’s endowment, alumni are enabling Harker to create even more of an academic advantage through program expansion, scholarships, staff positions, research, facility maintenance, equipment and supplies. They are ensuring that generations to come have the same outstanding experience that they did.”
All Harker alumni will receive a link on Feb. 13 that will point them to the Alumni Day of Giving page at GiveCampus, and the giving page will include ways to share with, text and email classmates of each donor in order to encourage participation. Questions may be addressed to Kristina Alaniz, director of alumni relations, at alumni@harker.org.
The president of Harker’s Philosophy Club, Sophia Gottfried, grade 11, had an essay, titled “An Essay on Nothing,” published in the online magazine Philosophy Now.
The Glasgow Group tweeted about the Student Diversity Leadership gathering held at Harker on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The theme of the event was “We Are All Integrators.”
The Society for Science & the Public announced that senior Cynthia Chen is among the 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search. The Chinese-language website World Journal also reported on the semifinalists. A previous post noted that Chen and fellow senior Joshua Zhou were among the top 300 scholars selected from nearly 2,000 entries. Harker Aquila also ran an article on the awards.
An article in The Los Altos Town Crier quotes Harker senior Mahi Kolla, a member of the Los Altos Youth Commission, which is campaigning to make young people aware of the dangers of vaping.
Senior Mahika Halepete is among five students featured in a Washington Post article about young inventors, philanthropists and activists, and the parents who raised them.
Three Harker students were recently selected to be members of 2020 California All-State ensembles that will perform at the California All-State Music Education Conference in Fresno on Feb. 21. Varun Fuloria, grade 8, was selected to be the drummer for the Junior High School Jazz Band. Violinist April Zhang, grade 10, successfully auditioned for the High School Symphony Orchestra, and freshman violinist Sawyer Lai will join the High School String Orchestra. All students went through a rigorous audition process, which involved submitting recordings to judges for evaluation.
A great article published on Medium.com details how Princeton University added a Living Latin class at the urging of Kevin Duraiswamy ‘14.
The Daily Journal ran a nice article on student journalism, mentioning Harker as presenters at the 2019 Journalism Education Association and National Scholastic Press Association (JEA/NSPA) Convention.
Freshmen helped clean up an open space preserve this fall, and the organizer posted a nice article on its website.
Gentry Magazine ran a nice profile of Jason Lin, grade 11, in its most recent issue. Jason has raised tens of thousands of dollars for a great cause. Read all about it and the good work his peers from other schools are doing!
Harker was mentioned in a news articlein the Madison (Wis.) Record, which noted that our math team placed nationally in a math competition.
Each year, the Raju and Bala Vegesna Foundation’s Teacher Excellence Program at Harker launches a group of teachers on voyages of discovery. The teachers apply for and are awarded grants from the program to further their teaching skills. The program, started in 2015, has sent a score of educators to seminars, study abroad programs and other educational opportunities. Grants are awarded to individuals and to groups, and are used for entry fees and travel expenses.
“We are incredibly grateful to Raju and Bala for their commitment to teaching excellence at The Harker School,” said Kim Lobe, director of advancement. “The generosity of Raju and Bala Vegesna in allowing our teachers to pursue an opportunity they are passionate about and then share it with their students in the classroom creates an opportunity to impact student learning in a transformational way.”
The San Diego Wildlife Experience
Kristen Morgensen, middle school biology teacher, expanded her world with a weeklong visit to wildlife preserves in the San Diego area focused on conservation science and education.
“The first three days were spent at the San Diego Safari Park and the Institute for Conservation Research located within the park,” said Morgensen. “This was a three-day course offered each summer to help teachers incorporate conservation into concepts and topics that are already being taught in the classroom.
“The course was designed with five modules, and we were put through the rigors of being students for the three days. What I did in the workshop was exactly what I am able to now do in class with my students. Three of the five modules are being incorporated into the classroom this year.
“The first focused on biodiversity and specifically living in a biodiversity hotspot. A hotspot is defined as an area with high natural biodiversity and high human impact. This activity relates greatly to the Bay Area and our students, as we are impacted by higher populations and more development. The other two modules I plan to use this year are focused on genetics and the reproductive system.
“During our genetics unit, we will be studying California condor genetics and how the researchers at the institute were able to save and rebuild the California condor population. During our study of the body systems, we will be looking at the elephant populations and how they have been impacted by habitat loss due to palm plantations in Africa. By studying their hormones, researchers have been rebuilding elephant populations as well. We will also discuss the research that is more recent and related to the Northern White Rhino. This species is considered reproductively extinct as there are only two females remaining alive in the world and neither can carry a baby to term. At the workshop, we met one of the leading researchers looking at rhino feed in captivity and how it is impacting their reproductive rates by influencing their hormones as well.
“After doing the biodiversity activity earlier this year, students have told me they are more aware of their water usage and how the drought impacts native ecosystems. As grade 6 class dean, I am working with Pat Burrows, assistant middle school division head, and Janet Rohrer, assistant facilities director, as we try to save/transplant some of the native plants currently on the Union campus. This year’s grade 6 will be the first grade 8 class promoted from the Union MS campus. We will be taking a representative from each advisory over to Union to transfer native plants into pots so they can be replanted after the construction by the same group of students.
“Another tool I learned at the workshop was a method of peer review. As each group of teachers prepped a poster for presentation to the group, we were given two Post-its. We went and looked at the other groups’ posters and wrote three things – one thing we liked, one suggestion we had and one question we had based on what was written. I have used this method in my classroom and the students really appreciated seeing the feedback and being able to revise their submissions.
“The non-classroom based highlights of the trip were a few special treatments for the teachers. We had a few animal encounters with a three-banded armadillo, and a caravan Safari into the African exhibit where we fed a giraffe and a greater one-horned rhino. We also had a tour of the vet hospital located at the Safari Park as well as the Frozen Zoo. This is where they have cell lines from almost 10,000 animals representing 1,120 species for research as well as reproductive tissues from over 400 species cryogenically frozen for research as well as the hope of helping to rebuild genetically diverse populations of various endangered species.
“The final component of my trip was a day spent behind-the-scenes at SeaWorld. It was interesting hearing of the conservation efforts of a for-profit organization compared to the non-profit zoo. I found it fascinating how little they publicize the efforts they have made like working with the governments in South America to preserve the penguin and turtle breeding areas by regulating the collection of guano for fertilizer.
“This truly was an amazing experience that I would not have without the Vegesna grant. I am looking at many things in my life differently after this experience and carrying what I learned professionally into my personal life as well,” Morgensen finished.
Institute for Social Emotional Learning
A group of teachers from the middle school availed themselves of a Vegesna grant to attend the summer 2019 Institute for Social and Emotional Learning (IFSEL) held at Nueva School in San Mateo in early June. Attending the conference were Patricia Burrows, assistant middle school division head; Mark Gelineau, English teacher; Sharmila Misra, computer science teacher; Kathy Pazirandeh, math teacher; Samantha Salfen, physical education teacher (Salfen had and individual journey, as well; see below); and Ramsay Westgate, history teacher. The group attended the intensive conference for four days, taking workshops, discussing ideas, and learning ways to incorporate social-emotional learning into the Harker middle school community. “It was an absolutely incredible experience,” noted Burrows.
“The selection of this activity came about from the evolution of the middle school advisory program and a growing need we are noticing in our students,” she added. “Last year, the grade level advisory deans and I attended a conference by the IFSEL and came back with not only wonderful ideas to implement, but a sense of direction to help steer both our faculty and students.
“Our educational environment here at Harker is rigorously academic, and while that is one of our greatest strengths, when divested from character, empathy, and a general awareness of the complexities of social and emotional interaction, can also be one of our greatest challenges with our students,” said Burrows. “This conference and the knowledge gained from it was a tremendous step towards helping to ensure we are preparing our students in all facets of their growth and education.”
National Association of Independent Schools Diversity Leadership Institute
Bernie Morrissey, middle school librarian, used his grant to attend the National Association of Independent Schools Diversity Leadership Institute at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va. “This intensive, residential experience brings together independent school faculty from across the country to explore topics related to ability, bias, racial equity, gender identity, socio-economic status and more,” said Morrissey.
Sessions are taught by faculty from schools around the country, including heads of school, directors of diversity and other leaders within the NAIS community. Working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. most days in both plenary sessions and smaller groups, attendees enhance professional competencies, build credibility, foster innovation, and plan strategically for building and sustaining school communities that maximize the potential of students and adults alike, according to the institute.
“This opportunity can help me make our school a safer, more supportive and inclusive environment for all students, teachers and families,” Morrissey noted. “As a librarian working with teachers in all departments, I have the unique ability to impact a large number of classes and students, and I hope to use the learning from this conference to benefit all of these constituencies in the Harker community.
“One of the first steps, which Pat Burrows and I have already discussed, is expanding the windows and mirrors reading program beyond just grade 6, maybe to summer reading, Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) days or other occasions. This experience may also enhance my collection development practices and information literacy integrations.”
The Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study
Scott Paterson, Latin teacher, participated in Caesar in Gaul, a two-week program last summer for AP Latin teachers organized and run by The Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study.
“This program combines in-class seminars with visits to various important ancient Roman sites in modern France,” said Paterson. “Classes were taught by Dr. Luca Grillo, assistant professor of classics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Dr. Christopher Krebs, associate professor of classics at Stanford University.” As co-editors, they recently released “The Cambridge Companion to The Writings of Julius Caesar,” said Paterson.
“Classes focused on Caesar as a man of letters, rather than as military man or politician, and included examinations of Caesar’s literary style, his contribution to the standardization of Latin grammar, the genre and themes of his ‘Commentarii de Bello Gallico,’ and possible approaches to the analysis of his literary works,” said Paterson.
“Site visits were led by Paideia staff and generally included some Latin readings that were relevant to the place. Places we visited included Bibracte, the Pont du Gard, and Alesia, the location of the final showdown between Caesar and Vercingetorix, the leader of the unified Gallic resistance to Roman occupation,” he noted.
“Participating in this program was a truly wonderful experience for me,” said Paterson. “Because the study of Caesar had to a large degree fallen out of fashion by the 20th century, I had never formally studied Caesar – indeed, had scarcely even read any Caesar before the College Board changed the AP Latin syllabus to include one semester of Caesar beginning in the 2012-13 academic year.
“The College Board’s decision resulted in much surprise and not a little consternation throughout the Latin teaching community,” Paterson said. “Publishers rushed to provide new texts and commentaries, and Caesar scholarship in universities flourished. My experience with Caesar in Gaul was a terrific chance to engage with the latest Caesarian scholarship and to develop a better appreciation for and understanding of Caesar’s literary achievements, and I have returned to the classroom with renewed enthusiasm.”
Asia Pacific Physical Education Conference
P.E. teacher Samantha Salfen and lower school P.E. teacher Walid Fahmay attended the Asia Pacific Physical Education Conference in November in Hong Kong to enhance their gym and field expertise. The trip gave them the opportunity to learn from the leading global innovators in the physical education field, noted Salfen. “I had the opportunity to learn new practices in physical education while creating friendships to broaden the Harker physical education network,” she added.
“I expanded my knowledge in gymnastics, while also learning the best teaching practices of health education, integrating movement in the classroom and how a healthy physical education program can combat the challenges facing young people in our countries,” she said. “The most interesting thing I received from the conference was from the keynote speaker who opened the conference by speaking on what the end (the purpose/outcome) of physical education should be: to improve its longevity and purpose. He went on to talk about the research of what physical education should look like and how we as physical educators can embody these practices in the ever-changing environments today.
“That speech inspired me to look deeper at my own practices, and to look for different ways I can implement these practices not only in my class but also schoolwide,” said Salfen. “My goal is to create an environment where ‘soft skills’ of physical education are transferable to other subject matters and real-life applications. These ‘soft skills’ include teamwork, communication, problem solving, intrapersonal skills, conflict resolution and leadership.
“Starting in the month of December, I will be kicking off by implementing the activities learned in the pre-conference gymnastics session into my own grade 8 girls class of tumbling. I would also like to start working closely with a classroom teacher in trying to implement the sports education model in the classroom, which involves the ‘soft skills,’ allowing students to see and apply these applications in physical education, the classroom and in the outside world,” Salfen noted.
Fahmy noted the pair attended various workshops on P.E. and health. “Each workshop was geared towards improving the P.E./health teacher and their skills in that specific area (i.e. health, invasion games, nutrition, etc.),” he said. “I was also networking with other educators from all around the globe, bouncing ideas off each other. We learned about the different cultures and health needs for each. It truly was an amazing time learning and networking.”
Fahmy added that one of the highlights was just going overseas. “The more adventurous the destination, the more learning and often times the more enjoyment.” He and Salfen attended and networked during all of the sessions, and “it was well worth it,” he noted.
Fahmy brought home the useful values of tolerance, adaptation and preparation. “The idea of mindfulness and using meditation during our health class was great,” he said. “This will bring tolerance into the classroom. Adaption is strictly for me, we need to understand we are not raising robots, but each of us is an individual and therefore we must adapt accordingly in our teaching methods. Preparation – if we are prepared for the day, then nothing can stop our success and progression.”
During the conference, Fahmy said he was reminded about the importance of “being the sunshine” in the room. “Students feed off of our energy. Whether they admit it or not, students look up to their teachers and hold them in high regard. That really reminded me to continue to be a positive role model. I want to always demonstrate confidence and leadership, let the students see that in me and watch it catch on with them.
“I am going to double down on being a good role model!” said Fahmy. “This is someone who is always positive, calm and confident in themselves. You don’t want someone who is down or tries to bring you down. Everyone likes a person who is happy with their achievements, but continues to strive for bigger and better objectives! I really felt passionate about wanting to make things better, for both myself and my students!”
Alan Alda Center for Science Communication
Andrew Irvine, upper school chemistry teacher, attended a workshop in New York City in June to learn about science communication through the Alan Alda Center for Science Communication, affiliated with Stony Brook University. Better known as an actor, Alan Alda has devoted himself to helping scientists and doctors learn and improve their communication skills about technical ideas to the general public using acting and improv games. “I spent two days with Ph.D. scientists from a wide variety of specialties,” said Irvine, “working with communication specialists and acting coaches to learn how to erode barriers and build connections with an audience so that our messages were clear and easy to digest.
“On day one, our focus was building a message to be delivered in 60 seconds or less without using technical jargon. On day two, we focused on how to craft our story about science to better connect and engage with our audience. I’m excited to share some of these activities with my colleagues to help improve their message, delivery and connection with their audience during my workshop at the 2020 faculty retreat. The conference has helped me not just in the classroom, but in my engagement with my friends and family in personal life. I look forward to sharing my experience with the community,” he finished.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2019 issue of Harker Magazine.
Abigail Joseph
In September, Abigail Joseph, middle school learning, innovation and design director, was named one of the first recipients of the Computer Science Teachers Association’s Equity Fellowship. She is one of 10 teachers chosen for the program, which provides an array of opportunities for career development aimed at increasing equity in computer science education.
Ie-Chen Cheng
Golf coach Ie-Chen Cheng was named one of the Central Coast Section’s 2019 Fall Sport Honor Coaches. CCS identified Cheng’s focus on team aspects as a key factor, notable for a sport that typically emphasizes individual achievement. Her method has proven effective, leading girls golf to second place in CCS in 2018 and boys golf to six consecutive WBAL titles.
Lisa Diffenderfer
In October, lower school learning, innovation and design director Lisa Diffenderfer and lower school math teacher Eileen Schick presented at Fall CUE, an educational technology conference, in Rancho Cordova. The two held a workshop on games that improve students’ math skills, creative problem-solving and computational thinking. The workshop included a demonstration of the games and allowed teachers in attendance to try the games for themselves.
This story originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2019 issue of Harker Magazine.
Aside from having one the school’s catchier acronyms, Harker’s learning, innovation and design (LID) department has for years been a key driver of much of the technology and methods that have made the school’s classroom experience continually exceptional. But there’s far more to LID’s process and philosophy than the latest device or app fashionable among teachers.
Harker has long been a tech-savvy school, partly owing to its roots in Silicon Valley. Student-built apps are in regular use on campus, and clubs host multiple programming competitions each year. Laptops see ubiquitous use by students and faculty for every kind of assignment, and teachers have made use of funds provided through the school’s LID Grant (formerly Tech Grant) program to explore new ways to integrate the latest technology into their instructional methods.
It wasn’t until relatively recently, however, that Harker took the crucial institutional step to decouple classroom innovation from the realm of information technology, a distinction that LID directors are hoping will become clearer in the future. “In the larger scope of education, innovation and educational technology, there was a significant shift away from associating what we do with the boxes and wires, the technical aspects of technology,” said Liz Brumbaugh, PS-12 LID director. “We provide the support for faculty to integrate whatever innovations, whatever creativity, whatever design pieces – whether that’s lesson design or their environmental design – and walk next to them in the development of whatever cool, great, inspiring new thing they want to try.”
Although these ideas may (and frequently do) incorporate a piece of technology, gadgets and software are no longer seen by LID as an essential piece of the puzzle. “Sometimes a crayon’s the best tool,” said Brumbaugh. Should a tech tool turn out to be more suitable than a crayon, LID takes steps to ensure that it’s a better fit for a teacher’s pedagogical approach, and that it is not being implemented for the sake of having a nice new toy to play with. “The technology that’s pervasive is another tool,” said Brumbaugh. “It’s an impactful tool, but you have to look at your lesson design. What’s your purpose? What’s your point in your lesson first? And then backwards plan and say, ‘Is technology the point of this?’”
Key to each LID director’s position is the requirement that they also have experience as classroom teachers, which offers unique insight into the day-to-day lives and activities of the educators they work with, in addition to familiarizing them with pedagogical theory.
“We have spent a lot of time teaching and being around teachers and learning about what makes good teaching even better,” said Diane Main, LID director at the upper school. “Many times when teachers have me come work with them or their students, or both, it’s not necessarily about technology, it’s about how we can do a better job of what we’re trying to do in that learning experience.”
To that end, teachers often see LID as a great source of feedback on their ideas, and have emerged from their discussions with LID inspired and invigorated. “The most important role that Lisa [Diffenderfer, lower school LID director,] plays for me is as a sounding board for helping me discern the best approach to designing lessons and activities,” said grade 5 English teacher Ann Smitherman. “She helps me determine what I really want to teach my students, and in turn, how I really want my students to show me what they’ve learned.”
Diffenderfer’s work has been instrumental in introducing virtual reality lessons to lower school classrooms, enabling students to, among other things, get detailed glimpses of far-off places relevant to their studies. She has been working with teachers to formulate ways to “take it a step further, helping teachers create their own virtual reality experiences for the students, more specific experiences that relate to the content of their classrooms,” she said.
When Smitherman wanted to use VR in her classroom as part of a unit on E.L. Konigsburg’s 1967 novel “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” Diffenderfer worked with her “to create a Google Slides ‘journey’ that helped students explore such old-timey landmarks as the automat and Grand Central Station,” she recalled. “Students were able to work at their own pace to complete the work, and it made the literature come to life.”
Another, less technology-focused project was spurred by Smitherman’s session at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University last year, aimed at developing reading and writing skills in young students by creating new methods for teaching and assessment. Smitherman returned from the two-week session with an idea for a new writing program that is currently being piloted among a self-selected group of teachers. Diffenderfer and Smitherman have worked closely to develop the pilot program “in a more organized and research-based fashion,” Diffenderfer said.
This particular project is one where Diffenderfer’s experience as a teacher has proved crucial. “Lisa has a great understanding of our curriculum, knows the ‘latest and greatest’ tools – not all of which require technology – to help me and our students reach our goals,” said Smitherman. “She asks really probing questions, forcing me to clarify the outcomes I seek.”
In addition to academics, LID also has applied its expertise to areas such as digital citizenship, student wellness and social justice. Earlier this year, middle school history teacher Cyrus Merrill and middle school LID director Abigail Joseph worked together to create a “social justice hackathon for students to take on real-world challenges and attempt to put together potential real-world solutions,” Merrill said. “I want to empower students to think they themselves can take on issues in the present, not just learn about them in the past.”
The result of that collaboration is the Get MAD (Make A Difference) design workshop and hackathon, which took place in November and saw students organize into groups to develop ideas to combat various social problems using their creativity and design thinking, a method of problem-solving that involves ascertaining a greater sense of who will be seeing and using the things they’ve made.
Joseph also worked with several teachers who attended the Institute for Social and Emotional Learning this past summer. “I helped them debrief to generate ideas for their actionable next steps,” Joseph said. “So I led them through a two-hour design thinking process, and at the end of that they came up with two concrete ideas that they wanted to bring back to staff and the parent community around introducing SEL at Harker.”
Design thinking is popular in the maker community, with which Joseph has spent considerable time at meetups and conferences. She runs and curates the middle school’s LID Hub, a maker and design thinking space which she hopes to see become “a space on campus where teachers and students can go and make their ideas take flight and test out things and try developing any ideas or thoughts that they have.”
Joseph one day would like to have students and teachers working together in the LID Hub, and to have the students become experienced enough to offer lessons of their own. “My big vision is to have the students teach the teachers,” she said.
In the meantime, teachers have spent a lot of time teaching one another during the LID Vision Days that are held each year, in which they share new methods or concepts they have integrated into their instruction, often as a result of the LID Grant program. Ostensibly an opportunity for teachers to find new ways to enhance their methods, LID Vision Days have also acted as forums for teachers to brainstorm and discuss a wide range of topics that affect learners.
“It’s really about the other people in the room getting a chance to learn and/or participate. It’s not always what we could call a sit-and-get kind of thing, where the teacher teaches and everybody just learns something,” said Main. “Often it’s hands on, it’s ‘Why don’t you bring your laptop and we’ll go through this together?’ or a conversation where the person facilitating is really just the one starting the conversation, and it doesn’t have to be that they’re leading it.”
One session took the form of a discussion on how to teach girls and how teachers often unknowingly carry gender-based biases with them into the classroom. “There’s a lot of implicit bias towards males in the classroom; there are certain behaviors that tend to be seen as more masculine that are seen as more favorable,” said Main.
In another session facilitated by Main and upper school Spanish teacher Abel Olivas, students from the Gender and Sexuality Alliance invited teachers to ask questions about the experiences of LGBTQ+ students, including topics such as gender-neutral restrooms, how to ask students about correct pronoun usage and avoiding the use of everyday gendered phrases such as “you guys.”
“Those conversations have been exciting to be a part of because they’re a part of our culture here and not just about our job,” Main said. “That’s what LID wants to be about, is helping transform the culture of the school so that everyone feels like it’s a very comfortable, safe, positive learning space.”
Earlier this year, Joseph spearheaded the effort to help make LID Vision Days even more student-focused with the first Student LID Vision. “I thought, well why don’t students have an opportunity to showcase all the cool learning that they do in and outside of the classroom, because they all do so much?” she recalled. The event showcased the engaging aspects of everything from debate to origami to yearbook signing, mirroring LID’s philosophy that learning can take many unlikely forms.
“Providing that space for our students to start having a little bit of voice and choice and to recognize that their learning can happen beyond their classroom is probably the thing I’m most proud of,” Joseph said. “I’m looking forward to making that bigger and better than last year and utilizing some faculty and students to help design what it looks like.”
To this end, Joseph is planning to form student and faculty LID councils that meet separately to discuss LID’s impact on the school community. Brumbaugh is also hoping to bring teachers who’ve worked with LID to conferences and co-present with them about ways they’ve applied learning, innovation and design principles in their teaching methods. Although Harker has hosted and invited teachers from outside the school to events such as the Harker Teacher Institute, such events have become extremely common.
“Conferences are a dime a dozen, especially in this area and especially as it relates to educational technology,” Brumbaugh said. “It’s almost impossible not to find some weekend throughout the entire year where people could go to a conference within 20 miles and get some educational technology training.” The addition of online resources such as YouTube channels and podcasts, she added, makes it more difficult for events such as the Harker Teacher Institute to set themselves apart.
As an alternative to overcrowding the selection of events, LID began requesting teachers to submit proposals last spring for presentations on how they’ve worked with LID to expand or strengthen their methods, which the LID directors plan to craft together with the teachers. For teachers more reticent about presenting on their achievements, LID directors have offered to present with them. “Teachers are notoriously humble, and because they’re notoriously humble, they don’t toot their own horns,” Brumbaugh said. “But if you can say there are people who need to learn a thing, they’ll be motivated by that.”
Meanwhile, the directors themselves are always seeking opportunities for new methods and technologies to bring to their colleagues. Next year, they plan to attend SXSW Edu, the educational arm of the world-famous SXSW culture festival in Austin. “We all go out to these different education innovation-rich conferences to keep up with the landscape of how people are innovating in education,” Joseph said.
According to Brumbaugh – who started in education as an English teacher and previously worked at the Santa Clara County Office of Education as instructional technology manager, serving more than 200,000 students – Harker is in a unique position to lead in a developing field. “The fact that we have the people in the first place sets us apart, but then that we have pretty high standards for what those people are going to be able to do once they’re in this position, is another level altogether,” she said. “So I think what sets us apart is the structure, which is representative of the philosophy, and the individual people. There’s such synchronicity, and it’s really beautiful when I stand back from being in the team and I’m like, this is good.”
This story originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2019 issue of Harker Magazine.
Earlier this year, a contingent of upper school students traveled to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival. Putting on a pared-down version of “Urinetown,” the 2019 upper school spring musical, the show was set up, performed and torn down in just 90 minutes, a daunting task for any theater troupe, much less a group of high school students performing in a venue very different from their usual environs. Nevertheless, the productions went smoothly and received praise from local media, such as EdinburghGuide, which raved, “This particular ensemble from the award-winning high school conservatory The Harker School blows you away with their character work and synchronicity, a display well beyond their years.” But while the performances garner most of the attention-grabbing pull quotes, there’s no show to be had without the crew, whose skills at running a show on time and glitch-free were learned in Harker’s technical theater program.
As a discipline, technical theater comprises a massive range of theatrical aspects essential for a successful show. “Technical theater supports the productions we do at Harker,” said upper school technical theater teacher, and the school’s production manager, Brian Larsen. “So kids involved in technical theater work on stage crew, move things around, construct, paint and install scenery, operate the lights, soundboard and follow spots, help with costuming, putting things together.”
Such a broad scope naturally attracts students with diverse interests, but Larsen noted that it is rare that students enter the upper school program knowing exactly what they want to do. “If a student comes in and is very focused on being a sound technician, we want to try and help them with that track as much as possible,” he said. Far more common are students who discover their interests on their own after some experimentation. “What we’ve discovered is kids come here and they try a couple of things and go, ‘ooh that’s interesting,’ and they get a little more involved in that component,” Larsen said. “But we don’t tend to get a lot of kids who come through the door and say, ‘I’m a lighting designer.’ We’ve had those students, we’ve had those kids who did lighting outside of our organization … which is tremendous, but on the whole, we try to have the kids have as many opportunities as possible.”
In order to help students better find these opportunities and discover the aspects of technical theater they want to pursue, the performing arts department soon will offer a class on the study of technical theater, which recently received UC approval. “The study-of class will be very broad-based,” said Larsen, who also noted that the Rothschild Performing Arts Center provides a suitable space for experimentation. “The kids will have a lot of opportunities to try all manner of things. [Rothschild] is a large lab, so we’ll have a lot of opportunity for them to get immersed in things and try things out.”
The beginnings of Harker’s technical theater program date back to 1996 when Larsen joined the middle school faculty to teach theater production. With the start of the upper school and the opening of what is now the lower school campus two short years later, the challenge of teaching two classes on separate campuses compelled Larsen to seek another teacher for the grade 6 class. Danny Dunn was then brought on to teach grade 6 while Larsen taught at the middle and upper schools. When the middle school campus opened in 2005, Dunn moved her class to Blackford. Under her direction, more hands-on elements were added and her students began working shows, the first of which was a major task for a group of young students. “The very first show that the sixth grade students ever crewed was one of the great big huge shows that we put on to welcome the Tamagawa visitors,” Dunn said. Though there was some concern that such a young and inexperienced crew could take on the task, “Sure enough, the kids did a great job,” Dunn remembers.
The move to Blackford left Dunn with no tech theater students at the lower school to work on that campus’ productions. “So I started the fifth grade program because I’d lost all my tech kids at the lower school.” Dunn’s classes began as a primer on theater production: “how a theater works, jobs in the theater and whatnot,” she recalled.
She later began inviting students to help build sets on the weekends. “Parents would drop their kids off and we would just have a great time and build sets,” she said. “That became very popular and still is to this day.” True to Dunn’s vision, students in grade 5 perform a great deal of hands-on work, building props, sets and occasionally costumes. “If we’re doing the picnic show here with middle school actors, we might need 100-plus Robin Hood hats,” Dunn said.
Tools of the trade are also learned early on in the program, including the use of (and safety precautions with) power tools used to create the sets as well as soundboard and light board operation, and even special effects makeup and stage combat. “My goal is to have them not just help the grown-ups do it but for them to take ownership of an aspect of the performance,” Dunn said.
At the middle school, technical theater is offered as a series of electives, starting with a grade 6 design class that teaches the fundamentals of creating a scene using elements of scenery, lighting and sound. One exercise has students design a scene from the stage adaptation of the famous children’s novel “The Phantom Tollbooth.” Every aspect of the scene, including props, lighting, costumes and special effects, is conceptualized and critiqued.
Middle school students who wish to continue their studies have the option of taking an elective in theater production and design for grades 7 and 8, taught by Paul Vallerga, the middle school technical director, who has also been Harker’s primary set designer for 17 years. It is here that students begin working on elements that are used in major middle school productions. “The first day of class, one of the things I try to tell them is that, besides just the tech theater aspect, what I want them to learn from the class is that any time they’re watching anything – a TV show or movie – realize that everything you see is on purpose,” said Vallerga said. “Even if the decision was just, this where I’m going to put the camera to shoot those trees, somebody decided that’s what they want the audience to see.” Vallerga, who also spent 20 years with the now-defunct California Theatre Center, has students practice designing sets using William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker” as a basis. “I try to teach them a few things about traffic patterns,” he said, noting the times he has had to coach students against “making a doorway that’s a foot wide.”
Further bolstering the middle school tech theater offerings is the afterschool technical theater class open to all middle school students, which includes weekly workshops in a variety of disciplines, including prop-making, makeup, costume construction and fight scene choreography.
By the time she arrived at the upper school, junior Geneva Devlin had spent considerable time in the technical theater programs at other campuses. Although she didn’t feel as enthusiastic about the craft as she once had in middle school, she nevertheless signed up to be a member of the crew for “42nd Street,” the first spring musical to be produced at the Rothschild Performing Arts Center. “It was my first time doing tech for an actual show and I loved it,” she said. “Being able to bond with my fellow techies and dance along backstage was so much fun, I didn’t want it to end.” She later joined the Harker Conservatory’s certificate program for technical theater and has since been joining the crew for shows whenever possible.
The upper school fortunately provides students with a wide range of learningopportunities, given the ambitious size and complexity that the productions often achieve. Certificate candidates are also prioritized when it comes time to decide which positions on the crew will be filled, especially “if there is something in particular they either are really interested in or haven’t done yet,” said Larsen. “So we make that available to them first and then we open it up to the other students to sign up for positions that interest them.”
Similar to how certificate candidates in other disciplines are required to act as crew members, so too must technical theater students perform in a show as part of their track in order to see how these different elements of crafting a show are affected by and complement one another. “You have to do both sides so you can see what that experience is,” Larsen said. “So you understand what a performer going through rehearsal is experiencing.”
Shanna Polzin ’10, who is now working as a production manager and stage manager in New York City (the Bryant Park Tree Lighting is her favorite event to work each year), first became fascinated the inner workings of the shows she performed in as a sixth grader, when a few of her friends began working on the crew. “In high school, I was part of the Conservatory program as a dancer, and we had a requirement of two technical positions,” she said. “That was my first experience with being a backstage crew member, as well as a follow spot operator.”
Though she spent most of her time at Harker as a performer, the program taught Polzin to appreciate just how much the crew works to make a show possible. “From a very young age, Mr. Larsen taught me the importance of tech theater and how no show can happen without the crew,” she said. “So while I was predominantly a performer, I was always taught to notice, appreciate and respect the tech side of things.”=
Although Polzin did not receive her certificate in technical theater, she cites the experience she gained at Harker as a factor in helping her find her current career, “from being aware of all the parts that go into putting on a show, to the work ethic, attention to detail and time management skills that get developed in all Harker students, to the general love of performing and making an audience happy,” she said.
“Ideally, if a student starts in fifth grade then takes the sixthgrade design elective, then works with Paul in the seventh and eighth grade and then does the Conservatory program with Brian, by the time they leave they should be able to get a job in theater no problem, if that’s what they want to do,” said Dunn. “But even kids who only take part of the program still enjoy it. They like being part of a show without having to act.”
Dunn also has noticed that technical theater provides a way for students who are reticent or less enthusiastic about acting to enjoy the process of putting on a show, which occasionally leads them to discovering an appreciation for performing they were previously unaware of. “I notice in middle school there’s a whole lot of being too embarrassed to perform,” she noted, “so students who are not comfortable being in the spotlight or putting themselves out there can dress all in black and blend into the scenery but still be completely part of the show, part of a cast or crew, part of the experience.”
The opening of the Rothschild Performing Arts Center presents a number of exciting opportunities for the technical theater program, which is already set to grow with the addition of the Study of Technical Theater class next year.
“It’s done two huge things, and neither of them can be understated,” Larsen said. The first is the presence of a fully equipped facility located on the same campus where upper school technical theater students spend most of their days, which removes the disruption of having to travel to a different campus to work. “The kids know right after school, they can come to the building, they can rehearse, they can build, they can do all the things that are inherent in being on the campus,” Larsen said.
The second major change is how the facility further connects the upper school’s performing arts department to the culture of the campus. “It’s not that much of a big deal now if students catch a ball game, grab a bite to eat and come see our show,” Larsen said. “It’s all contained within the culture of the upper school; it’s right here.”
It’s also had benefits for the middle school, which for the time being has a space entirely its own that it no longer has to share with another campus. “We don’t have to kick the drama teachers out of their rooms for a week, and say ‘hey, these are our [upper school cast’s] dressing rooms now,’” Vallerga said. For his part, Vallerga also looks forward to using the facilities at Rothschild to create props and scenery for middle school productions, as well as bringing middle school students to the upper school to work on the elements of their shows.
Whatever potential the new building holds for the program, there are students who remain in love with the process and its people above all. “I enjoy getting to learn something new each time I crew. I further my knowledge and gain more experience,” said Devlin. “I also really love bonding with all of the actors. Being able to interact and learn from the professional tech community that works at Harker is like a dream.”