For the second year in a row, The Harker School will be co-hosting the annual Silicon Valley Computer-Using Educators (SVCUE) Technology Conference. Taking place Feb. 27 on the Saratoga campus, this year’s conference, “Teach Through Technology,” focuses on integrating technology into curricula with workshops on podcasts, photos, fair use, spreadsheets and Google applications. The conference is open to all educators. Those wishing to attend can register online or pay at the door. Registration deadline is Fri., Feb. 19.
The Mayer daughters, Pumpkin, Gr. 3 and Callie, K, and Nicole Arena, also K, had a chance to dine with Joe Connolly, dean of students, as part of the annual picnic’s “Lunch with Mr. Connolly” package. The Brezoczky family was the second family who won a lunch with Connolly, and Kate, K; Charlotte, Gr. 2; and Emma, Gr. 4, had lunch with him in November.
In addition, lower school mathematics teacher Diane Plauck’s “Holiday Baking and Card Making Picnic Package” won by Jessica Susai, Gr. 4, took place in mid-December. Susai invited three classmates – Aria Coalson, Maya Kumar and Rukhsaar Lakhani – to spend the afternoon at Plauck’s home decorating gingerbread and sugar cookies and designing holiday cards for their families. While carols played, the girls let their creative juices flow and everyone went home with plates of goodies and bellies full of sweets. “What better way to kick off the holiday vacation than with the sweet smell of cookies baking and the sound of children laughing?” said Plauck.
Tickets for the 2010 Harker fashion show, “Outside the Box,” are now on sale! Register now at the reservations page to get preferred seating at one of the premiere Harker events of the year. Held at the San Jose Convention Center, Harker’s annual fashion show fundraiser has become a highly acclaimed, and incredibly fun, Silicon Valley event.
Featuring the latest styles from our fashion sponsors and high-energy student performances by Harker’s outstanding performing arts groups, the event is non-stop entertainment. Both the luncheon and the dinner gala feature sumptuous showcases, and the dinner show includes a live auction of one-of-a-kind adventures followed by dancing the night away. And it’s all for a great cause: all proceeds benefit Harker’s Scholarship Fund, professional training for faculty, and much-needed projects such as a new library at the upper school.
Since its establishment in 1893, The Harker School has continuously provided the community with leaders in numerous fields through an incomparable education. Today, Harker’s excellence is recognized nationwide as our students make the news with their academic achievements, outstanding performing arts program and local and global philanthropic endeavors. As a renowned college-prep institution, Harker’s students and programs need the support of parents, faculty, staff and friends – like you – to continue their outstanding contribution to the communities of Silicon Valley and beyond. So please join us in supporting Harker’s annual fashion show event, and help our rising stars continue to shine!
“They really are losing their minds!” said psychologist Dr. Laura Kastner about teenagers. The third speaker in the 2009-10 Common Ground Series, Kastner addressed a gathering of 200 parents at Harker’s Nichols Hall atrium Jan. 26.
A University of Washington professor and author of four books on adolescents, Kastner reminded parents that normal teenagers “slough off half the neural branches” in the thinking portion of their brains around age thirteen. The loss precedes a huge bloom of synapse growth over the next ten years, but leaves young adults temporarily dependent on their emotional brains. Hence reactive behavior, mood swings and outbursts.
Combining neuroscience and psychology, Kastner provided a road map for parents anxious to navigate the emotional landmines of adolescence. Fully-developed adults also have emotional centers in their brains – called the amygdala – but tend to rely more heavily on the thinking brain – the frontal cortex.
Parents aware of their teen’s physiological dependence on emotional response and careful avoidance of letting their own amygdalas take over will provide better guidance for their kids. Parents of teens, says Kastner, should “accept teen behavior as normal” and “get going with good parenting.”
Good teen parenting, said Kastner, includes thoughtful, empathic reaction to outbursts and incentivizing teen self-critique rather than falling victim to emotional spiral typical of adolescent anger.
Sue Smith and Lauri Vaughan,upper school librarians, were featured speakers at the Bay Area Association of Independent School Librarians (BAISL) winter meeting Jan. 15 at the Branson School in Ross, Calif. In a talk titled “How We Learn,” Smith and Vaughan spoke about the changing dynamics of information delivery in the digital world and how it affects student learning. The librarians were invited to share the spotlight by BAISL president Billie King shortly after they facilitated a seminar of the same name at Harker’s Teacher Tech Institute last June.
“We were honored to be invited to speak,” said Smith. BAISL’s membership of over 150 librarians from local private schools meets twice annually. Approximately 60 information specialists attended the meeting and heard Smith and Vaughan’s presentation.
“Attending professional conferences is always enriching,” said Vaughan. “Getting the opportunity to speak to such a gathering of experts and colleagues was a real treat!” Enid Davis, library director, and Bernie Morrissey, middle school librarian, also attended the conference.
Harker’s instrumental program has grown so steadily in the past few years, it has outgrown its annual winter showcase. This year, directors Chris Florio, Louis Hoffman and Toni Woodruff split their program into two separate concerts held Jan. 15, and judging by the packed houses and enthusiastic responses, the idea was a hit.
The 5 p.m. concert featured Woodruff’s Lower School String Ensemble, 19 students who performed two pieces. The new Lower School Jazz Ensemble introduced itself to the community with 17 students led by Hoffman. Hoffman’s Lower School Orchestra tackled Offenbach, Dvorak and Sibelius in an impressive program, and Florio’s Gr. 6 and Gr. 7-8 orchestras wrapped up the program with pieces by Brahms, Faure and Tchaikovsky.
At 7:30 the big kids took the stage, starting with Florio’s Jazz Band, who grooved through four standards with style. Francesca Nagle, Gr. 11, was outstanding as the band’s front singer, and sax player Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12 and trombonist Benjamin Tien, Gr. 11, had impressive solo moments.
Florio also leads the Harker Orchestra, which has truly blossomed under his leadership. Now boasting 69 players, the musicians presented Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 1” in its entirety, as well as a Smetana overture and the humorous “Hungarian Dance” of Brahms.
Congratulations to all musicians and directors for a truly outstanding showcase of Harker talent!
Harker’s instrumental program has grown so steadily in the past few years, it has outgrown its annual winter showcase. This year, directors Chris Florio, Louis Hoffman and Toni Woodruff split their program into two separate concerts held Jan. 15, and judging by the packed houses and enthusiastic responses, the idea was a hit.
The 5 p.m. concert featured Woodruff’s Lower School String Ensemble, 19 students who performed two pieces. The new Lower School Jazz Ensemble introduced itself to the community with 17 students led by Hoffman. Hoffman’s Lower School Orchestra tackled Offenbach, Dvorak and Sibelius in an impressive program, and Florio’s Gr. 6 and Gr. 7-8 orchestras wrapped up the program with pieces by Brahms, Faure and Tchaikovsky.
At 7:30 the big kids took the stage, starting with Florio’s Jazz Band, who grooved through four standards with style. Francesca Nagle, Gr. 11, was outstanding as the band’s front singer, and sax player Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12 and trombonist Benjamin Tien, Gr. 11, had impressive solo moments.
Florio also leads the Harker Orchestra, which has truly blossomed under his leadership. Now boasting 69 players, the musicians presented Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 1” in its entirety, as well as a Smetana overture and the humorous “Hungarian Dance” of Brahms.
Congratulations to all musicians and directors for a truly outstanding showcase of Harker talent!
Harker’s instrumental program has grown so steadily in the past few years, it has outgrown its annual winter showcase. This year, directors Chris Florio, Louis Hoffman and Toni Woodruff split their program into two separate concerts held Jan. 15, and judging by the packed houses and enthusiastic responses, the idea was a hit.
The 5 p.m. concert featured Woodruff’s Lower School String Ensemble, 19 students who performed two pieces. The new Lower School Jazz Ensemble introduced itself to the community with 17 students led by Hoffman. Hoffman’s Lower School Orchestra tackled Offenbach, Dvorak and Sibelius in an impressive program, and Florio’s Gr. 6 and Gr. 7-8 orchestras wrapped up the program with pieces by Brahms, Faure and Tchaikovsky.
At 7:30 the big kids took the stage, starting with Florio’s Jazz Band, who grooved through four standards with style. Francesca Nagle, Gr. 11, was outstanding as the band’s front singer, and sax player Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12 and trombonist Benjamin Tien, Gr. 11, had impressive solo moments.
Florio also leads the Harker Orchestra, which has truly blossomed under his leadership. Now boasting 69 players, the musicians presented Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 1” in its entirety, as well as a Smetana overture and the humorous “Hungarian Dance” of Brahms.
Congratulations to all musicians and directors for a truly outstanding showcase of Harker talent!
Harker opened the week before holiday break in typically grand fashion, with the annual holiday campus tour on Dec. 11. All three campuses were treated to performances by musicians, singers and dancers from many different grade levels, each performing their own unique odes to the time-honored lessons and traditions of the holiday season. In between songs and dance numbers, students acted out entertaining and often very humorous skits, in keeping with the joyous air of the holidays.
Audiences got to witness impressive orchestral performances by the lower school orchestra, directed by Louis Hoffman, and the upper school orchestra, directed by Chris Florio. Several vocal groups provided holiday-themed harmonies, including the upper school’s Bel Canto, directed by Catherine Snider, Snider and Laura Lang-Ree’s show choir, Downbeat, and the Susan Nace-directed Cantilena. The show also featured spirited performances by the Gr. 6 choir,directed by Roxann Hagemeyer, Vivace, the Gr. 7-8 traditional choir directed by Jennifer Cowgill, and Harmonics, the Gr. 7-8 singing and dance group directed by Hagemeyer and Monica Colletti.
Exhilarating dance performances were put on by the Gr. 6 group Dance Fusion, directed by Gail Palmer, as well as Gr. 7 groups Showstoppers and High Voltage, directed by Amalia Vasconi and Karl Kuehn, respectively.
In keeping with the giving spirit of the holiday season, Harker students from all three campuses participated in service projects to spread cheer to the surrounding communities.
The lower school toy drive collected more than 700 toys, which were delivered to the children of less fortunate families, so that they could also partake in the joy of the holiday season. Beryl Banks, community involvement coordinator at Sacred Heart Community Services, appeared at the lower school campus in December to thank the students for the donations they had made.
One lower school parent, Deepali Halepete, shared the story of how he and his daughter, Mahika, Gr. 2, helped raise $1,400 for underprivileged families by selling paintings that were created in Halepete’s art workshops. The money was used to purchase art supplies and a playhouse for the Georgia Travis Center, a shelter run by InnVision that assists single mothers and their children.
Meanwhile, middle school students were busy with their own holiday community service project, a coat drive that ran from Dec. 7 through Dec. 18. The students gathered more than 300 coats, which were donated to the InnVision organization to ensure that financially troubled or homeless people in San Jose could fend off the cold of winter.
A Christmas tree donation drive was also organized at the middle school. Teachers donated trees by leaving them outside their classrooms with their decorations removed. Middle school math teacher Peggy Crisler estimated that “20 to 25” trees were donated in total.
Middle school math teacher Scott Graham’s Gr. 8 advisory decorated wreaths that were later donated to the Saratoga Retirement Home. It was the third consecutive year that the students decorated and donated the wreaths.
Several upper school students helped out with holiday celebrations in downtown San Jose in late November and early December. Over Thanksgiving weekend, a group of students lent their helping hands to the setting up of Christmas in the Park, which ran until December 27 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose. Students hung decorations and helped prepare the various displays and buildings that have been a part of the popular holiday attraction for 30 years.
On Dec. 6, Harker upper school students once again took part in a community effort at the downtown San Jose Holiday Parade. Assisted by students from Gunderson High School, they hoisted and carried the giant Hello Kitty parade float down San Jose’s historic Santa Clara and Market Streets.
December also saw the Key Club organize their annual Scott Lane donation drive, in which much-needed school supplies were donated to Scott Lane Elementary School to improve the quality of the students’ education. As a token of their gratitude, Scott Lane prepared a special “thank you” video that was shown at the upper school assembly on Jan. 4.
As New Year’s approached, Harker siblings Albert Wu, Gr. 10 and Helen Wu, Gr. 7, held a special performance at the Saratoga Retirement Community on Dec. 30. The duo, Albert on piano and Helen on violin, played pieces from such composers as Bach, Beethoven and Chopin.