Congratulations to senior Sreyas Misra, who has been named a finalist in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search, one of eight hailing from the Bay Area. Misra’s project, “Design and Characterization of a Novel Single-headed and Hand-held PET Camera Using 511 keV Photon Collimation via Compton Scatter,” earned him a place among just 40 other students from an original pool of nearly 1,800 entrants. These students will participate in the final stage of the Intel STS in Washington, D.C. from March 6-12, where $630,000 in prizes will be awarded, including the $100,000 grand prize.
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Ten Harker seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2014 Intel Science Talent Search (STS), the second-highest number of semifinalists in the nation and just one short of Harker’s record of 11, set in 2012.
This year’s semifinalists and their projects are: Vikas Bhetanabhotla (“Identification of Satellite Galaxies around Milky Way Galactic Analogs Using Machine Learning Algorithms”), Stephanie Chen (“Globular Clusters as Tracers of Dark Matter in Virgo Cluster Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies”), Christopher Fu (“Molecular Characterization and Rapid Generation of Human Rotavirus VP6-Specific Monoclonal Antibodies”), Anika Gupta (“Novel Drug Delivery Systems Targeting Cancer Stem Cells for Next-Generation Chemotherapy”), Saachi Jain (“MicroRNA-223 Promotes Macrophage Differentiation”), Sreyas Misra (“Design and Characterization of a Novel Single-Headed and Hand-Held PET Camera Using 511 keV Photon Collimation via Compton Scatter”), Preethi Periyakoil (“A Video-Assisted, Time-Lapse Analysis of the Effects of the ELF5 Transcription Factor on the Morphology and Proliferation Kinetics of Breast Cancer Cells”), Rahul Sridhar (“Understanding the Effect of Hinge Mutations on Domain-Swapping in Antiviral Lectin Cyanovirin-N”), Vikram Sundar (“Computational Analysis of Novel Drug Opportunities Using Protein-Protein Docking”) and Albert Zhao (“Oxygen Reduction Activity of Dodecyne-Functionalized AuPd Nanoparticles”).
These 10 students are among 300 nationwide who were selected from nearly 1,800 original entrants from across the country and in overseas schools. Each semifinalist will be awarded $1,000, and in order to bolster education in science, math and engineering, every semifinalist school will receive $1,000 for each student from that school named a semifinalist.
On Jan. 22, 40 of these semifinalists will be chosen to participate in the final stage of the Intel STS in Washington, D.C., where they will share their work with both the public and the scientific community, and compete for a $100,000 grand prize.
This article was originally published in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
At the core of Silicon Valley startups is the idea of rapid expansion. This rapid-growth philosophy has been taken to heart by Harker’s new business and entrepreneurship department. The department is already flourishing with business classes, a podcast series, stewardship of Harker’s TedX program and its thriving DECA chapter.
Harker’s chapter is one of 3,500 DECA organizations that educate young leaders and entrepreneurs on marketing, finance, hospitality and management. (Formerly Distributive Education Clubs of America, the organization adopted the acronym as its full name when it became an international body.)
November is DECA month; chapters around the world are promoting the club and preparing its members for competition season. Harker’s DECA chapter is no exception, with students kicking off the school year at a fever pitch. One of their primary goals is maximizing the chapter’s visibility on campus. The chapter has gone from six members in 2009 to125 in 2012 and is looking to continue that impressive growth streak. Chapter vice president Ariana Shulman, grade 12, says, “I am looking forward to seeing the underclassmen get excited and involved in the DECA chapter this year.”
To publicize the chapter, DECA has organized numerous events, the first of which was an ice cream social to kick off DECA month. On Nov. 1, students flocked to the event to enjoy sundaes and learn about the chapter. Shannon Hong, grade 10, public relations officer for freshmen and juniors, said, “It was a great way to let over 200 students have fun while getting to know DECA.”
The chapter is using more than just frozen treats to inform the community about its activities. DECA participated in Harker’s student club fair, showcasing its events and highlighting what the students would learn over the course of the school year. The chapter even put on its own competitive events fair to discuss its upcoming competitions and events.
DECA is making sure to keep parents informed about what their students are up to through frequent press releases and events, including a Nov. 9 DECA parents night. More than 150 parents attended the event in the Nichols Hall atrium, where they learned about the chapter’s upcoming competitive schedule. Club president Monica Thukral, grade 12, said the parents visited event-specific booths to learn “how they could be involved as parents and what their students would be doing at each event.”
DECA also is participating in The Stock Market Game, a nationwide stock market competition. The SMG gives teams a virtual $100,000 to invest and measures their returns in real time. More than 130 Harker students and faculty are participating, which has led to a good-natured competition between the student and faculty participants. At press time, two student groups were ranked third and sixth in the Western region, out of approximately 1,200 teams; they are ninth and 17th nationally. The top 25 teams in the region will present their investment strategies to fellow attendees at a conference in May.
To further enhance learning, three investment speakers will visit Harker during the semester to discuss their stock market strategies and successes. On Oct. 30 Rajeev Seth kicked off the series by sharing his strategies for navigating the stock market. Seth is a leader in financial services who has worked with asset managers and hedge funds, and recently served as senior vice president at Bank of America.
Contributing to the community is a key part of DECA’s charter and, in that spirit, the chapter already has launched two efforts this year. On Nov. 6 DECA worked with the Red Cross Club to assemble 100 emergency preparedness kits during a lunch period. The kits, containing toothbrushes, hand sanitizer and other emergency essentials, were donated to those in need.
The DECA chapter also has partnered with the student council to help recycle Capri Sun containers at the end of every lunch period. Large banners on the wall of the Edge implore students not to throw the estimated 400 containers a day in the garbage, but instead recycle them to help promote a green Harker campus.
Meanwhile, the business and entrepreneurship department (BE), which is in its infancy, has hit the ground running. Juston Glass, the department’s advisor, says the goal for the program is “to connect the students with the outside business world” and eventually “be the most comprehensive business program at the high school level.”
One of the ways the program is connecting its students with the real business world is through its podcast series. Over the course of the school year, local business leaders will be interviewed and share their knowledge with the burgeoning entrepreneurs in the program. The first guest, Satish Dharmaraj, is a partner at Redpoint Ventures and was the CEO and cofounder of Zimbra. The program’s host, Glenn Reddy, grade 11, said, “It’s been great that I’ve been able to connect at a more personal level with these entrepreneurs and the podcast will give … watchers a lot of great information.”
The BE classes also are giving students practical experience on how to run a business through the Finish Line Challenge, put on by the athletic apparel retailer. During the Finish Line Challenge, future business leaders tackle real business problems. Students are asked to help design a more interactive, and ultimately more profitable, customer experience in Finish Line stores by using market research to evaluate and give suggestions to improve the retailer’s omnichannel strategy. To give real-world perspective on their solutions, Glass arranged for two guest speakers: a store manager with five years of firsthand experience and the Northern California district manager.
The store manager provided the students with insight into how new employees are trained to engage customers and gave them an inside look into store operations. After the session, the classes broke into groups and pitched their improvement ideas to the manager. The winning groups from each period were guaranteed interviews for a seasonal job at Finish Line. Ones of the winners, Scott Song, grade 9, said, “The best part of the Finish Line visit was learning the ins and outs as a manager of a store.”
Neither the DECA chapter nor the BE program show any signs of slowing down, with further investment discussions in late November and early December and more podcasts being recorded. DECA president Thukral was particularly excited for the Harker DECA fundraising outing to the premiere of the second “Hunger Games” movie on Nov. 22, calling it “an event for the whole school and a bonding event for DECA.” The Harker community can look forward to a packed calendar full of informative and entertaining events – and hopefully more ice cream.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Editor’s note: As always, we thank the athletic department for its thorough and timely reports.
Fall 2013 was a monster season for numerous athletes at Harker’s upper school. A pair of runners took home huge honors and ran in the state meet (see complete story on page 39). A golfer became the best in the league for the second year in a row. The football team saw an offensive explosion in its three games. And the volleyball team reached the CCS semifinals.
Here are the results and records from the first season of the 2013-14 school year:
Cross Country
It was a spectacular fall season for the cross country team, as junior Corey Gonzales took home the 2013 CCS Division 4 league championship, and both Gonzales and freshman phenom Niki Iyer won West Bay Athletic League championships. Gonzales, Iyer and the team’s veteran leader, senior Claudia Tischler, all qualified for CCS after running great races at the WBAL championship. Gonzales and Iyer went on to represent Harker in the state meet, where Iyer took seventh in a stellar finish to her first varsity season, while Gonzales finished 85th, a distinct departure from his consistent single digit finishes of the season. He said he was fit for the race, but could have prepared better mentally. “Next season, I’ll just have to concentrate on state and make that my main focus rather than CCS,” he said.
Iyer’s first season at Harker was one for the ages. After winning her very first race, beating challengers by 30 seconds en route to the best time of any underclassman out of more than 450 runners, Iyer took on a varsity field in her second-ever race at Harker and finished second overall, missing out on first place by a single, solitary second. In her follow-up race, Iyer took home her first varsity win, obliterating the record for a Harker female runner by nearly a minute and scoring one of the 10 best times ever for a freshman in the course’s 70-year history. Iyer also won her first WBAL league race, but missed out on setting a new course record by, once again, a single second. The race after that, she succeeded in setting a new course record, this time by beating the previous year’s league champion. Amid her strong and record-breaking season, Iyer was named Santa Clara County girls athlete of the week by The San Jose Mercury News.
New CCS champion Corey Gonzales also had an incredible season, setting new school and course records en route to becoming the best runner in the division. (See feature story, page 39.)
Golf
Senior Kristine Lin became the most decorated female golfer in Harker’s history after winning the WBAL league championship for the second year in a row and then shooting the best score of any Harker girls golfer in CCS history. The team broke records as well, first shattering the mark for best score in Harker history in a 211-199 loss and then following that up a week later by beating the record it had just set, this time in a 210-265 win. The victory also saw a few Harker golfers shooting their personal best scores, including senior Connie Li and sophomores Daphne Liang and Ashley Zhong. “This is by far the hardest working and most improved team I have ever coached,” raved Ie-Chen Cheng.
Volleyball
After a fantastic regular season, the girls varsity team reached the semi- finals of the CCS tournament, finally falling to third-ranked Menlo. The team pushed Menlo to a fifth set in a tight and dramatic loss that stood between Harker and the state tournament. The game was set up by a thrilling win in the quarterfinals, when the Eagles rebounded from a first set loss to win the next three in a row in front of a raucous home crowd.
For the season, Divya Kalidindi, grade 12, led the team with 327 kills. Shannon Richardson, grade 10, and Shreya Dixit, grade 11, had 259 and 236 kills, respectively, while Dixit led the team with a 49.7 kill percentage. Editor’s note: As always, we thank the athletic department for its thorough and timely reports.
Selin Ozcelik, grade 10, led the team with a whopping 797 assists. Seniors Kalidindi, Mercedes Chien, Renu Singh and Christina Wong provided veteran leadership for the club, setting a powerful
example for the team to follow in the years to come.
The future is bright for that team. The junior varsity girls became co-league champions, defeating Mercy High School San Francisco in the dramatic conclusion to a stellar 15-3 season, and the freshmen girls split their season series with Milpitas. The majority of the varsity team will be returning next year, as Harker looks to make another push for the CCS championship.
Football
Varsity football played three games this season, dropping their Homecoming game to Mt. Pleasant despite
recording 420 total yards of offense and blowing out Faith Christian and Livermore Prep by the insane scores of 41-0 and 58-16, respectively. In their first game against Faith Christian, running back Kevin Moss, grade 12, scored two touchdowns, kicker Alyssa Amick, grade 11, recorded 11 points, and Samir Chaudhry, grade 12, snagged two interceptions. Moss also added 128 yards and a touchdown in the Homecoming contest.
In that game, quarterback Keanu Forbes, grade 11, ran for two touchdowns and threw another to senior wide receiver Adarsh Battu, who caught five passes for a total of 142 yards. In the third and final game, Moss ran for two touchdowns, returned an interception for a touchdown, and raced a kickoff back for his fourth touchdown that day. Forbes also ran for a touchdown and threw three more, hitting his targets with passes to wide receiver Sid Krishnamurthi, grade 11, and running back Johnathon Keller, grade 10. All told, Harker racked up 387 yards of total offense. The defense also added eight sacks on the day.
The junior varsity team had a tremendous season of its own, going 6-1 with a mix of blowouts, tense games and big comebacks.
Water Polo
The varsity boys squad went 6-9 for the year but finished strong, winning two out of three games in its final tournament of the season. The varsity girls put up a 4-14 record, while the junior varsity boys went 2-10.
The most exciting game of the year came courtesy of the girls varsity team, when Delaney Martin, grade 11, scored a triple-overtime goal to give the team a sudden-death victory over San Lorenzo. The teams’ senior day was another highlight, as both the boys and the girls defeated Cupertino, with the boys crushing the Pioneers in a 15-3 blowout and the girls scoring a dramatic 5-4 win in a game where goals by two seniors made the difference.
Tennis
The girls battled hard in a season in which they were beset by injuries, finishing with a solid 9-6 record. Highlights included a clutch come-from-behind win by Megy Appalaraju, grade 11, and Era Iyer, grade 9, in a victory against Crystal Springs Uplands. Sophomore Izzy Gross also provided heroics, battling back from triple match point for a thrilling win of her own against Crystal Springs Uplands and overcoming a devastating 1-6 opening set against Santa Catalina School on her way to a spectacular 12- 10 third-set victory.
Mehta, whose previous business sold for $200 million, got the idea for Stoodle during his first year at Harker. Shortly after transferring to Harker during his sophomore year, “I noticed a significant difference from the public school I attended my freshman year and realized that there was a great opportunity to connect students from different schools to share knowledge,” he said.
Developed by Mehta, Simar Mangat ’13 and senior Divyahans Gupta, Stoodle enables students to collaborate on things such as school projects and homework assignments. Maverick McNealy ’13 was also involved in the project, but left due to his growing golf career.
When legendary entrepreneur Vinod Khosla visited Harker as the keynote speaker for the 2012 Research Symposium, Mehta spoke to him about Stoodle. Khosla referred Mehta to his wife, Neeru, who was impressed with Stoodle and its team. Neeru’s CK-12 Foundation, which provides open source educational materials to students and teachers, soon began funding Stoodle, which is already generating buzz. Just this week, Stoodle was one of about 40 companies featured at the “Education Datapalooza” held at the White House, a joint event run by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and the Departments of Education and Treasury, which showcased apps and services available to help students succeed.
“The response has been fantastic,” Mehta said. “Teachers and students across the nation are praising Stoodle.org for its helpfulness, flexibility and ease-of-use, as well as, of course, for being free.” The tool reportedly already has thousands of users since launching last month, and Gordon Jones, managing director of the Harvard Innovation Lab, recently joined the company’s board, alongside Neeru Khosla, Richard Schmalensee, dean emeritus of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Stanford Graduate School chief technology officer Paul Kim.
“The positive buzz we have been getting from educators across the country has been overwhelming,” said Mehta. “People are loving it! Notable individuals like U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Jim Shelton have also recognized and tweeted about us! As you can probably tell from my excessive exclamation mark use, this is a very exciting time for my team and me!” he finished.
In addition to Stoodle, Mehta also has worked with head of school Chris Nikoloff, advancement head Joe Rosenthal and business and entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass to form a startup incubator for Harker students. Mehta said his experience with the business and entrepreneurship program has been “very beneficial, mostly through the quality of individuals the school invites to campus.”
This story was prepared from a press release provided by Shannon Hong, grade 10, director of Public Relations for Harker DECA; photos also provided by Harker DECA.
The students of Harker’s DECA chapter, nearly 100 in total, spent the weekend of Jan. 3 at the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference in San Jose. During the conference, the students participated in a number of activities and competitions designed to build their leadership and business skills.
Harker students performed admirably in the competitions, with 21 students ending up in the top three. Placing first were Harker DECA president Monica Thukral, grade 12, in the Food Marketing Individual Series Roleplay; Ray Xu, grade 9, in Principles of Finance; Freshman Srivatsav Pyda and senior Arthur Shau in Business Team Decision Making; and Safia Khouja and Sabrina Sidhu, both grade 11, in Hospitality Team Decision Making.
Second place finishers were the team of sophomores Shannon Hong, Michael Zhao and Annie Zhou for Entrepreneurship Innovation Plan; Aathira Menon and Natasha Santhanam, both grade 10, for International Business Plan; juniors Glenn Reddy and Felix Wu for Business Operations Research Written Plan; Julia Fink, grade 12, in Apparel and Accessories Marketing; Mabel Luo, grade 12, in Business Service Marketing; Shannon Hong in Restaurant and Food Service Management; Victoria Ding, grade 10, and Sapna Suresh, grade 12, in Marketing Team Decision Making; and seniors Adithram Rengaramchandran and Rohan Kapatkar, grade 12, in Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making.
Taking third place was the team of seniors Gaurav Kumar and Adarsh Battu in Business Team Decision Making.
“At SVCDC, we were able to not only present our projects that we had worked so long on but also meet old friends and make new ones. I never expected to make it to the stage, so when they called my name I was already in shock,” said Zhao. “Winning second place together with my friends was the best part; all of our work was worth that moment of pride when we stood together on stage.”
Aside from the many competitions they entered, Shannon Hong, Sophia Luo, grade 10, and Haley Tran, grade 9, were elected to the next Silicon Valley District Action Team.
“SVCDC was an exhilarating experience. I learned new skills as a competitor and a candidate, meeting different people from all over the Silicon Valley and being a part of this wonderful community of intellectually curious and business minded high school students,” Hong said. “Standing on stage, twice, was thrilling; I hope to do even better during States.”
Welcome back, Eagles fans! With 2014 kicking off, Harker’s sports teams are back in action. Let’s check the results from the first week of the new year!
Wrestling
Freshman Davis Howard went 3-1 with three pins to place fifth in the Cupertino Tournament last weekend. Senior Darian Edvalson went 3-1 with two pins and finished as the consolation champion. On Thursday, the wrestlers headed to Milpitas High.
Soccer
Over the break, the boys played twice, tying Lynbrook 2-2 and falling to Mills 2-1. Juniors Nikhil Kishore and Jeremiah Anderson each scored against Lynbrook, while senior Jeff Hanke’s penalty kick was the lone Harker goal against Mills.
The junior varsity boys were in action as well, defeating Mills 3-2 on goals by sophomore Zeyad El-Arabaty, sophomore Ryan Fernandes and junior Eric Roxlo. Both boys teams opened league play this week on the road against Sacred Heart.
The girls began their league play this week as well, hosting Eastside College Prep on Tuesday and traveling to play Mercy on Thursday. Their record entering league play stood at 3-1.
Basketball
The varsity boys basketball team is now 7-3 overall entering league play after going 3-2 over the holiday break. In a victory against Terra Nova, senior Wei Wei Buchsteiner netted 23 points and senior Will Deng added 19 more. The boys host rival Sacred Heart tonight.
The junior varsity boys are on fire, going 5-1 during a busy winter break!
The varsity girls went 1-2 over the break and now own a record of 4-5 overall. The highlight of the holiday was a 39-30 win against Wallenberg. Freshman Jordan Thompson led the team with 17 points, while senior Regina Chen added 13. The girls travel to Mercy and Notre Dame this week.
Senior Alicia Clark was awarded Harker’s Community Service Spotlight Award at a recent Monday morning school meeting. At the gathering, she received a $200 check from the Harker Upper School Community Service Program, which she in turn donated to the Ronald McDonald House in Palo Alto.
The Community Service Spotlight Awards are sponsored by Harker’s outreach department and take place several times during the school year. They were created to celebrate and honor the outstanding community service completed by upper school students.
In her acceptance speech at the meeting, Clark explained that she began doing community service in grade 7 when she joined the National Charity League (NCL), a mother/daughter organization that helps less fortunate community members. Since then she has completed more than 500 volunteer hours with more than 15 organizations.
“Today, I have been asked to tell my story and talk a little bit about why I love community service,” said Clark in he speech. “I joined NCL to be a more active member of my community even though at the age of 12 I never could have known exactly what that meant. My first experience was making flower pens and cookies to put in a gift basket for Meals on Wheels. I grew up feeling very lucky and thankful for everything I had. I can’t imagine not having everything that my parents have worked so hard to give me. So, I just want to help others feel as lucky as I have always felt.”
Clark went onto say that community service can be a great opportunity to spend time with friends and family while also helping others in need. “You get to see for a moment how the world is so much bigger than you and how you have the ability to help your fellow humans. I can’t imagine my life without all of the organizations I have volunteered with and I really encourage those of you who have not had the opportunity to get involved in the community to start now,” she concluded.
In the fall, Sidhart Krishnamurthi, grade 11, launched a fundraiser for The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, which raised more than $2,000 to help build a refugee shelter for a family living in Afghanistan.
He shared his fundraising success story by writing an article that was published in the foundation’s newsletter and is still showing on the foundation’s blog. In the article, Krishnamurthi said that he got the idea to do the fundraiser in April 2012 after reading the novel “The Kite Runner” by author Khaled Hosseini.
“The plight of the people in Afghanistan as described in the novel really touched me, and I wanted to somehow support the cause of rebuilding futures for families torn by war, poverty and unimaginable living conditions. This led me to the back cover, where I saw a link to The Khaled Hosseini Foundation website. On visiting the site, I got more information on various ongoing efforts to help the refugees,” wrote Krishnamurthi.
He then explained that he set a fundraising goal of $2,000 – enough to build a shelter for a refugee family of six. With assistance from the foundation, he was able to make a plan to accomplish the mission through fundraising efforts at Harker.
To attain his goal, he launched a “Family and Friends Campaign,” wherein he emailed various people (including members of the Harker community) about the foundation and urged them to donate a minimum of $25, which would help him achieve his goal. In turn, they received a signed copy of either “The Kite Runner” or “A Thousand Splendid Suns” (both by Hosseini) and a goodie-bag. This generated enough interest and money to build a shelter for a homeless family in Afghanistan.
To help purchase the books, Krishnamurthi’s parents generously donated funds and he also raised money through a club called Interact, a youth rotary club. He assembled the goodie-bags with candy and bookmarks handmade by Afghan women in refugee camps in Pakistan (provided by the foundation). His book sales then attracted the attention of the administrators at Harker, facilitating a visit from Hosseini to speak about his books and the foundation.
“Through this experience, I have learned that my life is privileged compared to most people in the world. It really changed me by helping and supporting families facing dire living situations. It also made me realize that people are genuinely kind-natured and willing to help others in difficult situations,” Krishnamurthi said.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
When I was a boy, my father used to sing the song “Que Sera, Sera.” He had a nice voice, though he didn’t take singing seriously. At least, he sounded nice to me, his son. I used to believe that all fathers sounded nice to their sons until my boys disproved this theory by protesting fiercely at my singing. Apparently a son loving his father’s voice is not a biological mandate.
“Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera.” A beautiful, timeless song, with deep advice, the gravity of which is somewhat sweetened away by Doris Day’s voice in her 1956 recording. “The future’s not ours to see.” I don’t know that my father even fully believed this at the time, though this was one of his favorite songs. Who among us believes that the future is not ours in any capacity? We tend to live for the future.
Which brings me to the paradox of schooling. Schools are completely engineered for the future. Schools prepare students for the future and hope to shape the future in part through graduating great students. The class is a laboratory for the future, the school an altar to an anticipated better future for our children and society.
Not that this is bad – we have to plan and prepare for the future. But as the philosopher Alan Watts reminds us, the future is good only for those who know how to live in the present. It is no good to prepare for the future if, when it arrives, we do not know how to enjoy it. Those who are always preparing for tomorrow do not see or enjoy the present. Tomorrow never comes anyway, we are told.
There is a popular quote from computer scientist Alan Kay that says, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Not according to Doris Day. Nor Steve Jobs. He said as much in his now famous 2005 Stanford commencement address in which he advised the following: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.” Though Jobs is often credited with inventing the future, by his account the future was not his to see.
If you don’t believe Doris Day or Steve Jobs, try the great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. He predated Steve Jobs’ sentiment by about a century and a half: “The scenes in our life resemble pictures in a rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful.” Later in this passage Schopenhauer warns us that we inadvertently look into the future for an imagined joy that usually is right in front of us.
But I suppose it cannot be helped, especially for students. Kids today live in a competitive world, it is said, and they have to prepare for it. We have college and work readiness assessments now. The Berlin Wall has fallen and the Internet has flattened the world. However, the flatter earth has not made the horizon any easier to spot; the future’s not ours to see, so we are anxious about it. We are anxious for our children and they learn how to be anxious through us.
Perhaps we need only to teach children to live in the present and the future will take care of itself. Young children do not need this teaching; they can teach us. But older kids, say around late middle school on, typically begin to assume the anxiety worn by adults. In most fairy tales a child, usually around adolescence, loses something made of gold and has to find it again.
A December 2010 edition of The Economist has as its lead article a piece capturing how life really begins at age 46, the nadir of happiness, after which things look up. Adults after middle age, one theory goes, begin to drop old ambitions and accept what good they have in their lives. It might be the height of presumption to think that we can help our children avoid this trajectory and start enjoying their lives now. But shouldn’t we try? Their future – and their present – depend on it.
Three teams of Harker students — the most of any school — have reached the top 20 in the 2013-14 DECA Stock Market Game.
In the game, students create and manage a virtual investment portfolio. “They started out on Sept. 3 with just $100,000. With diligent and thorough research, attending our Investment Management Seminar Series presentations, and some healthy risk taking, these teams earned over $99,000 put together within three months!” said Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship department. “That’s impressive, and yes, they are now taking offers for investment advice.”
The team of Alex Tuharsky, grade 11, Aditya Batra, grade 12, and Pranav Batra, also grade 12, are currently the top team from Harker, boasting returns 29.25 percent above the S&P 500 and ranking fourth in the Western region and 10th internationally. Meanwhile, junior Andrew Zhang is ranked fifth in the region and 16th internationally with a return of 21.92 percent over the S&P 500, and the team of David Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 11, are following close behind, showing a 21.74 percent return and ranking sixth in the region and 17th overall.
These stellar rankings qualify the students for the championship round at the DECA International Conference in Atlanta in May, where they will compete with the top 25 teams from each of the four regions. Each team’s portfolios, research methods and investment strategies will be presented and evaluated to see who will be named the DECA Stock Market Game champion.