This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
In May the upper school’s gym was transformed into an elegantly set, festive luncheon honoring the parents of this year’s graduating class, featuring speeches, photo collages and delicious food.
This annual event has grown substantially over the years, from its 2004 rootsas a simple moms’ potluck lunch; as of last year dads are also included. Tables displayed colorful photo montages and quotes from the seniors on what they used to think they wanted to be when they grew up.
Admiring the collages was participant Kari Wolff, mother of senior Drew Goldstein. Wolff said her son had been attending Harker since seventh grade and soon will be heading off to Duke University. Thanks to Harker, however, she said she has little concern about how well prepared he is for the rigors of university life, because, “Harker is as good as college!”
She added that when her son arrived at Harker in middle school he quickly connected with peers who are sure to remain friends for life.
Following the luncheon, all the moms and dads in attendance received a memento of the emotional occasion which kicked off graduation week celebrations. Wolff said the event would have been more bittersweet had it not been for the fact that she has another son (Arthur, grade 9) at the upper school, giving her “a few more years of being a Harker parent.”
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The upper school campus’ Graduates’ Grove bristled with activity on Ma23 as a record 51 members of the Class of 2013 had bricks placed in the walkway at this year’s brick ceremony.
The tradition stretches back to 2002 when parents of the very first high school class came up with the idea of laying bricks printed with the students’ names and graduation years in the walkway at Graduates’ Grove.
“I think it’s a great tradition,” said Nirmal Baid, father of graduate Neeraj Baid. “The students are leaving their legacy. And they’re kind of leaving a motivation behind for future students and their parents to contribute to Harker because this is building their future.” Baid said he’ll place another brick when daughter, Nilisha, grade 4, graduates.
Sita Arimilli said that the brick will preserve the memory of her son Kiran’s time at Harker. “It will always be here,” she said. “That feels amazing.” She, too, will honor her daughter Shalini, grade 9, upon her graduation.
Students who placed bricks at this year’s ceremony are Michael Amick, Kiran Arimilli, Priscilla Auyeung, Neeraj Baid, Pranav Bheda, Deniz Eren Celik, Rohan Chandra, Jenny Chen, Michael Hao Cheng, Siobhan Cox, Madeleine Dawson, Tiphaine Delepine, Sylvie Dobrota, John Patrick Doherty, Michelle Douglas, Molly Ellenberg, Rebecca Fang, Jasmine Gill, Drew Goldstein, Varun Gudapati, Sonia Priya Hashim, Patricia Huang, Samantha Hoffman, Jacob Hoffman, Cristina Jerney, Amanda Kalb, David Lindars, Rebecca Liu, Meera Madhavan, Simar Mangat, Maverick McNealy, Catalina Mihailide, Shivani Mitra, Nikhil Panu, Laura Pedrotti, Shelby Rorabaugh, Alison Rugar, Maya Sathaye, Pooja Shah, Arhum Siddiqui, Sonia Sidhu, Alan Soetikno, Hansa Srinivasan, Christopher Sund, Kevin Susai, Lynda Tang, Alice Tsui, Sarina Vij, Emily Wang, Amy Wardenburg, Molly Wolfe and Justin Yang.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
After the baccalaureate ceremony on May 23, the 44 “lifers” of the Class of 2013 – upper school graduates who have been Harker students since kindergarten – gathered at the home of Chris Nikoloff, head of school, where they enjoyed a special party and a Mexican dinner while reminiscing about their years together at Harker. The students chatted about major milestones such as earning their cursive licenses and also peered into their pasts by looking at the pictures from their Harker applications.
This year’s lifers are Erik Andersen, Pranav Bheda, Kevin Cali, Nicholas Chuang, Keri Clifford, Ashley Del Alto, Amanda Kalb, Laura Pedrotti, Shelby Rorabaugh, Daniel Wang, Robert Amick, Ragini Bhattacharya, Michael Chen, Jenny Chen, Amie Chien, Siobhan Cox, Tiphaine Delepine, Ria Desai, John Patrick Doherty, Michelle Douglas, Richard Fan, Matthew Giammona, Sonia Gupta, Patricia Huang, Cristina Jerney, Sartajdeep Khalon, Cecilia Lang-Ree, Sondra Leal Da Costa, David Lindars, Catherine Manea, Shivani Mitra, Payal Modi, Suchita Nety, Chloe Nielsen, Simon Orr, Anuj Sharma, Eric Swenson, Ravi Tadinada, Andre Tran, Amy Wardenburg, Molly Wolfe, Lorraine Wong, Katherine Woodruff and Rachel Yanovsky.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
In the spring of 2012, Harker began participating in the Global Online Academy (GOA), a consortium of independent schools located throughout the United States and abroad who organized during the 2010-11 school year to provide high-quality online classes to students at member schools.
Classes are taught by the faculty of member schools and cover a wide variety of topics, including playwriting, global health and app development for the iOS platform. This topical diversity was Harker’s primary reason for applying for membership in the GOA. “Continuously seeking broader programs and broader academics requires that we go beyond what we can deliver just with our own faculty,” said Dan Hudkins, director of instructional technology.
The quality of the schools involved in the GOA also meant little worry over the quality of the instruction. “All of the students are members of one of those schools, and all of the people who are teaching are people who are teaching in one of those schools, so we have no issues whatsoever about the quality of instruction or the peers whom the students will be working with,” Hudkins said.
In all, 14 students have taken GOA classes so far. Anushka Das, grade 10, enrolled in a global health class, taught by an instructor at the Lakeside School in Seattle, in the spring semester. One of the main motivators for her was the opportunity to collaborate with students from different areas and cultures. “Plus, it was a completely different setting,” she added. “The class involved lectures, video and technology that I had not used before, and the chance of having a new experience was enticing.”
The course itself also offered a new area of study. “I have always been interested in biology, and this course gave a totally new perspective into the world of diseases and how diseases affect and are affected by social, political and cultural systems,” she said. “It allowed me to globalize my knowledge and gain several new points of view on diseases around the world.”
Classes are conducted via a range of means, using tools such as Skype to video conference with classmates and teachers as well as Google Docs to collaborate on projects. Students also coordinate for their class projects using online discussion threads. Class sizes are capped at 18 students in order to help maximize effectiveness.
Evan Barth, dean of studies at the upper school, said students who participate in GOA should be prepared to take the online course as seriously as they would any of their other classes at Harker. “A lot of it comes down to mindset,” he said. “It takes a certain amount of time management skills. This class counts as one of their class periods.”
Harker plans to expand its participation in the GOA in the coming years, with some teachers already training to conduct classes online. “After teaching for 28 years, I don’t want to become one of those stuck teachers who doesn’t have the flexibility anymore to adjust to new needs and developments in the pedagogical field,” said upper school math teacher Gabriele Stahl. “At the same time, technology challenges me and sometimes scares me. So I chose this course to leave my comfort zone.”
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
For this year’s spring musical, the Harker Conservatory returned to a familiar favorite, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” directed by Laura Lang-Ree. “I’m so drawn to this story,” Lang- Ree noted. “It’s a perfect chance for our students to experience a true classic, with strong characters, amazing language and beautiful music.”
The huge upper school cast included several grade 5 students, all of whom gave splendid performances. Musical director Catherine Snider led the “Oklahoma!” band, whose interpretation of the beloved score provided the perfect backing for the talented singing and dancing actors.
The show earned eight nominations at the Bay Area High School Musical Theatre: Stage Top Honor Awards in early June, including best overall production and best chorus. The production took home wins in sound and choreography. Read all about it here! Hooray, cast and crew!
On May 24 at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose, the graduating seniors in the Harker Conservatory certificate program performed selections from their senior portfolios at the 2013 Harker Conservatory Senior Showcase to an appreciative crowd of more than 500.
All 27 graduates of the program put on a diverse array of performances, from instrumental pieces to dance routines to reenactments of scenes from plays. The students have spent the previous four years in the program honing their talents in one of six fields offered by the certificate program.
Renee Tam, Apricot Tang and Michelle Christine Douglas, backed up by five friends,got the evening crowd going with their energetic dance performance to the Allstar Weekend song “Wanna Dance with Somebody.”
The show included several dramatic reenactments, including Alice Tsui’s performance of a monologue from Jessie McCormack’s comedy “Spine,” and Apurva Tandon delivering Lady Macbeth’s chilling “Out, out damned spot” speech from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
As always, the musical talents of Harker’s Conservatory students were a treat, including vocalist Rebecca Liu’s stirring version of “Ave Maria” and Payal Modi singing the Kelly Clarkson hit “A Moment Like This,” in addition to the many great instrumental pieces from musicians such as Nayeon Kim, Katherine Woodruff and Albert Chen. Cecilia Lang-Ree’s jazzy number from the Broadway hit “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” came complete with backup dancers. Jazz, classical, pop and Broadway were all well-represented by this versatile group.
After the performances had concluded, the graduates lined up on stage and were called forward to receive their engraved plaques signaling successful completion of this intense arts program.
Congratulations to this year’s Conservatory graduates!
Instrumental Music: Tara Sheida Rezvani, Nayeon Kim, Katherine Woodruff, Albert Y. Chen, Wendy Shwe, Pooja Shah, Patricia Huang
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
A two-part show on May 3, titled “In Concert,” brought together all of the upper school vocal groups to ring in the summer and bid farewell to the graduating seniors and honor them for their dedication to Harker’s performing arts programs.
The first portion of the show was dedicated primarily to songs hailing from Great Britain and the countries that were part of its once-massive empire. Selections included Camerata’s performance of “Shoot False Love” by Thomas Morley; Cantilena closed the first portion of the show with their rendition of the Sting hit “Fields of Gold.”
Bel Canto kicked off the second part of the show with a pair of African folk songs and a medley of songs from Leonard Bernstein’s beloved score from “West Side Story.” Upper school show choir Downbeat concluded the concert, singing a variety of pop standards, including the poignant a cappella song by Billy Joel “And So It Goes.”
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The baccalaureate ceremony, one of Harker’s proudest graduation traditions, took place on May 23 at the upper school campus quad and was highlighted by heartfelt farewells from both student and faculty representatives. Also in attendance was the Class of 2014, next year’s seniors, who began making the transition to being leaders and role models.
This year’s ceremony began with a pair of performances from a string ensemble, directed by Chris Florio, and the female vocal group Cantilena, directed by Susan Nace.
After Jennifer Gargano, the assistant head of school for academic affairs, opened, Butch Keller, upper school head, introduced the faculty speaker, history teacher Julie Wheeler. “I will be the first to admit that I have been in a state of quasi-denial that you, the Class of 2013, were really about to graduate, say goodbye, and start a new and exciting phase of your life outside of Harker,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler noted the Class of 2013 may find it “downright exhausting trying to explain Harker to those who haven’t experienced it as they may doubt whether the fictional, Oz-like place that you describe really exists,” but “it’s an opportunity to redefine yourself.”
Emily Wang ’13, salutatorian, said the most important lesson she has learned is that “the great things are the quiet things. When I look back at these days, of course I’ll fondly remember the homecoming games, the spirit rallies, the school dances, the spring musicals. But I think that high school is defined by the smaller moments, those brief flashes of time when you look around you and think, hey, I like where I am right now.”
She likened these moments to building blanket forts as a child. “That experience – of sitting under a blanket and dreaming wildly – is perhaps long gone,” she said. “Yet we carry those dreams with us, an indomitable conviction that we can build castles from bed sheets, that we can build anything, that we can be anything.”
New to this year’s ceremony was the addition of a senior student speaker chosen by the graduating class. The first to be selected for this honor was Carlos Johnson-Cruz, who began his speech by recreating a scene described in the infamous Rebecca Black song, “Friday.”
“You see your friends over at the stop, and they’re in their fancy automobile. One guy is ‘kicking it’ in the front seat, another is ‘kicking it’ the back seat, but they’ll get up if you want them to. Now, you have to make your mind up. Which seat do you take?” Johnson-Cruz asked. “Here, you made something, anything of yourself,” he said. In closing, he reminded his classmates to be aware of the choices that they make and how they affect other people as well as themselves. “‘Know thyself,’ said the Greeks. ‘Know thine actions,’ says Carlos,” he finished.
Head of School Chris Nikoloff closed the ceremony with some heartfelt words of his own before the students departed, the seniors no doubt eagerly anticipating their graduation exercises that weekend. The full text of this story can be found here.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
On May 24 at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose, the graduating seniors in the Harker Conservatory certificate program performed selections from their senior portfolios at the 2013 Harker Conservatory Senior Showcase to an appreciative crowd of more than 500.
All 27 graduates of the program have spent the previous four years honing their talents in one of six fields offered by the certificate program.
The show included several dramatic reenactments and, as always, the musical talents of Harker’s Conservatory students were a treat, including vocalist Rebecca Liu’s stirring version of “Ave Maria” and Payal Modi singing the Kelly Clarkson hit “A Moment Like This.”
After the performances had concluded, the graduates lined up on stage and were called forward to receive their engraved plaques signaling successful completion of this intense arts program.
By Daniel Hudkins Dan Hudkins is Harker’s K-12 director of instructional technology. This article originally appeared in the summer 2013 issue of Independent School Magazine and was also printed in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Every school plans a curriculum that attempts to meet two parallel objectives: to be consistent with its core values and to prepare its students to be competent and successful adults. This tension leads schools to teach a variety of required courses based on values and perceived needs. But over time, those values and needs change. There were lengthy parts of our educational history in which wood and metal shop or home economics had been considered core skills. In the early 20th century, what independent school would not have included Latin as a required curricular element? Yet how many independent schools require Latin today?
In addition to everything else we teach, at The Harker School (California) we are convinced that the habits of mind learned through an understanding of computational thinking are required if one is to be a knowledgeable adult in the 21st century. And we believe that these skills are best learned through an understanding of computer science.
Vinton Cerf, the father of the Internet, makes the essential argument for computer science classes today: “Embedded computers and their animating software are everywhere, and a well-educated person today has to appreciate and understand their roles in daily life, business, entertainment and scientific research. No curriculum is complete without it.”
Even President Obama has chimed in. Responding to a question about teaching computer science in high school recently, he stated that making that training available in high school “not only prepares young people who may choose not to go to a four-year college to be job-ready, but it also engages kids.”
Here at The Harker School, we have had a graduation requirement of at least one semester of computer science since the first high school graduating class in 2002. The statement in our Program of Studies makes the case for the requirement this way: “The growth of the computer and electronic industries has contributed to profound and fundamental changes in how we work, live, interact with others, and play. We are surrounded with computers, both hidden and obvious, in all aspects of our lives. The computer science department offers a well-rounded program in technology and computer science, with courses that will appeal to the lay user as well as the computer science-bound student.”
Among educators in general, there is widespread confusion about what computer science entails and where it belongs in the curriculum. Computer science is not about teaching students how to use a word processor, spreadsheet or some other computer-based productivity tool. It is not about helping students learn how to make a set of PowerPoint slides to support an oral presentation. It is not about helping students learn how to use digital probeware in a science lab, or how to make a video in a humanities class, or how to create an engaging poster in a graphic arts lab. And it is not just about computer programming. All of these skills can be worthy and valuable parts of a K-12 education, and certainly contribute to one’s technological fluency. However, we are aiming for the higher goal of helping students develop the habits of mind that Jeannette Wing, of Carnegie Mellon University, describes as “computational thinking.”
Wing describes computational thinking as being able to apply human solutions to real-world problems. It represents a human way of thinking, rather than a computer’s way of functioning. As she puts it, “Computational thinking is a way humans solve problems; it is not trying to get humans to think like computers. Computers are dull and boring; humans are clever and imaginative.”
Our computer science classes are informed by experts in the field. Jeannette Wing’s work on defining computational thinking has crystalized much of our course work at Harker and elsewhere. Matt Brenner, of CSTeachLearn and formerly of Phillips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire) and Sidwell Friends School (Washington, D.C.), made the case for computer science in independent schools some time ago. He argued that, just as a basic understanding of mechanization and automation were the transformative ideas that undergirded the industrial revolution, algorithmic thinking is driving the current transformation of our society. “If we don’t know what they [algorithms] are or how to think about, invent, and apply them,” Brenner writes, “then we cannot use them to improve our lives and our society, nor can we understand how others use or wish to use them to the advantage or disadvantage of ourselves and our society.”
In addition, Chris Bigenho, of the Greenhill School (Texas) and the University of North Texas, has gathered evidence of current practices in teaching computer science in many independent schools. Casting a broad net, he posted a request for responses on two active independent school listservs. From his response summary, it is clear that this is a very active topic in the independent school world. While some respondents were in the exploratory phase, it appears that most were actively developing a computer science program that spanned middle and high school. They shared a broad agreement that computer science is a discipline in its own right with its own habits of mind. However, the surveys revealed some impediments to delivering computer science instruction in an independent school. This is leading to active discussion of several concerns including logistical questions (Can programming be taught on an iPad?), pedagogical questions (How can we best introduce students to the “hard fun” of learning to code?), and questions of recognition for independent learning (Is course credit the only meaningful measure or should we follow the world of industry and the MOOCs and look at badging and other forms of recognition?).
Teaching Computational Thinking
The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) recently sponsored a working group to further outline the essence of computational thinking. In a summary report on the working group, Chris Stephenson and Valerie Barr write, “Computational Thinking (CT) is an approach to solving problems in a way that can be implemented with a computer. Students become not merely tool users but tool builders. They use a set of concepts, such as abstraction, recursion and iteration, to process and analyze data, and to create real and virtual artifacts. CT is a problem-solving methodology that can be automated, transferred and applied across subjects.”
While this may feel abstract, it encapsulates the logic that is leading schools to incorporate game design and robotics at a variety of levels. Incorporating a deeper understanding of computational thinking is not unlike what we do in a wide variety of other academic disciplines in which we lead students to take skills acquired in one course and apply them in another (i.e., applying the ability to create a graph to a population study in a geography class).
At Harker, we have done extensive work to embed information literacy across the curriculum. In 2013–14 we will offer a 2:1 iPad program in K-2, a 2:1 Chromebook program in grade 3, a 1:1 Chromebook program in grades 4-5, a 1:1 laptop program (student choice of Windows or Mac OS) in the middle school, and a 1:1 bring-your-own-laptop program in the upper school. We believe that using technological tools to learn across the curriculum with a variety of tools leads to a greater degree of technological fluency.
But none of these programmatic steps directly addresses computational thinking. That requires teaching computer science.
Our computer science classes focus on problem-solving with computers because we know it’s a valuable 21st-century skill in courses and experiences across the curriculum, both inside and outside the classroom. Computer science classes begin in the lower school in fourth grade, where we work with computer simulations and animation. In the middle school, through required courses and elective offerings, the concepts and applications become more sophisticated. Required courses cover game design theory, robotics and the development of mobile applications. Elective offerings include Web animation, introductory programming and an introduction to Java programming.
The high school program, in part because of our Silicon Valley location, is unusually deep. A semester-length course is required for graduation. Students can meet this requirement by either of two options. The Digital World course is designed for students with limited interest in computer science. It teaches computer modeling and digital representation, and spends substantial time exploring the implications of living in a digital world. For those students with a deeper interest, the sequence begins with computer programming, but includes AP Computer Science as well as a series of advanced topics in computer science that vary from year to year. Recent topics have included Computer Architecture, Digital Signal Processing, Expert Systems, Neural Networks, Numerical Methods, Programming Languages and Compiler Systems.
The Computer Science Department
Another area of confusion about computer science concerns the question of where it should be taught. Some schools fold computer science into the math or science departments. While this may be necessary in the short term, it is not a great long-term solution. For the long term, it is important to recognize that computer science has evolved into its own discipline with skills that are distinct from science or math – and therefore requires its own department.
While non-specialist teachers (like me) can introduce computer science concepts in the early years, they are less capable as the sophistication of the computational thinking objectives increases. For the higher end courses – even the middle school courses – it’s best to tap the skills of a specialist. In other words, for courses that rely on introductory tools like Alice, Stagecast or Robolab, non-specialists can teach quite effectively. However, as the sophistication of the tools and concepts increases – think AP Computer Science and above – it becomes necessary to have computer science courses taught by experienced computer science teachers. We want our English teachers to be able to lead students to a deeper understanding of the text than could be provided by an enthusiastic but unsophisticated reader. Shouldn’t we want the same in computer science?
Educators are well aware that the limiting factor in all of our teaching and learning is time, and the competition for that time among academic disciplines, athletics, extracurricular activities, service-learning programs, etc., is an ongoing struggle. But shouldn’t we be asking, are we really preparing our students to be 21st-century citizens if we’re not teaching them the logic of the 21st century – computational thinking through computer science?
Vinton Cerf says, “No.” And we agree.
When part of a high-quality academic program, computer science classes add an element that helps all students navigate our complex, technologically driven world. It also gives our graduates an edge over those who are not taught these increasingly essential skills.