It’s not exactly business as usual in the main office lobby at Harker’s upper school campus. Sure, there are phones ringing, copy machines whirring, visitors popping in asking questions, the sound of papers rustling. And yet, despite these typical happenings, there’s something very different about the place: it is doubling as an art gallery for the middle school’s impressive visual arts program, presenting select student work created during the school year.
Each spring, all of Harker’s campuses hold art shows to give students a venue for the works they have completed thus far, but the Saratoga exhibit includes specially selected works. The exhibit kicked off with an opening reception this month and will run until April 6. On April 23 the main middle school art exhibit will open on the middle school campus, where it will run until May 15, with an opening reception held there on April 24.
In the Saratoga exhibit, colorful paintings and ceramics, from figurines to wire sculptures and mobiles, filled the outer walls on all sides of the room, giving a lovely, transformative ambience to the office setting.
On display from sixth graders were assorted plates and bowls with tempting fake food such as pie, French fries, vegetables and fruit. One particularly cheery plate radiated with painted-on yellow smiley faces. Grade 7-8 ceramics included a section of sea animals titled “Formed by the Sea.” They also had a table at the show containing glass fusion and casting, comprising sculptures illuminated by lights revealing the intricacy of the work.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Harker’s top artistic talent went the extra mile, by showcasing written statements alongside original artwork at the recent AP Studio Art Exhibition.
Featuring unique works in various media, the exhibition was held during a long lunch in the light-filled Nichols Hall atrium. The professionally-styled show was open to both students and faculty who strolled the hall admiring projects ranging from photography to sculptures and drawings.
AP Studio Art is a high-level class for talented artists, mostly seniors, interested in both 3-D art, taught by Jaap Bongers, and 2-D art, taught by Pilar Aguero-Esparza.
Commenting on the work of his student’s, Bongers, who is also chair of the art department, said he had been fortunate to follow many of the exhibitors’ evolving styles over the course of several years, having had them in various previous art courses.
Many of the students at the annual show were not artists themselves. However, after attending, they said they had a new appreciation for the artistic friends they’d come out to support.
“Some of my friends do art; I’ll probably take it next year,” said Eric Swenson, grade 11, who especially enjoyed reading the artists’ personal statements and seeing what inspired them.
Each of the student artists chose a theme that recurred throughout their works and wrote statements explaining their inspiration for the exhibition. These artist statements were prominently displayed next to their pieces.
In her statement about her cat sketches, artist Iris Xia, grade 11, wrote that her concentration involved the objectification of feelings. By illustrating cats placed into typical household tools and later luxury items, she said she sought to demonstrate how degrading people could be when they exploit innocent animals for their own benefit.
Meanwhile, senior Karen Wang’s whimsical, colorful paintings focused on the idea of freedom and escape. “What is freedom and how do I communicate my perception of it?” she questioned in her artist statement.
One thing that all of the exhibiting artists seemed to agree on was the joy they personally took in having the freedom to create their own themes, rather than following a more standard project based on a class assignment.
Explaining that process, exhibiting artist Tariq Jahshan, grade 12, stood in front of his 3-D sculpture display, and allowed that most of his ideas start out as a very basic abstract form. Then he “just kind of goes with it” until it becomes more conscious. “At that point, what’s going to come out takes over and I’ll then follow that.”
Jahshan’s work, and all the exhibiting artists’ pieces, will continue to be on display in Nichols Hall for Harker students, parents and faculty alike to enjoy until March 23.
This past fall, Harker students Neeraj Baid and Neel Bhoopalam, both grade 11, successfully founded and launched TEDx, an innovative program focusing on fostering youth entrepreneurship.
The students independently designed TEDx, created in “the spirit of ideas worth spreading,” and introduced it via a conference they organized themselves at Harker’s Nichols Hall. The community-wide event attracted nearly 200 high school students interested in entrepreneurship, from both the South Bay and greater San Francisco Bay Area. They came to listen to and interact with successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
Most recently, over the winter break, the forward-thinking team of Baid and Bhoopalam got invited by Chuck Reed, San Jose’s mayor, and council member Rose Herrera (who also heads the city’s economic development committee) to speak about TEDx at a city council meeting.
During the meeting, Herrera praised the boys’ work founding the program and promoting teenage entrepreneurship in San Jose and beyond. Speaking on behalf of Bhoopalam, Baid updated council members about their cause and vision of uniting important business leaders with local youth to ignite passion and leadership early on.
The Harker students reported that they were honored for the opportunity to speak at the city council and encouraged by the enthusiasm generated by their first event, which headlined keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki and featured five top entrepreneurs, each offering unique perspectives and advice to the young audience.
Harker News Online looks forward to continued updates and announcements about TEDx happenings in the future.
In January, three seniors made their directorial debuts at this year’s Student-Directed Showcase. This year’s directors, Tina Crnko, Sebastian Herscher and Alex Najibi, each chose a play to direct and produce, learning a great deal in the process.
From auditioning actors to arranging sets to technical planning, directors gained a wealth of hands-on experience during the class, taught by Laura Lang-Ree, which many apply for but few get to take. “I think that students find interpreting and creating the ‘big picture’ really intriguing,” said Lang-Ree. “So often in their lives they focus solely on one thing very well, be it a subject or a song. But with directing, you have to have vision and be able to work on the smallest details with the big picture always in mind.”
This year’s productions were “Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead,” directed by Herscher, “Voices in Conflict,” directed by Crnko, and “How to Succeed in High School Without Really Trying,” directed by Najibi.
For Crnko, the opportunity to direct in the showcase brought her full circle, and she views it as a way to bring other students into the arts. “I became interested in the performing arts by accident, through Student-Directed Showcase,” she said. “Being offered a spot in an SDS play my freshman year shaped my love for theater and pushed me deep into the Conservatory.”
Apart from the general busywork and day-to-day activity of being a director, students also learn how to be leaders, as well as how “to always keep trying new and different ways to motivate a cast and to create a vision,” Lang-Ree said.
Despite the many challenges directors face, Crnko said the biggest obstacle was herself. “I was taking on a monster of a play,” she said. “As ‘Voices in Conflict’ is a documentary, the pressure of doing justice to these remarkable stories was almost crippling at the start. I was also incredibly afraid of how the show would be received by our community.” She was pleasantly surprised to find out that her project was enthusiastically received. “I found 20 students who were as excited as I was, and their spectacular energy and work ethic brought this powerful play to life.”
“I love the ‘aha’ moments students in SDS get when they learn the method to the madness with directing,” said Lang-Ree. “[When they see] that there really is a process and a way of creating that opens up, rather than inhibits, a show’s growth potential.”
The upper school’s Quiz Kids team, coached by upper school math teacher Bradley Stoll, won it sifrst round and has its semifinal round coming up. The game will be held Sat., April 21, at the Peninsula TV Studios on the second floor of the Sam Trans building at 1250 San Carlos Ave., San Carlos. To obtain free tickets to the taping of the show, visit http://quizkids.eventbrite.com/. Bay Area Quiz Kids is a contest of knowledge and quick recall played by teams of Bay Area high school students, formatted as a fast, fun and entertaining TV game show.
For those interested in seeing the the first round shows, tune into KRON Channel 4 Saturdays at 2 p.m. Below are the upcoming air dates:
Boys baseball defeated St. Lawrence yesterday 14-4 in five innings to improve to 1-1. Kevin Cali and Jacob Hoffman, both grade 11, and Noah Levy, grade 12, each hit home runs. Cali also pitched eight strikeouts to earn the victory.
Girls softball defeated Yerba Buena 15-5 behind junior Alison Rugar’s eight strikeouts on the mound. She also hit a grand slam! Other hits were made by Angela Singh, grade 12; Ashley Del Alto (double) and Akarsha Gulukota, grade 11; Laura Thacker (triple), Alana Shamlou and Nithya Vemireddy, grade 10; and Sarah Bean and Safia Khouja , grade 9. The girls are now 2-0 on the season.
Today’s games:
3:30 Varsity Tennis v. King’s Academy @ Oakwood
3:30 JV Tennis @ Blackford
3:30 Baseball v. Lynbrook @ Blackford
4:00 JV Boys Volleyball v. Archbishop Mitty @ Blackford
5:15 Varsity Boys Volleyball v. Archbishop Mitty @ Blackford (home opener)
Rina Sakuraba and Maki Shibata, two upper school students from Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo, spent a month at the Harker upper school, experiencing the life of Harker students firsthand.
Each student had a schedule of classes and activities for each week of their stay. Shibata enjoyed psychology class and listening to the Harker orchestra during practice, while Sakuraba had fun in Masako Onakado’s contemporary Japanese class and sitting in on Cantilena’s class sessions to listen to the talented singers.
The students also had a great time at the Winter Ball and went on a trip to Santa Cruz on a day off, where they had a great time on the rides on the famous beach boardwalk. Middle school Japanese students were also paid a visit by the two students, who gave presentations on Japanese cultural topics such as origami, kabuki and Japanese hot springs (known as onsen).
Prior to heading back to Japan, Sakuraba and Shibata said they found Harker students to be very friendly, and hoped to strengthen their new-found friendships in the future.
Harker athletes have roared out of the gates in spring sports, showing some fantastic results.
Track & Field opened the season at the Willow Glen Invitational, with Isabelle Connell, grade 11, winning first place in both the 200m and 400m field (with times of 26.12s and 60.62s, respectively). Sumit Minocha, also grade 11, stunned the meet with a second place in the 100m dash and a incredible 22.60s first place finish in the 200m dash, which, broke the long-standing meet record. Matt Giammona placed 11th (out of 42) in the discus (105’2”) and 14th in the shot put. Ragini Bhattacharya placed ninth in the two-mile run (12:14.16). As a team, the girls placed eighth out of 21 teams and boys 10th out of 24.
Harker softball defeated Menlo-Atherton in their season opener 10-4 behind junior Alison Rugar’s twelve strikeouts and senior Angela Singh’s three hits.
Boys volleyball won their season opener at SLV 3-1. Andrew Zhu, grade 10, had thirteen kills in the victory. The freshman/sophomore combined team defeated the Bellarmine freshman team 2-0.
Boys golf defeated Pinewood in their opener 189-191. Maverick McNealy, grade 11, and Shrish Dwivedi, grade 9, both shot 34’s at Los Lagos.
Upcoming Home Games:
Thursday, March 8: Tennis vs. Crystal Springs, Softball vs. Monta Vista, Boys volleyball vs. Willow Glen
Friday, March 9: Softball vs. Pinewood, Baseball vs. Woodside Priory, Boys volleyball vs. Harbor at Bucknall.
Albert Wu and Ramya Rangan, both grade 12, were recognized at a special assembly Wednesday morning for their accomplishment of being the first pair of students from the same school to receive the Siemens Award for Advanced Placement. Jennifer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation, and Diane Tsukamaki, director of the College Board, traveled from the east coast to attend the assembly and personally congratulate the students and tell the audience of their accomplishments.
Tsukamaki said that eight of the 42 state and national award winners from California since the program’s launch in 1998 have come from Harker, a figure of 20%, “a statistic that should make this school proud.”
A 2009 study of 65 countries, she continued, found that the United States ranked 23rd in science proficiency and 31st in math proficiency. “AP science and math courses and exams are one way that we hope our country can regain its lead,” Tsukamaki said. Students who enroll in AP math and science courses, she said, are much more likely to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics in college.
Harper-Taylor then shared with the assembly just some of Rangan and Wu’s many accomplishments. Amazingly, both took AP classes while they were in grade 8 and both are experienced pianists. Wu was invited to the 2011 Research Science Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is also captain of Harker’s swim team. Rangan, meanwhile, was a semifinalist in the 2011 Siemens competition and represented the US in the 2009 China Girls Math Olympiad, winning a bronze medal.
After receiving their awards, Rangan and Wu shared some words with their fellow students. “None of this would have been possible without the support of the Harker community, the teachers, especially the math and science department,” he said. “The school has really given me so many opportunities to expand my intellectual horizons and also to provide me with avenues to explore and pursue my passions.” He also thanked his parents, who he said blessed him with a curiosity and love of learning.
Rangan said the reason Harker has had such success in this program is “because the school has provided all its students with such a great opportunity to be able to pursue what they want to pursue at the highest level possible for them,” she said. “And I would of course like to thank my parents a lot for giving me the great opportunity [and] the drive to pursue these things.”
March 6, 2012
The Siemens Foundation and the College Board recently announced that Harker students Ramya Rangan and Albert Wu, both grade 12, have each been named the top U.S. female and male AP scholars in the Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement. Rangan and Wu are the only two students in the U.S. to receive the scholarship, and were selected based on their performance in Advanced Placement math and science classes. Each student had the most scores of 5 on AP math and science exams for a male and female student. The last Harker student to receive a national award was Yi Sun ’06. Wu and Rangan each received a $5,000 scholarship for earing the top spots.
“I was excited and honored to receive this award in December,” Rangan said. “I didn’t expect to be one of the national winners, so I was pretty surprised when I was notified about this.”
Wu said he was also a bit honored and surprised to receive the award. “I did not know I had the top aggregate score on AP math and science tests in the entire nation,” he said. “Of course, it would not have been possible without the support of the community around me.”
Awards are given to students each year based on their performance on AP exams in the following courses: Biology, Calculus BC, Chemistry, Computer Science A, Environmental Science, Statistics, Physics C Mechanics and Physics C Electricity and Magnetism. Two winners, one male and one female, are chosen from each state to win a $2,000 scholarship, and two national winners, also a male and female, receive a $5,000 scholarship.
Both students thanked their teachers, families and the Harker community for helping them reach this milestone.
“I received so much support from my teachers. Harker is a place that offers such a large range of courses, and the teachers do a great job of teaching them and caring about the individual student,” Wu said.
“Without Harker’s amazing teachers,” said Rangan, “I really would not have been able to learn the AP coursework to achieve this award. My teachers have done much more than train me for AP exams. They have prepared me for future encounters with their fields, and they have instilled in me an excitement for the subjects they teach.”
Several of Kate Schafer’s ecology students are developing an interactive kiosk for the aquarium located inside the Nichols Hall atrium. The kiosk will consist of an iPad displaying a Web page with information on the aquarium’s various inhabitants.
The idea came about when the students were assigned a class project to identify fish. “Everyone got pretty into it, and we figured that it would be much better and it would be a good use of our time this semester,” said Akshay Tangutur, grade 12, who is helping program the website. Also on the team are Web developer Frederic Enea, Simrun Bhagat, who is assisting with graphic design, and photographer Gerilyn Olsen, who took the photos of the fish that appear on the kiosk. All students on the team are in grade 12.
When finished, the kiosk will display a photo and contain various information about the life in the aquarium, such as the species, ecology, behavior and where in the world they can be found. It is expected to be completed in March.