The Harker School’s forensics program has been traveling across the country this school year, with students advancing to the finals from California to New York.
During the last weekend in October, the team traveled to Las Vegas, Nev., for the Meadows School Tournament, and to Stockton to compete at the University of the Pacific.
Six Harker students went to Vegas to compete in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, a one-on-one debate that places an emphasize on adopting a certain set of values, rather than focusing on solely on harm/benefit like in policy debate. One of the students in attendance, Chaitanya Malladi, grade 12, finished the preliminary round of the tournament with a 4-2 record, and advanced to the double octafinals (top 32) as the 22nd overall seed. There, says Greg Achten, upper school debate teacher, “he lost a close split decision to a student from Harvard Westlake.”
Over in Stockton, six upper school students and 13 middle school students competed in the Jon Schamber High School Forensics Invitational at the University of the Pacific. They competed in a wide variety of events, from Public Forum, Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu, Original Oratory and Humorous Interpretation. Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7, advanced to the semifinals in novice Humorous Interpretation. “This was a big step forward because we’ve been working hard to improve in middle school interpretation of literature events and this is some of the first fruit of that effort,” said Jonathan Peele, director of congressional debates and individual events. Steven Wang, grade 9, took third place in novice Extemporaneous Speaking while Matthew Huang, also grade 9, advanced to the semifinals in Impromptu Speaking.
Once again, a Harker student is a Rhodes Scholar finalist. Tanya Schmidt ’08 was named a regional finalist this year, and this past weekend went through the final interview process, but was not selected as a Rhodes Scholar. Schmidt, a student at Santa Clara University (SCU), first applied for the scholarship in October. In a Q&A session with SCU, she said, “I submitted my application in early October. It requires a personal statement and a résumé, as well as up to eight recommendation letters. About a month later, I received an email saying I was a finalist.” She and 14 other finalists went up to San Francisco on Nov. 19 for an all-day interview to compete for two spots.
In 2010, Varun Sivaram ’07 was named a Rhodes Scholar and faculty and staff at Harker were pleased to hear Schmidt’s personal and academic accomplishments were receiving recognition. She has been described as “very special,” the kind of student who goes out of her way to say hello to you. SCU has similar praise for her, saying, “To say Schmidt is special is an understatement.”
The Rhodes Scholarship provides full financial support for 32 students across the United States to earn a degree at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. According to the Rhodes Trust, Rhodes Scholars are chosen “not only for their outstanding scholarly achievements, but for their character, commitment to others and to the common good, and for their potential for leadership in whatever domains their careers may lead.”
Harker’s Cum Laude Society continued to host engaging talks for its Cum Laude Lecture Series in late October and early November. On Oct. 26, Buddhist abbot Jian-Hu Shi of the Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale once again visited Nichols Hall auditorium to give attendees a primer on the key tenets of Buddhism and how they related to the lives of Harker students. This marks his final appearance at Harker for some time, as he plans to embark on a retreat to Taiwan for a number of years.
A week later, on Nov. 2, Chris Nikoloff, head of school, delivered the second of his lectures inspired by Alan Watts’ “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.” In this lecture, Nikoloff touched on how opposites depend on one another, and how easy it is to take this co-dependency for granted. For instance, when listening to a piece of music, it is common to let the space between notes (sometimes represented as silence) go unnoticed even though they are essential to the piece itself.
Regina Chen, grade 10, finished in the top eight in the Cadet Women’s Sabre at the North American Cup (NAC) held in Richmond, Va., one of four Cadet point events held annually. Cadet events are for those under age 17. There were 91 competitors in the event, making her top eight accomplishment all the more impressive. Chen also had a great finish over the summer, tying for third place at the Summer National Fencing Championships. Chen is now ranked 20th in the U.S. in Cadet Women’s Sabre with only two events under her belt, as she just began fencing in the Cadet bracket.
Michael Amick, grade 11, was honored for his athletic prowess at the fourth annual Soccer Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SSVCF) dinner in mid-October as the 2011 David Kucera award recipient. Kucera passed away from natural causes in college and the De Anza Force and SSVCF established the David Kucera award to honor a student athlete who embodies Kucera’s philosophy and competitive spirit. They noted Amick is a 4.0 junior at The Harker School, who, according to the award, consistently demonstrates: the ability to be a significant contributor to his soccer team both on and off the field; leadership of his peers on and off the field; excellence in his academic areas of study; commitment and involvement to community service; and always shows respect for those around him.
The Harker School’s annual Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) Week, put on by the GEO Club, ended in late October. Thanks to candygram, wrist bands and sports bags sales, as well as pledges taken for vows of silence, the club will be donating just under $6,000 to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI). GAVI distributes vaccines to impoverished nations, helping to save the lives of children and break the poverty cycle.
GEO had so many candygram orders that “we had to make almost 200 more, I think,” said Cherry Xie, grade 12, the club’s public relations officer.
Xie also says a great number of people participated in the vow of silence, which was her personal favorite part of the week. “People got very competitive about the amount of money they could raise and it basically turned into a huge competition between me and two other people to see who could raise the most.” Pledges were given to those participating in the 24-hour vow of silence, and the three competitive students, “each ended up getting pledges from 60 or more people,” said Xie.
But the vows of silence didn’t stop with the students. Teachers also took the pledge challenge, including Bradley Stoll, a mathematics teacher on the upper school campus who teaches Xie’s calculus class.
Xie called thought it was “very bold” of him to do. “I really admire how he was willing to root for the cause even though it made teaching for him very difficult,” she says.
To illustrate just how quickly disease spreads, the club also put on a game where they had to “infect” each other with stickers, and see how many people had become “infected” by the end of the day.
The end of the event provided a natural time for reflection, as well as a time to consider what other ways there are to help. “I hope everyone realizes that there are many ways to help people in Third World countries, and that many aspects of their lives they don’t usually take time to appreciate are in fact life-or-death matters for others, specifically vaccinations and immunizations,” said Xie. “I also hope that people who did take the vow of silence reflect on how much of a difference they made by themselves, just by giving up something as simple as speech for a while, and that if we all support each other in fighting for a cause, we can achieve a lot.”
Over a weekend in mid-October, The Harker School hosted the Eagle Open for Congressional Debate, its second forensics tournament of the year, inviting debate teams from schools across the country to compete at the upper school campus. Though smaller than the Nichols Invitational in September, the tournament nevertheless kept 25 classrooms busy, in addition to the Edge, the Bistro and Nichols Hall auditorium.
In late October, the Harker Conservatory’s fall play, “You Can’t Take it With You,” showcased from a Thursday to a Saturday in the Blackford Theater, attracting full-house seating and generating lots of laughs.
“You Can’t Take it With You,” by George Kaufman and Moss Hart, was originally performed in 1936, and centers around the eccentric Sycamore family – all of whom have hobbies they love (though are often terrible at), and who live by the philosophy, “Don’t do anything you aren’t going to enjoy doing.” In the play, Alice Sycamore (Cecilia Lang-Ree, grade 11), the most “normal” member of the family, gets engaged to the equally normal Tony Kirby (Kovid Puria, grade 12), vice-president of Kirby and Co. When Tony’s parents come over to meet the family, chaos and hilarity ensue.
The process of getting the show from page to stage started when director Jeff Draper chose the famous piece. “I take many things into account when selecting a play,” Draper said. “I need a show that has many roles for the large number of students we serve with the Harker Conservatory. I also need challenges for the actors, and especially for the female students. Most plays are written by men, for male directors, and for a largely male cast. I like plays that tell stories about women and girls, or at least stories that appeal to them. And I look for a genre or style that will complement those done by the student directors and Laura Lang-Ree’s musical each spring. Because many students perform in all three productions, I like to provide new styles to learn about.”
Once Draper had decided on “You Can’t Take it With You,” it came time to cast. When Tina Crnko, grade 12, auditioned, Draper made the call to change the central character of Grandpa to Grandma. According to Draper, “Tina showed up and proved that she was the one who had the gravitas to convey the important themes of the play. She effortlessly created a grounded, wise and well-constructed character capable of owning the important role. And the story seemed more ‘balanced’ for a contemporary re-telling of the play because of the switch.”
What followed casting was six weeks of rehearsals, during which time sets were built and costumes made or ordered. Paul Vallerga, technical director at the middle school, created the set design of the Sycamore’s living room, including stairs that convincingly disappeared to the unseen upper floor of the house and doors to the kitchen and basement (the latter of which had to convincingly light up for several fireworks scenes). Natti Pierce-Thomson designed the lights, and as Draper says, “they add so much believability and beauty to the show.” Caela Fujii designed the costumes and provided the props. “Those she couldn’t find,” Draper says, “she bought or built herself. She is a miracle worker and I love working with her!”
Tristan Killeen, grade 12, who played Mr. De Pinna, an ice man who stopped by the Sycamore home eight years ago and never left, said one rehearsal stands out more to him than any other. “One rehearsal, we talked as a cast about the message of the play, and almost everyone in the cast seemed to have a profound moment of introspection in which they learned something about how this play related to their own lives and the lives of those around them,” Killeen says.
“I looked forward to every rehearsal for this play, as they were really what brought the cast together to share the message that this play had to offer,” said Puria, the “normal” fiancé. “In every rehearsal, I learned something new about Tony Kirby, and I am grateful that I had the chance to play the role. It is the creation of the character that makes theater fascinating, and every rehearsal added a new dynamic to the role. I loved every moment in the process of this production.”
Draper worked hard to keep rehearsals interesting. “To keep the comedy fun and see it grow, we played games with the show in rehearsal. One game is called ‘Funny, Smelly, Popular,’ and each actor picks a character they will find hilarious, another that is endowed with extreme body odor, and a third that is very cute, beautiful, etc. They act the show as usual, but with this additional layer adding humor and fun to the blocking, line readings, entrances and actions. We also played tag one time, and it really kept the stage movements very interesting,” he says.
Then it was show time.
The cast hit the stage on opening night with tons of energy. Between Mr. Sycamore (Govi Dasu, grade 12) and Mr. Di Pinna blowing up fireworks in the basement, Alice’s sister Essie (Lydia Werthen, grade 11), dancing across the room, Grandma collected and grounded in the center of the room, and the entire family’s predictable clash with the Kirbys, there was never a dull, stale or boring moment. The cast balanced the play’s laugh-out-loud humor with the underlying message to hold onto the things that truly matter to produce a lively performance with a resonating message.
One of the funniest moments in the play comes when Penny Sycamore – mother of Alice and Essie, and played by Namrata Vakkalagadda, grade 10 – suggests the Sycamores and the Kirbys play a game where she says one word, and everyone must write down the first word that comes to mind. She reads the Kirby’s answers out loud at the game’s end, and discovers that Mrs. Kirby’s responses are quite telling about her relationship with her husband.
Crnko says this was actually her favorite moment in the play, calling it a cast victory. “Mr. Draper challenged us to get a 30-second laugh from the Friday night audience on the moment. We successfully reached 23 seconds on Thursday night, 31 seconds on Friday night, and 35 seconds on Saturday night. We were all over the moon,” says Crnko.
The play’s message of letting go of the things you can’t take with you resonated with audience and cast alike.
“Do what you love to do,” Puria says of the play’s overall message. “The argument between Grandma and Mr. Kirby (Alex Najibi, grade 12) at the end of the play really conveys this message to the audience. Mr. Kirby works long hours and makes loads of money, but he is not truly happy with himself (or his indigestion). The play says, through the character of Mr. Kirby, that finding one’s passion should be the goal of life.”
“A great joy of mine in the past few days is hearing from those who came to the show about how it not only had them laughing and lifted their spirits, but also caused them to reflect in the same way that the cast did,” says Killeen.
Crnko believes that, “In an age when we’re each wrapped up in our own ambitions, overrun by all that needs to be accomplished, and blinded by successes and failures, this show reveals what still remains deeply human about each of us: the need to feel connected.” She goes on to say that, “Grandma Vanderhof, the character I was lucky enough to play, understands what many of us often forget. Grandma knows that the true purpose of life is to be happy, and that monetary success or nominal importance are only superficial means by which many attempt to reach happiness. Mrs. Vanderhof sees that family and connection to those you love makes life worth living.”
She quoted a line from the play – “It’s only a handful of the lucky ones who can look back [at life] and say they even came close [to happiness]” – that perhaps best implies the resonating message at the heart of this comedy: be one of the lucky ones.
In late October, Lucy Cheng, grade 12, and Paulomi Bhattacharya, grade 11, were named regional finalists in this year’s Siemens competition. In addition, Harker also produced a total of six regional semifinalists: Michelle Deng, Alex Hsu, Revanth Kosaraju, Chaitanya Malladi, Ramya Rangan and Lucy Xu, all grade 12.
A total of 2,436 students from across the country participated in this year’s competition, submitting 1,541 original research projects and setting a new record. Regional finals begin this week, and the winners of the regional events will be invited to compete at the Siemens National Finals, held Dec. 3-5 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
The Siemens Competition, administered every year by the College Board, is one of the leading competitions for high school students performing original research in science, technology in mathematics. Students, both as individual participants and as team members, compete for college scholarships ranging from $1,000 (for regional finalists) to $100,000 (for the top-placing individual or team).
The Harker School’s debaters wrapped up two tournaments in October on high notes, earning top spots in competitions on opposite ends of the country. In mid-October, 18 students competed at a public forum debate held at Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Ariz. Six of nine teams qualified for the elimination rounds. Shivani Mitra and Nik Agarwal, both grade 11, were octofinalists. Andrew Luo and Sarina Vij, both grade 11, and grade 10 students Maneesha Panja and Sebi Nakos also finished as octofinalists and earned ghost bids to the Tournament of Champions (TOC).
David Grossman, grade 11, and Sreyas Misra, grade 10, made it to the quarterfinals and earned a bid to the TOC. Pranav Sharma and Kiran Arimilli, both grade 11, and Katherine Paseman and Stephanie Lu, both grade 10, finished as semifinalists, all earning a bid to the TOC.
Harker students took the top three spots in the individual speaker category, with Paseman finishing first, Grossman second and Sharma third. “Each of the trophies that Harker brought home were made by Desert Vista’s pottery club, and the money the school used to purchase the trophies was donated to Relay for Life,” said Carol Green, upper school debate teacher. “In addition, Desert Vista organized a book drive to donate books to a shelter for domestic abuse. Despite flying to the tournament, Harker was recognized as the school that brought the most books to donate.”
That same weekend, at the Bronx Round Robin in New York City, Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma, both grade 11, won 10 straight ballots in their pod to finish with a perfect record, while Reyhan Kader, grade 11, and Kevin Duraiswamy, grade 10, went 8-2 in their pod. The two teams closed out the round robin, with Sharma winning the top speaker award and Chona the second place speaker award.
After the round robin, the Harker teams participated in a three-day open invitational, featuring more than 100 teams. Sharma and Chona took home the championship, and Chona placed 18th among individual speakers in an event with more than 200 competitors. Although Kader, Duraiswamy, Neel Jani, grade 11, and Neil Khemani, grade 10, barely missed the elimination rounds, they were nonetheless an important asset in helping Chona and Sharma win the championship by providing constant support.
The Harker School recently came in second place nationwide in National Assessment & Testing’s 2011 Fall Startup Event mathematics contest. Coached by math teacher Misael Fisico, upper school students raced to complete 100 problems within a 30-minute time limit.
Several students had outstanding individual performances on the test, which helped boost Harker into second place. Cindy Liu and Rahul Jayaraman tied for 10th place in the grade 9 division. Other freshmen who performed well in this division were Sachin Peddada with 12th place, Ashwath Thirumalai with 18th place and Patrick Lin with 22nd place. Vikram Sundar took ninth place in the grade 10 division, and in the grade 11 division, Ashvin Swaminathan earned 18th place. Patrick Yang placed first in the grade 12 division, and classmate Lucy Cheng took 17th.
Other National Assessment & Testing contests that Harker will be participating in this year include the 2011 Team Scramble, taking place this week, and the 2011 Ciphering Time Trials on Dec. 8.