Update: After trailing most of the first round game of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Championship tournament Tuesday night against Fremont, our girls water polo team came on strong in the fourth quarter to secure a 13-10 victory. Anna Levine, grade 10, scored five goals and Keri Clifford, grade 11, three. The girls now face No. 1 seed Santa Clara in the semifinals Thurs., Nov. 3, 7:30 at our own Singh Aquatic Center. Come cheer on our Eagles!
Nov. 1, 2011
The Harker School’s girls water polo team hosts the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Championships for the first time next week, with high hopes of a win themselves.
In mid-October, they won three of their five games at the prestigious Western States Varsity Girls Water Polo Tournament in Modesto, defeating Beyer, Ukiah and Newman. Following that, they suffered a loss at Lynbrook, but came back at Cupertino High with a 15-4 victory, followed by a tough 8-5 loss to Saratoga High.
So though the pendulum has swung this season, the girls have the strength and potential to pull off some tough wins in the championships. The girls are now 13-11 overall, 6-6 in league play and are seeded fourth. They will play the fifth-seeded Fremont at 7:30 on Nov. 1, so come out and cheer them on! Games are from 4:30-8 p.m. at the upper school’s Singh Aquatic Center on Nov. 1, 3 and 4. Ticket prices are $6 for adults and non-ASB card holders, and $3 for children 6-12, seniors and students with ASB cards.
“It should be a good tournament,” said coach Allie Lamb. “I think the top six teams are all very close and anyone could win any given day. We have had some ups and downs throughout the season, but I believe we could win the tournament if we are able to pull everything together and apply what we have been working on this throughout this season. It’s going to be a fun week of water polo and I really hope we get a lot of Harker supporters out on the deck to pump up our team!”
Congratulations to The Harker School robotics team, who won two awards at the Western Region Robotics Forum’s (WRRF) CalGames competition, held at Archbishop Mitty High School in late October.
The team was awarded the BAE Systems Design Award for their “Ebox” modular electronic control hardware. “The Ebox is a single unit that contains all of the electronics needed to run the robot and a standardized set of connectors to interface with external motors and sensors,” said team member Jay Reddy, grade 12. “That way, we always have multiple functioning robots in the lab. We simply plug the Ebox into whichever robot we want to run.”
Additionally, team mentor Eric Nelson, upper school physics teacher, received the WRRF Mentor of the Year award for his longtime dedication to the team. The winner of this award is determined by student essays and interviews conducted on his or her behalf. “The team is very excited since Dr. Nelson is a great mentor and we are glad to see him get the credit he deserves,” Reddy said.
One of the best testaments to the lasting influence Harker teachers have on their students is the Outstanding Educator Awards. This year, four Harker teachers were nominated by students of the class of 2011.
In mid-September, the University of Chicago sent Alexandra Rosenboom, an English teacher at the upper school, a letter informing her she’d been named an Outstanding Educator after being nominated by her former student Kristie Sanchez. The University of Chicago sends an email to all freshmen asking them to help the school recognize high school educators who have made a difference.
Sanchez had a difficult time picking just one Harker teacher to nominate. “I had so many inspirational teachers during my time at Harker that I almost refrained from submitting a nomination all together,” she says. “I ultimately chose Mrs. Rosenboom because her 20th Century American Poetry and Poetics class completely transformed my view of poetry as a whole and helped me to discover a poet within myself.”
Stanford University has a similar program in place. Each year, it reaches out to its incoming freshman class asking if there have been any exceptional educators who influenced them. Three Harker class of 2011 graduates now attending Stanford responded enthusiastically.
Anthony Silk, an upper school mathematics teacher, was nominated by two of his former students – Isaac Madan and Gautam Krishnamurthi – for his influence on their high school education.
So, too, was Anita Chetty, an upper school biology teacher nominated by her student Josephine Chen.
Adam Perelman nominated his former mathematics teacher Victor Adler. “I nominated Dr. Adler because he truly cares about all his students, not only as math students but also as people. He always goes the extra mile, from helping us out on tough problems, to getting up early for practice for a synchronized swimming competition, to hosting difficult but important conversations in his classroom, and is at once teacher and friend,” Perelman said.
Sanchez noted, “A hallmark of a great educator is being able to inspire passion. Mrs. Rosenboom was able to do so in me.” Many other Harker teachers have also inspired this kind of passion, and graduating students are able to bring that feeling from high school to their colleges and universities.
The Harker School has been recognized as one of the top 100 schools in the nation for speech and debate activities, according to the National Forensics League. Of the more than 3,000 qualified schools, Harker ranks 19th. That number is based on “student participation and achievement in speech and debate activities,” said the NFL. Carol Green, the communications studies department chair for grades 6-12, said, “This is a huge honor and shows the strength of Harker whose overall 9-12 population is much smaller than many of the top schools.”
Butch Keller, upper school head, presented an award to the department that was accepted by Jonathan Peele, the director of congressional debate and individual events, and Greg Achten, the upper school debate teacher.
On Oct. 17, a special ceremony was held at Nichols Hall to induct 58 upper school students into the National Honor Society (NHS). Established in 1921, the NHS recognizes students across the country who excel in what the organization calls the four pillars: scholarship, leadership, service and character.
The students inducted at the ceremony were: Rohith Bhethanabotla, Shivani Chandrashekaran, Rebecca Chen, Stephanie Chen, Mercedes Chien, Zareen Choudhury, Jennifer Dai, Nikhil Dilip, Darian Edvalson, Shenel Ekici, Shivani Gillon, Arjun Goyal, Anika Gupta, Areej Hasan, Saachi Jain, Trisha Jani, Zina Jawadi, Krishan Kumar, Aaron Lee, Christine Lee, Kristine Lin, Mary Liu, Mabel Luo, Varun Mohan, Dennis Moon, Maneesha Panja, Katherine Paseman, Sahithya Prakash, Srikar Pyda, Namita Ravi, Sapna Suresh, Monica Thukral, Namrata Vakkalagadda, Sameer Vij, Andrew Wang and Sean Youn, all grade 10; Molly Ellenberg, Varun Gudapati, Samantha Hoffman, Cecilia Lang-Ree, Preeya Mehta, Nikhil Panu, Laura Pedrotti, Shelby Rorabaugh, Kyle Roter, Nina Sabharwal, Pooja Shah, Pranav Sharma, Sonia Sidhu, Alan Soetikno, Hansa Srinivasan, Kathir Sundarraj, Apurva Tandon, Rachel Yanovsky and Robert Yeats, all grade 11; and Jaya Chandra, Angela Singh and Sona Sulakian, all grade 12.
Almost 200 high school students visited Nichols Hall on Oct. 22 for the first ever, independently organized TEDx Harker School event, put together by grade 11 students Neeraj Baid and Neel Bhoopalam. Headlined by keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki, the event featured five top entrepreneurs, each offering unique perspectives and advice to the young audience.
As chief evangelist at Apple in the ’80s, Kawasaki helped bring developers to Apple’s Macintosh platform. During his introduction, he asked how many members of the audience used Macs. Upon seeing the vast majority of the attendees raise their hands, he grinned and remarked, “I love to see that.”
With Steve Jobs still in headlines due to his recent passing, Kawasaki’s presentation focused on key lessons he learned from the late celebrity businessman and inventor. “I’m one of the few people who survived working for him twice,” he joked.
The first such lesson was, “Experts are clueless.” “If there’s anything that Apple has proven,” he said, “it’s that experts are often wrong.” He encouraged the audience to “learn to ignore experts.
“This may be contrary to what you’ve been taught, but experts usually define things within established limits, and I think you should break those limits,” he said.
He followed up with several prophetic quotes from influential business leaders that in retrospect seemed downright foolish, including one by Thomas Watson of Western Union, who in 1876 famously said, “This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Other lessons he learned from Jobs included the value of design, realizing that customers often don’t know what they need, and the concept that changing one’s mind is a sign of intelligence.
The conference was kicked off by Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Energy, who observed that the United States is “no longer number one in much of anything,” a far cry from when the U.S. “took over” the industrial revolution in the 1850s. Rising carbon dioxide levels present an opportunity for America to once again be a leading innovator, he said, “and the opportunity is to correct it.”
After identifying the various ways in which the world uses energy, Surace said there a number of things American businesses can now reinvent. “Whether it’s motors or pumps or washing machines or lighting or the way we operate buildings or all the supply side dynamics, we get to reinvent today, and this, in fact, is what America has always done best,” he said.
Although there is competition, particularly from China, America is good at what Surace called disruptive innovation, using none other than Steve Jobs as a shining example. Under his leadership, products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad “completely disrupted an industry, like no industry has ever been disrupted before,” he said.
However, being disruptively innovative means “we have to be absolutely empowered to take the risks,” and come up with ideas that are unconventional and possibly looked down upon.
Karl Mehta, founder and CEO of PlaySpan, a micropayment company acquired by Visa in March, talked about what he called the “building blocks of entrepreneurship,” covering key principles that helped him in his business ventures. “Wealth creation is not just about money,” he said, but also about giving back to the people who enabled them to become entrepreneurs in the first place. “We want to keep in mind that we stay grounded, that it’s not about money but about creating the wealth so that we can help society. We can give it back to the community,” he said.
Mehta is passionate about using technology and entrepreneurship as “two big tools” to help the people at the “bottom of the pyramid,” who are living on less than $10 a day. He is currently a board member of Simpa Networks, which seeks to make energy available to people in poor and remote areas by allowing them to purchase credits for clean energy with an affordable “pay-as-you-go” model.
When founding a company, Mehta said, one of the most important steps is “to hire people who are smarter than you.” Forming an effective team means being able to find people who are strong in areas where others are not. “Seldom you’ll find individuals who are well-rounded, but generally only teams are well-rounded,” he said.
Following Mehta was Sramana Mitra, who has built three companies since 1994, two of which she has successfully sold. Instead of a presentation, she opted to “have a conversation” with the audience, recapping her journey as an entrepreneur and talking about some of the opportunities that await future generations. “By 2020, there are going to be five billion people on the Internet … So the potential for value creation, the potential for entrepreneurship, the potential for wealth creation ahead of your generation is immense,” she said.
She also talked about her “1 Million by 1 Million” initiative, which aims to help one million entrepreneurs reach $1 million in revenue by 2020, which would create a worldwide GDP of $1 trillion and create 10 million jobs. “We have entrepreneurs from all over the world, at all different stages of their lives and careers doing one million by one million right now,” she said. Those who wish to take part in the initiative can gain access to lectures, case studies and coaching via the website http://1m1m.sramanamitra.com.
During the question and answer session, Mitra said that one way to help solve problems stemming from the current economic crisis is to “empower a lot more entrepreneurs … with the skills and knowledge of how to be successful entrepreneurs,” and she is seeking to create a “Capitalism 2.0, a distributed, democratic capitalism. We need to democratize capitalism the same way Steve Jobs democratized personal computing, the same that Henry Ford democratized the automobile.”
One of the more popular speakers of the day was Rahim Fazal, who sold his first company during his senior year of high school. He was spurred into entrepreneurship, funnily enough, after being fired from McDonald’s for working “too slow.” “I might be the only entrepreneur who’s ever been fired from McDonald’s,” he joked. He went on to start an online business with his friend, which resulted in him cutting several classes and taking far too many bathroom breaks.
The pair made local headlines after selling the business for more than $1 million. Feeling confident, he stridently ignored his parents’ advice to go to college and started another business. “I thought I was on the top of the world,” he said. “That business ended up falling flat on its face, and lost almost all of this money that I made.” He then decided to listen to his parents and acquired an MBA.
Fazal’s current business is Involver, a social marketing company that helps companies leverage social networks to reach customers. Involver’s clients include Nike, Facebook and the National Football League. One of the lessons he learned in his journey so far was that having a good relationship with his parents was more important than he originally thought, mentioning his “incredibly successful” sister, who “had an awesome relationship with my parents, and that was I think one of the things I regret that I didn’t have.”
He also recommended that entrepreneurs build a group of people around them who can answer questions and solve problems for them that are outside their expertise, such as lawyers and accountants. Another point close to Fazal’s heart was getting a life. “If you’re not having a good time, if you’re not out there doing the things that regular kids do, then you’re going to completely regret it,” he said. “Make sure you’re actually doing stuff that’s fun, and that matters.”
In late September, grades 10 and 11 embarked on their annual class trips. This year’s juniors went kayaking at Elkhorn Slough in Monterey and sailing in Santa Cruz, while the sophomores went to Santa Cruz and La Honda to test their mettle at ropes courses.
The sophomores split off into two groups for the ropes course trips. At each course, students and teachers used teamwork, communication and coordination to navigate the obstacles. A fun and valuable outing was somewhat marred by a bus breakdown on the return trip, but the students made do by enjoying snacks and socializing while waiting for the ride back to Harker.
At Elkhorn, one group of juniors went on a nine-mile kayaking journey that, though tiring, gave students the opportunity to see a variety of wildlife local to the slough, including seals, pelicans and otters.
In Santa Cruz, students boarded 14 boats for their sailing adventure, and after a primer on the basics of sailing, tried their hands at maneuvering the boats themselves. After honing their skills, the groups of students in each boat raced one another.
A team of Harker upper school students has won a grant of $9,110 to build an electric generator that will use solar power without the costly, cumbersome panels. The team consists of Prag Batra, Sachin Jain and Jay Reddy, all grade 12, Ramakrishnan Menon, Wilbur Yang and Shantanu Joshi, all grade 11, and grade 10 students Nikhil Dilip and Pranav Batra.
The team’s invention is intended to be an alternative for individuals or businesses who seek a cheaper solution for using green energy. “By capturing solar energy, converting it to heat and then harnessing this heat to generate electricity over a body of water – lake, ocean, even swimming pool – we can generate electricity at a lower cost than with conventional solar panels,” Batra said.
Earlier this year, the team, coached by math teacher Anthony Silk, proposed their project for this year’s InvenTeam outreach initiative, run by the Lemelson-MIT Program, which awards grants to teams of high school students wishing to see their inventions become reality. The team also received help from adviser and physics teacher Mark Brada, mentor Eric Toberer, assistant professor of physics at the Colorado School of Mines, and mentor Jeff Snyder, faculty associate in applied physics and materials science from the California Institute of Technology.
Possible applications for the generator are numerous. “For instance, the device could be used on almost any body of water and could be incorporated into future boats to provide renewable, portable power at sea,” Batra said. “In the process, the device would help reduce reliance on non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels and provide clean energy without negative environmental impacts such as air or water pollution.”
They plan to use the grant money to purchase materials for the generator, and plan to seek additional funds to cover travel costs for a trip to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Eurekafest in June, where they will showcase their invention. “We intend to have the device completed by early- to mid-June in time for Eurekafest,” Batra said. “If possible, we hope to demo the device for the school before the end of the school year.”
In late September, upper school statistics students attended the San Francisco Giants’ final regular-season game to gather information that they will be using for statistics projects throughout the year. “The statistics curriculum is designed to teach students how to address a question of interest through data,” said Troy Thiele, upper school statistics teacher, who accompanied the students along with colleague Mary Mortlock. “They need to formulate a method to obtain useful data, then analyze it and use probability to make conclusions about their question of interest.”
For the rest of the school year, statistics teachers will have students return to the data they’ve collected as they learn the various principles of statistical problem-solving. “In this way, the concepts we teach in class will hopefully have greater relevance to students as they apply them to data that they have collected to answer questions they have formulated themselves,” Thiele said.
Thiele also hopes that the trip will help students enjoy the study of statistics. “The hope is that through a positive and fun learning experience, students will think fondly of statistics, rather than as just another class,” he said. “This positive experience will hopefully motivate students to recognize how statistics can be applied in all facets of their lives.”
Harker’s global education department is thriving, as is evident when one looks at some of the amazing places Harker students and teachers traveled to this summer. Enjoy the ride!
This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Upper School Students Visit Friends in Switzerland
In late May and early June, several students traveled to Switzerland with Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs and Kevin Williamson, upper school dean of students, to meet their buddies at the Collège de Gambach in Fribourg.
The Harker students began their first day at Collège de Gambach by learning about Switzerland, said Gargano. The students also attended an English class to participate in discussions, helping the Swiss students with their English skills and giving the Harker students an opportunity to gain insights into Swiss culture. Harker French students also participated in a French class for German speakers.
The next day they traveled to Lausanne to visit the Olympic Museum, which featured many interactive exhibits. Vevey was their next destination, which they traveled to via a boat ride across Lake Geneva. Vevey’s Food Museum provided a fascinating look into the history of how food is prepared and consumed.
Since Switzerland is famous for its chocolate, the students visited the Maison Cailler chocolate factory in Broc. “Many students described Maison Cailler as ‘Disneyland-like’ and some indeed said they felt like they were in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory,” Gargano said.
Thursday of that week was set aside for classes. The Harker students were divided into French-speaking and non-French-speaking groups and assigned an appropriate set of courses to attend. After classes, the Harker students were taken out to lunch, after which they left on a train to explore the town of Murten, where they enjoyed a scavenger hunt.
Another day of classes was followed by a train trip to the country’s capital city, Bern, to have lunch at a local hotel, where the Swiss buddies were thanked for being so kind and accommodating.
The students’ final day in Switzerland was spent hanging out with their Swiss friends playing sports, shopping and exploring the local mountains.
Middle School Students Visit Costa Rica for Spanish Immersion
Middle school Spanish students, chaperoned by Spanish teachers Julie Pinzás and Susan Moling, participated in Harker’s vibrant global education department with a trip to Costa Rica, starting in late July and extending into mid-August.
The students arrived in the Costa Rican capital city of San José on July 31, and were taken to the town of Grecia, where they ate at a restaurant tucked away in a bamboo forest in the mountains. Everyone headed to San Luis the next day to go zip lining through the lush treetops, which Pinzás said was “a definite highlight of the trip.”
Getting down to business, the students began their classes at the Academia Centroamericana de Español (ACCE). “As usual, they impressed the director and their Costa Rican teachers with their Spanish!” Pinzás exclaimed. They also visited Centro Educativo Nuevo Milenio, a private K-12 school, where they shadowed CENM students in grades 7, 8 and 9 during their classes. Another school visited was a local public school with more than 1,400 students in grades 7-11.
During their visit to La Carpio, a refugee camp inhabited mostly by Nicaraguan immigrants, the Harker students went to a daycare center in a park just outside the camp and played with some local children.
En route to Manuel Antonio National Park, the students saw crocodiles and macaws by the Tárcoles River and hiked through Rainmaker Park, a beautiful remnant rainforest. Once at the national park, they saw many species of plants and animals, and took a refreshing dip into the water at a pristine beach.
Other fun activities contributing to the goal of cultural and linguistic immersion included a painting class at the town of Sarchi, known for its painted oxcart wheels and hand-carved furniture and crafts, a Latin dance class, and a scavenger hunt in Grecia.
During their final evening, the students and teachers had tremendous fun (and great food!) during a special farewell barbecue party. The Harker students were each presented with a group photo of the ACCE students they had befriended during the trip, and another successful Harker global education journey came to a close.
Grade 8 Students Discover Beauty and Culture of China on Annual Trip
Each year a group of grade 8 students embark on a trip across the world, and this year’s participants, who departed on May 29, now have lasting memories of a fun- filled and enlightening excursion.
The trip hooks students up with Harker’s sister school in Shanghai, the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS). After a sightseeing stop which included the Oriental Pearl TV tower, the travelers took part in an assembly at the school, at which Harker student Neil Sadhu spoke about the long-standing student exchange between the two institutions. Harker students participated in a number of classes, including one on Chinese opera.
Over the next couple of days, the students visited Zhujiajiao, the water town known for its canals and historic buildings dating back 1,700 years, and the famed Yuyuan Gardens in downtown Shanghai.
Later, the students flew to Beijing and visited the Temple of Heaven, which the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties visited annually to offer prayers for a good harvest. They next explored the hutongs, Beijing’s traditional alleyway neighborhoods, riding on rickshaws to the house of a man who kindly allowed the students to take a tour of his home and answered questions on a variety of topics.
At the Ming Tombs outside of Beijing, the students were led to the dragon- headed turtle pavilion, where they rubbed the statue’s tail for a long life, and its head for continued happiness. The next major stop was none other than the Great Wall of China. “We took a ski lift to the top of the mountain where we could enter onto the wall. It was amazing!” said Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s global education director, in one of several dispatches to parents.
Upon returning to Beijing, the hardy group visited Tiananmen Square, and then headed to the Forbidden City, touring several of its 980 palatial buildings. The group later visited the Summer Palace, China’s largest imperial garden, and rode a dragon boat to the palace’s pavilion.
The students arrived back home on June 6, ready to rest and reflect on a trip they won’t soon forget.
History Teacher Visits Australia for Annual Exchange
Ruth Meyer, upper school history teacher, spent two weeks in Australia for this year’s teacher exchange with Saint Stephen’s College in the small Queensland town of Coomera. Meyer spent most of her time teaching freshman history and junior English to the school’s students, who she said were like Harker students in that, “they are happy, helpful and enjoy school.”
Meyer, who has always been interested in dream analysis, was able to instruct juniors about the role apparitions play in “Macbeth.” She also sat in on an intriguing lecture exploring gender roles, and anticipates using her experiences to explore gender roles in history when she teaches her Harker classes on feminist literature in Western Political Thought.
The staff and faculty, Meyer said, were also a treat to work with. “They were all tremendously helpful and made me feel like one of their team,” she said. “I felt very comfortable there and they gave me a great welcome.”
Meyer enjoyed some learning of her own, visiting a rainforest and a heritage museum to learn about life in the Australian countryside circa 1900. She also went to an attraction called The Outback Experience, where she learned about the role Australian horses played in World War I. She benefitted from the reversal of seasons from crossing the equator; her counterpart, who traveled from St. Stephen’s to Harker last April, missed school, while Meyer was on her summer vacation.
One of the differences between Harker and St. Stephen’s, Meyer noted, was class size. “The class sizes are a lot bigger than at Harker,” she said. “Some classes that I taught had 26 students.” Friday afternoons at St. Stephen’s are set aside for sports activities.
Like Harker, however, the St. Stephen’s students were “very friendly and kind,” Meyer found, and the school also has “excellent library facilities and a very dedicated and friendly group of teachers.”