Harker has partnered with the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) to conduct an Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM). The survey will be administered to all of Harker’s constituents in January and will “evaluate the culture of our school so we can create a strategic action plan based on the findings, to help us continue our work to ensure we are an inclusive and equitable community,” said Head of School Brian Yager in a message to the community.
Topics covered by the survey will include the climate of the school; its handling of issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion; and multiculturalism and multicultural education. Data from the survey will be evaluated by NAIS to create a report that will detail areas of potential improvement and the school will develop strategies according to these data points.
“We encourage the entire Harker community to participate to help us gather as much information as possible,” said Yager. “Your voices will help Harker continue to be the best it can be for our students and community.”
Senior Hari Bhimaraju recently published a paper in the Biometrics & Biostatistics International Journal, a peer-reviewed journal specializing in biological sciences and public health. Her paper, titled “Low-cost enhancement of facial mask filtration to prevent transmission of COVID-19,” examines a variety of low-cost masks to determine their effectiveness in containing the spread of COVID-19. “COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in low-income communities, who often lack the resources to acquire appropriate personal protective equipment and tend to lack the flexibility to shelter in place due to their public-facing occupations,” reads the abstract to the paper.
Bhimaraju’s research was part of a summer internship, but due to safety concerns, she had to conduct all of her research at home. “This is a great example of how resourceful our students are in creating independent research opportunities for themselves,” said Anita Chetty, upper school science chair. “But moreover, this is of course a very important piece of work that has societal implications.”
In the segment, Lu shares his motivation for co-founding YAPA, which stems from his own love of learning and the desire to foster that love in younger kids. “I’m someone who really enjoys learning, and this would be a missed opportunity if we didn’t do something like that,” Lu told CBS.
Senior Andrew Lu will be featured in the winter 2020 issue of the Concord Review, an academic journal that publishes historical research papers by high school students. Lu’s essay on Deng Xiaoping, the former paramount leader of China from 1978 to 1989, “focuses on the underpinnings of modern China,” Lu said. “I chose the topic because China is something that continues to remain at the forefront of political discussion and tensions continue to grow, so it’s more important than ever to have an informed understanding of China’s modern foundation when considering U.S.-China relations and policy actions.”
The essay surveys Deng’s reforms and their current impact on China, including Deng’s ideological and philosophical motivations and the role his reforms play in present-day Chinese politics. Lu’s research was done mainly through libraries and by “using Harker’s incredibly abundant databases,” he said. “I received some guidance and advice later in the process from history teachers and librarians, particularly history teacher Byron Stevens and librarians Meredith Cranston, Amy Pelman and Lauri Vaughan.”
Over the weekend of Nov. 7-8, 16 upper and middle school students took part in BearMUN, a Model UN conference hosted by the Model UN team at UC Berkeley. The conference featured debates between students on a wide range of topics, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the colonization of Mars.
Several students had strong showings at the conference, including sophomore Krish Maniar, who won Outstanding Delegate for representing Iraq in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Junior Daniel Wu also won Outstanding Delegate for representing Sima Cuo in the Crisis Committee for the Unification of the Warring States Period.
Other strong performers were junior Akhilesh Chegu, who received an honorable mention for UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; sophomore Trisha Variyar, who received a verbal commendation for the Court of Versailles: The Reign of Louis XIV crisis committee; Anika Mantripragada, grade 9, and Luke Wu, grade 7, who were each awarded a verbal commendation for their work in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; and Alice Tao, grade 9, who was awarded a verbal commendation for her work on the Unification of the Warring States Period Crisis Committee.
Junior Riyaa Randhawa was recently published in The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal that covers health care policy. The paper, written during a summer internship with Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago, argues that the United States and countries in Central and South America must work together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even though this was not a straight science paper, a lot of the skills I used throughout the process of writing this paper were from [upper school science teacher Chris Spenner’s] class,” she said. “The practice and real research papers I wrote in class…really benefited me here!”
On Thursday, the National Scholastic Press Association named the upper school newspaper The Winged Post a Pacemaker Award finalist in the High School Newspaper/Newsmagazine category. The newspaper is one of 60 finalists chosen from 190 students publications that entered the competition. The 24 Pacemaker winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on Nov. 21.
Three teams of judges exhaustively reviewed all of this year’s entries, which fell into three categories: Middle School/Junior High Newspaper/Newsmagazine, High School Newspaper/Newsmagazine and Specialty magazine. Publications were evaluated in areas including coverage, writing, design and photography.
The Harker Civic Tech Club hosted a special Q&A session with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on Tuesday ahead of next week’s general election. Eshoo, who represents California’s 18th congressional district, talked about the importance of young people getting more civically involved in light of how technology and social media may be used to compromise the electoral process. “You are the generation that is the most tech-savvy and you’re going to continue down that path,” she said. “What I worry about is what chisels away at our democracy.”
Due to the heavy amount of misinformation present online, Eshoo cautioned students to “think hard and think well about the information you’re receiving. You really need to go to trusted sources, because there is so much that is not only misleading, it’s damaging.”
On the topic of cyberbullying, Eshoo said she regards it as a serious safety issue. “In my day and time, it would have been called stalking,” she said. “It’s dangerous and it can lead to some really dark things.” She said that young people mobilizing would be key to making progress on cyberbullying. “Just as young people have taken to the streets on gun violence, I think your generation has … moved the American people to a new sense of conscience on that issue,” she said.
She added that while several companies have created policies against cyberbullying, not enough has been done to detect it. “I appreciate that recognizing bullying isn’t always easy. There are a lot of grey areas, including inside jokes between friends,” she said. “I think teams of students weighing in with the companies could be very effective.”
Eshoo also touched on the topic of online voting, which could allow far more people to take part in the voting process. “To be able to vote online has to be absolutely 1000 percent secure,” she said, deferring to the late Congressman John Lewis. “He always used to say that the vote is so sacred and that it is the most powerful non-violent tool for change in our country.” While she expressed support for the idea of online voting, there is currently not enough of a guarantee against vote tampering for it to be viable. Supporting improvements to the current voting process, the congresswoman said, “The idea that there are thousands of people standing in lines today, that shouldn’t be the case in the United States of America. Some of our systems are like horse and buggy in comparison to what they should be.”
On Tuesday, Harker’s LIFE (Living with Intent, Focus and Enthusiasm) organization held a special assembly featuring speaker, singer and author Justin Michael Williams, who shared with students and staff his life story and offered insight on how meditation could help people “start living life on [their] terms.”
Originally from the East Bay city of Pittsburg, Williams recalled growing up in a poor neighborhood “in a home with gunshot holes on the outside of my house,” and frequently being teased for being Black and gay. Inspired by his grandmother, whom he called “Baca,” he worked hard to pursue his dreams of becoming a recording artist and attending UCLA.
Williams talked about dealing with his childhood traumas by becoming a “chronic overachiever,” becoming the class president, valedictorian and drumline captain at his high school on his way to earning a full-ride scholarship to UCLA. These achievements were impressive on the outside, he said, “but on the inside what’s happening is we don’t know to separate our self-worth and our self-confidence and our self-love from our achievements, what we do and our validation.” This in turn leads to people constantly comparing themselves to others and relentless self-criticism.
After a visit to a therapist, Williams was advised to try meditating. He was skeptical at first, but later found the practice to be transformative. Within a few years of practicing meditation, he had one of the Top 20 albums on iTunes.
Williams’ initial skepticism of meditation – practiced for centuries by indigenous people from across the world – was partly the result of it being “colonized, demonized, corporatized and sold back to us,” he said. In response, he released his own book on meditation earlier this year. He explained that one of many misconceptions about meditation is that it requires practitioners to stop thinking, which he countered. “We don’t want the mind to stop thinking,” he said. “What we want is to get our thoughts to work for us instead of against us.”
He then led the attendees in a well-received meditation exercise in which they visualized a future they wanted to see. This, he said, helped people find out for themselves who they needed to be instead of the steps they need to take. “You can check every box on your list,” he said, “but if you haven’t changed at your level of being, of who you are, then you cannot show up for the world differently and you cannot show up for your life differently and you’ll end up in the same cycles over and over and over.”
Key to the practice of meditation, Williams said, is to spread the energy captured in the self to other people to effect change in the world, highlighting the relegation of Black people in America to that of lower class citizens. “If we’re just focusing on ourselves, we’re missing the point,” he said, “because we’re all connected, we’re all responsible for being a good ancestor on this planet.”
Last week, freshman Sriram Bhimaraju received the third place Wells Fargo Community Innovation Award in Arizona State University’s Sustainability Solutions Science Fair at the middle school level. Bhimaraju’s project is an app called Saagara: Sunscreen Advisors, which checks the ingredients of sunscreen brands to determine if they are a threat to coral reefs. In addition to the app, Bhimaraju also devised a method for removing water pollution that employs beads that absorb polluting chemicals in water.
Bhimaraju has been offered a mentorship opportunity with ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, which will display his work in a future webinar. More than 600 entries were received for the fair since June. In addition to mentorship opportunities, winners also received up to $2,500 in cash prizes.