Mallika Dhaliwal ’11, who earned a vocal certificate from Harker’s upper school Conservatory, stopped by to share her insights about the world of performing arts. About a dozen students joined her, along with performing arts chair Laura Lang-Ree, for the session. Following Harker, Dhaliwal attended the University of Southern California from 2011-17, earning a double major in critical studies and creative writing from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and a master’s degree in fine arts in producing from the school’s prestigious Peter Stark Producing Program.
Dhaliwal has worked at large studios including Universal, BBC and Lionsgate, as well as smaller companies, including Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures. Most recently, she worked as assistant to the head of talent at Anonymous Content, and assistant to Brian Yorkey, the showrunner of Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why.”
The boys basketball team dropped a pair of league games last week, bringing its season record to 8-8. The Eagles started the week with a close 64-66 loss to The King’s Academy, followed by a 43-52 loss to Pinewood. This week, the boys travel to Sacred Heart Prep on Tuesday and Crystal Springs Uplands on Friday.
Girls Basketball
Last week, the girls basketball team lost two league contests. First, the Eagles fell to Castilleja 35-42, with Akhila Ramgiri, grade 11, leading the offense with 13 points. Later in the week, The King’s Academy defeated the girls 64-58, with a trio of Eagles putting up big numbers. Satchi Thockchom, grade 12, led the Eagles with 19 points, with Ramgiri adding 16 points and Dylan Williams, grade 9, adding 12 points. This week, the 5-8 Eagles host Crystal Springs Uplands on Tuesday and Notre Dame San Jose on Friday.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team continues to roll as it defeated Sacred Heart Prep 4-3 last week before a 1-1 tie with Menlo on Friday during the Kicks Against Cancer game. The 9-0-2 Eagles travel to Eastside College Prep on Wednesday before hosting Woodside Priory on Friday.
Girls Soccer
Last week, the girls soccer team defeated Notre Dame San Jose 2-1 to pick up its fourth consecutive win. However, later in the week, the Eagles fell to Castilleja 2-0 during the Kicks Against Cancer game. This week, the Eagles travel to Mercy Burlingame on Tuesday before hosting Eastside College Prep on Friday.
Organizers for this year’s Kicks Against Cancer raised funds during lunch on Wednesday by selling T-shirts that will be worn at the Friday soccer event. Every year, Kicks Against Cancer donates the proceeds from the sales to Camp Okizu, an organization that offers camp programs to families with children diagnosed with cancer.
Students also promoted the event by setting up a special “soccer bowling” game, in which participants kicked a ball at a set of pins for a chance to win a pass that would allow them to bypass the lunch line.
A total of three games will be played at Davis Field on Friday as part of the fundraiser. Boys junior varsity will play Menlo at 3 p.m., girls varsity will face off against Castilleja at 4:30 p.m. and the final game will feature boys varsity against Menlo at 6:15 p.m.
Jessica Dickinson Goodman ’07 was sworn in this week as a City of San Jose human services commissioner for District 2. Dickinson Goodman, who has made a career of helping others, noted the appointment will give her the opportunity to elevate the voices of people in her neighborhood, to make San Jose more accessible for people with disabilities, transit friendlier to women and children, and ensure first responders represent the communities they serve. Coincidentally, Harker Magazine profiled Dickinson Goodman in its Winter 2017 issue. Read all about her many efforts here! https://staging.news.harker.org/alumna-profile-jessica-dickinson-goodman-07-be-your-own-superhero/ You can read about other alumni, as well as some of the great programs at Harker, in the magazine. Find it online at issuu.com.
Two Harker Preschool teachers recently attended the California Kindergarten Association’s conference in Santa Clara. The annual gathering brings together pre-K, transitional kindergarten, kindergarten and grade 1 teachers from across the state to share best practices and innovative strategies for engaging young children. The theme this year was STREAM (science, technology, reading, engineering, art and math).
Mara Beckerman, preschool music and movement specialist, and Robyn Stone, preschool STEM specialist, both spoke at the conference.
More than a score of teachers attended Stone’s workshop, titled “Mathematize This!” Attendees posted many positive reviews, including, “This has been the most valuable workshop so far. It was an ‘aha’ workshop! Awesome presenter, I learned so much.” Another reviewer said, “Great ideas to use in the classroom. Showing activities we can use. Great ideas I can’t wait to use.”
Beckerman held a workshop called “Using Music and Movement to Educate the Whole Child.” Her workshop focused on giving teachers ways to incorporate creative movement into their classrooms, and how to use songs, rhymes and books to inspire such experiences. About 60 attended, Beckerman noted. Attendees who evaluated her online posted many kind remarks, including “So much useful information regarding child development and how it correlates/grows by using music and movement. Loved doing the exercises!” and “This was my favorite class of the conference. Can’t wait to use her ideas in my classroom.”
Harker’s middle school DECA Idea Challenge team is a global finalist!
The team, named Insulator Warrior Inc., is a finalist in the elementary/middle school category. Members of the team are Markus Zhang, Rohan Bhowmik, Arjun Barrett and Gordon Chen, all grade 7.
The annual Idea Challenge, held during Global Entrepreneurship Week, invites students to pitch an innovative new product that uses a mystery item. This year’s item was a rubber band; teams had to generate a new use for this traditional product. Check out their video showing a really innovative use of the humble rubber band! There were 2,255 submissions from teams around the world. Other finalist teams are from Bermuda, Canada, The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. The global winners will be announced Jan. 23.
Last week, the girls soccer team defeated Pinewood 3-1 to pick up its fourth win in five matches. This week, the Eagles host Notre Dame San Jose on Tuesday and Castilleja on Friday.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team continues its amazing season as it defeated Priory 6-0 and Crystal Springs Uplands 6-2 last week. The 8-0-1 Eagles host Sacred Heart Prep on Wednesday and Menlo on Friday.
Girls Basketball
In its lone contest of the week, the girls basketball team defeated Mercy Burlingame 57-39 behind 17 points from Akhila Ramgiri, grade 11, and 15 points from Satchi Thockchom, grade 12. This week, the Eagles take on Castilleja in Palo Alto on Wednesday before hosting The King’s Academy on Friday.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team had a rough week as it dropped two league games. First, in a close 47-43 loss to Eastside College Prep, Jarrett Anderson, grade 11, led the offense with 18 points. Later in the week, the boys were defeated by Menlo 68-35. Trevor Thompson, grade 11, led Harker with nine points. This week, the Eagles travel to The King’s Academy on Tuesday and host Pinewood on Friday.
The boys basketball team picked up two impressive wins last week. First, the Eagles defeated Crystal Springs Uplands 74-38 behind 13 points from Eric Jeong, grade 12, and 12 points from Peter Connors, grade 12. Later in the week, the boys defeated a very tall Woodside Priory team 73-62, with Jack Connors, grade 10, leading the way with 17 points, including five three-pointers. The 8-4 Eagles take on Eastside College Prep this Tuesday at home before traveling to Menlo on Thursday.
Girls Soccer
The girls soccer team won both matches last week as it defeated Eastside College Prep 3-0 and Mercy SF 7-1. The Eagles host Pinewood on Tuesday at Davis Field at 3:30 p.m.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team won its fourth and fifth straight matches last week as it defeated The King’s Academy 4-1 and Monta Vista 6-0. The 6-0-1 Eagles travel to Priory this Wednesday and Crystal Springs Uplands on Friday.
Girls Basketball
The girls basketball team dropped two games last week. Notre Dame San Jose defeated the Eagles 76-31 early in the week with Maria Vazhaeparambil, grade 9, leading the way with nine points. Later in the week, the girls fell to Mercy SF 77-29. The Eagles travel to the College of San Mateo to take on Mercy Burlingame this Saturday.
Football
Congrats to Dominic Cea, grade 12, on being named to the third team of the All-Bay Area News Group offensive team. Athletes from Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties were recognized for their achievements on the gridiron this past fall season. Cea went 56 for 59 on extra points and seven of eight on field-goal attempts as a kicker, helping the Eagles to their best season in school history. Check out the full list here:
Today, upper school students attended an assembly that featured an appearance by Tom Nazario, an assistant law professor at the University of San Francisco and founder of The Forgotten International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty around the world. Nazario partnered with photojournalist Renee C. Byer to publish the 2014 book “Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor.” The book chronicled the lives of extremely impoverished women and children in various parts of the world, including northern Ghana, Peru, India and Romania.
The publishing of the book led to the creation of a documentary of the same name, which students and faculty viewed at the assembly. Similar to the book, the film traveled to Ghana, Peru and India to examine the lives of people living in extreme poverty, with commentary provided by people the filmmakers encountered during their travels.
Following the viewing, Nazario answered questions from students. Nazario explained how interpreters were instrumental in overcoming language barriers and approaching people for interviews. Many of the people in the communities he visited, he added, were very close-knit and dependent on one another, a quality he noted is largely lacking in wealthier countries.
At Tuesday’s senior class meeting, a student-created app was used to hold the parking lottery for seniors who wish to park on campus when parking is opened to them later this month.
“We saw a need for a digitized parking system and sought to provide an efficient solution for students, faculty and administrators,” said Johnny Wang, grade 11, who created the app with fellow junior Cameron Jones. Seniors had their names entered into the app, which used “an efficient algorithm to randomly shuffle the students,” Wang said. The name of each selected student would then appeared on a projector, and he or she would be prompted to choose a space from the ones that were available. As an added convenience, the app simultaneously updates Harker’s parking database.
Wang and Jones worked closely with the Office of Student Affairs to develop the app, which impressed student affairs assistant head Greg Lawson. “They’ve got other plans for adding features to this on the back end as well,” he said. “It’s fascinating.”