Last week’s Student Directed Showcase spotlighted the directorial talents of seniors Anika Banga, Haley Keller, Jessica Skinner and Sameep Mangat. Directors spent several months developing their vision for each of the one-act plays featured at SDS, managing every aspect of the play, from casting to on-stage visual elements to event promotion.
As has been the case in previous years, this year’s featured plays ran the gamut. Banga directed “The Murderous Mansion of Mr. Uno,” a hilarious sendup of classic murder mysteries. “Imperfect Proposal,” directed by Keller, tells the story of a marriage proposal-turned-disaster. Skinner’s production of the surrealist “Chamber Music” studied the interactions among eight women interred in an asylum, each of them believing themselves to be a historically important woman. “Rabbit Hole,” directed by Mangat, examined the various ways in which families cope with loss.
For more information on the history of SDS and the process of producing a play, see the feature story on SDS from the spring 2015 issue of The Harker Quarterly.
Enya Lu, grade 11, was elected 2017-18 Silicon Valley DECA district president. This is very exciting news, as only one other Harker student has held such a prestigious position in DECA.
Lu will be working with California state legislators, prominent business leaders and school administrators to promote the DECA organization and represent thousands of DECA student members as emerging leaders and entrepreneurs.
This video catches the moment Harker students heard Lu’s name announced as president. It is great to see Harker students coming together and showing such great enthusiasm for each other’s accomplishments! Congrats and good luck, Enya!
Last week, grade 1 students visited the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University for an up-close look at works from various periods. Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Thinker” was a favorite of the students, who tried to imitate the sculpture’s pose and “discovered how awkward the pose actually is!” reported teacher Cindy Proctor.
Elsewhere, students engaged in an activity in which they studied two paintings to gather information on each of them. “One of the paintings was of the Stanford family,” Proctor said. “The children looked closely and were able to tell the docent quite a bit about the family based on the painting.” After examining another painting, the students constructed a story about a daring river rescue.
Other highlights included spotting geometric patterns in a mural and perusing the museum’s renowned collection of Rodin sculptures, one of the largest in the world.
In late December, the Class of 2007 packed the house to celebrate its 10-year reunion at classmate Jason Martin’s restaurant, Lefty’s A Taste of Boston, in Campbell. Bradley Stoll, Dan Molin and Harker chef Steve Martin joined the fun, while class dean Diana Moss sent her well wishes via video. Pizza and spirits were aplenty and all enjoyed catching up while ’07’s very own DJ Anton Sepetov provided the musical ambience for the evening’s festivities. Huge thanks to Jason and Steve for the use of your fabulous spot; Audrey Kwong for the beautiful signage; and Cassie (Johnson) Kerkhoff, Chanelle Kasik and Lucille Hu for their planning and organization, and for being such lovely hosts!
The Class of 2012 celebrated its five-year reunion on Dec. 30, also at Lefty’s A Taste of Boston. More than 50 people gathered, including beloved class dean Doc Harley, as well as Bradley Stoll, Joe Rosenthal and Harker’s new head of school, Brian Yager. All had a great time mingling and reconnecting! Big thanks to class agents David Fang and Will Chang for all of their efforts in organizing this first of reunions for the class. Great job guys!
DECA member Aditi Ghalsasi, grade 10, provided details and photos.
Nearly a score of Harker students attended QuickBooks Connect 2017, held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in mid-November, as part of Harker’s CareerConnect program. The conference featured some great speakers, including Brad Smith, chairman and CEO of Intuit, and Sasan Goodarzi, executive vice president and general manager of the small business group at Intuit. There was also a live stream of journalist Lisa Ling interviewing SoulCycle co-founder Julie Rice on her experience as a female entrepreneur.
The event featured more than 50 booths, including Avalara, Chase, PayPal, Receipt Bank and T Sheets. On the day Harker students visited, the focus of the event was accounting. This year’s event also featured a tech exhibit showcasing the newest virtual and augmented reality products by Microsoft and others.
Charles M. Salter Associates, instrumental in designing the acoustical elements of the Rothschild Performing Arts Center and its Patil Theater, tweeted our Harker News story on the acoustical elements of the building.
Charles M. Salter Associates, instrumental in designing the acoustical elements of the Rothschild Performing Arts Center and its Patil Theater, tweeted our Harker News story on the acoustical elements of the building.
Charles M. Salter Associates, instrumental in designing the acoustical elements of the Rothschild Performing Arts Center and its Patil Theater, tweeted our Harker News story on the acoustical elements of the building.
How will Harker’s students make the world a better place? This question especially occupies our thoughts as we reflect on Harker’s mission and future, and prepare to celebrate our 125th year.
We recognize that for our families and our students, the primary benefit of a Harker education is the preparation it gives to each student. The first line of our mission statement reflects this clearly: “Our mission is to educate students for success at college and beyond.”
By any measure, Harker’s teachers, programs and culture bring out the best in our students to a remarkable degree. The successes of our students in their endeavors after Harker – “at college and beyond” – are equally phenomenal and reflect just how effective the school has been in meeting this important component of its mission.
Additionally, our mission concludes with the promise that we seek to prepare our charges “to take their place as global citizens,” a mission directive that is germane to my opening question. Indeed, it is this promise that seems to hold the most power to motivate and shape our continued evolution in the future.
To be sure, there are always things that we can and will do to optimize the experience for each individual student. However, our collective impact – and the potential of it – is especially exciting at this moment, as we find our school at the nexus of Silicon Valley innovations and exciting crossroads in education, technology, finance and government. We see the impact of our efforts in many of the things our students do, from the classroom to the stage, from the field to the laboratory.
Sometimes, though, it is small acts – or little details – that both inspire and reflect our larger purpose. The Harker community’s response to the fires in the North Bay provides a recent example.
As the fires broke out, our attention focused on the needs of our school community: how would they mpact our planned middle school trips, our daily routines and activities, and even our classes? However, in the same moment, we began to look beyond ourselves: who was impacted besides us and how could we help?
One of our first realizations was that Camp Newman, the destination of our grade 6 trip, was in the vicinity of the fire and that we wouldn’t be able to take our students there. Yet, rather than dwell on our own disappointment, a number of teachers’ and parents’ first questions were: “Is it possible for us to go up there and help them clean up?” Unfortunately, the fire destroyed the camp completely, rendering any direct clean-up assistance sadly unnecessary. Nevertheless, the sentiment expressed, and the speed and energy with which it unfolded, reflects a remarkable collective ethos of citizenship and caring.
As the smoke and particulate matter from the fires settled over the Bay Area, we understood that the Family & Alumni Picnic could be affected. Despite a favorable forecast for the planned day of the picnic, we realized that the preparations themselves would necessitate asking our staff and community members to spend time in the unhealthy conditions.
So, with great disappointment and not a little trepidation, we made the decision to cancel the picnic. The responses from our community reflected yet again an outward–focused perspective that was, in the simplest terms, kind. “Why don’t we shift our efforts to those who need it?” a chorus of Eagles asked, so the Harker advancement office and our volunteer network refocused to collecting funds and donations for those impacted by the fire. And the school made the decision to direct the funds from any unreturned ticket sales to the relief effort.
In his work studying the factors that motivate human behavior, Harvard professor Michael Sandel has examined what drives our enthusiasm for certain actions. His book, “What Money Cannot Buy,” describes fascinating circumstances in which entire communities have been motivated to enhance the lives of other communities, even when they themselves have no direct ties to that community.
It is our inherent desire to make the world around us better that motivates us to serve others. We saw this in our community’s response to the North Bay fires. And, it is this pillar – this inherent desire to make the world around us better – upon which we focus our efforts, both current and future, as we prepare our students “to take their place as global citizens.”
How will Harker’s students make the world a better place? This question especially occupies our thoughts as we reflect on Harker’s mission and future, and prepare to celebrate our 125th year.
We recognize that for our families and our students, the primary benefit of a Harker education is the preparation it gives to each student. The first line of our mission statement reflects this clearly: “Our mission is to educate students for success at college and beyond.”
By any measure, Harker’s teachers, programs and culture bring out the best in our students to a remarkable degree. The successes of our students in their endeavors after Harker – “at college and beyond” – are equally phenomenal and reflect just how effective the school has been in meeting this important component of its mission.
Additionally, our mission concludes with the promise that we seek to prepare our charges “to take their place as global citizens,” a mission directive that is germane to my opening question. Indeed, it is this promise that seems to hold the most power to motivate and shape our continued evolution in the future.
To be sure, there are always things that we can and will do to optimize the experience for each individual student. However, our collective impact – and the potential of it – is especially exciting at this moment, as we find our school at the nexus of Silicon Valley innovations and exciting crossroads in education, technology, finance and government. We see the impact of our efforts in many of the things our students do, from the classroom to the stage, from the field to the laboratory.
Sometimes, though, it is small acts – or little details – that both inspire and reflect our larger purpose. The Harker community’s response to the fires in the North Bay provides a recent example.
As the fires broke out, our attention focused on the needs of our school community: how would they mpact our planned middle school trips, our daily routines and activities, and even our classes? However, in the same moment, we began to look beyond ourselves: who was impacted besides us and how could we help?
One of our first realizations was that Camp Newman, the destination of our grade 6 trip, was in the vicinity of the fire and that we wouldn’t be able to take our students there. Yet, rather than dwell on our own disappointment, a number of teachers’ and parents’ first questions were: “Is it possible for us to go up there and help them clean up?” Unfortunately, the fire destroyed the camp completely, rendering any direct clean-up assistance sadly unnecessary. Nevertheless, the sentiment expressed, and the speed and energy with which it unfolded, reflects a remarkable collective ethos of citizenship and caring.
As the smoke and particulate matter from the fires settled over the Bay Area, we understood that the Family & Alumni Picnic could be affected. Despite a favorable forecast for the planned day of the picnic, we realized that the preparations themselves would necessitate asking our staff and community members to spend time in the unhealthy conditions.
So, with great disappointment and not a little trepidation, we made the decision to cancel the picnic. The responses from our community reflected yet again an outward–focused perspective that was, in the simplest terms, kind. “Why don’t we shift our efforts to those who need it?” a chorus of Eagles asked, so the Harker advancement office and our volunteer network refocused to collecting funds and donations for those impacted by the fire. And the school made the decision to direct the funds from any unreturned ticket sales to the relief effort.
In his work studying the factors that motivate human behavior, Harvard professor Michael Sandel has examined what drives our enthusiasm for certain actions. His book, “What Money Cannot Buy,” describes fascinating circumstances in which entire communities have been motivated to enhance the lives of other communities, even when they themselves have no direct ties to that community.
It is our inherent desire to make the world around us better that motivates us to serve others. We saw this in our community’s response to the North Bay fires. And, it is this pillar – this inherent desire to make the world around us better – upon which we focus our efforts, both current and future, as we prepare our students “to take their place as global citizens.”