The eagle has literally landed on the gym floor in Harker’s new athletic center, and the whole project is nearing completion in plenty of time for the Aug. 18 grand opening!
A recent tour of the athletic center showed just how close the building is to being finished. The sheetrock is in and taped, with 80 percent of the walls painted, drinking fountains (with sensor-driven bottle refill stations) are running, the lighting is being tested for proper luminescence and even the window for the snack bar was tested and found ready.
A walk-through shows some of the useful refinements Harker has included in this amazing facility, including Dyson Blade hand dryers, in-office showers for coaches and polished concrete floors in hallways, while side rooms and office floors are covered with durable high-traffic carpet that deadens noise and helps avoid slips. Interior appointments include huge, inspiring banners and some beautiful maple trim that provide both visual relief and help make the gym an inviting campus center for students.
So much for the nuts and bolts of the center, on to the spectaculars!
The heart of the center, the sprung hardwood floor, is being finalized with all the lines for various sports that will play in the gym, but the centerpiece is a huge bald eagle, wings spread, that covers a large part of the floor. The eagle, in its natural colors of brown and white, is positioned so it is center court when the bleachers are fully extended. The eagle has been stained into the floor and court lines will be laid down over the next few days. Next, the entire floor will be varnished with special non-skid varnish that protects the floor and gives athletes great traction (watch the video!). There is also a full-size video screen, 20 feet wide, in the gym facing the bleachers, so the facility can be used for various assemblies.
Jaron Olson, head athletic trainer, noted a few of the amenities that will change the way Harker cares for its student athletes. “I am most excited about our new athletic training room,” he said. “This is a beautiful new space for our certified athletic trainers to assist our athletes with the care and prevention of athletic injuries. It features a taping/first aid area, an area for treatment tables, space for therapeutic exercise, an office, exam room, and the crown-jewel … the hydrotherapy area.”
One of the long-awaited major fixtures is the HydroWorx 300 therapy pool adjacent to a dual tank hot/cold Cryotherm pool from Grimm Scientific.
“The therapy pool will be fantastic for therapeutic exercise and of rehabilitation of athletic injuries,” said Olson. “For any athletes who cannot tolerate full weight-bearing exercise, the HydroWorx pool allows for continued activity during the recovery process when only partial weight-bearing is indicated.” The remedy is particularly valuable for rehabbing lower extremity injuries, low back pain, post-surgical rehab, etc., he added.
Olson said the hot/cold tubs allow for cold treatment for lower extremities following activity, or full-body cold plunge to aid in recovery after training. “This is particularly popular following those hot football practices in August, or after those vigorous cross country workouts running in the hills,” he said.
The athletic training room is strategically located on the east side of the building, adjacent to Davis Field, with doors leading directly to the field. Visiting athletes will also have direct access from the field to a team conference room furnished with a projector and screen. That room has a divider that can be used during the school day and folded back so classes or visiting teams can use the whole room to view the white board and video.
Olson also noted that the hardwood-floored multipurpose room on the second floor in the southwest corner will be another exciting and heavily used feature. “It will give a home to our P.E. offerings such as yoga, capoeira and fitness, as well as providing a practice space for cheerleading or other teams,” said Olson. “It is set up with a teaching wall for class instruction or other functions, and it has a fantastic sky-box view of the competition courts below.”
“Current and future Eagles are absolutely thrilled about having such a beautiful athletic center they can call their own,” said Dan Molin, upper school athletic director. “This facility will truly inspire all Harker athletes to train and compete even harder. We are all so thankful for the many people involved in helping this dream become a reality.”
Beginning in June 2016 Harker launched two new state-of-the art building projects on the upper school campus, the result of a $45M capital campaign. The 33,000 square-foot athletic center, opening August 2017, features a 12,000 sq.-ft. gym, athletic training room with advanced hydrotherapy unit, and spacious team rooms. The Rothschild Performing Arts Center, opening spring of 2018, features a 450-seat theater with fly loft and hydraulic orchestra pit, a state of the art scene shop, vocal, instrumental, theater/musical theater classrooms and dressing rooms. For more information visit the news and video links below or contact communications@harker.org
Both the upper and middle school speech and debate teams did incredibly well recently at one of the three major national speech and debate tournaments. The National Speech & Debate Association Tournament was held in Birmingham, Ala., June 18-23. Thousands of students compete at the massive event.
Four upper school students qualified to attend the tournament, and each had impressive results. Aditya Dhar ’17 took home top honors in congressional debate with the senate leadership bowl and a second-place-finish overall. The leadership bowl award is voted on by the debaters, and congressional debate coach Marjorie Hazeltine noted that the whole team was thrilled for Dhar, especially because he has been an incredible team leader and role model throughout his time at the upper school.
Jenny Achten, Harker’s speech and debate department chair, noted Dhar “was seen as a great competitor and also a fair and encouraging presence in the community. It really speaks to how highly he was held as a role model in the Congressional Debate community and within our team.”
Nikhil Dharmaraj, rising junior, made it to the quarterfinals of original oratory with his speech on the importance of quality over quantity. Dharmaraj also made it to the top 20 in impromptu speaking. Avi Gulati, rising sophomore, was close to making it to elimination rounds in oratory and also placed in the top third in impromptu. Rounding out the upper school contingent was Jason Huang, rising junior, who earned a winning record in the relatively new event of world schools debate.
The middle school team also did extremely well in its division, with 157 middle schools from 33 states represented. Harker won the School of Excellence Debate Award, given to the school with the strongest overall record in the debate events across the entire field. Coach Chris Thiele was honored to accept the award on behalf of the whole team.
The duo of Andy Lee and Jason Lin, both rising freshmen, won first place in policy debate on a 5-0 decision, as they successfully argued that the United States ought to increase its diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China, particularly in the area of joint space exploration. Deven Shah, rising eighth grader, and Akshay Manglik, rising freshman, made it to the semifinals of policy debate. In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Rishi Jain, rising eighth grader, was in the semifinals and Akhilesh Chegu, also a rising eighth grader, was in the octofinals.
Harker’s grade 7 public forum teams also had impressive finishes, debating humanitarian assistance and antiterrorism efforts in East Africa. Anshul Reddy and Ayan Nath were semifinalists, Alina Yuan and Amiee Wang made it to octofinals, and Arnav Jain and Harsh Deep, along with Yejin Song and Alysa Su, were double octofinalists. All are rising eighth graders.
Arusha Patil, rising freshman, was a semifinalist in both original oratory and storytelling. Rhea Nanavati, rising fresman, was a quarterfinalist in dramatic interpretation of literature.
The coaches are very proud of all of the students’ accomplishments and send a special thanks to Class of 2017 graduates Sana Aladin, Molly Wancewicz and Anika Jain for joining the coaching staff for this exciting event.
After helping lead the girls lacrosse team to a 13-7 record and being named to the first team all-league team, Alayna Richmond ’17 finished off her high school career with an award recognizing her work in the classroom. For the second year in a row, Richmond was named to the US Lacrosse Girls High School All-Academic team. Richmond, who will attend Northwestern University in the fall, was one of only 16 Northern California girls and one of only three girls from the CCS to receive this national honor. Congratulations Alayna!
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
When Harker’s competitive robotics program was just starting in 2003, it needed help.
“From an engineering standpoint, the team was highly unpredictable and unreliable,” said Eric Nelson, robotics advisor. “Their creations tended not to function most of the time. Breaking down, losing parts and catching fire were the norm. The outcome was not surprising given that they resisted working as a unit.”
But since then, thanks to strong mentors and program changes, the team has steadily matured, and 2016-17 was its best competitive season yet.
The Robotics Club was founded by a student in the 2001-02 school year. Nelson, also a physics teacher and chair of the upper school’s computer science department, joined Harker and became club advisor in 2003-04, and has overseen the steady growth of the program.
In fall 2004, team captain Alex Segal ’05 both pulled the group together and had a clear design goal, said Nelson. While the robot that year had reliability issues, it had a competitive design and the team won the Sacramento regional competition and went on to Atlanta for the national event. The team held its own until mid-afternoon on the first day of the event, then slid behind for the remainder of the competition.
“The team culture was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome,” said Nelson. “That type of rebellious ‘me-first’ behavior is now the excep on rather than the norm, and it has made a big difference in the team performance.”
Jacqueline Rousseau ’07 was there early in the program’s development, too. She was on the robotics team for four years, starting in 2003-04. After college, she spent several years as a trader in foreign exchange options at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, but left recently to get a master’s in education from Harvard’s Teacher Education Program and plans to become a high school physics teacher after graduating next year. She remembers her time on the robotics team with great fondness.
“My freshman year was the team’s second year,” Rousseau said. “The first couple of years, we were just a group of students trying to figure out what we were doing, but by the time I left we had some semblance of organization. We definitely reinvented the wheel multiple times before we started learning how to pass on knowledge through the years.”
As a junior, Rousseau was programming subteam lead; her senior year she was vice president of the club. “What I actually did was a bit of everything!” she said. “My focus for the first three years was on electronics (wiring the robot) and programming (writing code and testing), and then, in senior year, managing all of the separate processes and organizing the timing of the project so we could ship on time.”
Out of Chaos, Order
For the first five years, Nelson built up the program, recruiting parents for supervision, mentoring and some technical oversight. “I also hooked a few faculty into watching the students so I could have a day off once in awhile. I am still very appreciative of [lower school science teacher] Giresh Ghooray for his help,” he said. “The one consistent aspect that I maintained was that the students had to do the design and engineering,” said Nelson. “This restriction meant that the students became very knowledgeable about the systems they developed and the tools they used, but those systems tended to look, and work, like they were made by students. They lost a lot of games.”
But the path to success began to open up in 2008. “The move into Nichols Hall [from a regular-sized classroom] was a huge game changer,” said Nelson. “We now had the space for real tools, not just hand drills and hacksaws, as well as room for ongoing projects. The new facilities and persistent structure helped a great deal in providing consistent oversight and continuity.”
By 2012, Nelson’s nine years of hard work had begun to pay off, but refinements were necessary to bring the program into the winner’s circle with consistency. “While the team’s internal performance did improve, in the sense that things stopped catching fire and losing parts,” said Nelson, “their competition performance did not. Their robots were still designed and constructed by students who only had part-time guidance for the design and engineering.”
Five years later, in 2017, the team lit up the scoreboard, making school history in March when, for the first time, it finished in the top eight of the seeding rounds of the Central Valley Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The team ranked seventh out of 47 entries at the end of the first round, giving Harker the choice of alliance partners for the quarterfinals. During the quarterfinals, Harker’s alliance had the highest score for the entire tournament, moving it on to the semifinals. “Alas,” said Nelson, “we lost our two semifinal games. It was an excellent competition where the students really lived up to their abilities.”
Later that month the team made the semifinals in the Sacramento Regional FIRST Robotics Competition thus, for the first time, making the semifinals in both regionals in which it competes. “Our last two games were too close to call until the final official tally,” noted Nelson. A number of factors helped move the team into position for that winning season. “Over the past five years we have formalized the team structure, created a handbook so we can remember what we do that works and created a purchase tracking and approval system to keep costs under control,” Nelson said. Meanwhile, the club was converted to an official program, an important change to make it eligible for school funding.
In the past – and this season – the team had consistent help about every other week from Brian Oldziewski, Harker’s network administrator, and parent mentors – but that wasn’t quite enough. “We needed someone in the trenches who could work side by side with the students to keep them from diverting from good design ideas and from making bad last-minute decisions,” said Nelson.
Enter Martin Baynes, who has worked at Harker for a few years as a computer science teacher at the upper school and robotics teacher at the middle school. Before taking up teaching, Baynes was a senior manager in electronics and software companies in Silicon Valley for many years. “I am used to trying to be a catalyst for creativity, and a facilitator, priority and milestone clarifier,” he said.
Baynes teaches the robotics course and, Nelson noted, “works with the students in the engineering trenches on a daily – or perhaps hourly is a better word – basis during the build and competition season.” These changes, along with a new officer selection process, on top of the years of refining the program, all contributed to this year’s stellar results. Baynes is insistent the students made the difference. “The leadership by the students in all cases was excellent and the most crucial factor,” he said.
But one of his own contributions was key: During build season Baynes brought a voice of reason to proposed changes in plans, “to stop the over-creative enthusiasm,” he said. This focusing saved enough resources that the team was able to build a second robot for software development, tuning and practice. Baynes brought his expertise to the competition floor, too, “so I could help with debrief and stop them changing the robot prematurely,” he said. “They became a well-oiled operation team in both the pit and on the competition floor; it was most impressive at UC Davis.”
The transition has gone well. “Martin has taken over all the engineering oversight and lab management tasks,” Nelson said. “This is the first year that I did not know what the design was until I watched the robot in action. It was the first year that I did not put in 60- to 80-hour weeks during build, and it was the best year in terms of both internal and external overall performance.”
Along with supervising the build, Baynes’ two new robotics classes will add a fresh dimension to the robotics program as students who pass through them join the program in increasing numbers. Existing classes were already helping the software subteam, said Nelson. “Our computer science courses give those students a strong foundation, which makes a big difference in their coding efforts. The electronics course in the physics subdepartment helps the more electrical engineering-minded students.”
The new courses are robotics hardware and robotics software classes, one taught each semester. Both classes train students from a general principles perspective, not specifically on the competition hardware and software. However, the hardware course does train students in 3-D CAD, which the design team uses to build the robot; and the software course supports the software aspects of the club work. In both courses this year, about 30 percent of the students are in the competitive program.
Andrew Tierno, grade 12, executive president of the 2016-17 robotics team, has been on the team four years. “Ever since I went to the Harker open house as a rising freshman, I knew I wanted to join robotics,” he said. “A lot of what we do here at Harker is theoretical and intellectual, so it’s nice to have a program where we’re actually building things with our own two hands and learning, sometimes painfully, that not everything that should work in theory does work in practice.”
As a freshman, Tierno liked what he saw. “I admired the leadership of then executive president Sarika Bajaj ’14,” he said. “She had a way of maintaining order and championing the opinion of the underdog, all while keeping the environment fun and exciting to return to day after day. It’s that kind of energy that inspired the style of leadership I tried to bring to my presidency. I’m strongly of the opinion that it is the absolutely amazing bunch of students this year that afforded us our successes.”
Tierno agreed the changes noted above had a serious impact on results. One game changer was building that second robot thanks to Baynes’ efficiencies, “which gave us the practice crucial to our successes this year.”
Tierno, who will attend Stanford in the fall, motivated some changes of his own, included moving discussions onto the messaging platform Slack, cleaning out the robotics lab, reworking the robotics handbook and implementing a new scouting system.
All the changes added up to a landmark season. “We’ve found this special blend of strong mentors, effective organization and dedicated students that is critical for success,” said Tierno.
Tierno noted everyone on the roster made an exceptional effort this year. “Albert Xu [grade 12] deserves a special shout out for taking on the task of designing our robot and managing its construction essentially by himself,” he said.
“Christopher Leafstrand [grade 10] was our robot driver. He makes driving seem so easy, whizzing both forwards and in reverse at top speeds yet somehow dodging every single obstacle that comes in his way. On top of all that, he’s also a significant contributor to design and has already come up with a model for a robot to build over the summer.
“Nina Levy [grade 12] acted as our drive coach. Her quick thinking and ability to make snap decisions led us to victory more than once when we thought everything was lost. She has the incredible ability to make everyone stop and listen to her, which is critical in a game where teamwork is key (finals matches are played with two other teams against another three-team alliance),” finished Tierno.
Levy was the team’s 2017 director of public-facing operations, so she managed the drive team of five students but also helped with the build. She, too, has been on the team for four years. She organized drive team meetings and during the match, acted as the driver’s brain, coaching him on what to do, to get a gear (an item to be collected and re-deposited by the robot), to climb or defend, and alerting him on how much time is left and how many gears were in the goal.
“I have learned a multitude of engineering-related skills that have prepared me for college,” noted Levy, who will attend University of California, Davis in the fall. “I think over the years the biggest changes were in communication. When our team communicated with each other and worked together for one common goal, we succeeded both as a team and at competition.”
Levy revels in the community that develops with the team. “Within the team, everyone, each year, always talks about the close friends they have made and the people that they can trust and count on,” she said.
“I think that robotics is a really great opportunity for any high school student interested in STEM fields,” Levy added. “Whether you have previous knowledge about different aspects of robotics or know nothing but are willing to give it a try, the experience is completely worthwhile. I would say Harker Robotics is not just about a club that builds robots but also a community that fosters learning, growth, communication and respect between all the team members and mentors.”
Great Take-Aways for All
Baynes, like all good teachers, enjoys watching the students grow, seeing what they are capable of, and seeing them rewarded for their dedication and hard work in the competition achievements. “I believe if we had gone for a third competition, they could have won,” he said.
The next few years should be interesting. “I expect a high level of recruiting next year because of this year’s success,” said Baynes. “I hope for improved productivity from lab changes and robotics courses reinforcement. We cannot guarantee a group of students like this year’s every year, but hopefully we will attract similar personalities because of the competition and because its robot is student led, student designed, student built, student driven – unlike many other FIRST Robotics Competition teams where coaches and mentors are hands-on the robot design and build.”
Rousseau noted long-term benefits she gained from being on the team. “Learning to cooperate with a team is invaluable,” she said. “Trying to build a robot gets very messy at times, and I learned how to persevere and try new approaches to problem-solving if the first few ideas don’t work.”
She learned how to tackle an open-ended project. “Robotics was so much more like the real world than any class I took; there was no right answer, no instruction manual, and there was a hard deadline. Learning how to manage the six weeks of build and end with a functional robot taught a lot of skills that homework problems couldn’t.”
But the best thing Rousseau got out of the program were her many good memories. “During the build period, I would spend on average 40 hours a week, after school and weekends, on robotics. That, plus traveling to competitions, meant that most of my extracurricular life revolved around the team.”
Rousseau absolutely encourages girls to join the team; this season, 11 of the 40 members are female. “The more diverse perspectives the team has, the better the outcome will be,” she said. “Robotics teaches everyone how to be confident in their skills and how to communicate their ideas to the rest of the team, which can be particularly beneficial to women going into male dominated STEM fields.”
Rousseau noted that her decision to become a high school physics teacher had everything to do with her time at Harker. “I was fortunate enough to have two amazing physics teachers at Harker, Ms. [Lisa] Radice and Dr. Nelson, who inspired me to major in physics at Caltech. They are definitely in my mind as examples of the type of teacher I hope I’ll be able to be.”
Following a stellar season, Tierno reflected on his time in the robotics program. “I screamed so loud at our competitions that my voice went hoarse,” he said. “We had the right students, the right mentors, and the right organizational structure to create this perfect storm that led us to our successes. I’ve just been filled with an overwhelming pride for this team.”
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
Good evening. I would like to welcome members of the Board of Trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2017. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love like a Labrador.” Because my talk is the only formality remaining between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size-12 font. But, as always, I will make no promises about the size of my margins. I can tell you that they are indeed marginal.
Today is a special graduation for me because we are in fact graduating together, although I am sure you are graduating with a higher GPA. After 18 years at Harker I will assume the role of headmaster of The American School in Switzerlandthis summer. When I am asked to name one positive thing about moving to Switzerland, I answer that its flag is a real big plus. Even though we are leaving Harker together, its values of lifelong learning, commitment to excellence, and service to others will not leave us. I know, however, that you will be upholding these values with a touch more spring in your step and no gray hair.
Which brings me to the advice I want to share with you today. I have chosen one of my all-time favorite quotes as the cornerstone of my advice – a quote, I believe, that encapsulates everything you need to know about life. I hope I am not overselling it. If I am, you cannot have your money back – or maybe you can, since I am leaving. No, you cannot. The quote comes from the great 18th century Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. I will break it into two parts, the first half and the second half. The first half is as follows: “Life is a shipwreck …” I know, very inspiring. The original reads as follows: “La vie est un naufrage …” Please excuse my French. “Naufrage” literally means “ship breaking”; think “navigation” and “fracture” joined in one word. I prefer the English “shipwreck” – you know what you are facing with “shipwreck.” A “naufrage” sounds rather nice, like “massage.” “How much is the naufrage and does it involve warm stones?”
When Voltaire says, “Life is a shipwreck,” despite his reputation for satire, I don’t believe he is being completely pessimistic. Think about it – life and shipwrecks have much in common. In both life and shipwrecks, you wind up in places you had not anticipated. For instance, how many of you knew you would be born? Both shipwrecks and life require us to improvise. By saying “Life is a shipwreck,” Voltaire is pointing out that all of us, to a large degree, find ourselves bobbing around on the ocean of life, governed by gale forces that are at best indifferent to our preferences and very much out of our control.
Even though the first half of the quote is about what is out of our control, the second half is about what is within our control. Here is the full quote: “Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” There you have it – my advice for you today: “Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats.”I expected that to be more dramatic than it was.
If the first half of the quote is not pure pessimism, the second half is not mindless pap either. I always wanted to use the word “pap” in a graduation speech. “Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats” means to find joy no matter where you are; to pay attention to those in the lifeboat next to you, even if their presence, like today, is alphabetically determined; to see that circumstances do not necessarily dictate your attitude about those circumstances.
As you may be aware, Mr. Keller, our upper school head, places inspirational quotes at the end of his emails. I often look to see what quote he has placed there. In an uncanny coincidence, as if the universe were conspiring to send the Class of 2017 a common, powerful message, Mr. Keller’s latest quote on his email, after no coordination with me, is the following: “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” The parallelisms are uncanny – spooky even. Shipwrecks – singing; storms – dancing.
“Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats” is also practical advice. We are not saying that success or any specific outcome is certain when you come from a place of joy and appreciation. We are saying that instead of waiting for success from the outside, you can carry success on the inside. Singing in the lifeboats contributes to resilience, an ability to turn lemons into lemonade, something Harker food service does every day.
Remember, Voltaire doesn’t say “Sing in the lifeboats”; that would be too direct. He does not command us to sing, but instead he commands us not to forget to sing. His commanding us not to forget is important. Why? I believe that singing in the lifeboat is our natural state, like the joy children express, a joy we too easily forget. We all forget to sing in the lifeboats. You will forget from time to time. You may have already forgotten today. Given my talk, I would understand.
To close, Marianne Williamson has famously written, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” To continue to mix metaphors, now is the time to remember your light, to remember to sing in the lifeboats. Like Troy and Gabriella sang in our own 2017 production of “High School Musical”: “We’re soarin’, flyin’/There’s not a star in heaven/That we can’t reach.” If you “Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats,” you will not only be a light unto yourself but a light unto the universe as well. Thank you and congratulations to you all.
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
Spanish teacher Abel Olivas is one of the few remaining teachers who started at Harker with the opening of the upper school. He serves as chair of the modern and classical languages department, is the faculty advisor for the Gender and Sexuality Alliance and the Spanish National Honor Society, and assists the Diversity Committee in various ways. A native of Texas whose life got off to a “really rough start,” his diverse interests and talents show a life well-lived and appreciated.
Q: What one piece of advice would you offer anyone who asks?
Don’t live your life for anyone else.
Q: What are you most proud of yourself for?
I got an MFA in writing and completed the manuscript for my memoir! My book details how grateful I am that my life turned out so nicely.
Q: What would constitute a perfect day for you?
After a solid eight hours of sleep, doing a couple of hours of fruitful writing; lunch at Books Inc. in Mountain View; another couple of hours of productive writing there; back home to listen to music and do some singing or dancing; a call with my mother or sister in Texas; and a nice, long dinner with my husband, Robert, at one of our favorite restaurants. My needs are simple!
Q: What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
Getting my book published. Oh wait, it hasn’t happened yet. If/when it happens, it will be the greatest accomplishment of my life.
Q: What work of art has inspired you and why?
I’m inspired in my writing by writers and composers who have turned the stories of minority communities into art. “In the Heights,” my favorite musical of all time, resonates with me so much, I sing to the cast recording in my car all the time.
Q: What is your most treasured memory?
Exchanging wedding vows with Robert as my mother witnessed it lovingly from her seat in the front row.
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
Patricia Burrows teaches middle school English, but her enthusiasm for her job is evident by all the other things she loves to do at Harker: she is the grade 7 advisory dean, facilitates the Discovery X mentor program, oversees the writing mentor program, and is on the Diversity and Challenge Success committees. It was clear as she spoke with Harker Magazine that her passions are her students and her family; she and her husband, Kit, have a daughter at Harker, and her parents and brother are in Ontario, Canada, where Burrows grew up.
Q: What is the one thing in the world you would fix if you could wave a magic wand?
I would give everyone empathy.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” My colleague Ann Smitherman shared this quote (generally attributed to Theodore Roosevelt) when I needed to hear it, and it is something that I carry with me every day. When we spend so much time wishing we were like someone else, we steal the opportunity to celebrate our own individual achievements and impacts.
Q: What is your best strength?
Helping others. Anything I first deem as a weakness eventually helps me understand and develop my strength.
Q: What are you doing when you feel most alive?
I’m in a classroom with my students, laughing, sharing and learning.
Q: What do you most apologize for?
Putting my foot in my mouth. I love to joke with people, and occasionally the joke is funnier in my head than in reality.
Q: What is your most treasured object and why?
A ceramic heart that my husband used to propose to me. Yes, I’m cheesy.
Q: What are you obsessed with?
“Anne of Green Gables.” I could watch the television series featuring Megan Follows over and over again.
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine
1985
Judge John Owens visited Harker’s lower school to speak to third graders about his career and take questions from the students. See our profile of John on page 16.
After another dominating season for the boys golf team, Coach Ie-Chen Cheng was named the NorCal Boys Golf Coach of the Year by the California Coaches Association. “This award is truly a reflection of the entire team, from the JV players to varsity to the amazing coaches we have on staff with Tom, Tyler and Don, and not to mention the entire support squad from transportation to administrative support and of course our athletic director, Dan Molin,” said Cheng. “It really does take an entire ‘village’ to allow the boys to do what they do.”
This year, the boys team was the WBAL league champs, the WBAL tournament champs, the CCS regional champs, the CIF NorCal champs and finished fifth at the state finals. It was quite an amazing year for the program that Coach Cheng took over in 2011. “I am super fortunate to have such incredible, dedicated and selfless golfers come through the program,” continued Cheng. “It really is all about the student athletes buying into the team concept, and believing in achieving something bigger than oneself.”
This article first appeared in the summer 2017 Harker Magazine.
By Jared Scott Tesler and William Cracraft
When it comes to their day jobs, Harker’s history and social science teachers breathe new life into teaching and learning about the past. “I reject the premise that history is ‘dead’ and I also reject the premise that we need to link every idea back to the ‘now’ to engage students,” said upper school history and social science department chair Donna Gilbert, who teaches three Advanced Placement courses: World History, European History and Art History. “History is fraught with intriguing moments, interesting people and fascinating events. History is human and, therefore, it already is inexorably linked to us.”
Lower School History
Third grade students studying California History with Heidi Gough cognize the three branches of the federal government while participating in a How a Bill Becomes a Law simulation. Each student plays the role of a congressperson who reviews a series of proposed bills – examples include weekly pizza lunches and swim parties – and decides whether to vote for or against them. On the lighter side, every January, Gough’s students get to show their history knowledge by dressing up as their favorite historical figures on Dress for History Day.
Another favorite activity is a trip to Mission San Juan Bautista. “Traditional history classes that I experienced as a student were notoriously dull,” admitted Gough. “My goal is to spark students’ interest and show them the fascinating aspects of learning history. “I see myself as a facilitator of learning,” Gough added. “I think a critical part of my job is to help students learn appropriate social skills, particularly in the areas of communication and real compromise. The events of history are filled with illustrations of bad events in humanity, many stemming from poor communication skills and an unwillingness to learn about others – both still true today. If I am going to make a difference in students’ lives and, hopefully, the future, it is going to be in this area.”
For Tobias Wade, grade 4 World Geography and grade 5 U.S. History teacher, food is th glue that binds families together, so he uses food to illustrate history. Known for in-class screenings of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” Wade leads an annual Cultural Cookbook lesson involving students’ parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. As the children research and prepare a unique dish that represents their cultural background and heritage, they learn more about who they are and where they come from. The recipes are compiled into a cookbook students take home.
For the last 20 years, fourth graders have been climbing on buses for a three-day, two-night trip to Coloma, where they explore the Outdoor Discovery School’s California Gold Rush educational program. A naturalist talks about area flora and fauna, meals are eaten outdoors, and a Native American docent lectures on indigenous culture. Parents even send handwritten letters that are handed out on the trip asking about their child’s westward travels and what life is like in the Gold Country, to stimulate thought.
“By focusing on the learning process and not deadlines and due dates as much, students are able to learn in a relatively stress-free environment,” said Jared Ramsey, lower school history and social science department chair. “This promotes the love of learning, instead of completing work solely to get a desired grade.” A fifth grade U.S. history teacher, Ramsey uses Google Maps to geographically orient the major campaigns, theaters and expeditions of the Revolutionary War for his students, who plot these battles via the Web mapping service.
Middle School History
The fun continues in middle school. “All history classes through middle school are survey courses that introduce students to a broad range of areas that include geography, religion, art, politics, economics and social organization for each civilization we cover in class,” explained Keith Hirota, middle school history and social science department chair and sixth grade Ancient History teacher. His students analyze topographic maps of Greece and use modeling clay to assemble raised-relief maps of the Balkans and the Peloponnese peninsulas. “Engaging students in hands-on activities, simulations and roleplaying helps them to learn better through personal involvement,” he said.
In seventh grade World History with Chris Caruso, classroom discussions take on a whole new meaning. Each month, students focus their attention on a different personal virtue or societal value such as compassion, fairness, gratitude or tolerance. Parent and student feedback, he noted, has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Parents most certainly appreciate that their children are learning to become more grateful, more helpful around the house, more kind to their siblings. Students appreciate the opportunity to learn something that will help them in ‘real life,’ a skill that will need to be used even if they don’t enter into a heavily academic field,” said Caruso, whose students present their research findings on religious sites using cutting-edge technologies and tools like Piktochart for infographic design and NoodleBib for bibliographic formatting.
Other teachers use a variety of activities to wedge information into busy middle school brains. As they study the Constitution, students in Ramsay Westgate’s eighth grade U.S. History classes try First Amendment cases – freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition – before a mock Supreme Court. Following the worldwide success of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” they pen and perform original Bill of Rights-themed songs and raps to demonstrate their understanding of the otherwise heady material.
Those in Allen Lyle’s grade 8 U.S. History classes employ an old-school navigation method to roughly, often frustratingly, calculate the speed at which they walk, run, crawl and perform cartwheels. The log and line method, where a seafarer would toss the log (a piece of wood tied to a line) overboard and then time how many knots passed through his hands, was used by seafarers during the Age of Exploration to measure nautical knots – not an easy thing to do while walking! “This helps them empathize with explorers from centuries ago,” said Lyle, who also teaches sixth grade Ancient History. “It’s also a great way to combine multiple disciplines and make history a bit more real and active for students.”
Meanwhile eighth graders take a deep dive into the culture of the late 20th century. As part of a year-end capstone style project originally developed by Cyrus Merrill (who is on paternity leave this semester; Karan Lodha ’04 is his sub), students conduct extensive independent research, put together lesson plans and educate their fellow classmates on one of four decades – the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s – in American history. These 45-minute presentations, made complete with period clothing and accessories, are a fun way for students to absorb a decade of cultural landmarks.
Last year, Sofie Kassaras, now grade 9, and six other students represented the ’70s. “We made a skit describing the fashion, art, music and entertainment as well as a timeline depicting the important political events. I wore bell-bottoms and a baggy shirt,” recalls Kassaras.
Throughout the years, in countless ways, Merrill has helped to make history come alive for his eighth graders. He held a 1920s speakeasy soirée at downtown San Jose’s Orchestria Palm Court. Students have written to legislators, lobbied the bureaucracy, Skyped and otherwise connected with former students now employed by the White House and the Department of State and participated in a number of other hands-on activities.
“My goal is not to teach the past but to teach and inspire students to engage in the present,” said Merrill, a former Fulbright Scholar, James Madison Memorial Fellow and Lyndon Baines Johnson Fellow. “As our values change in the present, so does our way of assessing or determining what to value in the past. I like to think of my subject as applied critical thinking – dead people just happen to be the topic.”
Lodha, who studied government at Harvard University, recreated the classic board game Monopoly to help illustrate the Industrial Revolution. It features steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, and financier and railroad developer Jay Gould, and includes Chance and Community Chest cards swapped out for Industrial Revolution specific good and bad event cards.
When he stepped in for Merrill, Lodha said, “Cyrus told me that it’s always wise to be the ‘guide on the side’ rather than the ‘sage on the stage,’ spending as little time as possible transmitting ‘knowledge’ from teacher to student and instead allowing students to guide their own acquisition and interpretation of information.”
Like lower school students who travel to Coloma each year, eighth graders travel to Washington, D.C., where they tour as many of the national monuments and visit as many museums and other landmarks as possible in the whirlwind week. Arlington National Cemetery, the Capitol, Colonial Williamsburg, Ford’s Theatre, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the war memorials are just a few of the sites students become acquainted with.
Upper School History
An educator for nearly 25 years and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant recipient, Mark Janda has his ninth grade World History Honors students reenact Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” prior to reading it. That way, the students discover later on that they made the same choices as a group of prisoners chained to the wall of a cave.
“I have a few students sit in front of a bright light and watch the shadows cast on a wall. I give them the freedom to move and see something else, but there’s always one who is content to watch the shadows, one who will explore a little and one who, if allowed, will explore well beyond the confines of the classroom – or the cave,” Janda said. “Obviously, we are interacting with the philosophy, but we are also discussing what it means to be a leader and then looking at what we look for in leaders. We may also consider what we do to people who appear outside the norm of accepted behavior or thought,” he added.
Carol Green, who teaches 11th grade U.S. History and Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics, has students select a current member of Congress as their player, earning points from every media mention and sponsored legislation and losing points based on any negative publicity. “When they recognize patterns in human behavior and decisions that were made, and recognize that history isn’t just pages in a textbook but a complex web of individual stories coming together to create our past, they are better able to understand how we are where we are and how we can determine where we are going,” Green said.
Green also runs a “speakeasy” every year to immerse her students in that lively and pivotal period. The activity includes a door guard, period dress and delicious but chaste drinks and hors d’oeuvres. “The speakeasy allows students a chance to explore the 1920s, from learning the dance steps to listening to music from the decade,” said Green. “As they complete their 1920s ‘passport,’ they get a chance to learn about organized crime, culture, women’s rights and the economy. They are moving around the room and socializing using 1920s slang … thus being exposed through a variety of senses to U.S. history.”
“The speakeasy activity helped me understand what it was really like to be in one,” said Nirban Bhatia, grade 11. “These activities put an interactive spin on learning which is definitely necessary in all curricula, especially history. Generally, lectures or document analysis on certain topics don’t allow us to put ourselves back in time and have a true experience of what it was like back in the 20th century. This kind of activity allows students to participate and truly experience an event or culture that otherwise would’ve remained vague.”
History teacher Katy Rees has her students participate in historical figure “speed dating”: students research a known figure from a designated time period in just a day or two, then exchange data on the “date.” Students face each other across a table and exchange biographical information, the ideology or philosophy driving their subject’s work and the significance of their contribution to the period. They jot down notes about their date and, after four minutes, rotate to new dates.
“On the day of the activity, they dress up as their subjects,” said Rees. “I find it helps them get into the role and thinking specifically about who their person was. I usually decorate with electronic candles, heart-shaped doilies, and a fireplace video at the front, as well as heartshaped treats on the table and music for ambiance.
“I like the activity because it forces students to personalize the past and develop a connection with a specific individual. I’ve done this for the European Renaissance, Civil Rights movement and the Progressive Era – times when there is a lot going on within a broader movement and more individual actors than we could otherwise talk about. “At the end of the exercise, students identify their ideological ‘soul mates’ and their ‘frenemies’ within the class. They gain a more nuanced understanding of the past and an appreciation for the role of individual efforts and experiences in bringing about change,” Rees said.
The speed dating activity was a fun alternative to learning through lecture or reading, said Lauren Napier, grade 11. “Instead of memorizing each individual, their background and their ideals, divvying up the work amongst all of us and obtaining information through ‘speed dating’ was much more efficient and engaging. When it came time to be assessed on each person, I associated them with the different classmates who were assigned them, which made the information more memorable. It was great.”
Learning went beyond the verbal exchange of data, though. “The activity actually made me feel like history was more ‘real,’” said Napier. “For example, within the women’s movement, there was a wide range of activists, some being extremely radical and others, not so much. The activity really helped to cover all of the aspects.”
Classmate Elizabeth Schick, grade 11, agreed. “The activity changed my view on history and made me think about it differently because we kind of had a sense of maybe what people actually went through when trying to pass certain laws or even just have their ideas heard. We had to introduce our ideas to each other, and sometimes we had the same beliefs, but many other times we also had conflicting viewpoints that we were able to discuss,” she said.
“History is messy, and when we try to make it into a clear-cut, rote subject with concrete fill-in-the-blank responses, we rob it of its humanity,” Rees said. “My colleagues do a great job getting students out of their seats, into discussions, and thinking deeply about the issues of the past and present. We all learn from and share with each other.” Each teacher has a number of activities of this sort to enhance knowledge.
Green recently introduce a new project where students curated their own museum exhibits about an individual and event, and “placed” their museum via a pin drop in Google Maps. The locations were displayed on a multilayer map.
Rees, too, has other activities. “There have been so many activities in Ms. Rees’ class that I am starting to lose count,” said Napier, “but the one that sticks out most in my mind right now is the newspaper activity we had to do on the 1920s. It was fun because we were able to research in any category that we wanted to, on any subject, but educational because we dove so deep into the ’20s. My favorite part was bringing in an apple pandowdy one of my classmates and I made that we baked using a rationing recipe. It might not have tasted the best because of the lack of sugar, eggs and butter, but, again, it took the project to a whole new level.”
Near/Mitra Endowments
Finally, one of the unique ways Harker lets students learn about history is one of the most challenging. Each year more than 30 students apply for one of two endowments set up to encourage deep historical and cultural research; eight or nine students are chosen to participate.
Overseen by Donna Gilbert and library director Sue Smith, The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund and the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities allow grantees to research a historical or social topic, with the funding to be used for travel to relevant sites, libraries or other needed research sources.
Tyler Koteskey ’11, one of the inaugural Near Endowment scholars, is an enthusiastic supporter of the program. His paper, “High Water Mark: Discussing the Impacts of National Power on Confederate Military Strategy through the Lens of the Gettysburg Campaign,” allowed him to delve into a subject deeply fascinating for him.
“Thanks to the Near grant, I had the opportunity to travel to the site of the actual battle and interview scholars at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, an unreal experience for a 17-year-old,” Koteskey said.
“Apart from inspiring me to continue studying the Civil War at UCLA, the grant made research papers a familiar task in my history and political science courses instead of the intimidating challenge they were to some of my peers. “The research skills I learned gave me a leg-up both in securing and working in internships early in my undergraduate years. These opportunities paved the way for my current job at the Reason Foundation where, every day, I apply the same techniques I first put to full use as a Near grantee seven years ago.”
Contributor Jared Scott Tesler is based in Rochester, N.Y.