On April 5, middle school students taking advanced Japanese enjoyed an annual culinary and cultural field trip to local Japanese restaurant, Tomi Sushi. Their teacher, Kumi Matsui, said the students benefited from practicing Japanese outside the classroom.
“The staff of this restaurant spoke native Japanese and the students ordered dishes only in Japanese. After lunch, we went to Hakone Gardens in Saratoga to learn and experience a tea ceremony. This was a wonderful opportunity for the students to learn about Japanese culture,” she said.
Last week, the softball team defeated Notre Dame San Jose 15-2 behind four hits, three runs and two RBIs from Kristin LeBlanc, grade 10. Marita Del Alto, grade 12, picked up the win, allowing just one earned run and four hits, while striking out four. However, later in the week the Eagles ran into an undefeated Lincoln team and fell 6-0. The softball team hosts Mercy Burlingame today at 4 p.m. at Blackford.
Swimming
Last week the Harker swim team traveled to Menlo High for its first WBAL meet, which also featured Mercy Burlingame and Pinewood. Vivian Wang, grade 10, won both the 200 free and 100 back; Michael Auld, grade 11, won the 200 free; Grace Guan, grade 12, finished first in the 200 IM; Alex Yu, grade 9, topped the 200 IM and 400 free; and Angela Huang, grade 12, was best in both the 50 and 100 free. Come support your Harker swimmers this Friday at 4 p.m. at the Singh Aquatic Center as they host another WBAL meet.
Track and Field
Over the weekend, Niki Iyer, grade 11, competed at the Arcadia Invitational in Southern California, which featured some of the best runners from California and eight other states. Iyer continued her stellar season as she ran a personal best and the top CCS time of this season! The entire track and field team competes this Wednesday against their WBAL rivals at Bellarmine, and this Saturday at the Bearcat Invitational at San Mateo High.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team picked up two wins last week to improve to 5-8 on the season, and 3-0 in league. First, it defeated Wilcox in three games with Andrew Gu, grade 11, leading the way with 16 kills. Later in the week, the Eagles defeated Santa Clara in four games. The boys volleyball team will host Pacific Collegiate School on Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Blackford and travel to King’s Academy on Friday.
Baseball
The baseball team dropped its non-league matchup with Del Mar last week 9-2. Nate Kelly, grade 10, had two hits and an RBI in the loss. The Eagles travel to San Mateo High today and host San Mateo on Thursday.
Girls Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team lost a close match to Notre Dame San Jose 11-10 last week, but rebounded with a win over Newark 9-4. The Eagles host Carlmont today on Davis Field.
Boys Tennis
Last week, the boys tennis team picked up victories over King’s Academy and Aptos. The Eagles have a busy week as they face off with Pinewood today, Priory on Thursday and Evergreen Valley on Friday.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team continues to play well as it notched three wins last week. In a 209-250 win over King’s Academy, Ryan Vaughan, grade 11, led the way shooting a 38; Scout McNealy, grade 9, shot a team-best 34 in the team’s 185-193 win over Menlo; and in the 186-214 victory over Pinewood, Victor Shin, grade 10, and Dakota McNealy, grade 12, each shot a team-best 35. The Eagles meet up with Palo Alto today.
MS Wrestling
Dezi Johnsen, grade 6, competed at the NUWAY Nationals in Battle Creek, Mich., this past weekend. Facing some of the best wrestlers in the country, Johnsen placed seventh in the 126-pound weight class. Congrats, Dezi!
In mid-March, 14 Harker students attended the fourth annual Technology Student Association State Conference in Bakersfield, taking top spots in several categories. Individual top placers included Sophia Luo, grade 12, who took first place in career preparation, and sophomore Adrian Chu, who placed first in extemporaneous speech. In promotional graphics, Kaitlin Hsu, grade 10, placed second. Sumer Kohli, grade 10, took second place in essays on technology, and freshman Alexander Young finished second in extemporaneous speech. Derek Yen, grade 10, took third in essays on technology.
In team competition, the team of seniors Cynthia Hao and Belinda Yan and sophomore Sharon Yan placed first in fashion design. Kohli, along with Alexander Young and Kaushik Shivakumar, both grade 9, landed in first place in technology bowl, while Gary Tsai, Neil Bai, Kevin Xu and Aadith Srinivasan, all grade 10, took second place in architectural revolution.
The Technology Student Association, chartered in 1978, is a national organization that fosters opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for middle and high school students. The organization boasts 230,000 student members nationwide, according to its website.
On April 6, a luncheon was held at the Nichols Hall rotunda to recognize the 42 new members of the Spanish National Honor Society. Attendees enjoyed a Mexican buffet prepared by the Harker kitchen staff.
To be inducted into the Spanish NHS, students must complete three semesters of Spanish language classes at the upper school, be taking an honors or advanced placement class at the time of their induction, maintain good academic standing and commit to enrolling in an honors or AP Spanish course the following year.
This year’s inductees are Nick Acero, Aliesa Bahri, Vijay Bharadwaj, Richa Bhattacharya, Karina Butani, Debarati Chatterjee, Emily Chen, Morgan Douglas, Amy Dunphy, Aadi Ghildiyal, Arindam Ghosh, Jacqueline He, Julia Huang, Eric Jeong, Ashley Jiang, Tanay Kamat, Karena Kong, Jimmy Lin, Millie Lin, Serena Lu, Rahul Mehta, Alexandra Michael, Jacob Ohana, Abha Patkar, Rohit Shah, Tanvi Singh, Sushant Thyagaraj, Kevin Tzeng, David Wen, Sumati Wadhwa, Justin Xie, Sharon Yan and Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 10; and Niki Iyer, Preethi Kandappan, Raveena Kapatkar, Judy Pan, Tara Parimi, Shekar Ramaswamy, Noor Singh, Jordan Thompson and Ziwen Ye, all grade 11.
The 2016 Harker Golf Classic united Harker alumni, parents, alumni parents and their friends at the renowned Stanford Golf Course to raise funds for Harker’s General Endowment. For the second year in a row, the event was presented by the Harker Alumni Association.
The April 11 event brought 96 golfers out on a pleasant spring day. Jeremy Pomer ’91 was the event chair, while former Harker faculty member Howard Saltzman and current lower school math teacher Pat Walsh served as honorary marshals for the day. The marshals had a great time handing out prize ribbons and libations to golfers.
“Everyone had a wonderful time, made all the more meaningful with the knowledge that it was good fun for a good cause!” enthused Karri Baker ’84, director of alumni relations.
A variety of special awards and prizes, as well as numerous generous sponsors, helped make the day special. Capping off the event was a 19th hole reception with live music on the clubhouse patio for golfers, as well as non-golfers, wishing to join in on the fun.
A highlight of the day was the announcement of the winning foursomes. The winning men’s foursome comprised Harker parent Mike Armstrong, Trask Leonard, Josh Breeding and Rodney Plett ’81. The winning women’s foursome comprised Thu Ka, Connie Kim, Kavita Patel and Kavita Tankha, all Harker parents.
The Stanford Golf Course, designed in 1930 by renowned golf course architects William Bell and George C. Thomas, is located in the foothills above the Stanford University campus. In 2009, it was rated the nation’s third-best college course by golf coaches.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2016 Harker Quarterly.
I am a reformed academic. And it is springtime. Shortly, I hope to show how these two statements are related.
First, regarding the academic statement: I believe in students learning academic content from a teacher who is a subject matter expert and who loves children. I want students to graduate knowing the difference between compose and comprise, what moves a demand curve, why we might need to find the derivative of an equation, the structure of DNA, the principle causes of the Great Depression and how to conjugate verbs in another language.
Nothing warms my heart more than when a student in class asks an extremely nuanced, insightful question like, “Is synesthesia a physical or psychological phenomenon?”
Yes, I believe in problem-solving and critical thinking, but I believe these skills rest on a solid foundation of academic knowledge. I believe it is folly to say that students only need to know how “to think” because they can Google everything else. Without context and background knowledge about the Civil War or photosynthesis, how does a student know what to Google in the first place?
And it is springtime. How is spring related to being an academic? I can explain with the help of a Zen poem: “In the landscape of spring, there is neither better nor worse. The flowering branches grow naturally, some long, some short.” Does that clear things up?
Now that it is spring, flowers, trees, everything is starting to bloom. Each blooms at its own pace, some early, some late. Do we judge the early bloomers, the flowers in full bloom, as superior? The flowers and branches that have yet to fully bloom – are they inferior?
Back to academics. I came relatively late to academics. In my junior year in high school, I began to work hard because someone told me I had to go to college and I’d better prepare.
I started to fall in love with poetry and calculus. Who knew? Interestingly enough, the love followed the hard work – not the other way around. And the work followed the fear of not being prepared for college. So I owe my being an academic to fear. But that fear quickly turned into love and no one, not even I, could have predicted it would happen.
When will the students among us bloom? Does everyone have to bloom by the age of 14? 18? How many blooms does a lifetime get? Students, like flowers, need good soil, nurturing, sunlight and sometimes a stick in the ground for structure, but their blooming is unpredictable, even by the student.
We cannot be judgmental if a student hasn’t bloomed yet. Neither can we force a blooming when it is not yet time. Nor should we have preconceived notions about when or how a blooming will happen. Flowering branches grow naturally, some long and some short.
I am a reformed academic. And it is springtime. Who knew exactly how or when either would happen? We have ideas about when these things will happen. But reality has its own ideas, and they spring forth wonderfully and unpredictably all the time. Some long, some short.
It was all smiles on the afternoon of April 8 as happy kindergartners donned homemade hats during the annual Spring Hat Parade. Gray skies did not deter the youngsters from proudly parading around campus, visiting classrooms and displaying their fabulous creations. Students wound their way through the lower school campus, stopping in various classrooms to model their unique and colorful headwear to the delight of onlookers. After the parade there was an egg hunt on the kindergarten playground, followed by festive homeroom parties.
In March, a group of 11 Harker teachers traveled to Palm Springs for the annual conference of Computer Using Educators, a nonprofit organization that explores ways in which technology can be used to enhance learning experiences.
The teachers who attended the conference had different topics they wanted to explore. For instance, some of the lower school teachers enjoyed hearing about HyperDocs, a concept in which a Google doc is connected to other teaching materials using hyperlinks. HyperDocs also can be used to showcase multimedia presentations. “These teachers expressed a desire to begin using this method immediately upon their return to school,” said Diane Main, upper school director of learning, innovation and design.
Teachers also were interested in “student-driven creation of learning experiences,” Main said. To this end, lower school math teacher Eileen Schick investigated how 3-D printing could enhance student math projects and already has begun integrating 3-D printing into her lessons.
One emerging technology caught the attention of upper school Spanish teacher Richard Bailey, who looked into how virtual reality could be used in language classes. “He has already begun pursuing more opportunities to learn about these and has been integrating exciting [virtual reality/augmented reality] experiences in his Spanish classes,” Main reported.
Main said the reaction to the conference was “largely positive.” The teachers enjoyed the opportunity to share their experiences with each other. “It’s easy to tell how enthusiastic teachers are about sharing their learning,” Main said, “as evidenced by their applications for LID Grants this coming summer.”
Students in grades K-2 had a great time at the second annual Spring Fling Math Extravaganza, held outside on the morning of March 23 on the main Bucknall playground and adjoining field. Students enjoyed math related hands-on activities, including crafts and games, which covered a range of skills. Each K-2 math teacher was in charge of one math activity, which consisted of measurement, geometry, and number sense geared toward various math abilities. Go Math Eagles!
Harker’s team performed well in the state finals of the Wells Fargo Personal Financial Literacy Challenge, making it to the finals. The team, composed of Rahul Shukla, grade 11; Ameek Singh, grade 12; Alexander Lam, grade 11; and Aditya Dhar, grade 11, was among the top 10 teams out of 142 to qualify for the final rounds at the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles. The team was one of the top five left after three rounds of competition and, ultimately, placed fourth.
This event was facilitated by the California Council on Economic Education, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (Los Angeles Branch), and sponsored by Honda Financial Services at the state level as well as Wells Fargo Advisors on a national level. Harker qualified two teams, but only one attended.
“Students were excited to go through security and be in the Federal Reserve and ask questions of the Fed Bank employees,” said Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program, who coached the group. “They networked with students all over the state and came back charged and empowered in the area of personal finance.”