This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
Upper School
Football
The boys finished the season at 3-7 overall and 1-5 in league play despite an explosive offense that finished among the league’s leaders in scoring. Senior Spenser Quash earned all-league honors for most outstanding quarterback after posting 2,441 passing yards and 23 throwing touchdowns alongside 300 yards rushing and nine rushing touchdowns. Wide receivers Kevin Moss, grade 11, and Robert Deng, grade 12, and offensive lineman Darian Edvalson, grade 11, were named first team all-league. Deng led the team with 57 receptions for 734 yards, and his six touchdowns were just shy of the team record of seven set by Moss, who added 39 catches for 586 yards of his own.
Cross Country
While neither team qualified for the CCS championships, the girls missed qualifying by only 0.3 seconds and each team saw new school records set. For the girls, Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, achieved a new Harker record with a 19:24 run at the league championship meet at Crystal Springs Cross Country Park. On the boys’ side, Corey Gonzales, grade 10, was named league MVP for a season in which he posted the best time in Harker history – a 16:12 at the league championship.
Golf
It was a record-setting year for Harker in golf as Patricia Huang, grade 12, shot the best score any Harker golfer has ever achieved at CCS and Kristine Lin, grade 11, wrapped up the year as the league’s individual champion. The pair led Harker to a second-place finish in the league overall with a 7-3 record. At the CCS golf championships in Carmel, Huang ended her Harker golf career on a high note, shooting an 82 to finish in 30th place at Rancho Canada; she became the first Harker golfer to qualify for CCS as an individual all four years of her career. Her score of 82 represents the lowest score ever carded by a Harker girls golfer at CCS. At the same event, Lin followed up with an 85, placing 38th out of 90 participants, and became the first female Harker golfer to win the regular season individual title. To cap it off, she won the league championships with an impressive score of 73 at Poplar Creek.
Tennis
The girls tennis season came to a close as they lost to St. Francis 11-7 in the CCS quarterfinals. They finished with a 14-3 overall record and a second-place finish in the WBAL! Standout doubles team Daria Karakoulka, grade 12, and Katia Mironova, grade 11, won the WBAL doubles championship and represented Harker at the CCS individual tournament.
Volleyball
Congratulations to the varsity girls volleyball team, who won their league championship this year. They advanced to the CCS semifinals where, against top-seeded Harbor High School, the girls were able to take one game in the best of five match, ultimately losing 25-18, 21-25, 25-18, 25-14. The girls had won a nail-biter just to get to the semis when they made a dramatic comeback in the quarterfinals, winning three in a row to upset the fourth-seeded Soquel Knights. This was certainly one of the most exciting volleyball games in the program’s history! The girls finished the year with a 22-7 record overall and a 10-2 mark in league play. Shreya Dixit, grade 10, led the team with 183 kills, just above junior Divya Kalidindi’s 178, and Dixit’s kill percentage of 47.7 was just a few ticks shy of freshman Doreene Kang’s team-leading 49.2. On defense, Dixit and Kang shone as well, with 40 and 36 blocks, respectively, tying for a team lead in blocks-per-set with 0.6.
Water Polo
Girls water polo capped off a historic season with a league championship, defeating Mountain View 9-5 in the semifinal match of the league tournament, and their first-ever CCS appearance, finishing up the year with a 20-7 record. The team was led by league MVP Keri Clifford, grade 12, who racked up a gaudy stat line with 98 goals and 219 points. Congratulations, ladies, on your accomplishments and for making Harker history! The boys team finished 12-16 overall and 4-8 in league play but cruised into the offseason with some momentum for next year, having won their last two games to finish fourth in their league.
Lower School and Middle School
Football
Grade 8 varsity football finished in fifth place in their league, as did Grade 7 varsity football, but grade 6 football pulled off a perfect 9-0 season to capture their league championships, and grade 5 football secured an even record at 3-3 to finish in a tie for fourth place in their league.
Softball
Grade 6-8 varsity sluggers won second place in their league with a strong 5-1 season, while grade 4-5 softball ran the table with a 6-0 record and a league championship.
Cross Country
The team finished up their season with the WBAL cross country meet at Bayfront Park, where both the boys and girls teams finished in third place overall with a few standout individual performances. For the girls, Sarah Savage, grade 7, captured first place in her race with Niki Iyer, grade 8, just behind her for the second place finish. On the boys’ side, Arnav Tandon, grade 8, finished third to put Harker in the top three of both races.
Swimming
Harker swimmers concluded their fall with the WBAL swim meet at Sacred Heart Prep. In the grade 5-6 boys medley relay (MR), taking second place were Edwin Su, Arjun Kilaru, Stephan Sokolov and Krish Kapadia, all grade 6; and in third place, Noah Salisbury, Rohan Arora, Kai-Ming Ang and Cole Smitherman, all grade 5.
Further results were:
Grade 5-6 girls MR, third place: Angela Li, Sara Min, Anusha Kuppahally, Alexandra Janssen, all grade 6
Grade 5-6 girls Individual Medley (IM), first place: Angela Li
Grade 5-6 girls 25-back, first place: Angela Li
Grade 5-6 boys 100-free, third place: Arnav Jain, grade 5.
Grade 5-6 girls 25-breast, third place: Sara Min
Grade 7 boys MR, second place: Victor Shin, Jeffrey Ma, Alexander Wang, Derek Kuo
Grade 7 boys IM, first place and grade 7 boys 50-free, second place: Jeffrey Ma
Grade 7 boys 50-fly, third place: Adriano Hernandez
Grade 7 boys 50-breast, third place: Aadith Srinivisan
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
A clear but slightly chilly evening at the upper school campus was the setting for the 2013 Harker Homecoming, highlighted by a tense faceoff between the varsity football teams of Harker and Lynbrook High School at Davis Field.
Attendees had plenty of fun both before and during the game, with tailgate areas serving many varieties of snacks and drinks to the patrons. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carley’s Café served savory barbecue and upper school students sold hot pizza by the slice. Harker journalism students sold programs they had made to raise money to pay for equipment and publishing costs. A favorite attraction during the evening was a taped-off area where attendees could take turns bashing a car, spray-painted with the graduation years of the upper school classes, with a sledgehammer or baseball bat.
Prior to the start of the game, Harker performing arts groups kept the attendees entertained. After a rousing performance by the upper school’s Varsity Dance Troupe, the lower school’s junior cheer squad received an enthusiastic ovation for their spirited and well-executed routine, and the crowd was equally receptive for the Eaglets flyby, a longstanding homecoming tradition, directed by Gail Palmer. Dressed in their eagle costumes and dancing to the appropriately familiar strains of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” the grade 2 performers were, as always, a highlight of the pre-game festivities.
Out on Rosenthal Field, younger children had a blast playing in no fewer than three inflatable structures: a bounce house, a large slide and an elaborate playhouse. Others made their own fun by tossing a football or playing other schoolyard games.
Akshaya Premkumar, grade 9, enjoyed homecoming for the opportunity to bond with friends. She was also cheering hard for an Eagle win. “I like cheering. I’m a very spirited person!” she said. Her friend Caitlin Benge, also grade 9, was enjoying her 10th homecoming since kindergarten. “My favorite part is the tug of war,” she said.
Harker alumni, including several Palo Alto Military Academy graduates, were out in force to support their alma mater and reminisce with old friends and teachers. The special alumni area was busy for the entire event with returning graduates, faculty and current students enjoying food and good company.
“There’s always good food and good conversation,” Steven Brimm ’02 said of Harker community events such as homecoming. Although it had been years since he had visited Harker, he said, he enjoyed seeing his former classmates and teachers.
Ed Williams ’02 said “the friends” were what brought him to this year’s homecoming. “Here’s one right here!” he exclaimed, as he reunited with his former advisor, John Hawley, the upper school Latin teacher.
During halftime, Head of School Chris Nikoloff took time to recognize the three alumni who received awards at Harker’s Alumni Day in June. See page 45 for details.
Just before kickoff, vocal groups from all three campuses gathered to sing stirring renditions of “The Harker School Song” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” directed by Susan Nace.
Halftime entertainment began with a performance by Harker’s upper school cheer squad, who impressed the crowd with a complex routine. The traditions continued with the conclusion of this year’s tug of war competition, as the Classes of 2013 and 2014 took to the center of Davis Field. The seniors took home this year’s tug of war trophy after a well-earned victory.
As the third quarter approached, this year’s homecoming court was brought onto the field, riding golf carts driven by their advisors. Performing arts teacher and class dean Jeffrey Draper then revealed Maverick McNealy and Akarsha Gulukota, both grade 12, as this year’s homecoming king and queen.
The football team then took the field in spectacular fashion by bursting through a massive paper sign to begin the second half. Although the Eagles lost the hard-fought contest 39-45, it was nevertheless a memorable event for all in attendance that surely already has the Harker community eager for next year.
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
In November, Harker students across all three campuses joined American voters, and global observers, by getting caught up in pre-election and Election Day fever!
At the lower and middle school campuses, students learned firsthand what it’s like to cast their votes for a presidential candidate, thanks to two separately held mock elections. Meanwhile, at the upper school, the Junior States of America (JSA) club conducted an innovative pre-election poll of staff and faculty (instead of students as they have in previous election years).
The results of the anonymous lower and middle school mock elections mirrored those of the real one – with President Barack Obama emerging as the winner. The results of the upper school poll (which favored Obama) were published in the online daily news feed of the student newspaper, The Winged Post. The JSA also hosted a Pizza and Politics evening on election night for students to convene, enjoy dinner and watch election coverage together.
The lower school saw Obama capturing 73 percent of the vote during its mock election, which was held on Oct. 30 for the entire student body in advance of the real election. Kristin Giammona, elementary school head, credited the lower school teachers with helping to prepare the students for their big voting turnout, which was conducted online with a weeklong absentee voting period.
Long after their voting sessions had ended, lower school students proudly continued wearing their “I voted” stickers on their shirts. The lower campus election was tied into part of a larger nationwide mock election effort called Every Kid Votes, designed specifically for elementary school students. In fact, Harker youngsters joined more than 1.19 million children participating in the program, sponsored by American Legacy Publishing, the publishers of Studies Weekly Publications.
“The main purpose of education is to produce a self-governing citizenry,” said Ed Rickers, president of Studies Weekly, explaining why the mock election was so productive.
Educating students about the presidential election process from an early age was certainly the goal at Bucknall, where even kindergartners voted during the first 10 minutes of their computer science classes. In Lisa Hackwood’s afternoon computer class, the youngsters were instructed that they were going to have a chance to cast their votes just like their parents.
“You know how mom and dad vote … now you get a chance!” said Hackwood to the class. “To cast your vote you just click on your candidate shown onscreen. And remember to keep it to yourself; voting is private.”
Kindergartner Avayna Glass was an old hand at voting, having done something similar in preschool for a different mock election. At first she was undecided whether to vote for the “dark-haired or gray-haired guy.” But eventually she made up her mind, keeping her decision, as instructed, to herself.
In grades 1 and 2 voting was done in homeroom classes. Grade 3 voted in their study skills classes, grade 4 in social studies, and grade 5 in computer science. And, in addition to the mock election, grade 1 students in Rita Stone’s class also held a second election on Election Day for a favorite storybook character, while second graders voted on their favorite cereals.
Using paper ballots and a voting booth, grade 1 homeroom teachers supervised their students’ book character voting at various times throughout the day. Students were instructed to put a check mark next to the top character of their choice. They were told they could pick only one from the following: Amelia Bedelia, Mrs. Frizzle, Harry the Dirty Dog, Elephant and Piggy, and Froggy.
And the winner went to … Elephant and Piggy with 32 votes! Mrs. Frizzle came in second with 19 votes and Harry the Dirty Dog, 18. Lagging behind was Froggy with just eight votes and poor Amelia Bedelia came in last place with zero.
“The first graders became really interested in the election … our mock elections and the real one! They were all talking about it the next day,” enthused Stone.
In grade 3, teacher Heather Russell’s afternoon class voted on an iPad at a back table set up with a divider and curtain. Before having the class vote, she spoke about what to expect and how an election works in real life. Hands went up as students eagerly participated in the discussion. “Not every country has the right, or privilege, to vote,” explained Russell.
Emilia Long, grade 3, was the first one to vote in the makeshift, curtained-off voting booth. Both presidential candidates appeared on the iPad and all the students had to do was tap the one they wanted to vote for. Emerging from the voting area, she said, “That was really fun. Now I have a better idea of what my parents are doing when they go to vote.”
At the middle school, students had a regular schedule on the Nov. 6 Election Day and voted during their advisory periods, which met in the morning. Grades 6-7 voted in their advisory rooms and grade 8 voted in the main gym. Unlike the high-tech national voting process of the lower school, middle schoolers voted via paper ballots which had been distributed to advisory teachers in advance. After voting in their designated areas, the students’ ballots were then collected, combined and hand counted in the library by mock election organizers Bernie Morrissey, the librarian, and Pat White, who teaches history.
“We held our election on Election Day – the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – per the U.S. Constitution,” explained White.
Even Ellen DeGeneres got a vote in the middle school mock election, generating some great classroom discussions about third party and independent candidates. Standing outside the gym, sporting Harker Eagles sweatshirts and khaki shorts, were grade 8 students Alex Mo, Shekar Ramaswamy and Anthony DeVincenzi. The trio agreed that the mock election had been an impactful experience.
Ramaswamy called mock elections important because they “give students a sense of responsibility and an idea about the role politics play in society.”
“It was really fun,” added DeVincenzi. “Now I’m more interested in watching the election coverage on television.”
Election enthusiasm ran just as high at the upper school during the Pizza and Politics event held in the Bistro, which kicked off at 5 p.m. when the East Coast polls closed. It was attended by approximately 65 students and faculty members. Organized by JSA officers, Pizza and Politics was designed to increase political interest in the community as well as publicize the intentions and ideas behind JSA.
The upper school further kept the election excitement momentum moving by using it as a springboard to put many of the lessons that students learned to practical use. Butch Keller, upper school head, had earlier advised teachers to give their students the opportunity to watch the historic elections on Election Day by lightening that night’s homework load. Some teachers opted to make homework creatively tied to the elections.
Said JSA president Sachin Vadodaria, grade 11: “As Harker JSA is all about increasing youth interest in politics and leadership, we saw the elections, both national and state, as a great way to increase student interest in politics, or at least have people think and talk about these political decisions which ultimately do affect all of us.”
Thanks to Harker’s mock and other pre- and post-election activities – and regardless of whether or not students were in favor of Obama – all the grades agreed on one thing: politics can be fun!
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
As upper school students face mounting pressure in their academic and personal lives, stress increasingly becomes a factor in their well-being, which can have a dramatic effect on their ability to function both in and out of the classroom. In recent years, Harker has become proactive in reducing stress among the student population, particularly as students prepare to take their SATs and apply to universities.
In 2008, the Wellness program was established to hold hourlong sessions and assemblies about health and general well-being. The sessions were meant as an alternative for health classes and were held for each grade, “with the content directed at the development of the students,” said Jane Keller, math teacher and director of the program. Since then, assemblies and events have been held several times each year, covering topics such as time management, stress reduction and drug abuse.
Three years ago, the program directors established a Wellness Board for a broader range of input, and in 2011 began bringing in student representatives from each class so that the board would have a better idea of what to include in the sessions. The board later changed its name to “LIFE” (Living with Intent, Focus and Enthusiasm) “so it could represent the values we are learning at Harker for life,” Keller said.
Jenny Chen, grade 12, one of the student representatives on the LIFE board, describes it as “a collaboration between students, counselors, teachers and administrators. We meet every few weeks to discuss and advocate for student health.” Student representatives deliver feedback from classmates about wellness events and assemblies. “In addition, we all share student needs and help pinpoint what we feel are the main stressors in students’ lives, arranging for assemblies and speakers to help provide students with more resources on these subjects,” said Chen.
Frequent assessments and the constantly changing nature of their daily and weekly schedules can be major stressors on students, Chen said, as is learning to juggle their academic responsibilities with extracurricular activities. “Moreover, I feel that especially as students get older, anxiety begins to build regarding college admissions; students become more stressed as they work to become competitive applicants. Parental expectations and pressures, too, can sometimes add extra stress to students’ lives,” she added.
As these challenges pile up, they can lead to health problems that affect student performance and well-being. “I know that a sizable proportion of students are chronically sleep-deprived during the week and many will spend lunch times catching up on homework or studying for upcoming tests,” Chen said.
Although some students have shown reluctance to attending the assemblies, as they sometimes occur during free periods, Chen is confident that the lessons learned at the events will show benefits in the long term. Indeed, teacher response to the program has been favorable. “Quite a few teachers have expressed approval and encouragement for the Wellness program,” she said. “Many are now more sensitive to student needs, implementing practices in the classroom to reduce stress as much as possible.”
One such practice is the inclusion of “mindful moments,” one- to two-minute intervals of relaxation and breathing that help students gather their focus, especially just before an exam.
Additionally, Athena2, Harker’s internal network for students and faculty, contains links to resources on stress reduction that both students and teachers can utilize. LIFE also recently began discussing the idea of holding a Wellness Fair, a one-day event that would make workshops on yoga, healthy food recipes and more available to students and faculty. “Though this year’s Wellness schedule has already been filled with speakers and other events, we hope to implement this event in the upcoming year and very much look forward to it,” said Chen. The board also plans to have more interactive LIFE assemblies “to help engage the students and communicate our message of well-being,” she added.
Teachers have also benefited from wellness initiatives, as demonstrated by fall visits to the school by Meg Levie of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI), the organization co-founded by Chade-Meng Tan, a pioneer at Google who now seeks to foster happiness in the workplace. “The goal was to teach participants how to calm their minds and deepen their self-awareness,” said Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs. “The hope is that in doing so, one reduces and manages stress, increases overall well-being, improves focus and creativity, and in general becomes more resilient and able to build satisfying relationships.”
Keller said the presentation also gave the faculty in attendance “an opportunity to relate with their peers and feel better connected across the campuses.
“One of the important aspects for us as teachers was to really drive home the point that we need to slow down,” Keller added. “Harker is a high-energy place so it was important for faculty and staff to see the benefits of stillness. Hopefully, this idea of time for themselves will have an impact on how assignments are given.”
Psychotherapist Gina Biegel, author of “The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens,” also visited in the fall and held a session for students. “Gina talked about the change that can happen to parts of your brain when you begin to live in the present,” Keller said. “Stopping to breathe, sitting quietly, counting your breaths and meditating can have an impact on how we process information.”
In 2012, Harker began working with Challenge Success, an organization based at Stanford University that is dedicated to student engagement and well-being. A team consisting of teachers, administrators and students was put together to attend conferences and speak with Challenge Success representatives to discover ways in which student well-being could be advanced.
One idea that came from working with Challenge Success was the new chime that accompanies the start and end of every period. Challenge Success found that startling bell noises actually increased stress at the moments they were sounded, and so several schools decided to do without bells. Harker opted to keep the bell system but change the sounds to something much less abrasive.
Another idea was the time management sheet currently in use by upper school students, who fill out the sheet by denoting how much time they plan to spend on each of their classes and activities. At the start of the 2012-13 school year, advisors met with students to discuss the sheet and offer guidelines on how much time each class or activity can take. It also takes into account the time they plan to spend with their families and on other important things such as sleep. If the hours they plan to spend on each item exceed the number of hours in a week, the students must then rethink how they are spending their time. The time management sheet also comes up in meetings with academic counselors.
“It just creates a conversation,” Gargano said. “What are you doing, how are you spending your time, how is it working for you?”
Since the use of the time management sheet is a new practice, it is still in the experimental stages. However, once it is determined how well it works at the upper school there are plans to introduce the time management sheet to the middle school.
In dealing with stress, Chen said, it is important for students to look into new activities but also to know when they are perhaps doing too much at once. “It is easy to bite off more than you can chew when it comes to taking on new extracurricular activities or challenging coursework. In addition, it is always helpful to talk to someone when you are feeling stressed, whether that person is a parent, teacher or counselor.” For her own part, Chen finds that putting down her thoughts is a good way to stay on track without getting overwhelmed. “I find that writing in a journal and keeping a daily log of events in your life is very beneficial and can help you organize your emotions and thoughts.”
At the lower and middle schools, an initiative was put in place last year to reduce the homework load on students by as much as an hour and a half per night. This was the result of a concerted effort by teachers to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their teaching in order to drive down the workload without sacrificing the quality of the educational experience for the students.
“Instead of giving five questions for a reading assignment, maybe [the teacher] can think of three, but those three really get to the heart of what the five used to,” Gargano said.
The middle school will also try a new testing structure in which all testing takes place in the second semester, reducing the overall number of tests the students take each week. In addition to reducing anxiety and stress, it may also enhance the classroom experience. “If you’re testing a little bit less, you can actually teach and do more in-class activities, because testing is a big chunk of time,” Gargano said.
Like the upper school, the lower and middle schools have also hosted special wellness assemblies. Students also take health classes that cover a variety of topics related to personal well-being.
Currently, a team of administrators is being formed to summarize and evaluate the school’s K-12 wellness efforts and discover what action may be taken. For now, Gargano said, it is important to be mindful of how instruction can be effective while at the same time taking into account the students’ entire school experience.
“They’re not just a student, or an athlete,” she said. “They’re a student-athlete- performer, and they do all of these things. So we can’t look at any one in isolation.”
Current grade 5 families were treated to an informative on location preview of middle school life at Harker during two separately held events last month – one for parents; the other for students.
The transition from elementary to middle school is a major academic milestone for students and their families, filled with change, even for those who continue on at Harker. The tours helped take the mystery out of the matriculation process, yet still left plenty of room for excitement over the road ahead.
In early November the annual “What’s Brewing?” event at the Blackford campus provided parents of soon-to-be middle school students a chance to explore the school and learn about all the exciting opportunities available for incoming sixth graders.
Billed as an opportunity to gather for “coffee, muffins and middle school,” the preview started immediately after school drop-off in the multipurpose room, giving parents a chance to meet and socialize before the official program began.
During the event participants had the opportunity to tour the campus, meet with administrators and familiarize themselves with the middle school from a parent point of view – in short, to see “what’s brewing” in the middle school.
The program covered how the sixth grade day is broken up, what kinds of classes the students will be taking, global opportunities (such as the grade 6 trip to Japan), community life, clubs, middle school field trips and more. At the end of the presentation, parents were given the opportunity to ask the administrators any other questions they might have about the campus, school life and academics.
Then, in mid-November, it was time for the students to have a chance to get a firsthand look at the middle school. Grade 5 students were given a fun preview tailored just for them, highlighting various aspects of their potential future lives as middle school students during Step-Up Day.
The entire grade 5 class traveled by bus to the Blackford campus where they enjoyed a free dress day and spent their time meeting with grade 6 teachers and other staff, touring the campus, eating lunch, visiting classes, and watching a presentation by the performing arts department. They also learned more about the various aspects of middle school life, such as the BEST program, athletics, laptop options, foreign language classes and electives.
According to Kristin Giammona, elementary division head, it was a great day for the students, leaving them excited about the experience. She further called both What’s Brewing in the Middle School and Step-Up Day wonderful opportunities for both students and parents to learn more about Harker’s middle school, and familiarize themselves with the Blackford campus.
There was no shortage of fun activities to keep grade 6 students united and active during their recent class trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains. From kayaking to hiking, bird watching, completing a ropes course, and simply enjoying the area’s gorgeous weather and scenic beauty, there was something for everyone.
The group’s home base was Mt. Cross, a camping and retreat site located in the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains. With its ropes course, swimming pool, athletic field and close proximity to an abundance of tourist attractions, the site proved a perfect alternative to the originally planned trip to Yosemite National Park, which had been cancelled due to Hantavirus warnings.
The class trip was a mix of learning and fun, as highlighted by a visit to The Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of 28 such reserves established nationwide as field laboratories for scientific research and estuarine education.
The Elkhorn Reserve is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and managed by the California Department of Fish and Game. Following the reserve visit was an excursion to nearby Moss Landing, a quaint, historic fishing village known for its shopping, fresh seafood, fine art studios, bird and whale watching.
Even before the field trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains anticipation had run high as many grade 6 students took a weeklong opportunity to wear hiking boots to school in place of their usual uniform shoes.
It was all part of “boot break-in” week, a traditional Harker offering to sixth graders for more than 20 years. During the week, held in October just before the field trip, grade 6 students could be seen walking around campus clad in their regular school outfits but wearing their boots.
With the knowledge that broken-in boots make for happy hikers, Cindy Ellis, middle school head, had invited the students to wear their hiking shoes to school, especially if they had brand new ones to break in. In doing so, the students created quite the fashion statements, complete with skirts and dresses worn with hiking boots.
According to Ellis, all that pre-boot wearing paid off during the trip. “I watched students soar through the trees as their hiking group manipulated the ropes and helped them achieve new heights!” she said. After a fun-filled day out and about, students ended their days back at Mt. Cross for delicious dinners followed by incredibly popular freshly made chocolate cake and brownies for dessert.
“The students really enjoyed the trip and all its adventures,” Ellis said, noting that all of Harker’s middle school classes go on weeklong outings during the fall. (Grade 7 visits national parks around the Southwest, and grade 8 travels to Washington, D.C.)
Gavin Hougham, son of former Miss Harker’s School student Daphne Wade Hougham (nee Daphne Lee Wade), was saddened to report that his mother passed away on Nov. 26, following complications from a vascular stroke earlier this past summer. She was 78.
Hougham is mourned by Gavin, his brother, Gareth, and father, Robert. Hougham attended Miss Harker’s School for Girls from Sept. 1948 – June 1952 as a boarding student. Among her many accomplishments was an active senior year, when she was student body vice president, editor of The Echo (yearbook) and social activities chairman.
Hougham was born in Hankow, China (now Wuhan) in 1934 to American parents. Her father was working there, managing a branch of the First National City Bank of New York, part of what later became Citibank. The family moved to Hong Kong as the Sino/Japanese campaign intensified, and on the eve of WWII, she and her mother fled their home in July 1940.
They booked passage onto one of the last civilian repatriation voyages to leave China on the SS President Coolidge, later converted to a military transport ship. The Coolidge stopped in Japan on the way home in spite of rising international tensions, where she ”won” eight little pearls at a dockside oyster picking stall. She wore earrings made from two of those pearls her whole life. Growing up she spent many years in U.S. expat communities around the world, including India and Beirut, Lebanon.
At the University of California, Santa Barbara, she met her future husband, Robert H. Hougham, and the two married in 1954 in New York City. After two years in Greenwich Village, where she worked for Bell Telephone and did some modeling, the couple moved to Florence, Italy for a year. Upon their return to the U.S. in 1957, she pursued a lifetime career in publishing, with editorial jobs at New American Library, Combined Book Exhibits, Stein & Day Publishing, and finally at Reader’s Digest Books.
After retiring, she built a thriving editorial consulting practice with her husband, and her last job, with a British publisher, was completed just days before her June hospitalization. A zoology/biology major in college, she retained a life-long interest in the quiet beauty of the natural world, spending the last 30 years of her life in a forested home on the banks of the Croton River, in Ossining, NY.
A voracious reader, one of her favorite pastimes was reading novels before dinnertime, dipping her feet into the river while floating on a small rubber rowboat. Another lifelong interest was in the arts, and became a prize-winning fabric artist, specializing in fine weaving, but also including tapestry, needlepoint, quilting, and knitting.
She leaves sons Gavin W. Hougham and Gareth G. Hougham, granddaughters Victoria K. Hougham and Aislinn K. Hougham, brother Michael Wade, and beloved life partner and husband Robert H. Hougham. Memorial services will be scheduled after the New Year in Westchester County, NY; details will be posted on Gavin Hougham’s Facebook page.
Dec. 4 marks a historic moment for The Harker School. When The Palo Alto Military Academy and Miss Harker’s School for Girls merged and moved from Palo Alto to San Jose in 1972, the Nichols family took enormous risks in settling the school’s new home in San Jose. More than four decades later, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved The Harker School’s use permit of the 4525 Union Avenue property. “This historic vote moves Harker one step closer towards owning all three of our campuses, and securing the City of San Jose as the permanent home of our wonderful community,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Harker plans to open a preschool in the fall of 2013 on the Union campus and later, as part of a broader strategy of unwinding from the Blackford lease, move the lower school program to Union and the middle school program to Bucknall. At that time the school will own all three of its San Jose sites, each uniquely dedicated to the needs of its students.
“An effort like the securing of the Union Avenue campus is not possible without the help of a great team and the support of the community. I want to thank everyone in the Harker community who leaned in to make this historic accomplishment a reality,” said Nikoloff.
At a Santa Clara University debate tournament held Nov. 16-18, three grade 9 students earned speaker awards. Esther Wong earned the 10th place speaker award, Divya Periyakoil earned fifth place and Sanil Rajput was second speaker. Additionally, Periyakoil and Rajput reached quarterfinals and the team of Ameek Singh, grade 9, and Alex Tuharsky, grade 10, advanced to semifinals.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, six Harker students competed in the Public Forum division of the Glenbrooks National Invitational. With 136 teams in attendance, Harker had two of its three teams make it into the round of 32. Juniors Sreyas Misra and Neil Khemani were eliminated in this round, while the team of Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma, both grade 12, made it to the round of 16.
Out of 272 total Public Forum speakers at the tournament, senior Neel Jani took home the seventh overall speaker award. Rounding out the top 25 speakers at the tournament, Sharma was named 20th overall speaker, Kiran Arimilli, grade 12, earned the 24th overall award, and Misra was named 25th speaker at the tournament.
Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan-born best-selling author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” was the honored guest of the Harker Speaker Series on Nov. 30, speaking about the writing process, his experiences in Afghanistan and his humanitarian efforts with the Khaled Hosseini Foundation.
Hosseini also attended a pre-event reception for attendees who purchased special tickets to meet the author and receive a personalized copy of one of his novels. On this night Hosseini was joined onstage by ABC-7 anchor Cheryl Jennings, who conversed with him on a range of topics. Before the talk, a video of an ABC-7 report by Jennings was shown, briefing the audience of about 400 on the Khaled Hosseini Foundation and briefly mentioning Harker’s involvement. Founded in 2007, the organization raises money to build shelters and provide education, food and healthcare to women and children in Afghanistan, which is experiencing many humanitarian crises after decades of war. Hosseini’s wife, Roya, is also heavily involved, helping with a program that enables Afghan women to sell crafts to raise money for humanitarian aid. These goods were being sold at a table in the gym the night of Hosseini’s visit.
Jennings asked Hosseini about his 2003 and 2007 visits to Afghanistan, where he witnessed “a ton of people who had come back to Afghanistan from either Pakistan or Iran trying to resettle, restart their lives in their country and were really having a very, very hard time,” he said. “It shattered me.”
Although he watched much of the crises in Afghanistan unfold from outside the country, he nevertheless found that memories of his childhood in the country were helpful in writing “The Kite Runner.”
“It took me by surprise how vivid my memories were,” he said, recalling his time growing up with educated parents and living a somewhat “westernized” lifestyle.
While working on “Splendid Suns,” he took on the challenge of writing from a woman’s perspective, despite warnings from his literary agent at the time, the late Elaine Koster. “I have to admit I was a little smug about it,” he recalled. “And then, about three, four months later, I began to see what she meant.”
He overcame the difficulty by rendering them in a more universal sense. “I’m just going to concentrate on what motivates them; what do they want from life, what are they afraid of, what are their hopes, and so on,” he said. “It seems trite and simple enough, but all of the solutions in my writing life have always been simple, it’s just very hard to get to them.”
Hosseini said he was proud to have changed the perceptions people have of the Afghan people through his writing. “I’ve had letters from people who were really kind of toxic haters of people from that region. And yet, they read the book and they saw something of themselves in the experiences of these characters,” he said. “And they slowly changed. That to me is a tremendous gift as a writer. That’s going to outlive anything that I’ve ever done.”
Following his talk with Jennings, Hosseini stayed to take questions from the audience and sign books.