In July, Michael Kwan, grade 7, participated in the International Math Contest in Taiwan and won the Individual Merit Award and two runner-up team awards. Kwan was eligible for the contest after competing in two qualifying rounds in February and April and completing a 12-week training course. The contest had 588 entrants from 28 countries.
Kwan was recognized by IndiaWest for his achievements.
Tags: MathematicsBefore his performance at the Harker Concert Series, renowned jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist John Shifflett and drummer Jason Lewis held a master class in the Nichols Hall auditorium for upper and middle school students to help them improve their musicianship both as individuals and members of a group.
Students gathered around Eigsti as he sat at the piano and offered his advice. When improvising, he told the students, it is good to “leave a little of space” so that he can hear what his bandmates are doing and perhaps give them some room to add flourishes of their own.
The upper school jazz band played their rendition of John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” for the trio, who then gave them advice on how to improve, warning them against cutting into one another’s soloing time and advising them to be mindful of signals from their band mates.
Tags: Featured Story, Harker Concert Series, Performing ArtsTara Rezvani, grade 12, was recognized at Los Gatos’ Youth Park Citizen Day on Sept. 29 for being chosen as one of Los Gatos’ Youth Citizens of the Year. She joined other recipients of the honor in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the Oct. 1 Los Gatos Town Council meeting, where she had the opportunity to meet Los Gatos mayor Steve Rice.
Los Gatos Youth Park Inc. selects local youths each year based on their service to their communities and status as role models. Among Rezvani’s many accomplishments are organizing a health camp for children, volunteer work at El Camino Hospital and being inducted into the National French Honor Society. Rezvani will also take part in Los Gatos’ holiday tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 30 and blow the whistle to start the Los Gatos Children’s Holiday Parade on Dec. 1.
Tags: OutreachHarker Girls Tennis
After their 3-0 week against CCS-quality opponents which ended with a rout of rival Sacred Heart Prep, Harker hosts powerhouse Menlo this Thursday at Blackford in a battle for first place. As Dan Molin, athletic director, said, “If you were to watch any girls tennis match, this would be the one!”
Harker Girls Water Polo
In sudden-death overtime last Tuesday, girls water polo snatched a victory over Monta Vista, 8-7, with Keri Clifford, grade 12, scoring 7 goals and Sonia Sidhu, grade 12, picking up the other. Sierra Lincoln, grade 12, made eight stops in goal. The girls play an away game against Saratoga High on Thursday.
Harker Girls Varsity Volleyball
Girls varsity volleyball went 2-0 last week with victories against King’s Academy and Santa Clara, improving to 10-1 overall. Their sterling record will be challenged when the girls hit the road to play two games away from home this week.
Harker Cross Country
At the Ram Invitational at Westmoor High this Saturday, Corey Gonzalez, grade 10, placed eighth out of 211 runners, running the 2.4 mile course in 12:46 and improving his time from last year by a full minute. Claudia Tischler, grade 11, placed 18th out of 165 runners, and Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, set a new personal best with her time. Thursday marks the first league meet for these runners.
Harker Football
Two touchdown passes from quarterback Spenser Quash, grade 12, to Kevin Moss, grade 11, were not enough as Harker fell to Cupertino this Friday, 40-13. The boys will get a chance to even their record, which now stands at 2-3, when they face off against Gunn this Friday night at Davis Field. There are only three home games, including Homecoming, remaining in Harker’s football season.
Harker Middle School and Lower School Girls Softball
Lower school and middle school girls softball teams are both off to undefeated starts to the season, with the grades 6-8 team standing at 3-0 in league play and the grades 4-5 team at 4-0.
The middle school team was locked in a tie for first place with Castilleja until Kristin LeBlanc, grade 7, knocked in Grace Park, grade 8, for a game-winning run with a base hit to defeat the Castilleja Gators, 6-5, and give Harker sole possession of first place, a game ahead of Castilleja. Meghan Robertson, grade 6, pitched an outstanding game, and Anika Rajamani, grade 6, Marti Sutton, grade 8, Tiffany Shou, grade 7, and Livinia Ding, grade 8, all came up with big plays to contribute to the victory.
The lower school girls team also has on lock on first place in its league after defeating Woodland for the second time this year. Arushi Nety, grade 5, has three doubles and two triples in her last two games, and Haley Arena, grade 5, and Courtni Thompson, grade 4, made important catches to preserve the Eagles’ last victory.
Flag Football
The grade 8 flag football team stands at 2-3 this year. Led by quarterback Alex Youn and wide receivers Nicolas Bean and Nik Weisbloom, Harker pulled off an exciting and tense 9-6 victory against Crystal Springs recently. After a season of close games, the boys are preparing for the Harker flag football tournament this weekend.
The grade 7 flag football team lost a tough 12-0 game to the Menlo Knights last week, dropping to a 1-3 record despite strong defensive play all year. James Shaw, Nirban Bhatia, Chris Smith and Jin Kim have all been standouts and leaders on defense. The highlight of the season so far came in game two, when the Eagles defeated Woodland courtesy of strong play by Dolan Dworak, who ran for one touchdown and threw for another, and Michael Sikand, who ran for a touchdown. The season closes out next week as Harker plays Valley Christian and Sacred Heart.
The grade 6 flag football team is in first place after an undefeated 6-0 run in which they never trailed at a single moment in any game. The team is led by offensive standouts like 1uarterback Bobby Bloomquist, running backs Jackson Williams and Jarrett Anderson, and tight end Charlie Molin. As cornerback, Hasan Awais has snatched four interceptions in just six games, while middle linebacker Jason Peetz has two interceptions and has scored a defensive touchdown. All told, the team has 13 interceptions in only six games and has outscored their opponents 197-36.
The grade 5 flag football team, coached by Tobias Wade and Patrick Hightower, is currently 2-1. The team is led by 1uarterback Darshan Chahal, who had a crucial punt return for a touchdown against Woodland. Safety Henry Weise has also made some stellar defensive plays by knocking the ball out of the receivers’ hands and getting crucial stops on third down.
Swimming
Harker’s lower school and middle school swim team, coached by Alisha Garcia, Andrew Booth, Jennifer Deasy and Ruth Hegedus, participated in the Castilleja meet earlier this season. The results were as follows:
Grade 6 Boys
Grade 6 Girls
Grade 7 Boys
Grade 7 Girls
Grade 8 Boys
Harker is hosting their own league meet on Tues., Oct. 9.
Cross Country
The middle school cross country team, coached by Scott Graham, Margaret Huntley and Jessica Sykora, is off to a great start. In the Crystal Spring Meet, a relay, Akshaya Vemuri, Sharon Yan, Gloria Guo and Sarah Savage, all grade 7, took second place. At the Priory Meet, Julia Amick, grade 6, took first place in her race. Savage did the same, while Niki Iyer, grade 8, took second in hers. The grade 6 boys took fourth place while the grade 7 and 8 girls took third and the grade 7 and 8 boys took second place. At Miller Meet, Savage again placed first in her race, with Amick placing fourth in hers, Iyer placing third in hers, and Arnav Tandon, grade 8, placing ninth in his. Harker hosts its own league meet on Wed., Oct. 10.
The first spirit event of the year got off to a great start for the lower school’s fourth and fifth graders. Held on Sept. 19 during second period, the assembly featured an action-packed cup race and oversized word search activity.
During the cup race, students and their homeroom teachers furiously worked to stack cups until the odd color was reached. The word search activity saw students attempting to find as many “paws, jaws and claws” as possible during the game.
Lower school students have spirit assemblies about once a month throughout the year to promote school spirit and homeroom unity. The students compete against one another for spirit points and the homeroom with the highest score at the end of the year wins a party, so the stakes are high!
According to Mel Robinson, grade 5 P.E. teacher who helped spearhead the event, “Our initial spirit assembly went really well. The spirit/service students brainstormed at our first pre-meeting, and came up with great ideas. The students were engaged, in high spirits and are now looking forward to our next event.”
Tags: Featured StoryThis article was originally published in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Parents of Harker’s very first upper school graduating class in 2002 established the now annual tradition of a senior parent appreciation gift as a way of showing their thanks for their Harker experience.
“It was structured so that any incremental giving to the annual giving campaign over and above what a family had given during the previous year would go to fund a beautification project on campus,” explained Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, noting that plaques have been placed in areas that have been beautified, commemorating each of the students’ families who participated in making that year’s senior parent gift.
Last year, the parents of the graduating class added a new feature to the tradition, requesting that the money be used to establish a class fund that will become part of the school’s general endowment. The 2012 Class Fund was established with their cumulative gifts of approximately $35,000.
“Alumni and alumni parents are welcome to continue to make gifts each year to their class funds as a part of their annual giving gifts. And students will thus be able to benefit from this generosity year after year in perpetuity,” said Rosenthal.
Tags: Harker GivingThis article was originally published in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Members of Harker’s Key Club had a productive spring, collecting clothing, toys and food for the Sacred Heart Community Center and donating animal carrier crates and raising $1,100 for the Silicon Valley Humane Society.
The funds were raised by selling baked goods and root beer floats. Additionally, one student anonymously donated $500 towards the cause.
Kerry Enzensperger, director of the upper school community service and activity program, reported that Key Club participants were thrilled with the results.
The Key Club is part of an international high school organization sponsored by Kiwanis International. Key Club members assist Kiwanis in carrying out its mission to serve the children of the world.
Tags: OutreachThis article originally appeared in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I’d like to welcome the board of Trustees, administration, faculty, staff, and the classes of 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 to today’s matriculation ceremony. Matriculation is a tradition at the Harker upper school during which all freshmen and new students commit themselves, by signature and oath, to the values of honesty and fellowship, among others. You can walk the halls of the campus knowing that all of your classmates have committed themselves to these values.
Mr. Keller and I have the privilege of offering a few words today. Most of the time these brief addresses take the form of an aspiration we have for the student body, something we hope you will keep in mind during the year.
You will be relieved to hear that I am continuing the tradition of confining my aspiration for you to one page of single-space, size 12 font.
Today I want to talk about jam sessions and my hope that you will have many of them this year. What do I mean by jam sessions? They have nothing to do with jelly. On good days, when I have the fortitude, I begin my day with a short run in my neighborhood and a brief meditation on my front balcony. Meditation, it has been said, is an activity done for its own sake. If you are meditating to become a better person or some other purpose then you are not meditating. The philosopher Alan Watts describes meditation as a sort of digging the present moment. Getting with the universe. Perhaps Will Smith would call meditation, “Getting jiggy with it.”
When I meditate I face east, where I am from, and often my thoughts drift to my past. Recently while I was meditating, thoughts of my friends from junior high and high school floated up. I recalled how we used to have what we called “jam sessions,” by which we meant two distinct activities. First, and most obvious, we held musical jam sessions, during which we improvised, or jammed, and played rock songs popular at the time. I played the drums and a little bass guitar while my friends played other instruments. They were all more skillful musicians than I was but none of that mattered at the time. We played music just to play music, to swing with it, to get with the universe.
The second activity, less obvious, was getting together and talking all night, just to talk. We talked about everything: music, authors, teachers, parents, friends, the future, girls and more girls. We talked just to talk, and this, too, was a form of improvisation, a digging the moment.
This is what I hope for you in your high school career, many jam sessions, and not necessarily in the form of music or discussion although those are perfectly fine ways to jam. What I want for you is the spirit of jam sessions, getting lost in an activity for its own sake.
This is the point of most religions, though an often forgotten point. It is also the meaning of music and dance. Alan Watts points out that music and dance are activities done for their own sakes, that music and dance are significant of themselves, not something else. We don’t dance to get to a specific place in the room, nor do we play music to reach the end of the song. The original spirit of religious activity is to put you in touch with the powers of the life so that you understand that those powers are you. That is why people sing in church, to “get with it,” “it” meaning everything. That is a jam session.
I remember chaperoning a sick student on a bus in Washington, D.C. He was sleeping in the back and two local bus drivers were in the front bantering about who was the best prophet in the bible. One bus driver said that Ezekiel was the best prophet there ever was. The two started working themselves up in a religious frenzy, right there. One said he was having a moment. The two didn’t need a church or a preacher. The bus was their church, the spirit of the moment their preacher.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this “flow,” when the doer and the deed, the actor and the activity are one. My friends and I called them jam sessions. Whatever you call them, I wish for you today that you get lost in some activity for its own sake, without regard to grades, popularity, college admissions or outcomes of any kind. It is hard to do and probably unrealistic to want to be this way all the time. But if you taste it once or more, as many of you have, you will at least get a glimpse of what it is like to not exist, to be one with an activity, a cause, something greater than yourself. If you have a jam session you may find something bigger than yourself to love, or you may find that you yourself are more, way more, than you ever imagined. Thank you.
Tags: Chris Nikoloff: EducationHarker hosted two exciting visits from exchange teachers last month, one from Japan and the other from China. Both Yu Sasaki of Japan and Zhang Tao of China were warmly received and are now missed by students and teachers alike.
On Sept. 6 Sasaki, who lives in Sendai, Japan, visited the upper school campus to talk to students about her work with Save the Children, a leading nonprofit organization devoted to promoting children’s welfare. Sasaki is currently involved in Japan’s post-tsunami relief efforts and used her Harker visit as an opportunity to inform the upper school students about it.
“It was a wonderful experience to discuss our post-tsunami relief efforts with five Japanese classes at Harker. In each class, I got interesting questions from students and was happy to know that they still care about what happens on the other side of the earth. I was also amazed by the charity work some students did after the tsunami,” she said.
Then, from Sept. 8-21, Zhang Tao (who goes by Ruth) visited from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai, China. In recent years the WFLMS has added a high school, where Zhang teaches English to sophomores and juniors. During her time at Harker she observed and taught classes on all three campuses, spending the bulk of her time at the middle school. Highlights of her visit included teaching such subjects as Chinese poetry, Mandarin, calligraphy, and tai chi.
“She was super excited to have been selected for this exchange,” recalled Jennifer Walrod, director of Harker’s global education program. “When I met with her while visiting China last March we spent a lot of time discussing what types of classes she could teach while here.”
In addition to the annual teacher exchange program with Japan and China, Walrod explained that Harker’s partnership with WFLMS has resulted in a student exchange program in the middle school as well. Harker also hosts visiting teachers from Australia.
The teacher exchange program is an example of Harker’s ongoing effort to build progressive academic and cultural partnerships between institutions around the world, providing meaningful experiences for students at all grade levels – preparing them to be true global citizens.
Tags: Global EducationHarker’s Junior Classical League (JCL) got off to a great start with this year’s inaugural event, held Sept. 28 at Laser Quest in Mountain View.
The evening, which landed on the last Friday night of the month, provided an informal opportunity for participants to unite in a fun, casual atmosphere.
According to Lisa Masoni, a middle school Latin teacher who helped spearhead the event, students enjoyed relaxing together and ending their busy week by “accessing their inner warriors and enjoying a Roman dinner of pizza and soda!”
The JCL is part of a larger organization – the California Junior Classical League – which was founded in 1955 to provide a forum for Latin students to compete in a wide range of academic, art and athletic contests, both individually and by chapter.
To qualify for admittance to the JCL students must be enrolled in or have successfully completed a semester of a classical language course.
Tags: Featured Story, Languages