The class of 2016 got a head start on their high school careers on Aug. 24 during freshman orientation day. Students new to Harker arrived early to attend library and technology training sessions. All grade 9 students then convened in the gym to meet with their advisors and advisory groups. After making their introductions, the students in each group sat in a circle and played games to help them get to know one another. All the while, the students were helped along by the Harker Link Crew, grade 11 and 12 students who assist incoming freshmen with their transition to the upper school.
Later, they headed to Davis Field to participate in some fun team-building activities set up by Apex Adventures. The warm late-summer weather was the perfect environment for outdoor fun, as students were divided into teams and competed in games that required teamwork and cooperation to complete. One required teams to fill tubes with holes punched in them with water by plugging the holes with their hands, while another placed a student in a large wooden triangle who attempted to walk across the field while teammates used ropes to balance the triangle on its two “feet.” All the while, students laughed and cheered one another on as they worked together to complete each challenge.
The middle school celebrated the end of the first week of school with its annual ice cream social. The fact that it was preceded by a three-day weekend and that sixth graders had just received their laptops that morning in advisory caused one sixth grader to say, “It just can’t get any better than this!” The amphitheater was really rocking during the assembly period, with students preparing for a paper airplane contest, listening to music, dancing, eating ice cream, socializing and discovering what their laptops were going to offer them!
The weather was as warm as the atmosphere as nearly 200 guests turned out for a summer evening reception for new parents held at the Silver Creek Valley Country Club in San Jose in June.
The annual event welcoming newcomers to Harker was graciously hosted by board member Sally Anderson with opening remarks by Chris Nikoloff, head of school, and Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement.
After time for mixing and mingling, Rosenthal kicked off the evening by showing clips from televised new stories about Harker and its students. Many of the new parents had not seen the clips and were clearly impressed at the school’s many newsworthy accomplishments.
Following that, Casey Near ’06 spoke about her years and experiences at Harker, noting the impact her peers had on her and how well prepared she was for college and beyond.
Attendees were visibly moved by the event. They also enjoyed appetizers, drinks and dessert while connecting with one another as they prepared to become a part of the Harker community.
The upper school’s 2012-13 year began in earnest on Aug. 27 when the entire student body and faculty gathered at the upper school campus quad for this year’s matriculation ceremony. Grades 10-12 greeted the faculty with applause as they carried the flag of the class of 2013. Shortly after, the students cheered for the incoming class of 2016 as they took their seats.
Chris Nikoloff, head of school, greeted the students with an opening speech about jam sessions of the musical and non-musical varieties. He reminisced about his days in junior high and high school, playing both improvised and popular music with his friends. “We played music just to play music,” he said. He also enjoyed talking with his friends through the night, “just to talk, and this too was a form of improvisation.”
Both of these, he said, were activities done for their own sake. “Whatever you call them, I wish for you today that you get lost in some activity for its own sake, and not regard the grades, popularity, college admissions or outcomes of any kind,” he said. “If you have a jam session, you just might find something bigger than yourself to love, or you might find that you yourself are more, way more, than you ever imagined.”
Following Nikoloff’s opening remarks, Cantilena, the upper school all-female vocal group directed by Susan Nace, sang a spirited rendition of Stephen Hatfield’s “Run, Children, Run,” complete with improvised passages and raucous audience participation.
Butch Keller, upper school head, then took the stage to deliver his matriculation address, which focused on two lessons he felt were particularly important. The first was the importance of having goals. “There is no achievement without goals,” he said. He then related a story he’d heard about a Harvard graduate with a business degree who met a fisherman one day and offered to help him to start a business that would make him rich, only to realize that the fisherman would do the same things he does every day even after becoming successful.
The second lesson Keller wanted to get across was the importance of being able to react to tense situations in a calm and rational manner. He related a personal anecdote about a time he went golfing with his two sons. At one point, a particularly irate golfer started a confrontation that could have potentially ended in violence. “That wouldn’t have been right. Think of the litigation,” Keller joked. Instead, he and his sons defused the situation by walking away and notifying those in charge of the golf course about the troublemaker, who was escorted off the premises.
“It’s not the situation that’s important,” he said. “It’s your reaction to the situation.”
The final speaker of the ceremony was ASB president Raghav Sehtia, grade 12, who warmly welcomed the class of 2016 and said that the best way to enjoy their years as high school students was to be themselves. Sharing a story about a bike-related accident he’d suffered, he said, “I had decided that I wasn’t going to pretend not to cry because it would make me seem manly or strong. Don’t waste your time trying to be someone you aren’t.”
He also advised the students not to be afraid to get involved and to participate in the many activities available to them, something he learned during his freshman year. “I realized that if I did not go out and participate in those skits and spirit events and try new sports, my high school experience would not be a cherishable one,” he said.
Sehtia concluded by introducing the students to this year’s class officers before inviting ASB vice president Maverick McNealy, grade 12, to the stage for the recitation of the matriculation oath. The class of 2016 then signed the matriculation book while the Harker string quartet performed, directed by Chris Florio.
After the students had returned to their seats, the upperclassmen performed the time-honored “Freshman 101” skit, wherein the students, dressed as various superheroes, offered advice to their new friends through a series of humorous sketches, covering topics such as the dress code, honor code and student clubs.
Harker golf star Maverick McNealy, grade 12, wrapped up an eventful summer in mid-August by making it to the quarterfinals of the Northern California Golf Association’s Amateur Match Play Championship. McNealy started strong with a third-place finish in stroke play, shooting 72-71. After winning his first two matches, he later fell behind by two with four holes remaining. He nearly rallied with two birdies to force a playoff, but hit the bunker in the sudden-death playoff, allowing his opponent to advance.
Earlier in August, McNealy won the Silver Creek Valley Junior, shooting 65-72. He scored birdie no fewer than seven times in the first round. “It felt good to finally win one, though my results in bigger events have been exciting,” he said.
On July 23 19 teachers and one administrator from the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education in Daegu, South Korea, observed summer classes at the Harker lower school campus as well as the English Language Institute at the Saratoga site. Kelly Espinosa and Anthony Wood coordinated these visits.
These English teachers from grades 3-6 in different elementary schools throughout Daegu were chosen by their school districts to take part in a one-month intensive program at San Jose State University’s International Gateways program. Their objective is to improve their English skills and practice new teaching methods. Since 2008 Korean teacher groups have been offered this training at SJSU and other U.S. universities as part of a sizable investment by the South Korean government to improve the quality of English instruction at all levels in the public schools. Nine different groups of middle school and high school teachers have also attended the Teaching English in English program at SJSU after completing five months of intensive English study at a Korean university.
I am a former Harker ESL teacher and have been an instructor in the International Gateways program at SJSU since 2001, and I have arranged several Harker tours. Every teacher group has been favorably impressed with the outstanding Harker facilities, the quality of instruction and the behavior of Harker’s students.
The International Gateways program is part of the San Jose State University Foundation which receives no state funding, and is financed entirely from tuition from its international students. Its mission since 1975 is to offer high quality English language programs, cultural experiences and support services to international students and professionals. The Teaching English in English program is only one of the programs offered in International Gateways, which specializes in Academic and TOEFL Preparation for students who wish to attend an American university for undergraduate or graduate study.
What began as an interest in sailing morphed into a crusade to save the earth’s waterways from plastic pollution for Dolan Dworak, grade 7.
When 12-year-old Dworak enrolled in sailing lessons a couple years back he had no idea the classes would lead to his current volunteer efforts with the Sea Scavenger Conservancy, a nonprofit San Francisco-based organization working to rid our waterways of plastic pollution.
Looking back it seems almost fated that he took up sailing at San Francisco’s McCovey Cove, where he met and bonded with Sea Scavenger founder Lorraine Palmer, who would go onto become his mentor. Today, as the Junior “SeaEO” of Sea Scavenger, Dworak represents the organization as a spokesperson, educating fellow Harker classmates, speaking at scout troop, church, school and city council meetings, and even attending international marine biology conferences to spread the word about the dangers of petroleum, a byproduct of plastic waste infesting our oceans, seas and tributaries. He is also busy recruiting other Bay Area students to serve on Sea Scavenger’s junior board of directors and helps coordinate monthly shoreline clean-up efforts and publicity for the cause.
Last year he visited Harker’s lower school where he led an engaging presentation about his work with Sea Scavenger. He brought along an art project titled “The Picket Line: Protest Plastic Pollution” to show the younger students what he and several students from the middle school (along with art instructor Elizabeth Saltos) created with trash they picked up during a cleanup at a local beach tied to wooden pickets. “The Picket Line” will soon be displayed at multiple locations in the Bay Area.
Most recently, he used the summer break to travel the East Coast from Maine to Delaware where he continued his education in marine biology along diverse shorelines – urban industrial, rocky beaches on remote islands, high density sandy beaches near resorts – from small inlets to wide-open ocean. His greatest concern is the oceans and the sea life within.
All five of the world’s oceans contain gyres – massive islands of trash afloat off the coast – attributed to the overuse of plastic, which gets into waterways and oceans. In fact, millions of tons of plastic have accumulated and created the gyres. The plastic breaks down through wind, sun and wave action and the chemicals leach into the water – water that flows all over the world. Also, sea animals mistake the plastic for food, ingest it, are poisoned and die. Humans ingest the harmful chemicals through tainted water and seafood.
“Too much marine life is dying due to plastic pollution, and my generation can stop the problem and save the animals,” said Dworak.
Dolan’s mom, Susan, added, “We can’t stop using all plastics, of course, but we need to stop polluting the earth with wasteful, single-use, harmful plastics. We are overwhelming the earth and causing irreversible harm. There is hope. Every single person can make a difference every single day by reducing, reusing, replacing or refusing plastics. Every plastic bag. Every plastic water bottle. Every bit helps, and changes in lifestyle are easy to make.”
Founded in 2008, Sea Scavenger works to establish ongoing cleanup operations in the remote ocean gyres where great concentrations of plastic are accumulating. They also strive to develop new technologies for plastic extraction and seek innovative uses for recycled ocean plastics.
Dworak’s family donate their motor yacht to assist in a monthly shoreline cleanup effort along the Bay, which the entire Dworak family takes part in. Beyond removing harmful trash along the beaches, they collect it and sort it out by various types of plastic to determine its origin and work with its manufacturers to try and find alternatives to using plastic.
A highlight of Dworak’s volunteer efforts with Sea Scavenger was attending the fifth International Marine Debris Conference in Hawaii. He went there in his role as junior spokesperson for Sea Scavenger, accompanied by his mom. The event, held every 10 years, hosts 38 participating countries, and attracts a large number of participants, including hundreds of scientists. But Dworak had the distinction of being the only child there.
Next up on Dworak’s agenda is a trip in June of 2013 to Seward, Alaska, to participate in Gyre X, an international expedition led by the Alaska Sea Life Center. Dworak has been asked to serve as Gyre X’s youth social media coordinator. The expedition will include an array of scientists and artists who will study and collect marine debris from remote parts of Alaska that will later result in an exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution traveling to museums around the world.
“I hope to get more people involved and to increase awareness, because the less plastic we use means the quicker the problem is solved,” said Dworak.
Plastic pollution is a huge problem, but one that is not impossible to solve. Scientists are studying the environment. Industry is redesigning products. And organizations – like the one Dworak is involved in – are creating awareness.
Four Harker students were recently named semifinalists in the 2012 Broadcom Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering as Rising Stars (MASTERS) competition. Rishabh Chandra, Jonathan Ma and Rajiv Sancheti, all grade 9, and Venkat Sankar, grade 8, were four of 300 middle school students chosen from nearly 1,500 nationwide entries.
Broadcom MASTERS is a science fair competition in which middle school students enter science and engineering projects at fairs affiliated with the Society for Science and the Public. If their projects are nominated at these fairs, they then submit applications to describe their interests and related careers they are considering. A panel of scientists and engineers then selects the 300 national semifinalists.
The Harker School is purchasing an eight-acre site on Union Avenue in San Jose, near Highway 85, as part of its long-range strategic plan. The site will initially be used to launch Harker’s new preschool and in 5-10 years will become the campus for the lower grades (K-5).
Frequently asked questions about the new campus have been posted on our website at www.harker.org/union. For additional information, please email communications@harker.org or call 408.345.9273.
The Harker School is purchasing an eight-acre site on Union Avenue in San Jose, near Highway 85, as part of its long-range strategic plan. The site will initially be used to launch Harker’s new preschool and in 5-10 years will become the campus for the lower grades (K-5).
Frequently asked questions about the new campus have been posted on our website at www.harker.org/union. For additional information, please email communications@harker.org or call 408.345.9273.