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.
Harker athletics opened the new year with a win by both varsity and JV in girls volleyball against Priory. JV won in two sets, but varsity had to keep the hammer down for a five-game marathon, finally winning 15-13 in the fifth set. Read all about it in the Merc! Come watch their home opener at Blackford next Tuesday night v. Homestead! 4:30 JV, 5:45 varsity.
Cross Country
A few cross country runners competed in the Gunn High scrimmage meet yesterday. Sophomore Corey Gonzales won the varsity boys race defeating runners from St. Francis, Palo Alto and Gunn high schools. Senior Tyler Yeats placed sixth. On the girl’s side, Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, and Claudia Tischler, grade 11, placed ninthth and 11th, respectively. Their next race is Sept. 15 in Salinas.
Varsity football season opens tonight against Yerba Buena at 7! Come on over – the price is right (free)!
In July, student dancer Christopher Hildum, grade 10, was declared the winner of the Mr. Dance America title at the Kids Artistic Review National Dance Competition held in Las Vegas. He also took second place in the “Intermediate Solo 15-19” category. Hildum, who has been participating in the competition for 10 years, was first runner up for the Junior Mr. Dance America title at the finals of the 2006-07 season of the competition.
Upper school music teacher Susan Nace visited Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo as part of this year’s teacher exchange. Nace spent the duration of her trip, which started in late June and lasted through the first week of July, teaching classes to students in grades 8, 10 and 11.
“I had a lot to share about vocal and choral techniques that were unknown to them,” Nace said. “I also shared some of my teaching materials.”
Nace found that the students were very receptive and eager to learn, and that the teachers “were very curious and interested in vocal pedagogy, as their choral teachers are instrumentally trained.” She was also impressed with how musically trained the Tamagawa students were. “Everyone sings in a choir and takes art classes every year,” she said. “Each of the upper grades has its own choir, which sings major works. They have several large lecture/recital halls and music rooms in which to hold rehearsals.”
Aside from teaching, Nace also had many opportunities to experience the rich Japanese culture, visiting the famous Rikugien Garden and sampling many different foods, including “every conceivable way to eat tofu, conger eel, salmon roe, cockles and fish that I am unfamiliar with.”
The students even taught her a bit of Japanese. “One taught me to write my name in katakana so that I could sign her songbook!”
In May, Andree Beals ’12 was awarded a four-year scholarship from George Washington University’s Presidential Scholars in the Arts program. GWU’s department of theater and dance offers this award to incoming freshmen studying the disciplines of dance, acting or design and technical production. Beals received the scholarship after submitting an application and performing an audition.
“I am extremely honored to be given this scholarship and cannot wait to dance at GW,” Beals said. “I’m glad that my time as a company member at [Teen Dance Company], a contemporary dance company in the Mountain View, as well as my work with other San Francisco choreographers, has moved me forward into such a great dance program.”
At the United Spirit Association Dance Camp, held in July at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Harker varsity and junior varsity dancers won a number of awards and earned the privilege of performing in Hawaii and London. Students in attendance at the camp were grade 12 students Ria Desai, Michaela Kastelman and Molly Wolfe, grade 11 student Jenny Dai, grade 10 students Noel Banerjee, Darby Millard, Erika Olsen and Jacqui Villarreal and grade 9 students Selin Ozcelik, Emily Pan, Kristen Park, Ankita Sharma and Madison Tomihiro.
The camp featured classes on technique and choreography and also featured a number of competitive challenges. Under the guidance of dance teachers Amalia De La Rosa and Karl Kuehn, the dancers won several awards. Kastelman, Millard and Villarreal were recognized as All-American dancers, an honor that included an invitation to perform in London with the United Spirit Association. For their overall technique and performance acumen, Kastelman, Banerjee, Millard and Villarreal all received Super Sensational ribbons. Millard and Kastelman reached the final round of competition and were among the top 10 dancers at the camp.
The Harker dance group was awarded a “Superior” plaque, the highest group recognition at the camp, and was invited to perform at next year’s NFL Pro Bowl in Hawaii. They also won the teamwork challenge and received an award for being the most-improved team at the camp.
Desai’s and Sharma’s efforts in drill classes earned them first-place ribbons and Park and Ozcelik received second-place ribbons. In the drill competition, Sharma received a medallion for her second-place finish.
Andrew Wang and Namrata Vakkalagadda, both grade 11, attended the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Northern California Seminar in mid-June, held at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga. Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY for short) is a national organization that seeks to build principles of service and leadership in high school students. Students are selected by their schools to participate in HOBY events, where they participate in leadership-building activities, hear from important figures in a variety of fields and more.
“There were many activities that essentially made us ask ourselves how we would behave in certain circumstances that questioned our decision-making skills or our opinions,” said Wang, who said he met many new friends at the conference. “The activities ranged from building a tower with pipe cleaners to creating a mock business operation that interacted with other similar groups.”
Students also learned about different types of leadership, such as personal leadership, group leadership and society leadership.
“One of my favorite activities was where we answered a set of questions and found out which ‘color’ we are. Each color represented certain qualities that person possesses,” Vakkalagadda said. People of the same color were then put into groups and told to build a tower with the materials provided. “Each group had a very different experience, but all the towers failed. The activity showed us how all four types of leadership are needed to keep any type of organization or group running.”
Speakers at the conference included college counselors, service leaders and representatives from nonprofits. Vakkalagadda particularly enjoyed a presentation by Stephen Amundson, who heads a program called Reach Out and Impact a Life. “His speech that targeted the main skills needed by a group leader was not only informative, but also interactive as well as fun,” Vakkalagadda said. “He made his entire program enjoyable for the audience and yet still managed to strongly pass along his message.”
Once again, Enlight’ning, Harker’s annual award-winning (2009, 2010, 2011) literary arts magazine, showcased the work of a number of talented middle school students. But this year it also provided a unique opportunity for Enlight’ning club members to learn what it takes to create such a publication.
Students on both ends – published and publishers – played an integral role in making this year’s issue of Enlight’ning such a success.
Created in 2002 as an opportunity for selected students to publish their outstanding writing and art, the magazine traditionally has been produced by a club, which meets weekly during the school day in the second semester to solicit and evaluate magazine submissions.
This year, however, the club took the process a step further, by also meeting once a week during the first semester to get a behind-the-scenes look into the process of putting together a magazine. For the first time, club members had the chance to learn the ins and outs of publishing a literary journal – from publicity to formulating responses to sample submissions and print production. Also during the first semester, Enlight’ning ran a contest for poetry, prose and art to raise the number of early submissions, which were judged “blind.”
“This year’s issue’s really beautiful,” enthused Sabina Grogan, who teaches middle school expository writing and served as an advisor for the 2012 Enlight’ning staff.
Enlight’ning is recognized by the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), American Scholastic Press Association and Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) for its exemplary product. In fact, it has placed as a gold medalist by CSPA and a silver medalist by NSPA in a recent scholastic literary journal competition.
The theme of this edition of the literary magazine was “journeys,” as suggested by the publication’s many images of trains and boats, and also travel through time and memory, explored by several poems and prose works showcased in the magazine. Moreover, Enlight’ning’s editors explained that the overriding theme of the journey motif expressed is one of transformation – as middle school itself is a stretch of intense and at times startling change.
Last spring, Enlight’ning held a kickoff launch and celebration, with students featured in the magazine reading excerpts from their pieces and talking about their work. The event saw published students and audience members lingering long after the readings to schmooze and enjoy refreshments.
At the end of the school year, Grogan urged seventh and incoming eighth graders to consider submitting writing and artwork for next year’s edition, stating, “You’ve got all summer to come up with something!”
Michelle Lo ’12 has been honored with a Chi Am Circle scholarship in recognition of her extraordinary extracurricular activities, high scholastic merit and community spirit.
Chi Am Circle is a nonprofit Asian-American women’s organization established in 1965. Chi Am is built on a foundation of friendship with a mission of service in projects which are diverse and affect a broad range of community members who come from a range of leadership positions in the local and Bay Area.
The organization’s prestigious scholarship award highlights the accomplishments of graduating Asian-American high school students. Deserving students are honored with scholarships sponsored by Chi Am and individual club members. Lo’s scholarship was sponsored by Harker alumni parents Anita Chan and Susan and Jeffery Lee.
According to Jeffery Lee, Chi Am Circle has been awarding scholarships to deserving seniors of Santa Clara County for the past 35 years, and this year awarded some $52,000 to 29 graduates in total.
Erik Andersen, grade 12, helped one of the United States teams win first place at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Andersen, who heads the Harker Language and Linguistics Club, also won a bronze medal for himself in the individual competition. Nearly 30 countries sent teams to the Olympiad, which had a total of 131 contestants.
Each team was required to translate the name of a country written in Lao, the official language of Laos. Contestants were also asked to guess how the countries’ Lao names would be pronounced. Competitors in the individual competitions solved problems that dealt with the Dyirbal, spoken by Australian Aborigines in northeast Queensland, the Umbu-Ungu and Teop languages of Papua New Guinea, Basque and the language of the Rotuman people of the Colony of Fiji.
Anderson qualified for the team after being one of the top 18 students to participate in this year’s North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO), in which he received an award for having the best solution to a problem dealing with the Aboriginal Australian Wanyi language. Approximately 1,000 students participate in the NACLO each year.