Still in awe over their recent trip to China, the fifteen grade 8 participants have settled back into school – but with a new shared bond from an exciting, uplifting adventure.
The annual trip to China is a highlight and culmination of the middle school experience for these students, and something they look forward to for many years.
After arriving at the Pudong International Airport on March 29, the students were welcomed by their Chines buddies from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS), who presented them with bouquets of flowers. From there they hopped on a bus for the short drive into the city to meet their host families.
The next morning, upon arriving at WFLMS, the Harker students were warmly greeted by the school’s teachers and students. The day began with a welcome ceremony, broadcast to the entire school, followed by a fun scavenger hunt.
The group also attended a special art class where they learned about theater masks and had the opportunity to sketch and paint masks of their own. Additionally, they attended a “wushu” class, a form of martial arts and popular Chinese sport.
After giving PowerPoint presentations on American culture to their Chinese peers, the Harker students headed off to the cafeteria to make dumpling – almost as fun as eating them! The day ended with a spectacular show called “ERA Intersection of Time,” featuring a dramatic combination of circus-like acts, acrobats and dance set to music with special effects.
Soon after, the students were excited to set out for their first field trip, to Zhujiazhou, which is a beautiful canal town outside of Shanghai. There, they walked along the canals and narrow cobblestone streets, stopping occasionally to visit museums, a Buddhist temple, and a garden filled with rock structures which invited climbing.
“At one point we stopped our wandering so the kids could purchase live fish and turtles to release into the water as a symbol of good luck and character,” recalled Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s global education director, who accompanied the students on the trip.
From there, they enjoyed sightseeing and shopping, with many students trying their hand at bargaining, and several walking away with incredible deals. The final activity of the outing was a beautiful boat ride through the canals, or what Walrod referred to as the “Venice of Shanghai.”
That evening was bittersweet as both Harker and WFLMS students gave touching goodbye speeches and performances, preparing to depart for the next phase of the trip to Beijing. The Harker students’ first adventure in Beijing consisted of a rickshaw tour of the Hutong, or ancient alleyways that once covered the city.
Next on the itinerary was a visit to the Great Wall of China. Taking a ski lift to the top of the mountain, they entered onto the wall. Many photos were taken of the renowned structure, and the students were thrilled to take a toboggan ride back down the side of the mountain.
The contingent returned to Beijing the next day and visited Tiananmen Square, site of the 1989 protests and ensuing military action. They next headed to the Forbidden City, where they were guided through several of its 980 palatial buildings.
After enjoying lunch, they went to the Silk Street, a shopping center where they could continue to improve their haggling skills with its many vendors. From there they traveled to a final outing, Summer Palace, China’s largest imperial garden, and rode a dragon boat to the palace’s pavilion.
The students arrived back home on April 7, feeling both bonded and eager to share their trip experiences with friends and family.
Hats off to the adorable kindergarten students at the lower school campus for coming up with unique and colorful headwear for the annual Hat Parade, which recently took place. Wearing hats they decorated at home themselves, the children participated in a fun parade which wound its way throughout the campus, stopping off in various classrooms to model the students’ fabulous attire.
The upper school’s gym was transformed into a festive international fair during Harker’s recent student-organized Global Empowerment Organization (GEO) multicultural assembly.
Throughout the room booths were set up representing various countries from around the globe, containing informational displays and samples of delicious native foods. Meanwhile, student performers dressed in colorful outfits, including traditional Indian and Hawaiian clothing, captivating an audience of both students and faculty.
Held during a long lunch period, the event had the casual feel of a street festival, with plenty of time for sampling tasty food, watching a lively on-stage performance and catching up with friends.
Working in the Romanian booth, Catalina Mihailive, grade 11, said she came from Romania just last year and is excited to be volunteering at the assembly. Noting that she is “having fun both in America and at Harker,” she added that she loved being able to share some of the food she grew up eating.
Meanwhile, GEO student member Shreya Vemuri, grade 11, volunteered to help lead the group’s communication and publishing efforts through the production of fliers and posters.
“The thing that’s different about this year is that the food and acts were combined … so we had to make sure to get the word out on that. And it seems to be working out really well,” she said.
Indeed, everyone appeared to enjoy the combined fair, which gave attendees the ability to simultaneously eat, socialize and watch a variety of acts unfold on stage. The show kicked off with a rousing number featuring a group of Korean dancers moving to pop beats, clad in red and black attire. That piece was followed by numerous other acts, including a set with Hawaiian dancers and lively vocal version of the song “La Bamba.”
The annual GEO assembly has always drawn an appreciative crowd. This year’s new combination of running the informational/food booths alongside the stage performances was such a success it may be repeated next year.
Senior Swimmers will be honored on April 25th at 3:50 p.m. at the Singh Aquatic Center on the Harker Saratoga Campus Please join us as we say thank you to: Albert Wu, Tiffany Wong, Kathryn Siegel, Akshay Ramachandran, Daryl Neubeiser, Cole Manaster, Andrew Lee, Rachelle Koch, Kevin Khojasteh, Tariq Jahshan and Lucy Cheng.
Girls lacrosse defeated Notre Dame yesterday 9-7. Michelle Douglas, grade 11; Hannah Bollar, grade 9 and Wendy Shwe, grade 11, had three goals each. The girls are now 7-5 overall, 4-0 and first place in league! This year’s group has already earned the most victories in the program’s history.
In track and field action junior Isabelle Connell raced in the prestigious Serra High Top 7 Meet last Saturday, placing first in the 400 meter with a time of 59.8 and second (with a new personal record) in the 200 meter with a time of 26.07.
Boys volleyball defeated King’s Academy Tuesday 3-1 to improve to 10-12 overall. Andrew Zhu, grade 10, had 19 kills in the victory. The boys travel to Los Gatos on April 19 and to Bellarmine on April 20.
Boys tennis had a tough match yesterday at Sacred Heart, losing 5-2 to drop to 9-5 overall. Bright spots were #1 Derek Tzeng, grade 12, and the #1 doubles team of Nikhil Narayen, grade 12, and Chris Chang, grade 11. The boys host Menlo-Atherton April 19.
Softball lost to a strong-hitting Castilleja team yesterday 5-1 to drop to 5-6-2 overall and 2-2 in league. Alison Rugar, grade 11, hit a triple. Other hits were recorded by Ashley Del Alto, grade 11, and Laura Thacker, grade 10. The girls host Pinewood on April 19.
Boys golf suffered its second defeat of the season at the hands of Sacred Heart 209-194 to drop to 6-2 overall. Maverick McNealy, grade 11, led all golfers with a 35 at Sharon Heights.
Harker swept both “Best Of” titles at the Test of Engineering, Aptitude, Math & Science (TEAMS) competition at Stanford on Saturday . More than 60 Harker upper school students, freshman through seniors, participated in the annual event. Nationally, more than 14,000 high school students, working in groups of four to eight, spent the day solving problems on real-world engineering issues such as air transportation, bridge design and rehabilitation, flood analysis, solar-powered vehicles, food preservation and more. The competition, broken into two 90-minutes parts, consisted of objective multiple-choice questions related to various engineering situations followed by students describing and defending their solutions from Part I.
Part I answers are scored on competition day and are used to determine local and state standings, as well as eligibility for national scoring. Based on Part I results, Harker swept the two top spots: Best in California grades 9/10 division (20 teams competed) and Best in California grades 11/12 division (34 teams competed). Part II responses are scored at TEAMS for national ranking, which comes out in May.
“Congratulations to all participants!” said Tony Silk, Harker’s TEAMS advisor. The division 9/10 Best in California team, all sophomores, comprisedStephanie Chen, Albert Chu, Jennifer Dai, Chris Fu, Rahul Sridhar, Vikram Sundar, Claudia Tischler and Andy Wang.
The division 11/12 Best in California team, all seniors, comprised Lucy Cheng, Alexander Hsu, Revanth Kosaraju, Ramya Rangan (captain), Pavitra Rengarajan, Katie Siegel, Ananth Subramaniam and Patrick Yang.
Half a hundred happy K-2 students took a field trip in mid-March to Pump it Up, a warehouse filled with jump houses, obstacle courses and slides. The event was the reward for the students who sold at least 100 raffle tickets for the Harker Family & Alumni Picnic. Kim Coulter, director of the Bucknall Enrichment and Supervision Team (BEST), said, “The children had a great afternoon playing. They enjoyed going through the obstacle courses and racing some of their favorite BEST staff.” Students Aaditya Gulati and Emma Gurleroglu, both grade 2, sold the most raffle tickets this year.
In March, Dr. Alan Nelson of the nonprofit organization KidLead, which teaches leadership skills to students ages 10-13, spoke at Nichols Hall to parents about how to foster leadership in their children. Harker has been running its own KidLead program since the fall of 2010, and since then at least 70 Harker students have completed at least one KidLead module.
Nelson discussed how parents could identify a child’s knack for leadership, pointing out such traits as the tendency to set goals and good communication skills. Some ways that parents can help children with these qualities grow into leaders include providing activities at home that place the children in leadership roles and by finding people to mentor them. Unfortunately, he said, many parents may end up stifling their children by being overprotective or assuming that only adults are fit to lead.
Students Katelyn Bui and Alexander Young, both grade 5, were honored at the beginning of the seminar with a certificate for being the first two Harker students to graduate from the program. “KidLead piqued my interest when I heard the idea from my mom one day,” Bui said. “I decided to give it a try, and I loved it.”
Participating in KidLead, she said, helped her learn more about herself: “Small opportunities lead to bigger opportunities, which gave me a chance to work with different teammates to overcome challenges and have trust in others, which made me see things in me that I never knew I had.”
It also helped her with cognitive abilities, “like focusing on the task at hand while being under pressure.”
Bui was excited and surprised to receive the award. “I was really stoked when Mr. Connolly announced that Alexander and I were the first ones in Harker history to complete all KidLead modules,” she said. “It was actually not about completing all the modules, but the experience that came along with it.”
A group of 20 Harker middle school students attended the local Spring Forensics Tournament at Santa Clara University, held earlier this month. Many of them were competing for their very first time in the event, which predominantly consisted of high school students. The Harker contestants held their own, winning a number of awards, as noted below:
Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7: Rajasekharan took first place in Humorous Interpretation. She has received many awards for this piece; a 10-minute memorized number titled “Beauty is a Beast,” about a spoiled princess. She also received first place in Dramatic Interpretation for a 10-minute memorized piece, titled “The Shape of a Girl,” about bullying.
Lisa Liu, grade 8: Liu competed in several different speech events and was a finalist in each. She competed in Dramatic Interpretation and was qualified to go to the final round. Her piece was a 10-minute topic about illness and family. She also was a finalist in impromptu speaking for which she was given a topic and just two minutes to prepare before speaking for five minutes on the subject. She also received second place in Varsity Humorous Interpretation with her piece, titled “Wayside School is Falling Down.”
Carissa Chen, grade 7: Chen competed in Dramatic Interpretation for the first time and advanced to the final round.
Adele Li, grade 8: Li competed in the varsity division with a topic questioning whether or not targeted killings by the government are justified. She advanced to the Sweet 16 level.
Shivali Minocha and Jasmine Liu, grade 8: Both eighth graders competed in the public forum with the topic “State Mandated Childhood Vaccines” and were undefeated in the preliminary rounds, winning all five. They were the top candidates going into the elimination rounds and made it to the quarterfinals. Liu, in this, her first debate competition, was individually recognized as being the 10th best speaker in the tournament.
Lauri Vaughan, upper school librarian and vice-president of the Bay Area Independent School Librarians, spoke in Washington, D.C., at the 27th annual Computer in Libraries conference, the most comprehensive conference on library technology in the country. Vaughan, who is in her sixth year at Harker, presented a talk titled “The eBook Market for K-12 Schools.”
EBook use at Harker is quickly growing. “When I arrived at Harker we owned 10 eBooks,” said Vaughan. “Now we own hundreds of eBooks and pay annual subscription fees for access to thousands more.” Most eBooks purchased or subscribed to by the Harker library are used for research projects of all sizes. The lower school recently purchased a set of eBooks it will likely use more heavily in classroom instruction.
The eBooks used at Harker are not necessarily the same kind one might find people reading on their beach vacations. “When most folks think of eBooks, they think of a book they buy for their reader – their Kindle or Nook or whatnot,” said Vaughan. “When I think of eBooks, I think about books that all my students can access via the Internet at the same time for research – it’s a very different market.”
Because Harker’s eBooks are accessible any time for any computer with an Internet connection, students have quickly taken to them. “We (my fellow librarians and I) are always amazed at how readily Harker students navigate around different eBook environments,” said Vaughan.
Though there are many benefits to eBooks, they also come with their own set of drawbacks. Many students believe that if they are reading information on a computer monitor it must be relatively new. However, many eBooks are simply digitized versions of material published decades ago. “We hope our students are thinking critically about information in all its forms as this is an especially important skill,” said Vaughan.
Another potential issue is rushed reading. “Studies have shown that a person is much more likely to read something slowly and thoroughly in print than they would the same thing on a computer screen,” said Vaughan. “While we like the ease of accessibility of information that eBooks provide, we also like to encourage thoughtful and deep reading of content.”
Though challenges exist, eBooks are clearly a valuable supplement to the Harker library system.
Students from grade 1 were treated to a special presentation on March 30, watching handlers guide a group of dogs through a canine agility course, complete with tunnels, jumps and other obstacles. The students had just read the story “Officer Buckle and Gloria” in their language arts classes. The story, about a police dog named Gloria who goes to schools with Officer Buckle as he is giving safety presentations, was a great lead-in to the agility dog presentation, which teacher Rita Stone arranged as an extension of the literature. “All of the students were so impressed [with the presentation],” said Stone. “They just loved it and they learned a lot.”