With the holiday season gearing up, Santana Row, a popular San Jose shopping center, had their annual tree lighting ceremony, and The Harker School was once again invited to perform for the occasion. Harker has performed at this event for the last several years, and this year they were joined by choirs from Willow Glen High School and dance teams from Lincoln High School as part of the pre-show entertainment. The schools were followed by performances by two current pop singers and the actual lighting of the tree, which was moved this year from the plaza in front of Maggiano’s to the center of the Row next to the chess board.
Harker students from the lower school through the upper school got on stage at 5:30 p.m., performing seven numbers for the crowd that gathered. Downbeat, the upper school show choir directed by Laura Lang-Ree and Catherine Snider, kicked things off with a performance of “The Joint is Jumpin’.” They also performed “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” in the middle of the show, and closed things out with a rendition of “I’ve Got the Music in Me.” High Voltage, the middle school boys dance ensemble directed by Karl Kuehn, took the second number in the show, performing to “Smooth Criminal.” Dance Fusion, a dance ensemble with students from grades 4-6 directed by Gail Palmer, followed, and chose “Working Day and Night for Christmas” as their number. The upper school JV Dance Troupe, directed by Amalia de la Rosa, was also there, and performed “Party Rockin’ in the House Tonight for Santa.” Finally, Showstoppers, the middle school girls dance ensemble directed by Rachelle Ellis, rounded out the holiday spirit with the second-to-last song of the night, a lively rendition of “Jingle Bells.”
“All our groups introduced themselves as from The Harker School, and very sweetly told what their performance group was about – nice touch,” said Lang-Ree. She also mentioned that the location and staging was well done, allowing the enormous crowd plenty of room to watch the show. Overall, she said, it was a “huge hit.”
In early November, students Patrick Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 9, traveled to Beijing, China, to participate in the World Mathematics Team Championship (WMTC) as members of the U.S. team, which took third place in the middle division. Both students also won individual silver medals for their outstanding performances. Lin and Thirumalai competed in the middle school division due to the competition’s age requirements. Lin was invited to the WMTC by the Berkeley Math Circle, a program for Bay Area high school and middle school students that helps foster youth interest in mathematics and prepares them for contests such as the WMTC.
Middle school debaters saw success in tournaments held in late October and mid-November. At the University of the Pacific tournament, held in Stockton , Calif., over the weekend of Oct. 29, Lisa Liu, grade 8, competed at the varsity level in the Impromptu category, in which students choose a topic and are given two minutes to prepare a speech, which they then spend five minutes presenting. Competing against high school students, Liu reached the semifinals and was later named one of the tournament’s top 20 speakers.
In her first tournament, Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7, made the final round of Novice Humorous Interpretation, an event that requires students to memorize a published work and then reinterpret it in an entertaining and comedic manner. Rajasekharan’s piece, “Beauty is a Beast,” relayed the tale of a conceited princess who learns that kindness is more important than beauty.
Two weeks later, at the Damien Debates at Damien High School in La Verne, Calif., students Panny Shan and Steven Cao, both grade 8, competed against high school students, winning four of five rounds in the preliminaries. They wound up losing a very close contest in the quarterfinals against Diamond Ranch High School’s top team. In the varsity division, Lisa Liu and Sophia Luo, grade 8, won against two teams from Polytechnic High School and Liu again received accolades for her speaking ability, selected as the ninth best speaker out of 40 students in her division.
The grade 7 national parks trip in late October saw The Harker School students and teachers traveling to some of the country’s most beautiful and historic places. Arriving in Arizona the morning of Oct. 23, the students and chaperones headed to Sedona, famous for its red rock formations. Some groups of students went on a jeep tour of the area, during which they learned about Sedona’s geology and wildlife. Later, they had dinner at Northern Arizona University.
After breakfast at NAU the next morning, everyone left for the south rim of the Grand Canyon. “The day could not have been more perfect,” said Lana Morrison, middle school dean of students, in a series of email reports. “People were seen from all over the world enjoying the incredible view of the Grand Canyon.” As they took in the vast panorama of the canyon, students hiked and jotted down notes in their journals.
The next day, in Monument Valley, located on the Arizona-Utah border, a wide variety of weather conditions greeted the travelers, including sun, rain, thunder, lightning and a sand storm. The group’s first activity was climbing the formation at Skull Rock. “In the beginning, some students seemed unsure of the climb, while others charged up the hill, which is made of red sandstone,” Morrison said. The students also heard stories about the Anasazi people, and climbed Honeymoon Arch. Next, they visited the Holaday family at the Moonlight Ranch, where they took part in the Navajo Cultural Program. “The members of the Holaday family traveled from three states to share their Navajo traditions with our Harker family,” Morrison wrote. Family leader Lorenz Holaday offered a traditional Navajo blessing to the travelers to conclude this portion of the trip.
On their way to Horseshoe Bend the next day, the rain cleared up just in time for some pictures to be taken. Later, at Glen Canyon Dam, they learned about the history of the hydroelectric dam, which produces 4.5 billion kilowatt hours each year. The group ate lunch and then drove to Utah’s Bryce Canyon, spotting snow on the way. At Bryce Canyon, they were met by Kevin Poe, ranger at Bryce Canyon National Park. “Ranger Poe discussed astronomy, global warming and the benefits of natural darkness and how to conserve sunlight energy,” Morrison wrote. At the Bryce Canyon visitor’s center, the students got to see several amazing celestial sights, such as Jupiter.
Activities at Bryce Canyon park continued the next day. The area’s famous hoodoos, rock spires formed by erosion, were a pleasant sight next to the light snowfall that the park had experienced a few days earlier. The group took hikes around several key areas of the canyon, such as the Navajo Loop. That evening, the bus groups each put on a skit for a special talent show. “It was extremely close,” Morrison wrote, “but congratulations, bus number two!”
The students spent the final day of the trip hiking through Zion National Park, which Morrison noted was similar in appearance to Yosemite. After their hike, the group headed to Las Vegas to catch their flight home.
The Harker School’s forensics program has been traveling across the country this school year, with students advancing to the finals from California to New York.
During the last weekend in October, the team traveled to Las Vegas, Nev., for the Meadows School Tournament, and to Stockton to compete at the University of the Pacific.
Six Harker students went to Vegas to compete in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, a one-on-one debate that places an emphasize on adopting a certain set of values, rather than focusing on solely on harm/benefit like in policy debate. One of the students in attendance, Chaitanya Malladi, grade 12, finished the preliminary round of the tournament with a 4-2 record, and advanced to the double octafinals (top 32) as the 22nd overall seed. There, says Greg Achten, upper school debate teacher, “he lost a close split decision to a student from Harvard Westlake.”
Over in Stockton, six upper school students and 13 middle school students competed in the Jon Schamber High School Forensics Invitational at the University of the Pacific. They competed in a wide variety of events, from Public Forum, Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu, Original Oratory and Humorous Interpretation. Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7, advanced to the semifinals in novice Humorous Interpretation. “This was a big step forward because we’ve been working hard to improve in middle school interpretation of literature events and this is some of the first fruit of that effort,” said Jonathan Peele, director of congressional debates and individual events. Steven Wang, grade 9, took third place in novice Extemporaneous Speaking while Matthew Huang, also grade 9, advanced to the semifinals in Impromptu Speaking.
Silicon Valley Philanthropy Day is an annual event with awards presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Silicon Valley Chapter (AFP SVC) at a luncheon in mid-November to prominent individuals and organizations for their contributions to the community. This year, the event was held at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, and 11 students from Harker were honored with awards for their work with the Pacific Autism Center for Education’s Youth Leadership Committee (PACE YLC). As PACE puts it, their mission is, “to provide high quality programs for individuals with Autism and its related developmental disabilities, so they may experience the satisfaction and fulfillment that come from learning, self-care, productive work, and interpersonal and community experiences.” The aim is to one day be the world leader in connecting a full range of services for persons with autism.
Of the 25 motivated high school students in the group, nearly half are from Harker, including: Jackie Jin, Isha Kawatra, Divya Sarathy and Jennie Xu, grade 12; Emily Chu, Kevin Lin, Isha Patnaik, Indulaxmi Seeni, Pranav Sharma, Apri Tang and Joseph Wang, all grade 11. Over the past two years, the group has raised more than $15,000 through various fundraisers, and this year they’re leading an anti-bullying seminar at local middle schools to talk about awareness and acceptance of students with disabilities.
Every year, Camp BizSmart, a camp that teaches entrepreneurial skills and attitude to students aged 11-15, holds a business plan competition for teams interested in featuring their own innovative product ideas. The winners of the 2011 contest were NeuroSky 5, six students who created a line of highly sophisticated sports gear called NeuroSport. Five of those students go to The Harker School, including team leader and CEO of NeuroSky Shannon Hong, grade 8. Annie Zhou, grade 8, Karen Tu, grade 8, Quentin Delepine, grade 7, and Joseph Krackeler, grade 7, rounded out the Harker students on the team.
As a result of their win, NeuroSky 5 was invited to present their winning solution atKeiretsu Forum’s sixth annual Angel Capital Expo in mid-November, where they had a chance to hear about up and coming ideas in various industries and visit with attendees. Randy Williams, the founder and CEO of Keiretsu Forum, and Sonja Markova, the managing director at Keiretsu Forum, introduced the Camp BizSmart group as the winning team, and presented them with their first place award. Following the presentation, the students were invited to lunch, and given a chance to share their idea with guests.
“The event went off beautifully and we were very proud of the Camp BizSmart grand finale team of students, many who are Harker students,” said Peggy Gibbs. “The students were recognized on stage by Williams and Markova for being named as the 1st place winner over 19 teams of students at our 3 locations.”
Recently, the San Francisco Day School decided their performing arts program needed to be revised and revamped. Of all the schools in the Bay Area, they chose Harker as the school whose arts program they wanted to emulate. In mid-November, a task force from the school came down to visit all three campuses, and get a varied taste of what Harker offers.
The first stop was a music class at the upper school, followed immediately by a meeting with an upper school music teacher. Then they went to the lower school, where they met with teachers at their department meeting, then observed a dance class and a music class, as well as a rehearsal. Middle school was the final stop. There, the team sat in on a strings class, then had another chance to meet with and talk to teachers.
The task force spent a full school day at the three campuses, and after all the class time and meetings, headed back to San Francisco with a first-hand perspective on the arts program.
In late November, The Harker School’s grade 5 students spent their day at the Blackford campus to get a look at what will be in store for them next year when they officially become middle school students. Upon arriving at the campus, groups of fifth graders were matched with a middle school student mentor and proceeded to the auditorium, where they learned about a variety of middle school programs, including athletics, BEST and debate. Following the presentations, the students went to tour the campus and meet faculty and staff, then enjoyed lunch with their middle school friends.
In an effort to reach out to the larger community, Harker admission directors hosted booths at local cultural events in August, September and early October. Nan Nielsen, director of admission, was present at the Fiesta de Artes in Los Gatos in August, where kids who visited the booth had their faces painted with all sorts of festive designs.
In September, Danielle Holquin, the middle school’s admission director, and Lana Morrison, middle school dean of students, attended the Santana Row School Fair, organized by “M” magazine. Pam Gelineau, lower school admission director, ran the booth at the Los Altos Fall Festival during the first weekend of October, greeting and answering questions for festival attendees, who got to play a “Pick a Pencil” game, in which the person who picked a pencil with a blue dot on the bottom won a prize. “It was so much fun,” Gelineau said. “The children were very happy, along with their parents. I met some preschool directors and we are going to exchange school visits. All in all, it was a great success.”