In this month’s construction update video, facility manager Mike Bassoni talks about the metal studs used to form the interior and exterior walls of the new buildings and how they improve safety and expedite the construction process. Take a look!
Tags: Construction, constructionvideo, eweekly, middle schoolThe Harker Civic Tech Club hosted a special Q&A session with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on Tuesday ahead of next week’s general election. Eshoo, who represents California’s 18th congressional district, talked about the importance of young people getting more civically involved in light of how technology and social media may be used to compromise the electoral process. “You are the generation that is the most tech-savvy and you’re going to continue down that path,” she said. “What I worry about is what chisels away at our democracy.”
Due to the heavy amount of misinformation present online, Eshoo cautioned students to “think hard and think well about the information you’re receiving. You really need to go to trusted sources, because there is so much that is not only misleading, it’s damaging.”
On the topic of cyberbullying, Eshoo said she regards it as a serious safety issue. “In my day and time, it would have been called stalking,” she said. “It’s dangerous and it can lead to some really dark things.” She said that young people mobilizing would be key to making progress on cyberbullying. “Just as young people have taken to the streets on gun violence, I think your generation has … moved the American people to a new sense of conscience on that issue,” she said.
She added that while several companies have created policies against cyberbullying, not enough has been done to detect it. “I appreciate that recognizing bullying isn’t always easy. There are a lot of grey areas, including inside jokes between friends,” she said. “I think teams of students weighing in with the companies could be very effective.”
Eshoo also touched on the topic of online voting, which could allow far more people to take part in the voting process. “To be able to vote online has to be absolutely 1000 percent secure,” she said, deferring to the late Congressman John Lewis. “He always used to say that the vote is so sacred and that it is the most powerful non-violent tool for change in our country.” While she expressed support for the idea of online voting, there is currently not enough of a guarantee against vote tampering for it to be viable. Supporting improvements to the current voting process, the congresswoman said, “The idea that there are thousands of people standing in lines today, that shouldn’t be the case in the United States of America. Some of our systems are like horse and buggy in comparison to what they should be.”
Tags: Anna Eshoo, eweekly, express, guest speakers, United States CongressOn Tuesday, Harker’s LIFE (Living with Intent, Focus and Enthusiasm) organization held a special assembly featuring speaker, singer and author Justin Michael Williams, who shared with students and staff his life story and offered insight on how meditation could help people “start living life on [their] terms.”
Originally from the East Bay city of Pittsburg, Williams recalled growing up in a poor neighborhood “in a home with gunshot holes on the outside of my house,” and frequently being teased for being Black and gay. Inspired by his grandmother, whom he called “Baca,” he worked hard to pursue his dreams of becoming a recording artist and attending UCLA.
Williams talked about dealing with his childhood traumas by becoming a “chronic overachiever,” becoming the class president, valedictorian and drumline captain at his high school on his way to earning a full-ride scholarship to UCLA. These achievements were impressive on the outside, he said, “but on the inside what’s happening is we don’t know to separate our self-worth and our self-confidence and our self-love from our achievements, what we do and our validation.” This in turn leads to people constantly comparing themselves to others and relentless self-criticism.
After a visit to a therapist, Williams was advised to try meditating. He was skeptical at first, but later found the practice to be transformative. Within a few years of practicing meditation, he had one of the Top 20 albums on iTunes.
Williams’ initial skepticism of meditation – practiced for centuries by indigenous people from across the world – was partly the result of it being “colonized, demonized, corporatized and sold back to us,” he said. In response, he released his own book on meditation earlier this year. He explained that one of many misconceptions about meditation is that it requires practitioners to stop thinking, which he countered. “We don’t want the mind to stop thinking,” he said. “What we want is to get our thoughts to work for us instead of against us.”
He then led the attendees in a well-received meditation exercise in which they visualized a future they wanted to see. This, he said, helped people find out for themselves who they needed to be instead of the steps they need to take. “You can check every box on your list,” he said, “but if you haven’t changed at your level of being, of who you are, then you cannot show up for the world differently and you cannot show up for your life differently and you’ll end up in the same cycles over and over and over.”
Key to the practice of meditation, Williams said, is to spread the energy captured in the self to other people to effect change in the world, highlighting the relegation of Black people in America to that of lower class citizens. “If we’re just focusing on ourselves, we’re missing the point,” he said, “because we’re all connected, we’re all responsible for being a good ancestor on this planet.”
Tags: DEI, eweekly, express, guest speakers, Justin Michael Williams, WellnessLast week, freshman Sriram Bhimaraju received the third place Wells Fargo Community Innovation Award in Arizona State University’s Sustainability Solutions Science Fair at the middle school level. Bhimaraju’s project is an app called Saagara: Sunscreen Advisors, which checks the ingredients of sunscreen brands to determine if they are a threat to coral reefs. In addition to the app, Bhimaraju also devised a method for removing water pollution that employs beads that absorb polluting chemicals in water.
Bhimaraju has been offered a mentorship opportunity with ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, which will display his work in a future webinar. More than 600 entries were received for the fair since June. In addition to mentorship opportunities, winners also received up to $2,500 in cash prizes.
Tags: alumni-express, eweekly, express, Science, topgreen, topscienceOn Friday night, four Harker alumni – A.J. Reid ‘04, Chris Davis ‘03, Candace Silva-Martin ‘09 and Isabelle Connell ‘13 – were inducted into the Harker Athletic Hall of Fame during a special virtual ceremony. During the event, upper school athletic director Dan Molin and middle and lower school athletic director Theresa “Smitty” Smith each shared some warm words about each of this year’s inductees, who were honored not just for their athletic prowess but also for their commitment to Harker’s goal of creating well-rounded global citizens.
A.J. Reid ‘04, who was a multi-sport athlete during his entire time at Harker, was named MVP of the varsity football team in his senior year after rushing for 908 yards and scoring seven touchdowns. He also was recognized for his achievements as a wide receiver, making 42 receptions for 718 yards and seven touchdowns. In basketball, Reid played a key role in Harker’s first ever CCS playoff victory and was named both team and league MVP his senior year. Reid continued to play sports after high school, competing in club volleyball as a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and helping his team win the NIRSA National Volleyball Championship, for which he was awarded MVP.
A four-sport athlete while at Harker, Chris Davis ’03 competed in football, wrestling, soccer and baseball and was team captain for the varsity baseball and football teams. Davis was the second Harker football player to be chosen to play in the Charlie Wedemeyer High School All-Star football game, and the first from Harker to play college football. Davis played Division 3 football as a student at Claremont McKenna College and was a standout defensive player, reaching the school’s fifth-highest number of interceptions in a single season and being named defensive MVP and Second Team All-West for Division 3. He is a co-founder and CEO of the fan commerce site Loot Crate.
Volleyball phenom Candace Silva-Martin ’09 was, along with fellow Hall of Famer Tanya Schmidt ’08, a key member of the 2007 upper school volleyball squad that reached the CCS finals and CIF state championships. In her junior and senior years, she was named All-County by the San Jose Mercury News, and was an All-West Bay Athletic League selection no fewer than four times. In her senior year, Silva-Martin was named a Super Eagle for competing in three sports in a single school year. While at George Washington University, Silva-Martin was named Atlantic 10 Conference defensive player of the week, Atlantic 10 rookie of the week and co-defensive player of the week in her first year, and is the Atlantic 10 Conference’s all-time digs leader.
Isabelle Connell ’13, a cross country and track and field competitor while at Harker, still holds four of the five school records she set as a Harker student. She was also one of the first two Harker track athletes to compete at the California Interscholastic Federation meet, along with Sumit Minocha ’13. She also received the Iron Eagle award – given to Harker athletes who demonstrate the highest degree of dedication to their school and teammates during off-season and pre-season in addition to the regular season – and the Director’s Award, which is bestowed upon seniors who played at least one sport for four years, received recognition at the state or section level and demonstrated commitment, leadership and a strong work ethic.
Tags: alumni-express, Athletic Hall of Fame, athletics, Class of 2003, Class of 2004, Class of 2009, class of 2013, eweekly, express, topathleticsLast week, the Student Diversity Coalition was formally established by seniors Brian Pinkston, Dylan Williams and Natasha Yen and junior Uma Iyer. The goal of the organization is to help create a more inclusive community at Harker and provide a forum for students to discuss issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as encourage students to work toward justice for marginalized people.
After attending the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in Seattle in December 2019, Iyer and Yen were inspired to draft a series of proposals for Harker administrators. They linked up with Pinkston and in July presented the proposals, one of which was the creation of the SDC.
Yen identified a course on race and society she took through the Global Online Academy (a selection of online classes offered at Harker) as key to her realization that Harker needed a way to facilitate similar conversations. “The GOA course not only consisted of students from other Bay Area schools, but also included students from across the country and world,” she said. “After having meaningful and personal conversations on the topics of race and identity with my classmates, I realized that Harker lacked a place to have these important conversations in our own community.”
Iyer, who started at Harker in grade 9, quickly realized that something was missing at her new school. “Unlike communities I was used to being a part of, Harker did not pay as much attention to DEI issues,” she said. “At first, I did not put much thought into this feeling, but when I came back from the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, I realized that Harker did not even have one student organization that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.”
In addition to its own events, SDC will also support the work of the Gender Sexuality Alliance as well as the establishment of Harker’s Black Student Union and LatinX Affinity Group. SDC is already planning and organizing several community-wide events and activities, including a recent webinar with Christina Guzman, director of Santa Clara University’s Office for Multicultural Learning, and the placing of a land acknowledgement plaque in recognition of Indigenous American Heritage Month in November. SDC also plans to partner with Harker’s Black Student Union in February for Black History Month and put together activities in May for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month.
“Besides our cultural heritage month events, the SDC will hold open meetings that allow any member of the student body to join,” said Yen. These events will include roundtable discussions on relevant topics, such as the recent wave of racial justice protests. “As the SDC establishes a presence in the community, I hope to see that it becomes woven into the fabric of what it means to be a part of the Harker community!”
Iyer noted the sense of excitement felt that the SDC had been formally established, and expressed more excitement at the prospect of working with affinity groups. “I am very excited that the SDC will be working with the affinity groups because I feel that the affinity groups were a long time coming,” she said. “Not only do they give students a safe space to confide in other students who identify with them, but it also gives students the opportunity to explore their own identity.”
Tags: alumni-express, DEI, eweekly, express, Student Diversity CoalitionThis story was submitted by Jenny Achten, grades 6-12 speech and debate chair.
The upper and middle speech and debate teams did not miss a beat as they switched to the new world of online tournaments. Although they look forward to being able to compete in person again, the students have done a wonderful job of adapting and their competitive success highlights their hard work.
In September, the team competed at tournaments hosted by CSU Long Beach, the Greenhill School of Texas, Valley High School in Iowa and Milpitas High School. In October, they were at tournaments held by Yale University, Presentation High School and Damien High School. Award winners are listed by competition event below. Events are in the varsity division, unless otherwise noted.
Original oratory: Andrea Thia, William Chien, grade 11; Sara Wan, grade 10
Congressional debate: Nathan Ohana, grade 12; April Sun, Aaditya Gulati, grade 11
Lincoln-Douglas debate: Akshay Manglik, Andy Lee, grade 12; Rohan Thakur, Anshul Reddy, Deven Shah, grade 11; Rahul Mulpuri, Deeya Viradia, grade 10; Ansh Sheth, grade 9
Impromptu speaking: William Chien, Andrea Thia, grade 11; Dyllan Han, grade 10
Dramatic interpretation: Dyllan Han, grade 10
Extemporaneous speaking: Michelle Jin, grade 10; Ella Lan, grade 9
Public forum debate: Melody Luo, Vienna Parnell, Vedant Kenkare, Caden Lin, Rohan Rashingkar, Arnav Jain, grade 11; Carol Wininger, grade 10; Max Xing, grade 9
Junior varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate: Stefan Maxim, grade 8
Junior varsity public forum debate: Ruhan Sahasi, Veer Sahasi, grade 8
Novice Lincoln-Douglas debate: Aarush Vailaya, grade 8; Ananya Pradhan, Sofia Shah, grade 7
Anna Weirich, grade 12, traveled to San Tan Valley, Ariz., last week to compete in the 14th annual Desert Twilight meet. Weirich was not representing Harker, but rather raced as an “unattached” competitor to stay compliant with CCS rules in representing one’s school out of season. More than 100 schools from across the nation competed in the two-day event, which saw temperatures hit triple digits for the 5K race. Weirich took 12th out of 110 runners in the Unattached-Club Girls Sweepstakes.
Weirich is the reigning CCS D4 champ and is looking for another great season once the COVID-19 delayed year gets going in December.
Check out the story from the Santa Cruz Sentinel here: https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/10/03/local-runners-brave-arizona-heat-for-first-action-in-months-high-school-cross-country/
Tags: Sports, topathletes, topathleticsAlexa Lowe, grade 11, was recently interviewed by the Presque Isle High School newspaper in Maine about the uncertainty of the 2020-21 athletic season due to COVID 19. Lowe shared how she has coped without sports, but also shared her optimism that student athletes will get a chance to compete this year.
Lowe was introduced to Presque Isle High journalism student Cameron Levasseur by her friend Nilisha Baid, grade 12, who met him at a journalism conference.
As of the latest CIF press release on Sept. 17, California sports will begin in mid-December.
Read the full article here: https://pihsanchor.com/4403/features/an-unexpected-year-serves-to-unite-athletes-from-coast-to-coast/
Tags: athletics, eweekly, Sports, topathletesThe American Junior Golf Association and the USGA recently announced the nine finalists for the 2020 USGA-AJGA Presidents’ Leadership Award, with three being Harker Eagles! This national award recognizes elite junior golfers for their aspirations and work to give back to their communities. Gabriel Yang, grade 12, and Esther Wu and Sophie Zhang-Murphy, both grade 11, each play at top levels, but also pour hours into organizations and issues that mean a lot to them. Check out the full list of finalists and where Yang, Wu and Zhang-Murphy give their time: https://www.ajga.org/2020-usga-ajga-presidents-leadership-award-finalists-and-honorable-mentions
Tags: alumni-express, athletics, eweekly, express, Sports, topathletes