This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
The third annual Alumni Conservatory Classic, held New Year’s Day at the Nichols Hall auditorium, reunited alumni and current students for a special series of performances.
The concert, which was run and directed by alumni, showcased the diversity and uniqueness of Harker’s performing arts students and graduates, featuring classical pieces, jazz standards and songs from musicals. All pieces were self-directed, learned and rehearsed during the winter break.
Alumni and current students collaborated on most of the songs during the show, including “Therapy” from the musical “Tick, Tick … Boom!” which featured singers D.J. Blickenstaff ’09 and Lauren Ammatuna ’08, with Benjamin Tien, grade 12, providing accompaniment on piano.
During another student-alumni collaboration for the Presto from Felix Mendelssohn’s “Octet in E-flat, Op. 20,” violinists Audrey Kwong ’07 and Helen Wu, grade 8, were accompanied by violinists Jonathan Wang ’08 and Albert Chen, grade 10, senior Warren Kwong and Stephanie Kim ’08 on viola, and Julia Shim ’10 and Melody Huang, grade 11, on cello.
For the show’s final number, past and present members of the upper school all-male vocal ensemble Guys’ Gig – Peter Combs ’04, Aseem Shukla ’07, Alex Underwood ’08, Ben Englert ’08, Amaresh Shukla ’09, Chetan Vakkalagadda ’09, Joe Hospodor ’09, Kartik Venkatraman ’09, and current seniors Kwong, Aditya Parige and Sean Martin – gathered to sing Elliott Yamin’s “Wait for You,” arranged by Vakkalagadda, and a medley of songs by various artists titled “Bm G D A II,” arranged by Venkatraman.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
If the holiday spirit is any indicator, the Harker community understands the value of giving back. With an array of service oriented clubs across all three campuses and additional holiday drives, parents and faculty worked together to instill the importance of philanthropy in students from K-12.
With Operation: Gratitude in October, when students donated almost 1,000 pounds of candy to U.S. troops, and the grade 5 food drive in November, which amounted to 328 bags of groceries and $3,200 delivered to St. Justin’s Community Ministry, the lower school has found a multitude of ways to give back to the surrounding community. In mid-December grade 4 held its annual toy drive for Sacred Heart Community Services, an organization that assists families in becoming financially self sufficient. Nearly 1,000 toys were collected during the holiday season, and students who helped with delivering the toys in mid-December also had a chance to tour the facilities and learn more about the SCHS commitment to eradicate poverty. Students and parents came together once again in January to collect sleepwear and books for The Pajama Program, a not-for-profit that provides new pajamas and books to children in need (see page 42).
The middle school also organized a food drive in November and collected more than 250 pounds of canned and dry food items for Second Harvest Food Bank. Along with the 680 pounds of food the upper school collected through a friendly class competition, the food drive amounted to an unprecedented schoolwide charity effort.
Steven Hewitt, middle school Service Club advisor, also helped students organize a coat drive, collecting more than 175 used coats for InnVision, which distributes the collected wear to people in need of warm clothing during the winter. More than 20 middle school advisories participated in other gift-giving efforts. Fifteen advisories played Santa, purchasing special Christmas gifts and wrapping them with handmade cards for 123 preschool children at the Kidango Child Center. Another six provided gifts to children and mentally challenged adults who wrote wish lists through the Family Giving Tree.
“I am grateful and impressed with the efforts of our middle school community,” Hewitt wrote in an e-mail to parents and students. “Harker has always been a leader in the South Bay when it comes to charitable and fundraising efforts, and this year has been no different.”
Efforts came from all sides in the upper school, with Diana Moss, senior class dean, organizing a toiletries drive and the soccer team holding the annual Kicks Against Cancer event. On Jan. 12, Harker’s upper school boys and girls soccer teams raised nearly $8,000 in this year’s annual Kicks Against Cancer event at Davis Field. Funds were raised by selling tickets (which came with a commemorative T-shirt) and bracelets during lunch on the days leading up to the event, as well as from a special fund for faculty and staff. Michael Anthony’s Salon in Saratoga contributed too, by donating proceeds from all transactions made on a certain day. Both boys and girls varsity soccer teams had a game on Jan. 12, and during the halftimes of both games, several teachers and coaches volunteered to be human targets in the classic game of “Butts Up,” which required they bravely bend over in front of the goal while audience members took turns aiming penalty kicks at them. The goal for this year’s fundraiser was to send four child cancer survivors to Camp Okizu, a camp that specializes in activities and care for young cancer patients and survivors and their families.
In addition to the November food drive, the upper school helped others this holiday season through various organizations including Sunday Friends, an organization committed to helping families break out of the cycle of poverty, and EHC LifeBuilder’s Shelter Elves project, which connects sponsors with families and children who have written holiday wish lists.
Upon returning from the holiday break, Harker’s WiSTEM organization (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) led a weeklong effort to raise awareness about the disparity between female and male education rates in the developing world.
Throughout the first week of the new year, WiSTEM members emphasized that giving a girl an education leads tobetter health and lifestyles for her entire family. Since female education rates are the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa,the club raised funds for CAMFED, an organization that transfers donations to Africa to send children to school. To accomplish their goal, WiSTEM members sold goods at almost every opportunity, including after school and at lunch.
Two weeks later the Global Empowerment and Outreach Club (GEO) held a fundraising week, with events throughout the week to raise awareness about universal primary education, one of the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development Goals. Working with Room to Read, a nonprofit dedicated to helping underprivileged children around the world, GEO raised more than $1,600 towards the $8,000 that will fund construction of two libraries in India and Vietnam.
GEO brainstormed creative and educational ways to raise awareness and raise funds, including a challenge for students to go a day without electronics. The club also hosted Dress for Success, a daylong event in which students dropped change into 27 jars labeled with teachers’ photographs. The teacher with the most votes, or most change, would then wear a middle school uniform. All of the students’ efforts that week helped raise more than 15 percent of the club’s goal.
No matter the age or cause, Harker students find ways to give back to the community. With the help of community service advisors and faculty members, the three campuses find organizations and programs to work with, producing, from year to year, outstanding results and exceptional attitudes towards service.
For more information, visit news.harker.org and search “service.”
Annual Pajama Drive Anything But Sleepy
Four years ago, Rishi Narain, now grade 7, sat down to watch the “Oprah” show. The show’s guest that day was Genevieve Piturro, founder of the Pajama Program, a nonprofit dedicated to delivering warm sleepwear and nurturing books to children in need. Seeing thousands of pajamas and books donated to children who never had them inspired Narain to bring the program to Harker, where he organized the lower school’s first annual pajama drive.
Four years later, the event is bigger than ever.
The January assembly was a raucous affair. In addition to all the lower school students, there were also “big people in the audience,” as Joe Connolly, lower school dean, put it in his introduction to the event. The “big people” were sophomores, who had come as part of the Eagle Buddies program.
Eagle Buddies, still in its first year, was an initiative suggested by Butch Keller, upper school head, in an effort to bridge the campus divide. Third and tenth graders are matched together, and according to Carol Zink, upper school history teacher, the third graders get fun, older role models, “while the sophomores get a chance to lighten up and be kids for a little bit.”
The buddies stay together for three years, until the sophomores graduate and the third graders matriculate into middle school. “It’s been going more smoothly than I could ever imagine,” said Keller. “I couldn’t be more pleased with what we’re accomplishing.”
After Connolly’s introduction, Pallie Zambrano, co-president of the Pajama Program’s Northern and Central California chapter, expressed thanks to the Harker students, reminding them that each donated pair of pajamas would change the life of a child in need.
Next, Keller replaced his suit jacket with a bathrobe and reclined on a rocking chair to read “We Are Going on a Bear Hunt” to the children. All the students got involved during the audience participation part of the reading, with special zeal coming from the sophomores.
Finally, the students spent some time reading to themselves and with their buddies. Big Buddy Michaela Kastelman said she enjoyed spending time with her buddy because it brought her back to the experience of being in third grade.
Kindergartner Andrew Fox wasn’t too sure of what was going on, but he was very excited to be in his pajamas. “They’re not as tight as my uniform!” he exclaimed.
All in all, the event was a huge success, with Harker students donating 727 pairs of pajamas and 204 books, a school record for the program.
Outreach
Along with the many outreach efforts by students and faculty, Harker, as a school, reaches out to the community in a number of ways.
The Harker Speaker Series
This series has brought internationally famous speakers to our campus, including Kiva founder and CEO Matt Flannery, travel author and television personality Rick Steves and astronomer Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence).
Harker Concert Series
This new program has already held two of three events planned for its first season. Washington, D.C.-based violin duo, MarcOlivia: Marc Ramirez and Olivia Hajioff appeared March 9. The Taylor Eigsti Trio: Eigsti, a Bay Area native and Grammy-nominated jazz pianist, played Nichols Hall on March 25. Areon Flutes, a Bay Area-based flute quartet, will appear May 27; see page 9 for more details.
Common Ground
Harker is a member of Common Ground, a coalition of Bay Area schools working together to provide parent education to their communities. The coalition provides opportunities for parents to learn from experts in the fields of education and parenting, and Harker supports that effort both by hosting at least one Common Ground speaker each year and by helping promote the series to Harker parents.
Research Symposium
The Harker Research Symposium is a showcase of student research projects and is highlighted each year by keynote speakers of international renown and reports by alumni on their continuing research at universities. The symposium welcomes visitors and will be held April 23 this year. More information can be found at www.harker.org.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
Wrestling It was a record-breaking season for the Harker wrestling team this year, as senior wrestlers Santosh Swaminathan, Jason Mendel and Chris McCallaCreary advanced to the second day of competition at the CCS tournament over the February 26 weekend, a Harker first. McCallaCreary took fourth place overall, making him the highest-placing CCS wrestler in Harker history. This triumphant end to the season came on the heels of other record-breaking wrestling performances by the Eagles. On Feb. 12 Swaminathan became Harker’s first-ever league champion, with McCallaCreary and Mendel both placing second in their weights, marking the first time Harker has ever had three league finalists. On Jan. 29 McCallaCreary won the 160 lb. weight class at the 46th annual WC Overfelt Wrestling Tournament, defeating both the first- and second-ranked wrestlers in CCS on his way to winning the tournament championship. When interviewed by The Winged Post, coach Karriem Stinson was by understandably elated: “We’ve competed in the top tournaments this year, and we’ve come out on top. [I am] really proud of this team.”
Girls Soccer Upper school varsity girls soccer had a tough season this year, with a final league record of 0-9-1. Both matches against Eastside Prep proved particularly close, as our Eagles were defeated by only one point. Seniors Monisha Appalaraju, Lydia Demissachew, Michelle Holt, Arthi Kumar and Priya Sahdev were thanked for their contributions in mid-February on Davis Field.
The upper school junior varsity girls went 2-3-2 in league play with two massive lopsided wins, including one against University Prep Academy, in which our Eagles scored a whopping eight goals!
The grade 8 varsity A girls soccer team ended league play with a 2-5 record, but that was not indicative of the true strength of the team. All but one of the losses was by a single goal, which was usually scored just before time expired. The team was led by co-MVPs Alyssa Amick and Savi Joshi, Eagle Award winners Diba Massihpour and Safia Khouja and Coaches Award winner Gabi Gupta.
With a couple of very close losses, the grade 7 varsity B soccer team went 2-4 in the league. Strong players were MVP Alisa Wakita, Eagle Award winner Jessica Liou and Coaches Award winner Naomi Molin.
Our grade 6 junior varsity A soccer team went 2-3-1 in league play with huge wins over Castilleja and Crystal Springs. Team leaders were MVP Anuva Mittal, Eagle Award winner Lyndsey Mitchell and Coaches Award winner Divya Rajasekharan.
The junior varsity B girls soccer team, grades 4-5, went 1-3-2 in league play with a monster victory over Girls’ Middle School, 6-1, and a couple of 2-2 ties. MVP Alexandra Lu, grade 4; Eagle Award winner Lilia Gonzales, grade 4; and Coaches Award winner Krishna Bheda, grade 5, were lead players.
Intramural soccer players in grades 4-5 enjoyed their introduction to the game and look forward to competing in games in the near future. The girls team was led by MVP Priya Bhanot, Eagle Award winner Rebecca Mak and Coaches Award winner Claudia Opris, all grade 4.
Boys Soccer Varsity boys soccer ended the season 5-4-5 in league play, which included two very strong shutouts against Crystal Springs and Pinewood. Prior to their game against KIPP San Jose Collegiate, seniors Ambrish Amaranathan and Isaac Madan were lauded for their years of participation on Davis Field. The team also received a CCS scholastic championship.
Junior varsity boys soccer faced stiff competition this season with a 1-1-6 league record, but put up a great fight, especially in the grueling ties against Priory and University Prep in the regular season.
As of press time, the grade 8 boys soccer team was 1-3 in league play, which included a big win in February over King’s Academy, 3-1. Key players are Jeremiah Anderson, Edwin Chen, Thomas Doyle and Nikhil Kishore.
Dominating their league as of press time, the grade 7 boys soccer team was 4-1 with big victories over Keys, 3-0, and Priory, 9-0.
Strong players are Johnathon Keller, Andrew Kirjner, Calvin Kocienda, Michael Quezada and Nathaniel Stearns.
As of press time, the grade 6 boys soccer team had recorded an excellent 4-0-1 in league play, including a 6-0 win over Pinewood and a 4-1 win over Crystal Springs. Kedar Gupta, Sandip Nirmel, Ryan Vaughan and Nikolas Weisbloom are strong players for the team this year.
The grade 5 boys soccer team ended their season with a 3-0 win over Pinewood, and an overall 3-1-2 record. Coach Jared Ramsey said the season was a very successful one, and players continued to improve from practice to practice and game to game. “What made me most proud this season was the determination the boys displayed,” said Ramsey. “They were also very supportive of each other and really grasped the idea of ‘team’ as the year went on.” Ramsey’s standouts were Jin Kim, Matthew McCallaCreary, Rohit Shah and Vedant Shah.
The grades 4-5 intramural soccer team enjoyed their introduction to soccer this season and look forward to competing in the near future. The team was led by Nirban Bhatia, grade 5, and Jarrett Anderson, Chris Gong and Krish Kapadia, all grade 4.
Upper School Basketball Following a 61-49 victory over King’s Academy, the varsity boys basketball team made it to the CCS quarterfinals for the fourth year in a row, where they were ultimately vanquished by Santa Cruz. Girls varsity basketball defeated Gonzales High 59-40 to advance to the second round of the CCS playoffs, making this season the first time in Harker history that both varsity basketball teams advanced to the second round of the CCS playoffs. The girls team was ultimately taken down by Sacred Heart Prep, but the season ended with a very impressive 20-5 record, and this was the first girls team to qualify for the CCS playoffs since 2006. Priscilla Auyeung, grade 10, was named one of Harker’s two January Athletes of the Month, and Daniza Rodriguez, grade 10, was recognized by the San Jose Mercury News as a female Athlete of the Week. The boys basketball team received a CCS Scholastic Championship.
As of press time, the junior varsity boys team was 4-7 in league play. They had some fantastic wins during the season including a 61-34 slammer against Crystal Springs, a 67- 37 domination vs. Andrew Hill High School, and a 67-33 lesson in domination against Priory on Jan. 11. As of press time, the girls junior varsity basketball team was not having an easy league season with a 0-5 record. There were some tough battles, however, including a very close game against Priory.
The freshman boys basketball team ended its season 2-8 overall, 0-2 in league play; the boys fought hard throughout the season.
Middle and Lower School Boys Basketball For the first time in Harker history, the grade 8 varsity A team were both league champions and WBAL end-of-season tournament champions! They had a stellar 6-0 league and 10-1 overall record. Leading the team were co-MVPs Eric Holt and Srivinay Irrinki, Eagle Award winners Vamsi Gadiraju and Avik Wadhwa, and Coaches Award winner Arjun Ashok.
Grade 7-8 varsity B boys basketball had a 6-1 league and 8-2 overall record, placing second in the WBAL and fifth in the WBAL tournament. Team leaders were MVP Sidhart Krishnamurthi, grade 8; Eagle Award winner Suraj Jagadeesh, grade 7; and Coaches Award winner Prithvi Gudapati, grade 7.
The grade 6 junior varsity A team had a league 3-3 record and placed fourth in league with an overall record of 3-5. The team was led by MVP Andrew Gu, Eagle Award winner Alex Mo and Coaches Award winner Alex Youn.
With an overall record of 7-1, the grade 5 junior varsity B basketball team had a stellar 6-0 league record. They took home the league championship and\ placed second in the WBAL tournament, coming up just one point short in the 32-31 championship game vs. St. Matthews. Co-MVPs Brando Pakel and Siddharth Chari and Eagle Award winner Eric Andrus led the way.
Also taking home a league championship was our grade 4 junior varsity C basketball team, with a superlative 6-0 record in league! The team was led by co-MVPs Jackson Williams and Jarrett Anderson and Eagle Award winner Jason Peetz. This marks the first time since joining the WBAL that a grade 4 Harker team has won a championship.
Middle and Lower School Girls Basketball As of press time, the grade 8 girls basketball team was 3-6 in league play and getting ready to compete against some very tough eighth grade teams in the WBAL tournament. The team has won its last two games, beating Crystal Springs 32-22 and St. Mathews 22-15. Key players are Lekha Chirala, Eugene Gil and Savi Joshi.
The grade 7 girls basketball team was gearing up for the WBAL tournament as this magazine went to press, after a 3-4 league, 4-4 overall season. Exciting wins this season happened back to back when the Eagles took Priory to town Feb. 28, beating the opposition by 22 points, then defeated Castilleja three days later by just one basket. Leaders on the team are Sadhika Malladi, Shannon Richardson and Namitha Vellian.
Joelle Anderson, Jordan Thompson and Lindsey Trinh had led the grade 6 girls basketball team to three games in a row at press time, bringing their record to 4-3 in league play after starting the season with a win over Girls’ Middle School, 35-15. The WBAL tournament began March 7.
The grade 5 girls basketball team was 2-4 in league play at press time, with huge wins over St. Matt’s, 22-2, and Sacred Heart, 16- 10. Important players are Anika Banga, Megan Huynh, Satchi Thockchom and Akshaya Vemuri. At 2-3 in league play at press time, with two solid victories over Sacred Heart, 18-6 and 24-14, the grade 4 girls basketball team is led by Kayla Dominguez, Keili FitzGerald, Jennifer Hayashi and Alexandra Janssen.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
While students at all schools sit at the edge of their seats waiting for the lunch bell, Harker students at all three campuses have a particularly good reason to look forward to lunchtime. Harker students dash off to a tasty and healthy lunch of hand-carved meats, salads, fruits and a variety of fresh, in season dishes.
For 20 years, Steve Martin, executive chef, has worked closely with a team of chefs and interns from various culinary schools to incorporate the freshest ingredients and healthy options into each day’s menu. After working for years in Boston for a contract food service, Martin realized that the business was more about profit than nutrition.
“At Harker, it’s about eating the best you can eat,” he said. “Howard and Diana Nichols were so caring and concerned about everything, and food was one of those things.”
With the goal of matching food quality to the quality of education in classrooms and providing a balanced diet, Martin purchases local, fresh and in-season produce and occasionally works with a nutritionist to determine what dishes to cook. Tomatoes and small vegetables from Harker’s garden also make it onto plates. “I buy the best ingredients,” he said. “I spend my budget on quality, not quantity. We buy a lot of ingredients and make things from scratch.”
On any given day, upper school students can choose from selections in the buffet line including a full entrée with meat, veggies and rice or potatoes; a vegetarian entrée; a la carte pasta; an assortment of prepared fresh salads, soup, rice, healthy fruit juices and low fat milk.
In the adjacent Bistro Café there is a full salad bar with a variety of dressings, a meat station with hand carved fish or meat, an array of deli salads, baskets of bananas, apples and oranges and, at least a couple days a week, delicious cookies. Occasionally, Martin rents a smoker, and students have a selection of smoked chicken, brisket and ribs to add to their meals.
The middle school campus offers similar selections, though without quite the variety, but certain dishes are only served once a week to prevent students from always selecting pizza and fried foods as a midday meal. “First and foremost the food we serve is healthy,” Danae McLaughlin, assistant to the executive chef, said. “It is not processed food loaded with fat and sodium … and we are very creative in our use of whole grains and vegetables so the kids enjoy eating them.”
Lower school students also have similar restrictions and policies that limit pizza to once a week. “If you take a look at the lower school menu,” McLaughlin added, “the desserts include a lot of fresh fruit.” The kindergartners sit in a designated area and are served pre-portioned food. In addition, two kitchens are staffed to offer a variety of foods including falafel, samosas, Swedish meatballs and frittatas.
Students enjoy diversity, and Martin aims to present a sampling of multicultural offerings while maintaining a healthy selection. “I don’t think the kids even realize that they are eating healthier,” Martin joked.
Junior Rohit Sanbhadti, grade 11, loves the school’s tomato and basil soup and, as a vegetarian, is surprised by the variety and choices Harker offers. “I think we’re really lucky to have food of this caliber,” he said.
Martin credits his permanent staff and a rotating team of interns for their creative ideas and enthusiasm. Hailing from prestigious culinary schools including Le Cordon Bleu, California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and Martin’s alma mater, Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island, more than 100 interns have joined the Harker community for a semester to experience various facets of food services from menu planning to cold kitchen cooking to inventory control and purchasing. “We work hard to create a culture where culinary creativity and entrepreneurial spirit thrive,” Martin said.
Intern Alicia Parke Galou said her time at Harker has been a “great experience right from the beginning.” She discovered Harker’s internship program at a career fair at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell, where she met McLaughlin and Martin. “I thought it would be a great opportunity for me,” Galou said, noting she has enjoyed every moment of it. The ease with which she fell into the swing of Harker’s program allowed her to learn quickly about the important factors of cooking for more than 800 people a day.
Along with serving student lunches, Harker’s kitchens prepare even higher quality meals for a wide variety of school events, from small lunches for donors or visiting educators to full banquets for student groups and parent gatherings, like the Senior Mothers’ Lunch held each spring prior to graduation. “Not having to contract with outside vendors allows us to control costs and provide a higher quality meal,” noted McLaughlin. “Plus, at these limited events, our staff doubles as servers, giving permanent and temporary staff valuable experience in presentation and timing.”
Thanks to Martin and his team, Harker’s food service program is recognized as innovative and Martin believes it will only grow and expand. “The program just keeps getting better and better because that’s what Harker wants,” he said.
For more information, go to news.harker.org and search on “food,” or contact Steve Martin at stevem@harker.org.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
Chinese Middle School Visit
January and February were busy months for global education at Harker. In mid-January, the middle school welcomed 19 students from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai, China. Although their flight to San Francisco was diverted to Sacramento due to bad weather, the students and their Harker buddies were no less overjoyed to meet one another once the WFLMS students finally arrived at SFO.
The Chinese students had been working since the fall with Harker grade 8 students who were partaking in a population studies class, discussing population-related issues in online forums.
During their stay, the WFLMS students observed and attended several Harker classes, such as Monica Colletti’s drama class and Elizabeth Saltos’ art class. They also teamed up with their Harker buddies for a traditional Chinese paper cutting project.
In their free time, the students ventured out to see more of the San Jose area, visit Stanford and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Sister School in Japan Sends Students and Teacher
Two high school students from Harker’s sister school Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo, Miyu Kondo and Marina Saito, visited the upper school in January, taking various classes and sitting in with the upper school’s jazz band and orchestra. They attended classes such as Great Novels with English teacher Alexandra Rosenboom, and a chemistry class with Andrew Irvine, and also helped out the yearbook staff.
Having studied music and practiced extensively as members of Tamagawa’s concert band, Kondo and Saito were a welcome addition to the upper school’s jazz band and orchestra. “Marina and Miyu fit in our music program really well from day one,” said Chris Florio, upper school music teacher. After learning how to adjust to the dynamics of a jazz band orchestra, they quickly became assets to both groups. “After being able to perform with both groups and rehearse many days, they really felt like permanent members of the group,” Florio said. Kondo and Saito, on tenor and baritone saxophone, respectively, performed with the Harker Jazz Band at the 2011 Winter Concert.
The greatest benefit of having the students join the jazz band and orchestra, Florio believed, “was sharing with our students how similar they are to American musicians. Despite some language barriers, we were all able to play music together with no barriers at all.” The Tamagawa students’ skill as musicians, he said, also had a positive influence on the Harker students.
During Kondo and Saito’s visit, Tamagawa music teacher Kazuhiko “Tsuchi” Tsuchiya arrived at Harker as this year’s teacher in the annual exchange between the two schools. “Tsuchi,” as he was referred to while at Harker, worked closely with several of Harker’s music groups at the upper and middle schools.
Dave Hart, middle school music teacher, was excited to work with Tsuchiya and was pleased to find out that Tsuchiya was equally enthusiastic. “Tsuchi was thrilled and jumped at the opportunity to work with Harker middle school students,” he said.
Hart was particularly impressed by the way Tsuchiya was able to gain a rapport with the students. “He had great pacing and made difficult sections of music fun and playable for the students. Tsuchi also found ways to bring the music to life, and make the students go beyond just playing the notes on the page in front of them.”
Tsuchiya also guest taught the middle school vocal group Vivace, teaching them “Hotaru Koi,” a traditional Japanese folk song. “He loved having the opportunity to teach the Harker students a song from his own culture,” Hart said.
At the upper school, Tsuchiya took a very active role in leading the upper school orchestra. “Tsuchi actually took over the teaching of our orchestra for the majority of his stay here,” Florio said. “He is an amazing teacher and very skilled conductor, so it was a natural fit for him.”
Tsuchiya’s experience working with Tamagawa’s elite music program was a huge benefit to the upper school music students. “Our students benefited from not only his approach, but from his background and teaching style as well,” Florio said. “Tsuchi was able to show a very clear example of how universal music really is.”
In January, a series of video conferences were held at the lower and middle schools between Harker and Tamagawa students. The first, between kindergartners at both schools, gave students the opportunity to learn about one another’s cultures. Tamagawa students showed some of the kanji symbols (Chinese characters used in Japanese language) they had been learning to the Harker students and explained what they meant. Harker students played a game where they dressed up as various professions, such as firefighter, nurse, farmer and cook, and had the Tamagawa students attempt guess who they were. Each class sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” in the other’s native language before both classes sang in unison.
The grade 6 video conference with Tamagawa was tied in with Tim Culbertson’s environmental science class. The two groups of students played a trivia game based around environmental science, which used questions from assignments that were completed the previous semester. The video conference was the first time the Harker and Tamagawa students got to meet face to face. Harker students who are participating in the Tamagawa exchange were specifically paired up with someone other than their Tamagawa buddies, so that when they visit Japan later this year they will know two people instead of just one.
Journalism Department Shares News with World Schools
Meanwhile, the ongoing Global Journalism Project, a collaboration between Harker’s journalism department and those of high schools all over the world, continues to produce thought-provoking pieces from high school students in countries such as India and Taiwan. These articles are meant to provide insight into the lives of teenagers from other cultures. The most recent story, printed in the January edition of The Winged Post, is a story on peer pressure from a student at the Taipei American School in Taiwan.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
This spring the Harker Mentoring Program has been running a series of special career panels geared toward giving students expert career guidance and advice without adding too much to their already busy schedules. “The purpose of these panels is to give students a broader perspective and allow them to explore different avenues without actually having to commit to a full internship or mentor shadowing program,” said MaryEllis Deacon, assistant to the executive director of advancement, who coordinates the panels along with Joe Rosenthal, advancement director.
They also serve to give students a better idea of the types of internships they might want to apply for or mentors they may want to shadow.
Deacon and Rosenthal have been working with the Next Entrepreneurs of the World (NEW) student club to help bring in speakers and generate student interest in the panels by announcing the speakers at student assemblies. They also provide suggestions for speakers at upcoming panels and pass along student feedback to provide the organizers with more insight.
“We are so lucky to live here in Silicon Valley with such amazing innovators in science, technology, biotech, solar power, you name it,” said Sarina Vij, grade 10, who is co-president of NEW with her brother, Sameer, grade 9. “We as Harker students are very fortunate for having the opportunity to hear some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs and also receive internship opportunities.”
Speakers are culled from the Harker community, and most panelists so far have been Harker parents. “It does give the students an easier starting point, and that makes them feel a little more comfortable, given that they know that [the mentors] are Harker parents,” Deacon said, adding that it is easier for students to relate to members of the Harker community.
The three panels held thus far have featured inspirational success stories such as Gary Gauba (parent of Alexis, grade 6 and Ashley, grade 2), who founded a number of successful startups in the 1990s and early 2000s and is now the CEO and founder of Cognilytics, Inc., which offers predictive analysis and business intelligence to its clients.
During the first panel in January, which focused on entrepreneurship, Gauba told the students, “Entrepreneurship is in your DNA. You need an event or a catalyst to unleash that entrepreneur out of you.” One such event, he said, could be working at a company where one’s ideas are not being heard. “I’m a firm believer of Darwin’s theory. You have to adapt, evolve and thrive,” he said. “You need to continuously adapt, but you have to have an end goal in mind.”
Being innovative, having a solution to a specific problem and working with the right people, he said, are also highly important. The “core elements,” he said, “are all in you. You have to figure out how to pull them together.”
Charles Huang (Kaylan, grade 7) also spoke at an entrepreneurship panel. Huang founded a company called RedOctane in 1999 with his brother, Kai. Inspired by music-based games that were extremely popular in Asia, RedOctane went on to create “Guitar Hero,” one of the most popular video game franchises of the last decade.
“Guitar Hero” offered an interesting twist on the music game genre, which was not very popular outside of Asia. “What we were trying to do was to create a game that would sell you the aspiration that you were a rock star,” he said. This story demonstrated the wealth of great ideas waiting to be leveraged all over the world. “Go see the world. Look for opportunities,” he said. He also encouraged students to do what they love, but also to “do what other people love. What you love allows you to make great products and services and generate great ideas, but if you can do what a lot of other people love, then that gives you a tremendous opportunity to enter a big market.”
Each new panel offers speakers from different fields. The most recent panel on Feb. 16 featured tech executives Srini Madala of SoftSol (Ajay, grade 2; Samantha, grade 8) and Anita Manwani-Bhagat (Simrun, grade 11; Vikram, grade 9) of Carobar Business Solutions. The purpose of offering panels with different themes is to help students gather guidance on a wide variety of careers so that they are better able to know what paths are available to them. Panelists also engage in question and-answer sessions following their lectures, allowing students further insight into possible career choices.
Deacon said students have responded positively to the panels so far. “Some have come and given their resumes, and they are trying to figure out internships,” she said. “For some students it’s kind of opened different doors.”
Students also appreciate that the panels are scheduled during long lunches so that they do not interfere with studies or class time. “It doesn’t take away from academic time, and it gives them a little insight,” Deacon said. “It’s just to let them learn.”
This article originally appeared in the spring 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Aristotle said that happiness is the highest good. Amy Chua, of “Tiger Mom” fame, said she did it all for her girls’ happiness. It is no fun being mediocre. Activities are more fun when you are really good at them. Life is no fun when you are struggling to succeed. Hard work is the secret to happiness. Or is happiness the secret to hard work?
My Aunt Celia used to say that hard work never killed anyone. She was one of the hardest workers I knew while growing up. She cleaned her house spotless every day. I think she enjoyed it. I am not sure my uncle did.
Bob Milne, top ragtime and boogie woogie artist, played for our upper school students in January. A student asked him how much he practiced. Mr. Milne said he never practiced. He never took a lesson. He taught himself piano by ear.
He used to play for seventeen hours straight in a bar. He plays what he hears in his head without reading music. His playing is masterful.
I am sure Mr. Milne worked hard and probably has a different definition of practice. If you love what you are doing, then it is not practice. Music is supposed to be fun. It should bypass the head and pierce the heart. Audiences listen with their ears, he reminded us. You have to play with your ears open. You have to play with your heart open.
Plants just grow. That’s what they do. But they need good soil, weather and even a stake in the ground sometimes. Young people too may need these things to grow, a good environment and structure. But we can’t do the growing for the plant or the young ones in our care. They have to do it.
Most pursuits at the level of excellence require some kind of technical proficiency, if not mastery. But proficiency without soul is simply mechanical. We have all heard piano recitals that display technical mastery but lack emotional understanding. We have all learned something mechanically but not deeply. I still am unclear how I passed my high school chemistry final. I didn’t understand chemistry.
Yes, we need technical mastery. At some point you just have to practice multiplication tables, musical scales. But, sooner or later, love must enter the picture. Shawn Achor, author of “The Happiness Advantage,” reminds us that happiness creates success, not the other way around.
Musical scales or tennis forehands without love do not lead to happiness. Read Andre Agassi’s autobiography, “Open,” to see what happens when there are hours of forehands without love.
So yes, we need to guide, nurture and occasionally drive a stake into the ground to help our children grow to their fullest potential. But we also have to let our children lead the dance. Do children have to understand hard work and practice? Do they need discipline? Yes, of course. But discipline comes from the Latin “instruction.” You cannot have instruction without love. Any activity without soul, love or deep understanding is not sustainable.
Aristotle said happiness is the only thing we pursue for its own sake, not for anything else. Despite Thomas Jefferson’s claim to our right to the “pursuit of happiness,” most spiritual traditions teach us that happiness cannot be pursued. Aristotle agreed. Happiness happens as a summation of all of the goods. This is not causal, but summative.
I think the same is true of any pursuit of excellence. It cannot be directly pursued, but is more the summation of many ingredients. The most important ingredient is love of the activity itself. Where there is love, excellence may follow, but only after hard work. And like Bob Milne, we may not even consider it work at all.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
Jason Martin ’07, son of Steve Martin, Harker’s executive chef, is racking up plaudits in the college baseball world. He has been a starter with the San Jose State University Spartans since joining the team as a walk-on in his freshman year.
Back in May, 2010, Martin was named to CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VIII Baseball First Team for his 3.34 GPA (he’s a psychology major). More recently, for his on-field efforts, in February 2011, collegesplits.com, a college athletics analysis website, named Martin a preseason defensive All American and one of the players who will “provide the most value in 2011” with his glove.
According to his SJSU bio, Martin, a senior, is challenging a number of school records. He is already at the top in hit-by pitches with 54, but more reflective of his talent, he is six runs short of the school record in runs scored; 21 hits away from the career hits top slot, and “is four doubles, 10 RBI, 14 walks, and 27 at-bats from the top-10 in each category,” according to the site.
Summer Institute for Grades 6-12 Now With P.M. Activities!
Summer is around the corner, and so are some exciting new opportunities for learning and fun at Harker!
The big news is that students entering grades 6-12 can now have it all. That is, they can sign up for a class through the Summer Institute and enroll in the optional afternoon activity program, extending their day to 5:30 p.m.
After class each day, students can participate in a wide variety of structured activities or use the library and other facilities according to their needs and desires. “We’re thinking of it sort of like a cruise ship,” said Kelly Espinosa, director of summer programs. “Each day, there is a menu offering all kinds of activities and you can decide what you feel like doing on the spot.”
Perennial offerings include swimming, library, art room, Ping-Pong, basketball courts and study spaces. The staff will also plan games, sports, contests and more, with weekly specials adding to the fun.
Treehouse construction, campus wide scavenger hunts, kit building/flying, street hockey matches and inner tube water polo are a few examples of what students can look forward to.
Characterizing this new after-class option as “a Harker style of hanging out,” Espinosa said, “We are never just doing nothing. We’re always doing something to learn, grow or make friends.”
Cool Summer Classes
Of course, academics form the heart of the Summer Institute, and this year’s class choices are as exciting and diverse as ever – from rigorous, for-credit high school courses to noncredit opportunities for enrichment and growth in English, science, music, art and more. Each class operates on its own schedule on the Saratoga campus with the high quality, caring instruction one expects from Harker.
Upper school for-credit courses are equivalent to those offered during the academic year and use the same texts and materials. Classes are small to ensure quality instruction and retention of course materials. Popular topics include computer programming, art and math.
Upper school enrichment courses include the ever-popular interdisciplinary research workshop, creative or expository writing, the Forensics Institute and driver’s education. Some students choose to get a jump on their next math or AP science class.
Middle schoolers also have a wide array of interesting choices, including Web Design 2.0, Music Creativity and Improv, Forensic Science, Robotics, Debate Boot Camp, Write it Right and more. Math courses offer the opportunity to practice current skills and glimpse topics that await in the fall.
Summer Camp+ for K-6
School + Camp = One Terrific Summer!
Summer Camp+ offers students entering kindergarten through grade 6 a full day of morning academics and afternoon activities on Harker’s beautiful Bucknall campus.
Families enjoy the flexibility afforded by this program, which allows them to choose their session, including their preferred format for morning academics, as well as the length of their day, with full-day, partial-day and morning-only options available.
Students in grades 1-6 may enroll in one of two formats for morning academics. The formats are similar to those in years past, but the names are new: Core Focus and LOL: Learning Opportunities in Literature. Both programs conclude at 11:30 each morning to make room for the afternoon activity program.
Core Focus is a three- or four-week math and language arts focused program that follows a three-period bell schedule. Every day, students spend one period each in math, language arts and an elective. Instruction is differentiated to make sure each student is appropriately challenged.
LOL, aka Learning Opportunities in Literature, is a two-week integrated curriculum centered around a literary theme. Students remain in the same class for the full morning to examine a topic from the perspective of multiple disciplines, including science, history, the arts and social studies – and, of course, math and language arts. (For details about specific electives offered to Core Focus students and the literary themes for each LOL session, please see www.summer.harker.org.)
KinderCamp offers our youngest students an opportunity to become familiar with the Harker environment. Children remain with the same teacher all morning to learn and practice skills needed for kindergarten, which include social and listening skills in addition to letters and numbers. KinderCampers have their own classrooms, playground, lunch area and afternoon counselors.
All students break for lunch at 11:30 and gear up for Harker’s trademark afternoon activity program. Arts and crafts, computers, dance, climbing wall, and a variety of sports and games are just a few of the fun ways students explore teamwork and social interaction in the second half of the day.
Each session also includes a field trip on one of Harker’s big yellow buses. Popular destinations in past years have included the Hiller Aviation Museum, Natural Bridges State Park and a local ice skating rink.
While many of the same activities are offered annually, each summer is organized around a different theme. Without giving away the plan for 2011, Espinosa hinted, “We’re going to have a super time this year!” Details can be found at www.summer.harker.org.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
Yasemin Denari MS ’96 attended Harker from kindergarten through grade 8. The upper school had not yet opened at that time, so after Harker, Denari attended Saratoga High School, where she ran track and cross country and volunteered at a skilled nursing facility on the weekends.
Denari went to UCLA for her undergraduate studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with a major in Italian, plus a special field in French and a minor in Spanish. During her time in college, she spent a summer abroad at the University of Salamanca in Spain and attended UCLA Extension where she studied broadcast journalism. During her last year at UCLA, she worked as a production intern at the K-NBC News Investigative Unit, “Celebrity Justice” and “EXTRA.”
Denari was also interested in learning Turkish so she could communicate with her Turkish relatives on her mother’s side, so she moved to Turkey the day after her graduation from UCLA in order to attend a summer language program at Bogazici University in Istanbul. She immediately became enamored with the city and decided to stay there to work. She worked for three years in the marketing and international business development departments of Garanti Bank, Turkey’s second largest private bank, and helped to launch Turkey’s most renowned credit card loyalty program in Romania (through Garanti Bank Romania). During her time in Turkey, she spent many of her weekends volunteering at an animal shelter in Istanbul.
Denari returned to California in the fall of 2008 and shortly thereafter began working with William H. Draper III at his San Francisco-based venture capital firm Draper Richards LP. She helped him to write a book, “The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs” (www.thestartupgamebook.com), which has recently been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the U.S. She is currently pursuing her MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Q: When you were at Harker, did you dream of doing what you do now?
A: No, I don’t think so. I have had a rather varied professional career thus far, and I don’t think that there is any way that I could have anticipated it!
Q: What do you find most exciting about your career or current project?
A: I am really excited about the book on which I collaborated with William H. Draper III. He is a VC legend, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to work so closely with him on this project. “The Startup Game” has received positive reviews and endorsements from renowned venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and President George H.W. Bush, and we have also recently signed publishing deals with leading publishing houses in China, Taiwan and Russia.
Q: What personal traits make you successful at what you’re doing?
A: I am ambitious, hardworking and optimistic. In some ways, I feel like I have a guiding force that leads me through life. When one door closes, I never get upset about it because I know another one is about to open. I am a networker, and I do my best to maintain my professional relationships. I also value integrity above all else.
Q: What in your life so far took you the longest time to learn?
A: I would probably say that learning Turkish took me the longest. I had studied a few Latin languages in college, but Turkish required an entirely new way of thinking. I was living in Istanbul at the time, so the fact that I was immersed in the language definitely helped.
Q: What’s on the top of your personal and professional “lists” right now?
A: Professional: Graduate from Stanford and work in the venture capital industry. Personal: Learn Mandarin and practice the other languages I’ve studied.
Q: Tell us something surprising about yourself.
A: I was a video game playing tomboy in my youth and needed to get stitches on five different occasions before the age of ten.
Q: What advice do you have for current Harker students?