This article originally appeared in the spring 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Harker has implemented a new streamlined alumni admission process this year to ease admission for the children and grandchildren of Harker alumni.
In the announcement, Diana Nichols, chairman of Harker’s Board of Trustees and former head of school, said that whether students attended Manzanita Hall, Harker Day School, Palo Alto Military Academy, Harker Academy or The Harker School, there is much that alumni from all of the schools share. “Even though time has passed, the core values and principles of the school haven’t changed,” she said. “We have a history together of shared common values.”
In addition to the core values that have remained throughout the school’s history, Nichols also cited the safe environment, caring community, great teachers and improved facilities as “wonderful reasons” for alumni to send their children to Harker. “You are Harker family, and we’d love to have your children – or grandchildren – attending Harker and carrying on the traditions.”
The features of the alumni admission process include waiving the application fee; giving qualified alumni children (who pass testing and meet behavioral standards) top consideration in the application process; providing alumni children with priority equal to current students for financial aid; and offering a 10 percent discount to alumni children for Harker’s summer programs.
Nichols came to Harker Academy in 1973 to chair the science department and teach biology. In 1979 she was named assistant principal, and was principal from 1984-91. From 1992 until her retirement in 2005, Nichols was Harker’s head of school. She was named a Harker Board of Trustees lifetime trustee in 2005 and became the Board’s chair in 2010, and she is passionate about bringing our legacy children into the fold. “We hope to see you on our campuses soon – for a visit or to pick up your child or grandchild from school!” she said.
Harker alumni should contact Nan Nielsen, director of admission, at nann@harker.org or 408.249.2510 and request a special private alumni tour. For the summer discount, alumni should contact Kelly Espinosa, summer programs director, at kellye@harker.org.
Harker alumni who have not registered with the school’s alumni office can do so by contacting their class agent or e-mailing Christina Yan, alumni director, at christinay@harker.org.
The middle school played host to Harker grade 5 parents on Jan. 9 for a “What’s Brewing” event aimed to present the myriad opportunities and activities available to students in grades 6-8. After Head of School Christopher Nikoloff welcomed the parents, they were treated to presentations on topics ranging from elective opportunities to global education opportunities, and from the laptop program to the spring musical.
On Jan. 12, Harker’s upper school boys and girls soccer teams held their annual Kicks Against Cancer event at Davis Field, raising nearly $8,000. The goal for this year’s fundraiser was to send four child cancer survivors to Camp Okizu, a camp program that specializes in activities and care for young cancer patients and survivors and their families.
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. A special fund for faculty and staff was also set up so they could have the option of donating an amount of their choosing. Michael Anthony’s Salon in Saratoga also helped fund the effort, graciously donating proceeds from all transactions made on Jan. 9, in addition to offering a 50 percent discount on haircuts and treatments and a 30 percent discount on all hair care products.
During the halftimes of both games, several teachers and coaches volunteered to be targets in the classic soccer-based game of “Butts Up,” during which they bent over in front of the goal while audience members took turns making penalty kicks at them.
The varsity girls soccer team lost to Pinewood 0-3, and the boys team defeated Eastside College Prep 3-0.
Harker just received results from the National Classical Etymology online exam that students in grades 9-10 took in November. Harker students earned 20 medals: 13 gold, five silver and two bronze! The exam consisted of Latin and Greek derived words that students had to define in English based on their root meanings.
Gold Medalists: Erik Anderson, Cobi Ashkenazi, Jonathan Cho, Nik Datuashvili , Simon Orr, Christopher Sund, Ashvin Swaminathan, Apurva Tandon, all grade 10; Sarika Bajaj, Kevin Duraiswamy, Connie Li, Sreyas Misra, Brian Tuan, all grade 9. Silver medals were won by Daphne Millard, grade 10 and freshmen Tiffany Chu, Helena Huang, Saachi Jain and Urvi Gupta. Bronze medals were won by Andy Wang and Nikhil Dilip, both grade 9.
[Update] The girls varsity basketball team edged ICA on the road Friday 50-48 in a dramatic come-from-behind victory to set a program record with 14 wins in a single season! Priscilla Auyeung, grade 10, had 17 points and eight rebounds while classmate Daniza Rodriguez added 15 points. The girls (14-2 overall) host Mercy-Burlingame Tues., Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m.. Congratulations ladies!
Jan. 18, 2011
Varsity girls basketball had their second loss on Jan. 11 to Notre Dame –San Jose 68-47, but defeated league foe Crystal Springs Jan. 14 59-39 to improve to 12-2 overall. Senior Roshni Bhatnagar scored 12 points and had six rebounds in the Crystal Springs game, while Daniza Rodriguez, grade 10, scored 15. The girls travel to Kings Tues., Jan. 18 and Immaculate Conception Academy on Fri., Jan. 21.
Junior varsity girls bBasketball posted their first win on Jan. 10 against Liberty Baptist; results of the Tuesday, Jan. 11 are not posted. The JV girls play tonight, Tuesday and Fri., Jan. 21 at King’s Academy and Priory, respectively.
Varsity boys basketball won on Jan. 10, but suffered their first league loss of the season the following Friday at Crystal Springs in a low scoring affair 36-33. The boys, now at 11-3 overall, hope to bounce back this week at Kings on Tuesday Jan. 18, and at Pinewood Fri., Jan. 21.
Junior varsity boys basketball is 8-5 in overall play this season, posting a win on Jan. 11 against Priory and playing Crystal Springs, though results from that game are not available. Their next outings are the same as varsity: Kings and Pinewood on Tuesday and Friday, respectively.
Our wrestlers competed in the Jim Root Tournament at Prospect High on Jan. 15. Jason Mendel, grade 12, placed fourth, Santosh Swaminathan, grade 12, second, and senior Chris McCallaCreary once again took the championship and is now ranked 27th in the state of California, another Harker first! Jan. 20, the team wrestles at home in one of only three home matches, so come support these outstanding athletes as they compete against Fremont High School, 5:30 at Blackford.
Varsity boys soccer has won their last three outings, so are now 3-2 in league with their victories at Eastside College Prep last Tuesday and at Crystal Springs Uplands Friday 5-1. The boys take their winning streak on the road Friday at Menlo.
Junior varsity boys soccer tied University Prep Academy on Jan. 10, and play KIPP San Jose Collegiate Tues., Jan. 18, at Harker and Menlo School Fri., Jan. 21 at Menlo.
Varsity Girls soccer is having a tough season but is showing incremental improvements. The team played to a 0-0 tie Friday against St. Francis-Watsonville where goalie Indica Sur, grade 10, earned her first career shutout. Come support the girls on Davis Field Tues., Jan. 18 vs. Mercy and Thurs., Jan. 20. vs. ECP. Both games are at 3:30 p.m.
Junior varsity girls soccer is splitting the season, 2-2-1 so far, with their most recent win against University last Thursday. They have their final games Tuesday and Wednesday Jan. 25-26 against the Leadership Public School and Immaculate Conception, both at Harker.
Harker’s upper school Latin students attended the Ludi Octobres competition this year and brought home a number of top prizes!
Latin 1: Sreyas Misra, grade 9, first place in Latin Derivatives and first place in Latin Reading Comprehension; Mary Liu, grade 9, second place in Latin Vocabulary.
Latin 2: Erik Andersen, grade 10, second place in Latin Vocabulary and third place Latin Grammar; Sahithya Prakash, grade 9, second place in Latin Derivatives and second place in Latin Reading Comprehension.
Latin 3: Urvi Gupta , grade 9, first place in Latin Derivatives; Kevin Duraiswamy, grade 9, first place in Latin Grammar and second place in Latin Reading Comprehension; Helena Huang, grade 9, first place in Greek Mythology and second place in Latin Derivatives; Sarika Bajaj, grade 9, first place in Latin Derivatives; Saachi Jain, grade 9, second place in Greek Mythology; Brian Tuan, grade 9, second place in Certamen; Sean Youn and Nikhil Dilip, both grade 9, tied for third place in Latin Reading Comprehension; Eric Henshall, grade 11, third place in Latin Grammar and third place in Latin Derivatives.
Latin Advanced: Suchita Nety, grade 10, first place in Latin Reading Comprehension and second place in Certamen; Jenny Chen, grade 10, first place in Latin Vocabulary and second place in Latin Grammar; Richard Fan, grade 10, first place in Greek Mythology; Sean Fernandes, grade 10, tie for second place in Daily Life & History and third place in Greek Mythology; Jessica Lin, grade 11, second place in Roman Daily Life & History (tie) ; Shannon Su, grade 10, second place in Latin Vocabulary and third place in Latin Derivatives (tie); Jonathan Cho, grade 10, second place in Latin Reading Comprehension; Molly Wolfe, grade 10, third place in Latin Derivatives (tie); Eric Zhang, grade 10, third place in Roman Daily Life & History.
Lower school students celebrated Halloween the traditional way and then some. The students made their annual trip in late October into the neighborhood around the campus not to collect treats, but to deliver painted pumpkins as a sign of goodwill towards those impacted by the school’s presence.
The students did have their annual Halloween Parade, making a couple of circuits in costume through the campus to the admiring looks of parents and teachers. In addition, there was a traditional Haunted House created by the BEST staff in the Bucknall gym lobby where students in grades 1-5 had a chance to be frightened by something other than having recess rained out.
After Halloween, students brought in their extra treats for Operation Gratitude. Hundreds of pounds of candy were collected and shipped off to troops serving in war zones to give them a bit of a day brightener and remind them that even on one of the most enjoyable days of the year, students were thinking of them.
This story was originally published in the Spring 2010 Harker Quarterly
On Jan. 13, Intel announced four Harker seniors had made it to the semifinals of the Intel Science Talent Search: Namrata Anand, Vishesh Jain, Kevin Zhang and Andrew Zhou. These four became the latest in a long line of Harker students, 17 since 2006, to reach the upper ranks of the competition.
Two weeks later, Anand was named a national finalist, the second since Harker began participating in the contest four years earlier. The first, Yi Sun ‘06, went on to place second in the national competition. For her efforts, Anand was awarded $7,500 and earned the trip to Washington, D.C., to compete among the nation’s top 40 contestants for a $100,000 grand prize. Intel is just part of the equation, though.
Just months earlier, Alex Han, Gr. 12, was announced as a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Since Christopher Sutardja ’06 was named a regional semifinalist in his senior year, Harker has produced regional semifinalists every year in the Siemens competition, which annually receives thousands of entries. Both Han and Anand will display their projects at the Harker Research Symposium in April.
“It’s hard to really describe the number of hours that students invest in these research projects,” said Katherine Schafer, upper school biology teacher and head of the research program. “The students work full time throughout most of the summer conducting the actual research.” She noted that some students continue their research into the school year. Rising seniors entering the Siemens competition usually spend the first two weeks preparing for the entry deadline at the beginning of October.
“The papers are 18 pages in length and require extensive library research on their specific fields and often countless hours of analysis,” Schafer added. “Many of my experiments involved treating cells and observing them over a time course, so I spent a great deal of time in the culture room and worked about 50 to 60 hours per week over a 10-week period,” Han estimated.
Because of the work research students perform day to day for their classes, these tasks may actually be less daunting to them than for other high school students. “I think the research these students are doing and the skills they are developing by communicating the results of their research gives these students a big advantage over most students entering college,” Schafer said. “They have an idea of how much work is involved in research and can do things that many students entering graduate school cannot do.”
Harker’s success in these and other competitions is also due in no small part to the mentors with whom the students work while researching for and assembling their projects. Since Sutardja first enlisted the help of Gerald Fuller, a professor from Stanford University, mentors have played a crucial part in the success of projects produced by Harker students. Fuller mentors students to this day.
While working on his project for the Siemens competition, Han was mentored by Dr. Jonathan Hardy at Stanford University. “I was very thankful that he gave me the freedom to design and pursue my project independently from those ongoing in the lab, because I gained a consummate understanding and mastery of the research process while also having the opportunity to make a personal contribution to medical research,” Han said.
Raja Guhathakurta, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, headed up the mentoring effort for three of Harker’s most recent Intel semifinalists. He and three graduate students helped the Harker students gather data for projects that covered the Andromeda galaxy. In the last decade, Guhathakurta has served as a research mentor “to scores of high school students,” he said.
Guhathakurta became involved with Harker after meeting science department chair Anita Chetty early last year. “It was a pleasure to work with such bright and motivated students,” he said. “We would frequently sit down to brainstorm ideas for solving specific problems and that was always fun.”
The biggest benefit Guhathakurta thought students gained from the experience was the ability to approach abstract problems. “In research, the act of looking for the answer to a particular question can often lead to more questions instead of a definite answer,” he said. “This can lead to great progress in thinking and knowledge,” he said. “Part of this experience is imbibing the culture and sociology of a particular area of science, in this case astronomy.”
Chetty said it is also important for students to witness the day-to-day life of a scientist, which can provide invaluable insight into their choice of a possible career. “Sometimes research is not very glamorous,” she quipped. “It’s many, many hours. It’s very repetitive. It can be frustrating. You can find out on Friday that you made a mistake on the previous Tuesday, and that’s why your results all failed.”
The thrill of discovery, however, is what makes the hard work all worth it. “I think that’s the beauty of the mentor-student relationship,” Chetty said. “It’s the long-term commitment, the enthusiasm, the excitement of discovering something together.”
Mentors are not necessarily people from outside the school. Sushant Sundaresh ’08, who was a Siemens regional semifinalist as a senior, worked with upper school biology teacher Matthew Harley, who according to Chetty spent “hundreds of hours” with Sundaresh to help compile data for his project.
Science department teachers also coach students on how to compile the results of their research and communicate them in papers and oral presentations. There are, of course, many research projects produced by students each year that are worthy of recognition, whether or not they earned placement in contests. The Harker Research Symposium, which takes place this year on April 10, has and will continue to provide a forum for many of these projects to receive well-deserved attention (see page 17 for symposium details).
Since its inception in 2006, the symposium, the brainchild of Chetty, has been modeled after the environment of an authentic research conference, and is open to students in Gr. 6-12. For many students, the symposium is an opportunity to share the results of their labor with fellow students and their peers outside of school. The symposium has also gained recognition and prestige for the guest speakers it has attracted over the years.
This year’s symposium, which pays tribute to the medical devices industry, will feature materials scientist Chris Gilbert as a keynote speaker. Gilbert has been involved with taking a product from development to approval by the Food and Drug administration, and eventually to manufacturing and sales.
“He was involved in all of the parts of the process involved beyond the research part, beyond the discovery,” Chetty said. Several exhibitors will also be visiting Harker during the symposium, displaying various medical technologies such as an ultrasound machine and an artificial heart valve, among others.
In addition, visitors to the symposium will have a chance to see Harker’s scientific talents shine. “I just think that the caliber of the student presentations continues to improve,” said Chetty. “As we’re reaching down into the middle school, the younger students are learning about research. We’re seeing an escalation in the caliber of the presentations.” For more information on Harker’s science program, visit http://skylark.harker.org/hno/backups and search for “science.”
This article originally appeared in the spring 2010 Harker Quarterly.
The author Kurt Vonnegut, in a 1994 commencement address at Syracuse University, offered the following insight: “I first declare to you that the most wonderful thing, the most valuable thing you can get from an education is this – the memory of one person who could really teach, whose lessons made life and yourselves much more interesting and full of possibilities than you had previously supposed possible.” I suppose that when schools cite “love of learning” in their mission statements, as most do, this is the spirit they are after.
Albert Einstein famously said that, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Aside from inadvertently giving courage to those who do not believe that children need to learn facts anymore, what the man who imagined riding elevators in space was trying to say, I believe, was that information alone, divorced from imagination, does not constitute a complete education. Einstein was warning against a narrow pursuit of facts without context, knowledge without synthesis, learning without understanding. Mark Twain had a quip with a similar gist: “I never let schooling interfere with my education.”
Today’s parents and students are understandably anxious about the future. If anxiety is caused by, among other factors, a low level of predictability, then families today suffer from predictability deficiency. The decline in civic life, the shrinking of the extended family, the onslaught of media and technology, the intensifying of world competition, the Great Recession – over the past decades these factors, among others, have eroded predictability in what sometimes seems a wild, uncaring world.
Parents often react to this uncertainty by attempting to manufacture certainty. They become “agents” for their children. As agents, parents guide their children through a raft of résumé-building exercises from violin practice to building schools in developing countries, all to help differentiate their precious little ones in the weary eyes of a college admissions reader. As a parent, I also find myself seduced by this “agent frenzy.” Do my children know their colors? Shouldn’t I have initiated piano lessons by now? Are we really veering into a Saturday afternoon without a planned activity? Won’t the kids be, well, bored?
Some of this cultivation is good. I know I could have used a swift kick in the curriculum vitae by my parents when I was in school. But there is a growing backlash against these trends, including counter movements that carry titles such as “free-range parenting” or “slow parenting.” Tom Hodgkinson, author of “The Idle Parent,” reminds us of D. H. Lawrence’s advice on childrearing: “How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone.”
However, when educators tell parents to relax, everything will work out fine, they ought to feel a twinge of hypocrisy, given that children today, it appears, face an uncertain, competitive future, with far fewer common assumptions about that future. Parents either do not listen to or do not believe the rising tide of advice against the agent approach. And who can blame them? It takes a brave parent to climb down from the nuclear arms race of résumé-building.
Colleges now give warning about two types of students who show up as freshmen on their campuses, “teacups” and “crispies.” Crispies are burned out from an uninspiring, connect-the-dots approach to education. Teacups never really faced disappointment in their careers; hence they shatter, like a teacup, when they receive their first setbacks. These profiles result, I believe, from an unhealthy focus on outcomes over process, grades over learning, activities over passion. Victor Frankl, author of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” said it best: “Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue … as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.” I love that. Success must ensue.
What Einstein called imagination, what Twain feared missing in school, what made life for Vonnegut more full of possibilities than he had previously imagined, what schools call love of learning – this will sustain a young person and carry him or her to success. In “Outliers: The Story of Success,” Malcolm Gladwell lists the colleges the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine and chemistry attended – many you have heard of, and many you have not. My favorite is Berea College. Ever heard of it? Berea College has a Nobel Prize winner. In fact, if you look at its Web site, you will see that the school boasts other accomplishments of its alumni too, like the invention of the touch screen.
It is fine and probably advisable to prepare our youngsters for the “Brave New World” they will face. We sense, like no other time in recent history, that we are buffeted by the unknown forces of what Andy Grove of Intel described as a ”strategic inflection point,” or many such points. A parent recently asked me what subject his child ought to learn to be prepared for future. I thought about his question for only a few seconds. All of them, I replied. I suppose I meant that since none of us can predict the future, a thorough grounding in traditional education, fueled by love of learning, is still the best preparation for success in an uncertain world.
In “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” Daniel Pink outlines three ingredients of motivation: mastery, autonomy and purpose. We rush to give our children mastery over something: calculus, violin, golf, soccer. But we fail to teach them to master themselves. In the end, Pinocchio is transformed into a real boy only by a fairy’s magic and his long journey, one he undergoes alone. A little magic, a journey and a promise to be good are what make Pinocchio (and all of us) human.
Oscar Wilde said, “The moment you think you understand a great work of art it’s dead for you.” The moment we focus on grades over learning, competition over cooperation, quantity over quality, appearance over passion, outcomes over process, learning dies. I know letting go is easier said than done in this competitive world. But when was the world not competitive? Are we the first to live in interesting times? Besides, love of learning is still, I believe, the number one competitive advantage we can give to our children.
Jan. 12, 2011
Harker set a new California record for Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists on Jan. 12, with seven students being named at a special morning assembly.
The students – Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young, all grade 12 – were each awarded a $1,000 prize and have a chance to travel to Washington, D.C., in March for the final competition. The first place winner will receive a $100,000 grand prize.
Projects ranged from researching optical coatings for telescope lenses to comparisons of distant galaxies to those more proximate. Each student partnered with university-level mentors to perform the research for his or her project. Most students also had a Harker mentor to help the students write and finalize the project. Bhatnagar worked with Nicole Giuliani, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. Her Harker mentor was Savitha Sastry, upper school biology teacher. Dr. Sophie Kusy, postdoctoral research fellow, and Joel Dudley, bioinformatics specialist, both from Stanford, worked together with Josephine Chen, whose Harker mentor was Anita Chetty, science department chair.
Benjamin Chen was mentored by Dr. Raja Guhathakurta, professor at UC Santa Cruz’s department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Dr. Evan Kirby, a postdoctoral scholar at CalTech. Chris Spenner, upper school physics teacher, acted as his Harker mentor. Mahajan completed his project with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Santa Cruz and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher.
Parthasarathy was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz and mother of Harker alumna Holly Faber MS ’89, and Dr. Kamson Lai, postdoctoral scholar at UCSC’s department of astrophysics. Lick Observatory’s David Hilyard, optician, Brian Dupraw, optician, and Dr. Andrew Philips, astronomy researcher, acted as Tu’s mentors. Her Harker mentor was Dr. Mark Brada, upper school physics teacher. Jason Young completed his project with mentorship from Dr. Wei Wang, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and UC San Diego and was mentored at Harker by Dr. Matthew Harley, upper school biology teacher. Finalists will be announced in two weeks.