San Jose Mercury News– May 21, 2010: Alumnus Jason Martin ’07 was mentioned in an article about the San Jose State baseball team. At the time the story appeared, Martin had a .375 batting average, a team best and a remarkable feat considering he broke his hand last fall.
San Jose Mercury News – May 19, 2010: The following graduates were mentioned for making commitments to play sports at the following colleges: Greg Plauck (Santa Clara University baseball), Cole Davis (Stanford swimming), Arthi Padmanabhan (Pomona-Pitzer tennis), Amy Rorabaugh (Lake Forest College volleyball), Colby Rapson (UC Berkeley crew), Ryan Cali (University of Redlands basketball), Michael Clifford (UC Davis volleyball), Kelly Chen (Claremont-McKenna tennis) and Vivian Wong (Carnegie-Mellon swimming).
On June 6, students Sierra Lincoln, Gr. 9, Shreya Nathan, Gr. 11, and recent graduate Vivian Wong were recognized by the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Each received the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing.
The students were among 25 individuals from 11 Bay Area and Central Coast counties honored at a ceremony held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. The award recognizes young women for their aspirations and achievements in computing-related fields. Winners also received a $250 gift card, a one-gigabyte flash card, memberships to the Computer History Museum and the Tech Museum plus an invitation to spend a day at Google.
Japanese folk musician Baisho Matsumoto was invited to the Saratoga campus on May 19 to perform and give a brief but informative introduction to two instruments central to Japan’s musical tradition. Matsumoto started off by playing the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument similar to a lute or banjo that is played with a plectrum called a bachi. He demonstrated both the “kabuki” style, which involves playing and singing simultaneously to accompany kabuki performances, and the “tsugaru” style, a more aggressive and rhythmic method based on improvisation.
Matsumoto also introduced the audience to the shakuhachi, a Japanese flute made from bamboo, playing a medley of Japanese folk songs and, to the audience’s amusement, a small selection of American songs, including “Yankee Doodle.”
He ended his show with a pair of Japanese folk songs that featured a little bit of crowd participation, and before leaving said a few words in English about his hope that bringing Japanese tradition to American shores will help unite the two cultures.
The lower school welcomed the summer season in style on June 3 during the annual Kiddie Carnival, held on the last day of school. Kids enjoyed a wide variety of fun activities, including a giant rubber slide, a bounce house and even a makeshift winter wonderland, complete with artificial snow.
Traveling across international waters, 29 Gr. 6 students visited Harker’s sister school Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo during a weeklong trip to Japan led by English and math teacher Kathleen Ferretti.
After a warm welcome at Kodomono-kuni Park, Harker students got together with Tamagawa students for a morning of activities and puzzles. The groups competed with each other on a scavenger hunt in which Tamagawa teachers with instructions on tasks to complete were stationed around the park’s tunnels, bridges, trees and gardens. Tamagawa students then shared Japanese treats and food for lunch, and Harker students looked forward to starting their home stays.
President Yoshiaki Obara joined the school in welcoming our sixth graders with a student talent showcase, where Natalie Simonian, Gr. 6, had the opportunity to play piano and Andrew Kirjner, Gr. 6, the violin. The event closed with everyone singing the Harker school song.
The students were sad to end their time at Tamagawa, but had to move on to explore other parts of Japan. They took the bullet train to Kyoto and got a glimpse of Mt. Fuji from afar. They visited different temples and shrines, including the Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple famous for its waterfall. They continued to Hiroshima to visit the peace memorial park and museum, then proceeded to Miyajima.
“It is sure to be another memorable day,” Ferretti said in her an update. The days were packed full of activities and Ferretti’s e-mails to Jennifer Abraham, director of global education, highlighted the students’ enthusiasm and curiosity.
Imagine yourself driving down Saratoga Avenue, taking the usual route to the upper school campus, when suddenly the orange low-fuel sign turns on, warning that your tank is low and you need to fill up. But stopping at the nearest gas station does not guarantee the best price. You find yourself scanning the stations that flank the road, looking for the cheapest price.
With the mobile application that Harker students Shefali Netke, Gr. 12, Vivian Wong, Gr. 12, Anika Radiya-Dixit, Gr. 9, Sheridan Jones, Gr. 11 and Kristi Lui, Gr. 11, developed as part of Iridescent Learning’s Spring Technovation Challenge, searching for cheap gas prices would not slow you down.
On April 22, Iridescent held Pitch Night at Microsoft’s Mountain View office, giving students the opportunity to present their ideas in front of venture capitalists. This challenge is a collaboration between Iridescent, the not-for-profit dedicated to providing children in underserved communities with access to cutting-edge science, and Girls in Tech, an organization that aims to empower and promote women in technology.
The team placed third in the competition and was invited to attend the Women of Vision Symposium on May 12.
The five girls worked closely with industry professionals Julie Greenberg and Yasmin Khan to develop their creative mobile app. For eight weeks leading up to Pitch Night, these talented young women worked with the two mentors and participated in hands-on workshops, learning about programming, communication and business fundamentals that were essential in creating a comprehensive proposal.
They created Gas Guy’d, a mobile application that allows drivers to locate accurate, cheap gas prices with an easy-to-use interface and voice activation. Features include GPS directions, real-time prices, a favorites option and detailed station descriptions.
Serving as CEO, Netke presented a four-minute pitch to venture capitalists Katherine Barr, Adeo Ressi and Mendel Rosenblum, and all the teammates participated in a four-minute Q&A after the presentation.
Netke said that Anita Chetty, biology teacher and advisor of Women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (WiSTEM), was instrumental in motivating the group.
“I think that all of us really learned how to work better in a team environment. We do group projects in school, but this environment was different in the sense that there was much more at stake,” Netke said. “The competition also helped a lot in seeing how much work goes into the entire process of developing an application. We did not just do the building stage or just the presentation; we built the application from scratch, developed a business plan, presented the pitch – all the steps.”
Kristin Giammona, elementary division head, recently volunteered at the Children’s Discovery Museum as a guest activity leader at Family Science Night in the Museum. Giammona was recommended to the event by a Harker parent who felt she would do an excellent job.
Family Science Night provides an opportunity for students to experience science in a fun and hands-on way. The theme of the night was “Toy Box Physics,” one of the museum’s more popular themes. It included an examination of simple machines and how they are present in the toys kids use everyday.
This spring at the upper school the National French Honor Society hosted a French week. Students sold crepes on Wednesday and Friday after school in addition to several other activities held throughout the week. On Wednesday the society screened a film for student enjoyment. The students also produced a bulletin on French culture and the French community.
Coincidentally tickets for the upper school musical, “Les Misérables,” were on sale the same week, which fit nicely with the theme of the week.
The next week the society presented a serious of guest lectures. The goal of the speaker series was to give the “students … some more contact with the francophone community in the Bay Area,” said society advisor Nicholas Manjoine.
Students in Shelby Guarino’s Gr. 5 English class recently became interested in the homework assignments of students around the world. In order to facilitate this curiosity the students volunteered to share their completed homework assignments with Harker’s sister schools. Sample homework assignments were swapped with students from schools in Japan, Australia, Ethiopia, France and Saudi Arabia.
Harker students sent assignments from Valentine’s Day and Halloween that highlighted their work in grammar and vocabulary. In return they received a variety of different homework assignments from all over the world. Students from the Institution Sévigné in France sent articles from their school newspaper including a poem titled “Night Poem,” which the students really enjoyed.
From the students of St. Stephen’s College in Coomera, Australia, our students received a variety of projects based on the novel “Convict Boy.” These assignments included a model convict ship and letters written by the students as if they were convicts trapped on the ship.
The Australian students also sent our students information on a program they participate in to learn about indigenous cultures. Students are treated to a presentation on these cultures by the indigenous people themselves. They are instructed in traditional dances and told tribal stories in an effort to give them a better perspective on the people and their heritage.
This homework exchange was a great opportunity for the students to learn about the education styles of other countries. Guarino stated that she “believe[d] it opened up their minds to start thinking more personally about more countries other than the U.S., Asia and India.” The goal of the program was to give our students a more worldly perspective and Guarino remarked that “interacting with our sister schools through giving and receiving real-life assignments makes [cultural education] all the more real.”
Congratulations to rising seniors James Seifert and John Ammatuna who were recognized for their performances as Marius (Outstanding Supporting Actor) and Enjolras (Outstanding Featured Performer), respectively, in “Les Misérables” in San Jose Stage Company’s inaugural High School Top Honors recognition program for area high schools. The awards were presented in June at an awards ceremony held at the California Theater in San Jose.
For many years Harker’s musical theater department participated in an awards program for Bay Area high schools sponsored by American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ), the company that nominated Harker for participation in the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. When AMTSJ went defunct, San Jose Stage Company took up the honors mantle and created the High School Top Honors program, sending adjudicators to 15 local high schools this year.
In related news, Harker has once again been invited to perform at the Fringe, and will be performing this year’s musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” at the 2011 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.