In mid-April, the Journalism Education Association named senior Eric Fang one of its national runners-up in their Journalist of the Year contest. Among the qualities that judges noticed in Fang’s work were his strengths in storytelling and leadership, as well as his ability to learn new skills. Judge Leah Waters of Heritage High School in Frisco, Texas praised Fang for his “firm understanding of the importance of a free press for an electorate and democracy.”
As a runner-up, Fang as also been awarded a Sister Rita Jeanne Scholarship of $850.
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April 8, 2020:
Last week, senior Eric Fang was named the 2020 California Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Education Association, becoming the first student in Harker history to win this recognition.
Fang has been highly prolific in Harker’s journalism department, contributing regularly to the Winged Post newspaper and student news website Harker Aquila. He has also served as news editor at the Winged Post and is currently its co-editor in chief. Fang has also been published in the San Jose Mercury News and the Stanford Daily, and presented on political reporting with other Harker journalists at the JEA/NSPA fall convention. His passion for the politics beat has led him to interview eight 2020 presidential candidates and travel to numerous town halls, rallies and protests. Last year, he visited Sonoma County to cover the aftermath of the Kincade wildfire, documenting the local community’s struggles through photos and interviews.
This contest requires entrants to submit portfolios that are judged on criteria such as news gathering, writing, editing, design and photojournalism. Judges also look for work that impacts communities, amplifies the voices of marginalized groups and increases awareness of pressing issues. Fang received high marks in every area, and is now in contention to be named Journalist of the Year. The winner will be announced April 16.
Amy Jin ‘18, currently attending Harvard, is now a team member for the Crown Education Challenge, an international contest for K-12 students that contains tracks in art, STEM and writing. Founded in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent wave of worldwide school closures, the contest hopes to inspire students to continue their learning, become active in global issues and foster hope in troubled times.
The contest’s theme is finding hope during a pandemic, and each category encourages students to submit work relating to the theme. For the art category, students are invited to submit visual art, music, digital art, films and dance pieces. STEM submissions can include original research on ways pandemics can be prevented or addressed in the future, taking the form of posters, videos, apps or other media. Writers may submit journalistic pieces, poetry, short stories, screenplays, podcasts or essays relating to the theme.
Submissions are being accepted until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on May 31.
In the two weeks since Harker campuses closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lower school community has been finding many unique ways to make the most out of the remote learning experience.
Michelle Anderson’s kindergarten students celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by creating leprechaun traps, an annual activity usually held at school. “On St. Patrick’s Day we try and catch a leprechaun so they can lead us to their gold,” Anderson said. Undeterred by the closure, students sent in photos of their creations.
Teachers, meanwhile, also have been getting creative while working from home. Art teacher Gerry-louise Robinson cobbled together her setup using such available materials as a laundry basket. Ann Smitherman, grades 4 and 5 language arts teacher, had her sons Cole MS ‘16 and MC ‘16 as well has her husband record videos of themselves reading from picture books for her students. “They’ve figured anything different is good during this time when kids are at home!” said Ann.
Students are also making their work from home more interesting, such as fifth grader Adrian Roufas, who recorded a time-lapse video while creating his latest art piece.
Earlier this month, eighth graders Angelina Hu and Olivia Xu were among five students to win the inaugural Maryam Mirzakhani Award in the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) 10A Golden Section (consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific U.S. Islands). This award is given to the top scoring young women in the competition and is named for the Iranian mathematician and Stanford professor who was the first woman to receive the prestigious Fields Medal. The AMC is held annually by the Mathematical Association of America and tasks contestants with solving 25 problems in 75 minutes. The AMC 10 is intended for students in grade 10 and below.
Many upper school teachers are incorporating a variety of methods to manage the amount of screen time their students are having each day due to the shift to remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With students both attending classes and doing homework on laptops and other devices, educators are concerned about the amount of time students are spending in front of screens. “I am alarmed at the extent of screen time and lack of physical movement,” said upper school chemistry teacher Smriti Koodanjeri, who has been going on short walks with her daughter, Anya.
Sharing Koodanjeri’s concerns, business and entrepreneurship teacher Michael Acheatel included 15 minutes of light exercise into his Zoom classes. “I am also keeping my screen time-based assignments as light as possible,” he said. He’s also worked with business & entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass and athletics coach Loren Powers to organize online exercise periods, to which all students are invited. Upper school history teacher Carol Green suggested including slides in presentations that remind students to take stretch breaks. Last week, she and fellow history teacher Julie Wheeler “unintentionally added a lot of movement to our class” by giving students the option to submit their assignment as a video made on the video sharing service TikTok. “The TikTok format gets the students moving!” Green said.
“Honestly, my biggest suggestion would be to cut down the amount of material we are trying to cover,” said upper school English teacher Tia Barth. ” I’m trying to give only about 80 minutes of work with class time and homework combined. Everything we teach and do is important, but we’re going to have to prioritize and scale back to make this approach sustainable.”
While understanding teachers’ concerns, upper school LID director Diane Main cautioned that screen time shouldn’t be altogether avoided. “Are they passive consumers of content, or are they interacting and creating? The more we can have them doing the latter, and for shorter stretches rather than an hour or more at a time, the better it is likely to be for them,” she said.
This report was submitted by lower and middle school athletic director Theresa “Smitty” Smith.
Here are the results from our early winter and late winter sports seasons at the lower and middle schools.
Early Winter – Boys Basketball and Girls Soccer
VA (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas, finished in a three-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3 and went 4-5 overall. The team also took second place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Zachary Blue and Om Tandon, both grade 8 (co-MVPs), Brian Xiao, grade 8 (Eagle), and Kyle Leung, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity B team, coached by Tim Hopkins, finished in first place in the WBAL with an 8-0 record and went 10-0 overall. The team also took first place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Bowen Xia and Rahul Yalla, both grade 7 (co-MVPs), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 7 (Eagle), and Gary Jin, grade 7 (Coaches).
VB2 (grade 7-8) Boys Basketball
The Varsity B2 team, coached by Randy LeGris, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a 2-5 record. Team awards went to Reza Jalil, grade 8 (MVP), Rayan Arya, grade 7 (Eagle), and Leo Sobczyn and Nikhil Chadha, both grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, finished in second place in the WBAL with a 5-1 record and an overall record of 7-2. The team also finished in second place in the gold division of the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Brennan Williams (MVP), Topaz Lee (Eagle) and Rishaan Thoppay (Coaches).
JVB6 (grade 6) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B6 team, coached by Raul Rios, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record. Team awards went to Ethan Leelanivas (MVP), Alejandro Cheline (Eagle) and Ritik Raman (Coaches).
MS Intramural Boys Basketball
Team awards went to Daniel Schwartz, grade 7 (MVP), Krish Goenka, grade 6 (Eagle) and Daniel Miao, grade 6 (Coaches). The team was coached by Adam Albers and Ron Paranada.
JVB1 (grade 5) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B1 team, coached by Karriem Stinson, finished in a two-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a 6-1 record, and an overall record of 8-2. The team then took first place in the WBAL tournament. Team awards went to Kai Nishimura (MVP), Brandon Labio (Eagle) and Raj Akunuri (Coaches).
JVB2 (grade 5) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity B2 team, coached by Spring Wang, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a 3-4 record. Team awards went to Benjamin Leafstrand (MVP), Zack Weng (Eagle) and Yash Belani (Coaches).
JVC (grade 4) Boys Basketball
The Junior Varsity C team, coached by Karriem Stinson, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 3-3 record. Team awards went to Jackson Yue and Luca Chan (Eagle) and Reid Bardin (Coaches).
LS Intramural Boys Basketball
Team awards went to Vidwat Shekar, grade 4 (MVP), Jaden Cao, grade 4, and Ian Lee, grade 5 (Eagle), and Avi Gupta, grade 4, and Shamik Khowala, grade 5 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tobias Wade and Walid Fahmy.
VA (grade 7-8) Girls Soccer
The Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood, Hannah Grannis, Dini Wong and Morgan Smith, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a record of 1-5. Team awards went to Kate Grannis, grade 8 (MVP), Claire Anderson, grade 7, and Layla McClure, grade 7 (Eagle), and Margaret Cartee, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVB (grade 5) Girls Soccer
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Colleen Campbell and Brittney Moseley, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 5-1. Team awards went to Ava Zarkesh and Chelsea Xie (Eagle) and Heather Wang (Coaches).
LS Intramural Girls Soccer
Team awards went to Maya Horan, grade 4 (MVP), Sofiah Jalil, grade 4 (Eagle), and Sasha Gupta, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Colleen Campbell and Brittney Moseley.
Late Winter – Girls Basketball and Boys Soccer
VA (grade 7-8) Girls Basketball
The Varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas, finished in second place in the WBAL with a 7-1 record, and finished 8-1 overall. They were to play in the gold division championship game of the WBAL tournament prior to the season being suspended. Team awards went to Anjali Yella, grade 8 (MVP), Isabella Lo, grade 7 (Eagle) and Kate Grannis, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB Girls Basketball
The Varsity B team, coached by Tim Hopkins, finished in first place in the WBAL with an 8-0 record, and finished 9-0 overall. They were to play in the gold division championship game of the WBAL tournament prior to the season being suspended. Team awards went to Alicia Yan, grade 6 (MVP), Claire Yu, grade 6 (Eagle) and Ria Kohli, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, finished undefeated in third place in the WBAL with a 5-2 record and finished 5-3 overall. Team awards went to Iris Wang (MVP), Kimaya Mehta (Eagle) and Kira Bardin (Coaches).
MS Intramural Girls Basketball
Team awards went to Shreya Vemulapalli, grade 6 (MVP), AJ Hacigumus, grade 6 (Eagle), and Ella Guo, grade 6 (Coaches). The team was coached by Raul Rios, Adam Albers and Rob Moore.
JVB (grade 5) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Ellie Pereira and Joycie Kaliangara, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 4-3 overall record. Team awards went to Finley Ho (MVP), Ava Zarkesh (Eagle) and Chelsea Xie and Jessica Chen (Coaches).
JVC (grade 4) Girls Basketball
The Junior Varsity C team, coached by Spring Wang and Emily Pereira, finished in first place in the WBAL with a 5-0 record. Team awards went to Jillian Chen (MVP), Sophie McGrath (Eagle) and Maya Horan (Coaches).
LS Intramural Girls Basketball
Team awards went to Sasha Gupta, grade 4 (Eagle) and Julie Chen, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tobias Wade.
VA (grade 8) Boys Soccer
The Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood, Hannah Grannis and Michael Pflaging, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-8. Team awards went to Alex Guo (MVP), Ryan Barth (Eagle) and Chase White (Coaches).
VB (grade 7) Boys Soccer
The Varsity B team, coached by Brighid Wood, Morgan Smith and Ron Paranada, finished in third place in the WBAL with a league record of 2-2-1, and an overall record of 4-2. Team awards went to Ruhan Sahasi (MVP), Vyom Vidyarthi (Eagle), and Bowen Xia and Aarav Borthakur (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Boys Soccer
The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood and Dini Wong, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record of 3-5. Team awards went to Stanley Chen (MVP), Cyrus Ghane (Eagle) and Krish Nachnani (Coaches).
JVB (grade 5) Boys Soccer
The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Colleen Campbell and Oscar Flores, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 3-2-1. Team awards went to Vladimir Shchegrov (MVP), Ayden Grover (Eagle) and Rohan Goyal and Mason Brooks (Coaches).
LS Intramural Boys Soccer
Team awards went to Teodor Arnaudov, grade 4, Shridhar Chaware, grade 4, and Sudhith Gondipalli, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Karriem Stinson and Dominic Flocchini.
Congratulations to all our athletes and coaches for a great winter season!
The ongoing school closure, which began last week as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has dramatically changed the day-to-day lives of Harker students and faculty, but the community is still finding ways to continue both instruction and socializing by switching to platforms such as Zoom. Yesterday, the advisory of Office of Communication Director Pam Dickinson and Performing Arts Chair Laura Lang-Ree met via Zoom, and The Harker School Jazz Band decided to try taking its practice online. Upper School Admission Director Jennifer Hargreaves’ advisory posed for a photo during its Zoom meeting, and juniors Nilisha Baid, Anoushka Buch, Ruya Ozveren and Sabrina Takemoto took the opportunity for an online hangout during today’s lunch.
Business and entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass’ students studied demographics for a marketing project and did a case study on how to market Apple products to previous generations. “The teams had great ideas utilizing the marketing mix strategy, also known as the four P’s: product, place, price and promotion,” Glass said. “And we are enjoying being able to remote learn and collaborate despite the circumstances.” During some extra break time in upper school science teacher Chris Spenner’s class on research on methods, the students were treated to an impromptu jazz performance by sophomore saxophonist Aaron Tran. “It was a poignant moment of community and support in strange times,” said Spenner, who was understandably “too entranced by the performance” to capture it in a video.
“Cmd-Delete,” a short documentary created by juniors Jason Lin, Sara Yen and Amar Karoshi, was today named the grand prize winner of C-SPAN’s 2020 StudentCam contest. It also received the Fan Favorite award for receiving the most votes among the contest’s 12 finalists. The documentary, which explores the impact of technology on the electoral process, will air on C-SPAN throughout the day on April 21, starting at 6:50 a.m. EST. A cash prize of $5,000 also was awarded. Nearly 5,400 students submitted entries into this year’s contest, which invited students to produce short documentaries on national issues. Other topics covered this year included climate change, prison rights, health care and the separation of immigrant families.
A team of computer scientists including Anand Natarajan ’09 recently published a proof that has solved “a raft of open problems in computer science, physics and mathematics,” wrote Quanta Magazine’s Kevin Hartnett. Natarajan co-authored the proof with researchers at Caltech, the University of Toronto, the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Texas, Austin. The full article contains an in-depth explanation of how the proof was developed.
Middle school students became regional champions at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Middle School Science Bowl, held Feb. 22 at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Coached by middle school math chair Vandana Kadam, the team of eighth graders Gautam Bhooma, Justin Chen, Ethan Liu and Arnav Swaroop and seventh grader Jonathan Xue went undefeated in the opening round robin portion of the event. In the elimination round, Harker fell to Miller Middle School’s Team 1 before meeting them again in the finals, where Harker won with a score of 92-64. The team will now move on to the finals of the national competition, which takes place April 30-May 4 in Washington, D.C. With the upper school Science Bowl team’s win earlier this month, this marks only the second time in Harker history that both the middle and upper school Science Bowl teams have been regional champions at the same time.
In addition to Kadam’s guidance, the team was coached by upper school students Kyle Li and Emily Liu, both grade 12, junior Russell Yang, sophomores David Dai, Harsh Deep and Rishab Parthasarathy, and freshman Rohan Bhowmik, who organized weekly training sessions with practice questions and coaching on how to remain calm and build teamwork.