Acorn Cottage at Harker Preschool had a pajama day last week, and everyone got comfortable! It was a nice day of service, said Yogeshree Marathe, an Acorn teacher along with Schenelle Henry, Swagata Chatterjee and Sara Bayati. “As part of our lesson about being thankful and giving, we had a pajama drive,” Marathe noted. “The children brought in new child-size pajamas with a new book or new toy to donate.” The donations will be combined with the lower school’s annual pajama drive. They all look very cozy!
On Friday night, the Harker Speaker Series hosted a special evening with legendary composer David Amram. During his nearly 70-year career, Amram has collaborated with many of the 20th century’s most influential cultural figures, including Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson and Leonard Bernstein.
The event began with a scintillating performance by the upper school jazz band, which was joined by Amram on flute and percussion, demonstrating that his skills as a soloist remain sharp. He then sat down with Harker English teacher Charles Shuttleworth for a live interview, during which Amram shared his incredible life story, beginning with his interest in classical music, which he discovered at age 11. He later became enamored with jazz, gospel and folk music from around the world. Amram described much of his life as “serendipity,” having been repeatedly blessed to be put in contact with (and subsequently work with) top musicians. After serving in the military, he was introduced to jazz bassist Charles Mingus, with whom he began playing while studying at the Manhattan School of Music. He later met Thelonious Monk, who complimented Amram on his French horn playing. “I almost fainted,” Amram recalled.
After concluding the interview, Amram joined the Harker upper school orchestra to perform Franz Schubert’s haunting “Unfinished Symphony,” as well as an original work he wrote as a tribute to Afro-Cuban percussionist and composer Chano Pozo during a 1977 cultural exchange trip to Cuba. Titled “En Memoria de Chano Pozo,” the piece incorporates audience participation, and the audience happily clapped along toward the finale. Following the event, Amram participated in an audience Q&A session before signing copies of his books in the lobby for the appreciative attendees.
Last week, the girls volleyball team dominated in its run through CCS as it defeated Pacific Grove, Harbor and Sacred Heart Prep all 3-0 on its way to the D4 CCS championship. This is just the second CCS team title in Harker history! The Eagles were bumped up to D2 for the NorCal tournament and will travel to Modesto to face off with Central Catholic on Tuesday night.
Girls Golf
Last week, the girls golf team had its best finish in Harker history as it ended the season with a fifth place finish at the NorCal Regionals. Although the team season came to an end, Natalie Vo, grade 11, and Claire Chen, grade 9, each shot a 3-over-par 75 and qualified for the state championships that will be held at Pebble Beach on Nov. 19.
Girls Tennis
The girls tennis team defeated ND Belmont 7-0 in a WBAL playoff match last week. The win helped push the Eagles into CCS where they open at Salinas High on Monday.
Cross Country
The cross country team competed at the WBAL finals last week and, for the first time since 2015, the girls team qualified for CCS with Anna Weirich, grade 11, leading the way with a third place finish in the girls varsity race. Rigo Gonzales, grade 9, placed 14th in the varsity boys race and qualified as an individual for CCS. The CCS finals will be held on Saturday at Crystal Springs Cross Country Course.
Scholastic Teams
Each season, CCS honors the teams that produce the highest GPA in their specific sport. For the fall season, Harker boys cross country (3.953) and football (3.554) each finished with the highest GPA in their sports, and boys water polo (3.670) finished third. Congratulations to our amazing student athletes!
Krish Mysoor, grade 8, had a record-setting weekend in debate, placing first at the Damus Hollywood Invitational, hosted by the Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame schools in Los Angeles, Nov. 2-4.
Mysoor is the only eighth grader in memory to take first place at a varsity national qualifier to the Tournament of Champions (TOC). TOC-designated tournaments are considered to be the most challenging debate tournaments because they attract the most competitive schools from multiple states. The topic for the event was whether or not the United States ought to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels.
Students who reach a certain level of elimination-round success at two of those events are invited to compete at the most elite varsity championship at the end of the year. It is extremely rare for a middle school student to even reach early elimination rounds at TOC tournaments, let alone to have a perfect preliminary record and then go on to win five elimination rounds in a row. The team is very proud of his outstanding accomplishment.
Lincoln Garrett, the head debate coach of the University of Kentucky, which hosts the Tournament of Champions, noted of Mysoor’s accomplishment, “That is incredible. To go from learning the activity a short while ago to winning a competitive tournament is remarkable.”
Mysoor is known for his hard work and being a great teammate. His remarkable success has attracted quite a bit of attention from the national debate community. Go Harker speech and debate!
As part of the business and entrepreneurship department’s CareerConnect program, and thanks to the generous support of the Constellation Research organization, four upper school Harker students attended the annual Constellation Research Conference on Tuesday at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay.
The event is a three-day innovation summit and executive retreat with one-on-one interviews with marketing visionaries, “executive exchanges, fireside chats and disruptive technology demos,” according to its website. Attendees included leaders from Arby’s Restaurant Group, CBRE Group, Estée Lauder, Spotify, Symmons Industries, The University of Texas System and the U.S. government.
Students had the opportunity to hear from amazing panelists and speakers including the “Father of the Internet,” Vint Cerf, among others, on the topic “Inside Exponential Business Models – From Post Digital Divide to Winner Takes All Networks.” Cerf spoke at Harker in 2013; read about it in Harker News.
There also was a great social luncheon where students were able to network with thought leaders around the world (see pictures attached), noted Juston Glass, teacher in the BE program, “and it was overall an amazing experience for the students to take part in this exclusive, leading-edge, professional experience/conference.”
During the middle school’s trip week, sixth graders headed to Redwood Glen for four days of fun and bonding. The first day was busy, as students played human foosball, traversed balance beams and participated in various activities meant to build trust with one another. Cooperative activities comprised a significant part of the trip, as students navigated a ropes course and went kayaking at Elkhorn Slough. These and other activities also gave them a chance to appreciate many natural marvels and wildlife, spotting owls, sea lions and otters as well as watching the Orionid meteor shower thanks to the clear evening skies.
During the middle school’s trip week, sixth graders headed to Redwood Glen for four days of fun and bonding. The first day was busy, as students played human foosball, traversed balance beams and participated in various activities meant to build trust with one another. Cooperative activities comprised a significant part of the trip, as students navigated a ropes course and went kayaking at Elkhorn Slough. These and other activities also gave them a chance to appreciate many natural marvels and wildlife, spotting owls, sea lions and otters as well as watching the Orionid meteor shower thanks to the clear evening skies.
During the middle school’s trip week, sixth graders headed to Redwood Glen for four days of fun and bonding. The first day was busy, as students played human foosball, traversed balance beams and participated in various activities meant to build trust with one another. Cooperative activities comprised a significant part of the trip, as students navigated a ropes course and went kayaking at Elkhorn Slough. These and other activities also gave them a chance to appreciate many natural marvels and wildlife, spotting owls, sea lions and otters as well as watching the Orionid meteor shower thanks to the clear evening skies.
Grade 4 students enjoyed a special Diwali celebration today, making lanterns for the annual multiday festival – celebrated in Hindu, Sikh and Jain cultures – that commemorates light as a symbol of virtue and knowledge triumphing over evil and ignorance. In addition to the fun craft activities, the students also enjoyed an assortment of delicious snacks.
Harker held its annual TEDx conference this past weekend, bringing some great speakers and booths to the campus.
Speakers included Priti Hegde, Ph.D., director and global franchise lead for cancer immunotherapy biomarkers at Genentech, whose talk was on “Our Immune System and Our Defense Against Cancer.” Dale Hitt, a Silicon Valley innovator who helped bring to market the Motorola Android phone and the first TiVo DVR, also spoke. His talk was titled “AI is Watching You … and it is a Good Thing,” a very hot topic at the moment.
Cynthia Zhai, voice coach, speaker and author, talked about “The Transformative Power of Your Voice.” Zhai has helped business professionals from around the world to speak with impact and conviction. Finally, Simar Bajaj, grade 12, spoke on “Breaking the Locks: Why I cut My Hair After 17 Years.” Bajaj is studying history and medicine and has worked as a paid fellow in Stanford’s cardiothoracic surgery department.
One of the highlights of the day was a lunch with 20 mentors from a wide variety of businesses. They included Tony Wong, who has worked for Salesforce, Oracle and Siebel Systems; Ekta Sahasi, vice president of the North American Business Innovation Center and managing director of research for Konica Minolta; and Jeff Rothschild, an entrepreneur and engineer specializing in system architecture, storage software and infrastructure software.
Booth displays included Pomodoro Architects, which uses 3D modeling software and virtual reality to create designs; EyeCloud.ai, which specializes in AI smart vision embedded devices; and CloudMosa, which aims to empower the world’s phones through cloud computing to make them universally powerful and useful.