They say you can’t go back, but you can – after you’ve graduated college (Harvard!) and been in the work force for a decade – anyway. Karan Lodha ’04 spent the last five months substituting for Harker teacher Cyrus Merrill, who has been out on paternity leave. Lodha taught grade 8 history classes and had his own learning experiences along the way.
“It’s been a thrilling semester learning how to be a guide and a mentor for my students,” said Lodha. “In the first few weeks, there were moments where I felt like an impostor, but I was lucky to have two weeks with Mr. Merrill in which he taught me how to balance sharing my personality with the students, while maintaining the order and discipline necessary to be an effective teacher. Of course, the most rewarding part has been watching my students learn and grow over the last five months.”
Lodha reached a point in his post-academic career where he was looking for a way to contribute more to society. “I’ve often thought about a career transition to teaching,” he said. “Although I enjoyed my experience in the technology industry, I was always searching for a way to have a more direct impact. I fondly remembered my experiences as a student at Harker, and I stayed in touch with some of my former teachers – and it struck me just how much they had shaped my life.”
After a frustrating experience at his last job, Lodha decided to try moving into full-time teaching. He reached out to former teachers, including Bradley Stoll, his former calculus teacher at Harker. “Mr. Stoll was kind enough to arrange for me to come visit Harker to shadow in the history and math departments, which included sitting in on a class with Donna Gilbert (my former AP European History teacher!).
“Spending those two days at Harker made me realize how connected I still felt to the community here. I visited the Harker careers page and, with the encouragement of Ms. Gilbert and Ruth Meyer in the high school history department, I applied to the opening for the long-term substitute to fill in for Cyrus Merrill while he was on paternity leave.”
Once in the classroom, Lodha had to make it all work. “I had two big challenges,” he said. “The first was learning to call my former teachers and coaches – now my colleagues – by their first names! It was awkward for a few weeks, and even now, I have to fight the feeling that I’m being disrespectful, even when I know I’m not.
“In the classroom, the most challenging aspect for me was learning what pace, depth and difficulty was appropriate for my students. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the eighth grade, so I often found myself leaning on my colleagues, especially Ramsay Westgate, a fellow eighth grade history teacher, to get a better grasp of how best to adapt material, homework and tests to make them accessible to all my students. Of course, many of my students weren’t too shy about expressing their own opinions on the matter!”
The return has been rewarding. “The most fun part of teaching at Harker has been being part of the larger community. I’ve loved going to my students’ concerts, performances and sporting events. After all, Harker students are talented in so many ways, and it’s great to see my students express their passions outside the classroom. As a former Harker athlete and debater, I also still feel the pull of the rivalries with other schools from all those years ago!”
Being on the other side of the teacher’s desk has been enlightening and memorable. “Almost every day and every week has something to remember: a student exceeding his or her potential in an unusual way, a particularly creative project or interpretation that caught my eye, or a joke or a moment that had the whole class in laughter,” said Lodha. “My recollection of this semester will be like one of those collages that has many small photos creating a larger one; there may be one or two bigger themes, but it’s those hundreds of individual memories that really build up to what I’ll take into the years of teaching to come.”
And those years will gain traction at Harker. “I was fortunate enough to receive an offer to join the middle school math department next year,” said Lodha, “so I will be transitioning subjects but remaining a part of this wonderful community.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.
In late April, the 2016 John Near and Mitra scholars were honored at a reception in the Nichols Hall auditorium. Then in May, six Harker teachers were announced as grant awardees from the Raju and Bala Vegesna Teacher Excellence Program, allowing them to pursue a variety of professional development opportunities.
Near and Mitra Endowments Established in 2009 and 2011, respectively, The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund and the Mitra Excellence in Humanities Endowment have allowed students to pursue research on a wide variety of topics.
Donna Gilbert, upper school history and social science chair, opened the Near and Mitra event by remembering beloved history teacher John Near, who passed away in 2009, saying, “He inspired in his students a love for the excitement of historical exploration, which lives on in this special program.”
Gilbert also shared her appreciation for the Mitra family, “whose vision and kindness extended the scholars program to allow students opportunities to study topics in the broader disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.”
This year’s John Near scholars were seniors Jasmine Liu (“A House Divided: Residential Segregation in Santa Clara County”), Sadhika Malladi (“Graphic Soldiers: Popular Sentiment as Reflected in Captain America and Spider-Man”), Zarek Drozda (“Learned Lessons: Financial Innovation and the Panic of 1873”) and Sahana Narayanan (“‘Bee-Boppa-Doe’: The Sounds of Musical Revolution”).
The 2016 Mitra scholars were seniors Elisabeth Siegel (“Ideology Through Subliminal Propaganda: A Critique of Portrayals of Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli and Western Online News Media during Operation Protective Edge”), Kaitlyn Gee (“Pretty in Punk: An Examination of European Female Punk Rock of the 70s and 80s Through a Feminist Lens”), Natalie Simonian (“Whispers in Russia: The Influence of the Rumors Surrounding Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on the Russian Revolution and Their Role in the German Effort to Overthrow the Tsarist Regime”) and Kavya Ramakrishnan (“The Eggleston Effect: Color Photography as Fine Art”).
These eight seniors conducted “hundreds of hours of research that led … to scholarly analysis of musical scores, journals, maps, images, song lyrics, interviews and on and on,” said library director Sue Smith. All of the scholars took the stage to share their thoughts on their research and thank their mentors for their invaluable guidance.
Malladi also thanked her parents “for almost believing me when I said I was reading comic books for research. “Being a Near scholar has been an incredible experience,” she continued. “I realized it was my responsibility to think critically about what I read.” Gee also had kind words for her mentors, upper school English teacher Ruth Meyer and Smith. “Their encouraging, patient and accommodating nature is beyond compare,” she said. She also expressed her gratitude to Harker “for providing me with 13 years of outstanding education.” A video of the entire reception is now available for viewing at https:// harker.wistia.com/medias/asuuh39xd1.
Vegesna Teacher Excellence Program
The 2016-17 awardees in the Raju and Bala Vegesna Teacher Excellence Program were also recently announced. Launched in 2015, this program awards grants to teachers seeking professional development opportunities.
It is the most recent opportunity provided by the Raju and Bala Vegesna Foundation, which has also supported the summer tech grant program and the Harker Teacher Institute. Scott Kley Contini, middle school director of learning, innovation and design, will use his grant to provide Harker teachers with a special class on design thinking, taught by a professor from Stanford University’s d.school.
Preschool science teacher Robyn Stone will work with the Lawrence Hall of Science in a series of workshops about early childhood education, titled “Physics and Engineering Design.” Galina Tchourilova, upper school French teacher, will attend a program in Vichy, France, that instructs French teachers from around the world on teaching methodologies.
Upper school history teacher Andrea Milius will travel to Greece to attend a summer session at The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Finally, upper school science teachers Kate Schafer and Chris Spenner will head to Alaska to participate in a program at the Inian Islands Institute to learn how to improve student understanding of climate change.
To learn more about the Near and Mitra grants, visit http://library.harker.org/upperlibrary/ nearmitra. For more information on Harker’s endowment giving opportunities, visit https://www.harker.org/giving/ endowment-planned-giving.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.
Harker library director Sue Smith and upper school librarians Lauri Vaughan and Meredith Cranston contributed an article on information literacy to the May/June issue of Knowledge Quest, the journal of the American Association of School Librarians. In the article, titled “An Argument for Disciplinary Information Literacy,” they discuss the importance of teaching information literacy to students in a manner appropriate for each discipline.
In April, Daniel Hudkins, Harker’s director of learning, innovation and design (LID), attended the Associated Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (ATLIS) Conference in Atlanta. He co-presented with Jamie Britto, CIO of the Collegiate School in Richmond, Va., on the topics of security and data privacy, sharing a recent occurrence of ransomware appearing on Harker’s network. The conference also provided Hudkins with valuable lessons.
“Among the most important were the importance of having and maintaining planned responses to emergency situations, and that the role of information technology in independent schools is continuing to grow not only as it applies to student learning, but also as it is used as a better way of analyzing data and enhancing productivity,” he said.
Upper school art teacher Pilar Agüero-Esparza was recognized as an artist laureate by SVCreates for her contribution to the arts and culture of Silicon Valley. SVCreates, which identifies itself as “a network of leaders” whose goal is to “ignite investment and engagement in our creative culture,” recognizes five artist laureates each year, awarding them with a cash prize to help them continue their work in the arts. In addition to her work as an arts educator, Agüero-Esparza has been active as an artist and arts administrator throughout the Bay Area. Her work has appeared at the San Jose Museum of Art, Triton Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Santa Cruz Museum, among others.
Please welcome Whendy Carter as Harker’s new preschool director! Carter comes to Harker from New York City, where she served as an educational coach for the NYC Department of Education and Bank Street College of Education. Her previous experience also includes directing the Montclare Children’s School and the Church of the Epiphany Day School and several years as a preschool teacher. As a preschool advisor to The Parents League of New York, she led workshops on early childhood education, and as adjunct professor at Hunter College’s School of Education, she taught a graduate course in early childhood creative arts.
The National Scholastic Press Association recently named upper school journalism teacher Ellen Austin one of this year’s Pioneer Award winners. Considered the NSPA’s highest honor awarded to journalism educators, the Pioneer Award recognizes “individuals who make substantial contributions to high school publications and journalism programs outside of their primary employment,” according to the NSPA website.
Austin, a journalism teacher for more than 15 years, has served on the national board of directors for the Journalism Education Association as well as on the regional board for Northern California. In 2006, she was among the first winners of the JEA’s Rising Star Award, and was named Educator of the Year in 2011 by the California Journalism Education Coalition.
Key among Austin’s accomplishments are diversity initiatives meant to bring more voices to student journalism that have traditionally not been represented. These initiatives have been featured in collegiate research and textbooks covering the topic of diversity in student journalism.
Harker library director Sue Smith recently completed the first major milestone of a two-year grant project with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Working with researchers from the University of Michigan School of Information, Smith acted as the team’s curriculum expert, whose duty was to “develop resources and curricula for various topics within the grant.”
The project, which began in October 2015 and is titled “Data Literacy for High School Librarians,” aims to help school librarians develop greater data and statistical literacy so that they can in turn promote these skills in students. One of the project’s major milestones was a two-day virtual conference on the topics of literacy, data as argument and data visualization. More than 400 teachers and librarians from all over the world viewed the conference.
One of the next major goals of the project is to publish a book on the topics being researched. Smith already has contributed a chapter to the book, a draft of which is scheduled to be published at the end of the grant’s first year. The project is expected to conclude in September 2017.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2016 Harker Quarterly.
Middle school library assistant Renee Ting was awarded a travel grant from the Public Library Association. Ting was one of 10 winners nationwide, selected based on essays about be- ing librarians and why they deserved to receive the grant. Ting received a free registration for the 2016 PLA Conference, held in Denver in April, and $1,000 to help with travel.
Middle school debate teacher Karina Momary was recently profiled in the 2015 edition of Rostrum, the National Speech and Debate Association’s quarterly magazine. In the story, she discusses her teaching method, the annual “Teamsgiving” event and how she got started in speech and debate. Read the whole story at https://issuu.com/speechanddebate/docs/2016_winter_rostrum_web.
In December, middle school soccer coach Brighid Wood worked as a team liaison for USA Soccer as China played the U.S. in the final two games of the World Cup’s Victory Series. She traveled to New Orleans for the final game of the series. Wood also has worked for legendary players such as Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy.
Sandra Berkowitz earned a Second Diamond degree of membership in the National Speech & Debate Association’s Honor Society, based on points earned by students she coached. She will be recognized at the 2016 National Speech and Debate Tournament in Salt Lake City in June and in Rostrum, the association’s quarterly magazine.
Congratulations to middle school science teacher Thomas Artiss, who was named the 2015 Outstanding Biology Teacher for California by the National Association of Biology Teachers. Each year, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Awards recognize excellent biology teachers in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, Puerto Rico and other overseas territories. As a recipient of the award, Artiss is now eligible to attend a special honors luncheon at the 2015 NABT Professional Development Conference, to be held in November in Providence, R.I.
Established in 1962, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award has since become one of the most prestigious annual awards given to biology and life science teachers. The award includes a complimentary one-year NABT membership, a special lapel pin and a gift certificate from Carolina Biological Supply Company.
This past summer, upper school music teacher Susan Nace attended the residential Choral Conducting Institute at St. Stephen’s College of Oxford University through the new Vegesna Grant Program for teachers’ professional development. The institute gave conductors the opportunity to hone their conducting skills, working with James Jordan and the Westminster Williamson Voices, and James Whitbourn, a fellow of St. Stephen’s. The intensive daily program included master classes, seminars by eminent scholars, private tutoring, rehearsals and singing “Compline” at the end of the day. The institute ended with a concert conducted by attendees.
Highlights of the institute included lectures by esteemed conductors Edward Higginbottom and Stephen Darlington; singing at Sunday Mass at Christ Church Cathedral; observing rehearsals of the Christ Church Cathedral choir; inspecting centuries-old manuscripts at the Bodleian Library; and conducting music under the tutelage of the composer.
“As music teachers, we often do not get the opportunity for intensive study with deep internal reflection on and engagement with the music we conduct,” Nace said. “Working closely with professional singers on choral masterworks is a different experience from the classroom, yet afforded us an opportunity to focus solely on our conducting technique to become better communicators with those we do conduct.”
Nace added that “to receive affirmation from scholars, mentors and peers is a rejuvenating and heartening experience that teachers need but often do not receive. This experience has not only given me new perspectives on conducting but also encouragement that I am a very capable conductor and teacher as well as a mentor to other musicians.”
About 100 teachers attended the annual Harker Teacher Institute on June 6. The event offered workshops for educators looking to gain new pedagogical skills to bring to their classrooms and curricula. Teachers learned how to use Google Apps to increase classroom efficiency, methods to challenge students while reducing stress, how to use games to teach mathematics and more.
Natalie Richardson, a teacher from Sacramento who attended the Google Apps workshop, said she plans to use Doctopus to share documents with her students. She was also inspired by Eileen Schick’s workshop on Singapore model drawing, a visual method for solving complex word problems. “I even bought several books on Singapore math word problems after her presentation,” Richardson said. “I am already working on implementation in my junior high class.”
This year’s HTI featured a number of first-time presenters, “including several that were low-tech or no-tech, which was a welcome addition,” said Diane Main, upper school director of learning innovation and design.
“I overheard many attendees comment that they wanted to attend all the sessions,” Main added. “There were so many great speakers and topics to choose from.”
This article first appeared on the Web log for the American Association of School Librarians. It is reprinted here by the kind permission of the author, Diane Main, director of learning, innovation and design at Harker.
When I work on family history research, whether it’s for my own tree or a friend’s, I often find I lose track of time, get totally “in the zone,” and sometimes even forget to eat and sleep enough. That combination of little successes and new challenges that pushes me to the edge of my abilities is something that is referred to as “flow.” If you spend a lot of time with kids, you will have seen it when they are playing video games and can’t seem to put them down. For others, it’s reading books or engaging in some hands-on hobby. Flow is the apex of engagement and motivation.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi pioneered the research into this phenomenon. He was looking into happiness, creativity and motivation, and developed what we now refer to as flow. Flow is doing what you love and what you’re good at, but still being challenged by the activity. We see this in education as well, but sadly we perhaps don’t see it often enough. It is generally thought that the integration of technology into learning environments tends to instantly increase learner motivation and engagement. While this may be true for a short time, unless the use of technology tools builds skills while also presenting appropriate challenges, it loses its motivational value.
As seen in this image from Wikipedia, flow exists at the intersection of high skill level and high challenge level. The emotions that exist in the other regions of the chart are not really what we’re aiming for in learning situations. This can be where games can swoop in to the rescue, as long as their introduction is meaningful and their use well thought-out. Sometimes, it’s great to just have gaming breaks, using games of all kinds, to “reset” the brain and ignite motivation. A quick round of charades or five minutes with Zombie Drop can be a great way to get kids to transition from one activity in class to another.
But there are some games that are becoming the platform for the learning itself, and that are being used for entire class periods over days or even weeks. One such example is MinecraftEDU. Most parents and educators have at least heard of Minecraft. The educational version MinecraftEDU is only available to schools, and it is quickly becoming THE destination for teachers and students who want to maximize learner creativity and engagement in subjects from history and literature to math and science. I teach a computer science course that functions as a survey of the field of computer science without focusing exclusively on programming. We use MinecraftEDU to explore concepts in computer science (such as subroutines, abstraction, conditional statements, loops and algorithms), to engage in the design thinking process by building homes for one another, and to explore introductory level programming with in-game robots called turtles. Instead of learning about our content, my students get the chance to be immersed in a virtual world they can manipulate and learn from.
An unexpected benefit, the first few times I used MinecraftEDU with my high school students, was the community building that seemed to occur instantly when we began to use the game in class. Students who had formerly kept to themselves and not spoken much in class suddenly appeared comfortable with me and the rest of their peers when they started interacting within the game environment. And since most of them had never played Minecraft before, they had a lot to learn, which they did by figuring things out and then teaching each other. Before long, my hesitant high schoolers were losing hours in the game world, building and communicating in ways none of us thought possible. I had stumbled upon a way to bring them to a place of flow. And now I’m hooked too.