For the second year in a row, Harker Preschool will offer a summer camp program, filling its beautiful eight-acre Union Avenue campus with children after the regular school year ends. Campers will enjoy the school’s large sunny cottages, spacious play yards and specialty classrooms.
Preschool summer camp is held in two sessions, each designed to engage and excite young children through familiar summer themes. The program is staffed by year-round Harker teachers, assistant teachers and aides. Students are grouped by age, with families choosing one or both sessions to match their schedules.
When it launched its summer program, the preschool joined the Harker community’s long-running tradition of making summer offerings open the public. Session one will run for four weeks from June 22-July 17; session two begins on July 20 and ends three weeks later on August 7. Full and half-day options are available, with extended care offered in the early morning and late afternoon.
This year, campers will focus on three specialty areas: art, music and movement, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Each classroom will spend a week with a specialty teacher in a workshop format designed for maximum exploration and exceptional fun.
“We are excited to highlight our specialty programs during the summer session,” reported Kelly Espinosa, director of summer and preschool programs. “The partnership between specialist and the children’s regular classroom teachers will ensure a rich balance of activities throughout the summer. It’s going to be great fun!”
To be eligible for Harker Preschool’s summer program, children must turn three by Dec. 1, 2015 and be under the age of six by August 2015. For more information, visit preschool.harker.org.
Registration is off to a great start for Harker’s Summer Camp+, an annual program for students in grades K-5 held on the lower school campus. Camp+ offers a well-rounded summer experience by providing morning learning sessions followed by a wide variety of afternoon activities.
This year the theme of Camp+ is “Camp on the 7 Seas.” Campers will be jumping on board an on-site sailing ship with the camp mascot “Ray” for a summer full of exciting seafaring adventures and special events. Last summer, the increasingly popular program filled up at record speed, attracting some 774 campers.
Camp+ students in grades 1-5 have traditionally had the option of enrolling in one of two academic morning programs: Core Focus or Learning Opportunities in Literature (LOL). Core Focus is a more traditional learning environment with language arts, math and academic electives for each grade level. LOL features academic courses designed around literary subject matter. Both Core Focus and LOL feature the same afternoon options, including arts and crafts, dance, water play, wall climbing, archery and array of field sports.
New this year, campers in grades 2-5 may choose an art and music program for the morning session, which will include an artist’s studio and an orchestra, a rock band and songwriting workshops. These programs provide additional options for students who have an interest in or talent for art and/or music. See below for further details about this exciting new offering.
Artist Studio
During the four-week session, campers will have the option to choose Artist Studio instead of the morning Core Focus program. Artists will spend their camp mornings involved in activities and lessons designed to stimulate and enhance their creativity and knowledge of art. Campers will learn about art history and famous artists, in addition to practicing and exploring a variety of art mediums and techniques in depth. Art exploration also strengthens skills that are important to academic achievement and success: confidence, problem solving, perseverance, focus, collaboration and accountability. The class also will take field trips to galleries and museums. Artist Studio may be chosen as a morning-only class or combined with the Camp+ activity program to create a partial or full-day schedule.
Summer Music
During two-week sessions, campers have the option to choose a music class instead of the morning LOL program or the Camp+ activity program. Musically inclined students may create their own combinations for maximum learning and musical fun.
Orchestra Workshop
These two-week workshops offer instrumental students entering grades 2-5 the opportunity to explore music, through exposure to music theory and composition, improvisation, ear training and singing, ensembles and full orchestral playing. Participants must have at least six months of experience playing the violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn and trombone. A performance, recording and printed score will be given to each student at the conclusion of each session.
Rock Band Workshop
Who doesn’t want to join a band? This two-week workshop offers instrumental students with at least six months of experience playing guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and voice a cool opportunity to explore music, through exposure to music theory, composition, improvisation, ear training and singing while creating their own band! A performance, recording and printed score will be given to each student at the conclusion of each session.
Songwriters Studio
A songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics to songs, the musical composition (chords) or melody to songs or both. Students in this class will learn melody writing, lyric writing, popular song forms, basic music production and more. There’s no need to know music theory or notation or even to play a musical instrument … just sign up and start writing!
For more information about Camp+, including schedules and pricing, visit http://summer.harker.org. The Harker School has offered extensive summer programs for more than 50 years. The Summer Camp+ program is accredited nationally by the American Camping Association.
The Harker Research Symposium celebrated its 10th year on April 11, as people from across the Harker community visited the upper school campus to see the work of the school’s dedicated research community.
Harker’s hardworking WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) club began organizing the symposium at the start of the school year. Anita Chetty, US Science Dept. Chair and WiSTEM advisor inaugurated and has overseen the event since its inception a decade ago.
“It’s a good event,” said member Anushka Das, grade 12. “We have really great keynote speakers and a lot of people in the audience (for talks). The students, families and parents come to see everyone’s kids. It’s a tight community.”
Middle and upper school students occupied venues throughout campus for most of the day, giving poster presentations in the gym and holding breakout sessions in various rooms at Nichols Hall, often with members of the scientific community as their audience. Presenters included senior Andrew Jin, a national winner in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search; Intel finalists Steven Wang and Rohith Kuditipudi, both grade 12; and Siemens Competition regional finalists Sadhika Malladi, Jonathan Ma and Vineet Kosaraju, all grade 11.
The Nichols Hall Atrium was the busiest spot for much of the day, with corporate exhibitors attracting throngs of attendees, who wandered from station to station trying out high-powered microscopes and virtual reality gadgets, and even jumping behind the wheel of Tesla vehicles. “The kids have great microscopy questions,” said Technical Instruments representative April Myles.
Outside Nichols Hall, the all-girl Infinities robotics team drove their robot, which boasts a holonomic drive system, multiple lift systems and passive intakes, plus rubber bands and string. The team is advancing to a world tournament this year.
Chemistry teacher Andrew Irvine wowed a lunchtime crowd of at least 250 people with flames and the shattering of liquid-nitrogen frozen bananas and apples. “He’s playing with his food,” one girl in the audience joked to her friend.
This year featured yet another impressive lineup of keynote speakers. The first, climate scientist Dr. James McClintock’s “From Penguins to Plankton” talk, filled Nichols Auditorium almost to capacity. McClintock is an Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. With more than 235 scientific publications and 14 expeditions to Antarctica in his career, he is considered a leading authority on Antarctic marine chemical ecology. “I’m very impressed with Harker,” said McClintock. “The students are very capable and excited and, to be honest, like college students. I’ve had several discussions with students at a level you’d expect in college.”
Another featured speaker was Dr. Suhas Patil, founder of top semiconductor company Cirrus Logic and creator of the fabless model of semiconductor manufacturing. Also among his many achievements, he co-founded the Indus Entrepreneurs, which has become the largest nonprofit in the world for budding entrepreneurs.
Harker alumna Shabnam Aggarwal ’03, now the CEO of KleverKid, shared the story of her journey from the wealth of Wall Street to the poverty of Cambodia, where she taught English to girls who had fled the world of sex trafficking. Later, in India, she explored various ways to combat illiteracy, which eventually led her to found her latest venture, KleverKid. Prior to her talk, Aggarwal spoke to a group of grade 5 students from Rocketship Si Se Puede Academy, answering their questions about the importance of technology, education and women’s issues in India.
“We have such great kids involved in science, and this is a nice opportunity for them to share with our community what they’re interested in,” said Diane Main, Harker director of Learning, Innovation and Design. “Last night the orchestra performed, today the sciences perform.”
Harker students had another successful year at the 2015 Synopsys Silicon Valley & Technology Championship, held in March at the San Jose Convention Center.
Three upper school contestants won grand prizes, earning them trips to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Juniors Jonathan Ma and Sadhika Malladi each won a grand prize in the Biological Sciences category, while Nitya Mani, grade 12, was a grand prize winner in Physical Sciences. Vedaad Shakib, grade 10, was named a grand prize alternate in Physical Sciences. Malladi and Mani also received $250 each from the Whitney Foundation, and Mani received a certificate of achievement from Mu Alpha Theta.
Upper school students were most successful in the RRI Biological Sciences category. In addition to the awards won by Ma and Malladi, Rahul Jayaraman, grade 12, won a first award. Vineet Kosaraju, grade 11, Madhuri Nori, grade 12, and Amrita Singh, grade 10, won second awards, while sophomore Venkat Sankar earned an honorable mention. Nori also received a second place award and $175 cash prize from the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science.
In RRI Physical Sciences, senior Vamsi Gadiraju earned a first award, a $100 first prize from Morgan Lewis and an honorable mention from the Society of Vacuum Coaters. Fellow senior Leo Yu also received several honors, including an honorable mention student award from the Association for Computing Machinery, a certificate from Arizona State University’s Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, a certificate of achievement from Mu Alpha Theta and a certificate of achievement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Amy Dunphy, grade 9, received an honorable mention and a high school finalist certificate from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation. Another honorable mention went to Evani Radiya-Dixit, grade 10.
Sophomore Rishab Gargeya won a second award in Bioinformatics. He was one of six award winners in the category, with grade 9 students Jerry Chen, Anastasiya Grebin, Amy Jin and Anooshree Sengupta all earning honorable mentions and Justin Xie, also grade 9, receiving a certificate of achievement from Mu Alpha Theta.
Trisha Dwivedi and Kshithija Mulam, both grade 10, each won honorable mentions in Botany. In Engineering, freshman Rajiv Movva and sophomore Arjun Subramaniam both earned first awards, with Subramaniam also winning a trip to the headquarters of cloud services provider Firebase to work on his application programming interface (API).
Manan Shah, grade 10, received a first award in Computers/Mathematics, in which Vedaad Shakib won a second award and a certificate of achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Sneha Bhetanabhotla, grade 10, received an honorable mention in the physics category.
In the Behavioral/Social category, junior Mary Najibi was awarded a certificate of achievement from the American Psychological Association. Sophomore Neymika Jain earned a second award in Medicine/Health/Gerontology and a certificate from ASU’s Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives.
Several Harker grade 8 students also had success at Synopsys. In Zoology, Nishka Ayyar and Srija Gadiraju both won honorable mentions, as did Ashli Jain and Sonal Muthal in the Chemistry category. Krish Kapadia and Anjay Saklecha both won first awards in Medicine/Health/Gerontology, and also received nominations to compete in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition.
In Behavioral/Social, Shafieen Ibrahim and Keval Shah won first awards and Broadcom MASTERS nominations. Meanwhile, Kaushik Shivakumar received a certification of achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps for his project in Physics, and Cindy Wang received an honorable mention in Engineering.
Finally, Alexander Young won a first award in Biochemistry/Microbiology and received a nomination to compete in Broadcom MASTERS.
Last week, the final piece of a new kiosk outside the upper school library was attached. Freshman Peter Connors designed and built the structure for his Eagle Scout project. Maintenance director J.R. Del Alto used a forklift to place the roof, which was then fastened, completing a campus feature that upper school division head Butch Keller had wanted to see added for some time. Located at the busy intersection of the walkways outside Manzanita Hall, the upper school library and the main building, the kiosk will provide another way to keep the upper school community informed.
Connors received help in building the kiosk from fellow freshmen Vinny Vu and Amitej Mehta, of whom Connors said, “Without them, this project would never have been completed.”
This article originally appeared in the spring 2015 Harker Quarterly.
A parent was recently talking to me about the big idea behind organizations. It was his contention that when an organization is founded on a big idea, like ending poverty or stopping global warming, people follow that organization more readily. The big idea can be quite simple, but it has to be big.
The parent then asked me what Harker’s big idea was. I immediately thought that Harker students are taking their academic knowledge and applying it to real-world problems to make a difference in the world.
Yes, most independent schools say something like this. And yes, this sounds a little like a parody of a sentiment from the HBO comedy “Silicon Valley,” when the founder of the fictional company Goolybib says, “But most importantly we’re making the world a better place. Through constructing elegant hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility.”
So we too are guilty of dreaming big. We have students doing award-winning research in tumor detection and climate modeling. We have a second grader who wrote the White House about her concerns about smoking.
We have journalists who wrote about the gender gap in technology in the student-run magazine Wingspan. We have students from preschool through senior year making beauty in the world through visual and performing arts.
Most schools fortunate enough to have students and teachers like ours can highlight similar efforts. The point is that students today want to learn deeply in academic and extracurricular domains and apply their learning to the world around them. Learning and doing to make a difference. (Hey, that sounds like a motto.)
It is inspiring to watch. It is even more inspiring to inspire, as our teachers have the opportunity to do.
The difference students make in the world as children and young adults does not have to be large in scale. Ralph Waldo Emerson defines success like this: “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” Now that is a big idea.
So what’s the big idea? When I was in high school, my biggest preoccupations were getting a date to the prom and joining a rock band. Teens still have some of those concerns these days – and thank goodness they do. But I am optimistic about today’s youth precisely because of their propensity to learn and do to make a difference. Will they make the world a better place? That is a tall order for any generation, but I think this generation already has.
Ancient and modern China formed an intriguing focus of study for 21 middle school students during their recent visit to the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS), Harker’s sister school in Shanghai.
At the end of March, 16 seventh graders and five eighth graders united for an action-packed week with their WFLMS buddies, who had earlier in the school year spent time at Harker as part of an annual reciprocal student exchange program.
Journeying to China is a much-anticipated adventure and highlight of the middle school experience for many grade 7 and 8 students. While there, the Harker contingent visited numerous landmarks and historic sites.
Originally based around the grade 8 computer science class’ global issues forum, the annual China trip expanded two years ago to incorporate the grade 7 historical component of learning about ancient China.
Keith Hirota, grade 6 ancient civilizations teacher, headed this year’s trip. Carol Green, Harker’s middle and upper school communication studies department chair, who was already in China serving as an exchange teacher at WFLMS, joined the group as a chaperone.
After a smooth flight, the students were warmly welcomed at Pudong International Airport by their pals from WFLMS, Hirota recalled. From there, they hopped on a WFLMS bus for the short drive into the city to meet their host families.
The next morning, when the group arrived on the school’s campus, a large electronic sign read, “We warmly welcome the teachers and students from The Harker School.”
“The students were greeted by WFLMS computer teacher Jack Sheng (who speaks fluent English with an Aussie accent), who sent them around campus on a fun orientation/scavenger hunt,” shared Hirota.
After that, the Harker students participated in a dance class, followed by a class on the history, culture and food of China. The students also attended a class on Chinese geography that highlighted the Shanghai area. At the conclusion of the lesson, they headed to the auditorium, where they shared information about their American culture with the WFLMS student body.
“They each did a great job talking about Harker clubs, after-school activities, spirit events and houses, speech and debate, special classes and electives, middle school sports, lunch and snacks, American holidays, famous American points of interest, video gaming and social media,” Hirota observed.
The Harker students then hopped on a bus and headed for Zhujiajiao. The word Zhujiajiao means “Zhu Family Settlement.” It is one of six ancient water villages on the outskirts of Shanghai. With a population of 60,000, it features 36 stone bridges and thousands of ancient buildings along the riverbanks. After a boat ride through the canal, the students were given time to explore and bargain hunt throughout the hundreds of food and novelty shops in the area.
“We had a 12-course family style lunch with a scenic view overlooking the canal and shops. After lunch, students were given more time to explore and shop. We drove back to Shanghai and had an early dinner at Da Niang Dumplings. Before heading off to ‘Era’ (the Shanghai Circus), the students had some time to buy desert and snacks at a few local shops. After a brief drive through the city, we arrived at the circus venue and our students were met by their WFLMS buddies. The circus was simply amazing and the highlight of the day!” reported Hirota.
The students’ subsequent time at WFLMS included learning a form of ancient Kung Fu called Wushu and how to play Chinese instruments called the erhu and pipa. They also had fun making Chinese opera masks to take home.
Another highlight for the Harker students was taking a rickshaw tour of Beijing, which included a moving visit to Tiananmen Square, site of the 1989 protests and ensuing military action. From there the group headed to the Forbidden City, where they were guided through several of its 980 palatial buildings. Then came a memorable visit to the Great Wall of China. After taking a ski lift to the top of the mountain, the group entered the wall. Students took many photos of the renowned structure and enjoyed a toboggan ride back down the mountain.
The students’ time at WFLMS ended with a farewell ceremony and dinner. “The ceremony was bittersweet as we watched several students from both schools give touching speeches and performances,” recalled Hirota, noting that Harker students and their WFLMS buddies had been faithfully corresponding since the fall.
Reflecting on the trip, grade 7 student Jatin Kohli said he really enjoyed the homestay with his buddy and the time they spent walking along the Huangpu River and the Bund, a famous waterfront area. “I wish our buddies could have joined us on our trip north to Beijing. The trip felt too short and I wish I had more time,” he said.
Grade 8 student Julia Amick added, “My favorite part of the homestay was getting to tour around Shanghai with my buddy and her parents and trying new and exotic foods like stinky tofu!”
Last week, Harker sophomores Sneha Bhetanabhotla, Trisha Dwivedi, Neymika Jain and Kshithija Mulam traveled to San Diego to present their research project at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology. Their project, on alternative breast cancer treatments, was one of eight high school projects chosen from around the country. On March 24, the students presented it for the first time to toxicology professors and experts.
That same day, the students met with researchers from Paris and toured the San Diego Convention Center. The following day, they were chosen to present at the poster session where toxicology experts were showing their research.
“Our research considered alternative treatments to breast cancer by using sodium bicarbonate to counteract acidity and enhance alkalization in the body in order to inhibit the invasion and metastasis of the cancer tumor,” said Mulam. “This experiment was conducted in vitro on mammary carcinoma cell line 4T1 using known anti-cancer supplement epigallocatechin gallate (green tea extract) as a comparison point to sodium bicarbonate.”
“Our project was accepted to the poster presenting session in which other professionals and researchers were presenting their works,” said Dwivedi. “On both days, we had a lot of professors and experts on the cancer cells and experiments we tested, so we received both commendations as well as feedback on how we can improve our project and take it to the next level. We are pleased to see that many experts who had been researching what we did were interested by what we had done, and our team is hopeful to expand upon our project to hopefully be able to present at next year’s conference in New Orleans.”
The professors in attendance were happy to offer advice to the students, who jumped at the opportunity to receive feedback from notable people in the field. “The chance to network with professionals and to present our findings to a larger audience at the conference was definitely an unforgettable experience for all of us,” said Mulam, “We hope to encounter more opportunities that help us further explore and appreciate the merits of research in the future.”
Following two successful years, Harker’s wrestling summer camp is back, offering top-level coaching and instruction on one of the world’s oldest sports. Novice wrestlers will be trained on the fundamental skills necessary for competition, while experienced competitors will be challenged to reach the next level. In addition to wrestling skills, the camp will integrate TRX suspension training, goal setting and weight management.
Returning for another appearance at this year’s camp is 2011 NCAA National Champion Anthony Robles, who received an ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete with a Disability as well as ESPY’s Jimmy V Award.
Daily camp activities will include a morning warm-up, strength training, technique drills, live wrestling and small tournaments.
Longtime Harker athletics coach Karriem “Coach K” Stinson will again direct the camp with three-time CCS place winner Shawn Henebry, a first-place winner at the Veterans U.S. National Championships. Stinson has coached three wrestlers who have gone on to become members of the California national wrestling team, as well as several CCS placers. Rejoining the coaching staff is De Anza Hall of Fame inductee Jay Lawson, who led the De Anza League to 13 championships and has coached 10 CCS champions.
The camp will take place July 27-31 at Harker’s middle school campus, located at 3800 Blackford Ave. in San Jose. Each day of camp will start at 9 a.m. and end at 3 p.m., with an hour break for lunch. For more information on this and Harker’s other summer programs, please visit the Harker Summer website.
The Harker Speaker Series, co-sponsored by the communication studies and business and entrepreneurship departments, presents documentarian Larry Lansburgh in a talk titled, “Into the Amazon: How One Presentation Changed My Life.”
This talk is especially appropriate for middle and upper school students, so bring your kids! It will be held on Thursday, April 9, at 5 p.m. in the Nichols Hall auditorium. There is no entry fee, but RSVPs are required; just email communications@harker.org.
Lansburgh is the writer, producer and director of “Dream People of the Amazon,” a documentary about the Achuar people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. In his talk, he will share how a single presentation dramatically changed his life and how he went on to make a real difference in the lives of the Achuar people.
“It was a presentation – just several people speaking to us in the audience,” said Lansburgh, “that led me to a life-and-death struggle in the Amazon rain forest. … The power of presentations – your presentations, your standing in front of a group and speaking – can literally change lives.”
Lansburgh received an Emmy for “The Hidden Struggle,” a one-hour PBS documentary on the inspiring achievements of developmentally disabled young adults, and an Academy Award nomination for “Dawn Flight,” a dramatic short. He also has produced documentaries on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and Hawaii.
Come hear this fascinating speaker!
The Harker Speaker Series (HSS) was launched in 2007 to bring leaders and visionaries from a wide variety of fields to Harker to share their expertise or unique experiences with Harker parents, faculty and students as well as the greater community. For more information, contact communications@harker.org.