On Feb. 6, students Michael Amick, Siobhan Cox, Karan Das-Grande and Andy Perez, all grade 12, each signed a national letter of intent to play their respective sports at the college level. Amick will join the UCLA men’s soccer squad, Cox will play women’s soccer at Stanford, Das-Grande pledged to play water polo at Connecticut College and Perez signed to play men’s soccer at University of California, Santa Barbara. Classmate Maverick McNealy signed with Stanford for golf in November. Watch for the full story of Harker letter of intent signers in the spring 2013 edition of Harker Quarterly.
Harker’s middle school recently played host to guests visiting from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai, China.
Towards the end of January, students and staff at the Blackford campus graciously welcomed 19 WFLMS students and four chaperones as part of Harker’s student exchange program with its Chinese sister school.
The Harker students and their buddies from China, who had been corresponding since the fall, were thrilled to finally meet in person. Come spring, a contingent of Harker students will head to China as part of the annual exchange program which is a highlight and culmination of the middle school experience for many grade 8 students.
The WFLMS is a semiprivate school specializing in the study of foreign languages. From the school’s first day, it abandoned the traditional pattern in foreign language teaching in favor of students learning by practicing new languages at school, home and through travel abroad.
During their stay from Jan. 22-25, the WFLMS students were matched with 19 of Harker’s grade 7 and 8 students. While here, the exchange students observed and attended several middle school classes and headed over to the lower school for a traditional Chinese paper cutting project with grades 4 and 5. In their free time, the visitors ventured out for some sightseeing activities.
Harker’s unique relationship with the school in the People’s Republic of China began in 2003 and is the first of its kind.
“This past winter was really exciting with many international guests coming our way,” enthused Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education, explaining that beyond its relationship with WFLMS, Harker builds progressive academic and cultural relationships between institutions around the world. In addition to the WFLMS visit to the middle school, the upper school welcomed visitors from Harker’s sister schools in Japan, Switzerland and Australia.
The overall goal of Harker’s global education program, said Walrod, is to provide meaningful experiences for students at all grade levels, “preparing them to be true global citizens.”
Upper school dance talent took the stage at the Blackford Theater in early February to celebrate the classical elements of air, water, fire and earth at this year’s upper school dance production, fittingly titled “Elements of Dance.”
Directed by dance teachers Amalia De La Rosa and Karl Kuehn, the main portion of the show consisted of four parts, each highlighting one of the four elements through music, visuals and, of course, choreography. During the part of the production titled “Air,” the stage was bathed in atmospheric blue and green light, with light-footed dancers performing their routines to songs such as “Tornado” by Little Big Town and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” made famous by Judy Garland. Later, during “Fire,” the stage took on a red hue as the performers danced to Tina Turner’s “Disco Inferno” and Camryn’s “Set the Night on Fire,” among others.
In addition to starring in the show, several students also took on choreography duties, such as Tiphaine Delepine, grade 12, who did the choreography for Kerli’s “Walking On Air,” and Angela Ma, grade 11, who collaborated with Kuehn on the choreography for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
The fantastic scenery and lighting were the work of technical director Paul Vallerga and lighting designer Natti Pierce-Thomson, who both used their creativity and expertise to provide the show its atmosphere. Brian Larsen once again performed admirably as sound engineer, while also pulling double duty as production manager. The stylish costumes worn by the performers were designed by De La Rosa and Kuehn, as well as the student choreographers, with alterations made by Harker parent Kim Pellissier (Stephan, grade 11, and Christophe ’12).
Thanks to video conferencing, even students as young as kindergarten can participate in Harker’s successful global education program.
Long before the much-anticipated exchange program with the Tamagawa Gakuen School in Japan that occurs in grade 6, Harker’s youngest students begin building relations with their overseas pals in Tokyo.
Most recently, the lower school’s four kindergarten homerooms held a series of video chats with same-age children from Tamagawa, Harker’s sister school. Parents first learned of the scheduled conferences, which were held in January and February, back at their orientation meeting before the official start of the school year.
Since then, kindergarten families had been looking forward to the video chats, which ran for 30 minutes and afforded both Harker and Tamagawa youngsters the unique opportunity to interact with, learn from and entertain one another.
Because it was such a special happening, parents were invited to join their children for the event, which took place in a designated kindergarten classroom. Harker students were required to wear their full dress uniform the day of their video conference, including their sweaters.
The kindergartners’ initial contact with their Tamagawa buddies has now set the stage for an ongoing relationship that will develop all the way through high school.
“We have lots of fun … and it’s time very well spent!” enthused Sarah Leonard, primary school head, of the video conferences.
Global education programs for the lower school focus on teaching about the similarities and differences between students around the world. Through a variety of activities students learn from each other about their respective countries and cultures.
There are global exchange programs running on all three campuses for students of various grade levels. In addition to Japan, Harker has sister schools in China, Russia, India, Australia, Costa Rica, Spain, Thailand, Ethiopia, Switzerland, France and Saudi Arabia.
The end of January marked the beginning of the winter video conferences between grade 6 students and their same-age buddies from Harker’s sister school, Tamagawa Gakuen, in Tokyo, Japan.
“Every single one of our sixth graders has been partnered with a buddy in Japan who they’ve been emailing through their computer science class,” said Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education.
During the recent conference sessions, the students conversed with their buddies face to face (via the video chats) and participated in a fun game show-style question and answer activity.
Back in September, grade 6 students “met” their Tamagawa buddies and families from Japan for the first time via two separately held video conferences.
Those prior initial meetings for Harker’s 27 middle school students participating in the Tamagawa exchange program served as a prequel to the even more exciting live meetings which occurred Oct. 16 when Tamagawa students visited Harker in person. This spring, a contingent of Harker’s grade 6 students will head to Japan as part of the reciprocal exchange program.
“The video conferences are fun events held on the Blackford campus. We have a translator present to assist with communication,” explained Walrod. “The students are always so excited for them!”
Tamagawa Gakuen is a K-12 school and university founded in 1929 as an elementary education organization. Later secondary education divisions were added, and in 1947 Tamagawa University received approval for establishment as an “old system” (pre-war) university. As a comprehensive institution (gakuen), they currently provide education from kindergarten to graduate school within a single campus.
The recent video conferences have now set the stage for the upcoming grade 6 trip to Japan. Meanwhile, kindergartners also had their own special video conferences where they had the opportunity to meet, explore one another’s classrooms, share their likes, and sing songs in both English and Japanese.
The video conferences and reciprocal student exchange program with Tamagawa are examples of Harker’s rich global education program, which has long strived to weave worldwide activities into its students’ daily lives.
Author Alexandra Zapruder, who penned “Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust,” visited Harker on Feb. 8 to speak to students about the subject of her book and why primary accounts are important to historical analysis. Harker journalism students captured the whole story.
On Feb. 1-2, Harker’s upper school hosted the U.S. Association of Young Physicists Tournament’s (USAYPT) U.S. invitational. The tournament featured students from schools from across the country as well as from China and Tunisia.
In preparation for the tournament, the USAYPT gives students at participating schools four physics problems in February of each year. The teams spend the next year researching and coming up with solutions for the problems, and each team presents its findings at the tournament. A team from another school then attempts to find flaws in the solution.
Judges from universities such as Santa Clara University, San Jose State University and University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as companies such as Apple and Google, compare the students’ methods against a rubric and assign scores accordingly.
Chaima Essid, a student from Pioneer Prep School in Tunisia, entered the tournament thanks to a friend who competed while attending school in the U.S. as an exchange student. “I thought, why not? It would be a great experience,” Essid said. Although she admitted to making some mistakes during her presentation, she nonetheless said she had a great experience and that she was “satisfied” with her performance.
Upper school students and faculty alike gave a warm Harker welcome to visiting exchange teacher Michiko Takahashi, who works as a music instructor at Tamagawa Gakuen, Harker’s sister school in Tokyo, Japan.
During her Jan. 5-18 visit, Takahashi taught Japanese music and observed classes in the upper school’s performing arts department.
“Michiko told me that she had such a wonderful time. She was very impressed with our students and said they seemed to have a lot of direction for what they wanted to do. She definitely had a very special time getting to know our performing arts students and teachers,” recalled Jennifer Walrod, director of the school’s rich global education program, of which Tamagawa Gakuen plays an integral role.
Tamagawa Gakuen is a K-12 school and university founded in 1929 as an elementary education organization. Later secondary education divisions were added, and in 1947 Tamagawa University received approval for establishment as an “old system” (pre-war) university. As a comprehensive institution (gakuen), they currently provide education from kindergarten to graduate school within a single campus.
Although Takahashi does not speak English, she was made to feel at home at Harker, thanks to the efforts of several Japanese-speaking faculty members who offered to serve as interpreters, joining her for meals and serving as friendly faces around campus.
And, from the moment Susan Nace, upper school music teacher, picked Takahashi up from the San Francisco airport, it was a whirlwind of activity. After a weekend of sightseeing, Takahashi began her time at Harker with a tour of the Saratoga campus, followed by a study of the upper school’s music and acting programs.
Other highlights of her visit included lunch with the administration, time spent teaching Japanese classes, a visit with the college counseling department, observing both musical and Shakespeare performances, and enjoying a farewell party with performing arts teachers.
For many years, the teacher exchange program between Tamagawa and Harker has been an important complement to the school’s successful student exchange program.
Two of Harker’s musical theater certificate graduates have gone on to pursue exciting acting careers, taking them both on stage and in front of the camera. Kim Wong ’05, and D.J. Blickenstaff ’09 are rapidly making their marks in showbiz – on the West Coast and East Coast, respectively.
Most recently, Wong, now an actor and theater company founder/co-owner in New York City, took time out to head to Los Angeles where she shot a bit part in the new, much hyped, NBC television drama “Deception.”
“For the first time ever I’m going to be on TV!,” she had enthused earlier when she alerted performing arts faculty at Harker that that she was slated to be on the second episode of the show. “Don’t blink, and you might just catch yours truly as ‘Quinn,’ Mia’s (annoying) classmate.”
Wong is the co-founder of a groundbreaking theater company in New York called The Accidental Shakespeare Company, which mixes theater with improvisation, with casting decisions made by the audience moments before curtain and random props thrown into the mix. The theater company is dedicated to the idea of play.
Harker’s performing arts program played a significant role in Wong’s education. As a kindergartner, she was cast as a fairy princess in “Cinderella.” Every year thereafter Wong performed in Harker’s dance production, and she had the female lead in the upper school’s musical “42nd Street.” After graduation, Wong attended New York University, where she earned a BFA in drama.
She spent this past summer in upstate New York with the Adirondack Shakespeare Company. This spring she will be performing Margaret in the “Kingship Cycle” in New York City with the same company. And, Wong reports her own acting company is going strong and experiencing a rapid growth in audiences.
“I see how the work ethic, the professionalism and the passion that I learned at Harker set me apart from so many other actors. It is the reason why I can develop and run my company!”
Like Wong, Blickenstaff developed his acting chops at Harker. After graduating, he performed in the San Jose Children’s Musical Theater production of “Tommy,” the classic rock opera by The Who. The production received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and Harker’s 2009-10 middle school drama teacher, Kikau Alvaro, a member of the artistic staff of SJCMT, choreographed an electrifying show.
Fast forward to today, and Blickenstaff is thrilled to be a part of a parody musical production of the bestselling novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” which just opened in an off-Broadway theater in New York.
Musical sketch comedy group Baby Wants Candy brought their original production “50 Shades! The Musical” to New York’s Gramercy Theater on Jan. 11-12. The work, which is based on the controversial trilogy by British author E.L. James, drew packed audiences to the Chicago theater where it originally opened and was part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before its New York premiere. Baby Wants Candy and Harker have enjoyed a relationship since the group supported the Conservatory’s cast of “Pippin” at the Fringe in 2011; the group did a workshop at Harker last February, and Harker performing arts director Laura Lang-Ree helped bring Blickenstaff and the improv troupe together.
Blickenstaff worked behind the scenes in production for the show, and also onstage as a dancer. “We did one performance there that somehow filled 788 seats of an 800-seat theater. People loved the show. It was so much fun, and I went back to L.A. so happy to have been a part of it,” recalled Blickenstaff, who went on to do a run in Chicago at the Apollo Theater and the Skoki Center for the Performing Arts.
“I played the role of Elliot Grey (Christin Grey’s brother) and also was the assistant director. Once again, we filled every seat at the Apollo both nights, and got over 500 in Skoki and the audiences, to our almost disbelief and shock, loved the show,” he recalled.
“I have had the best time of my life. I am so lucky to be a part of this production and I am hoping to keep being in it … yay, Harker Conservatory!”
On Wednesday, Rohan Chandra, grade 12, was presented with an award for being a distinguished finalist by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, which annually recognizes and honors young people nationwide who have volunteered to help their communities.
Chandra created earthquake preparedness kits for the senior citizens of his Fremont neighborhood, creating safety guides in a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, Farsi, Hindi and Mandarin. “We live in one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the world, so I wanted to do something to cater to different cultures,” Chandra said. With the help of dozens of volunteers, Chandra raised more than $12,000 to make the project possible.
The award came with a letter from the office of President Barack Obama, thanking Chandra for his efforts and congratulating him on being recognized. He will also receive an engraved bronze medallion in the near future.
Chandra expressed thanks to his family, friends and the Harker community, particularly Kerry Enzensperger, director of upper school community service, who assisted him in discovering this unique opportunity.
“It’s definitely really nice to be recognized,” Chandra said. “I’m just really grateful for it.”