A cold Friday night in early January did not keep grade 1 students and their families from attending a movie night held at the lower school.
Warmed by the good feelings of shared camaraderie, they gathered at the gym for the special event which had been organized by grade level coordinators.
Some 74 people attended the evening, where they watched the third “Toy Story” movie. Wearing pajamas, the children sat on blankets munching pizza, salad, fruit and, of course, popcorn, while their parents met and chatted with one another. After the movie was over, the fun continued with students running around enjoying time with friends.
“The purpose of all our after-school gatherings is to promote community,” said Tere Aceves, who Harker’s lower school volunteer director.
Some 30 alumni returned to cheer on their friends for Harker’s first basketball league games of the season, held Jan. 4, in front of a boisterous home crowd at the middle school campus. That night was also the premier of the Student Directed Showcase (SDS), concurrently held at Blackford, which many alums chose to come out in support of as well.
At both of the alumni driven happenings, alumni could be seen proudly sporting alumni “Eagle Nation” T-shirts.
While the Harker versus Menlo boys and girls respective basketball games went a long way towards building team spirit, SDS serves as an important venue for final projects by seniors in the class of the same name.
The graduates, along with the home crowd, celebrated the Harker boys’ win over Menlo at the Friday night game, where girls lost for only the second time this year in a tough match against the 10th-ranked opponent.
At the exciting conclusion of both the basketball games and theater performance, alumni joined basketball players and actors for a fun, informal pizza party held in the Blackford gym. Some parents of the students and grads enjoyed attending the party as well.
“Once again, it was a pleasure to see so many alums return home to Harker. We are truly one big community, where present and past students can join together – whether supporting each other on stage or on a court,” noted MaryEllis Deacon, director of alumni relations.
Dr. Nicolae Mihailide, father of Catalina, grade 12, and an orthopedic surgeon based in Romania, visited Anita Chetty’s human anatomy and physiology classes on Jan. 3 to give presentations on his profession and offer insight into various surgical procedures. Using projected x-ray images from past procedures, Mihailide asked students to identify the problems with the patients in the images. He then explained the procedure, providing samples of prosthetics used in the operations.
Harker’s 10th annual fashion show is just around the corner: Mission: Possible – Dare to Try! For life to have any degree of adventure, joy, satisfaction and challenge, we must take risks. So in this 10th year, there seems no better time to challenge our conventional ways!
THE LIVE AUCTIONS
An exciting change this year is our short, fun auction during lunch. The traditional dinner auction will have some never-before-seen items that will blow you away. And our favorite auctioneer from previous years, Damon Casatico, is back to help encourage you in your bidding.
THE SHOW
We have a new opportunity for donors called Sponsor a Segment. The money raised here will go directly to the budget of the show in the form of lights, video and costumes. For $2,500 you will receive a full color page in our program (valued at $900), two tickets to the show (valued at $350), and your name or company will be promoted at the start or ending of a segment in the lunch and dinner show. There are also some additional benefits; please call us for details.
THE LOBBY
Why go to Vegas when you can enjoy our full-blown lobby casino? Try your luck at winning one of the many showcases featuring all kinds of cool prizes. And there will be a lounge, photographer, a couple of bars (non-alcoholic for lunch) and a few other interesting surprises.
THE SPONSORS
We want to thank in advance our sponsors, especially the “first movers” who have really put us on track to having a very special and successful show. This year we’ve introduced a premiere-seating program: Gold Sponsors get the best seats in the house, Silver, next best and so on. Sponsors and future sponsors, thanks again!
THE VOLUNTEERS
Set up. Makeup and hair. Logistics. There’s so much to do! But we have a small army of volunteers willing and able to get the job done. If you are interested, you’re more than welcome to join our team; two or 20 hours, it’s up to you. And if you just want to see what’s going on, RSVP to one of our monthly meetings.
GET YOUR TICKETS EARLY!
Fair warning … with record tryouts, more models and the overall buzz, this will definitely be a sold out show for both lunch and dinner. Get your tickets early!
THE WEBSITE
The Harker Fashion Show website covers every aspect of the show: model information, upcoming dates, volunteers, sponsorships, tickets, etc. It’s like one-stop shopping for information!
Middle School Basketball A great season in middle school basketball is coming to a close!
The varsity A girls soccer team finished 11-0 and took the league title.
The varsity B boys basketball team finished up 8-2 – co-champs – and took second place in the WBAL tournament.
A huge shout out to the middle school basketball teams!
Upper School
Basketball
Girls varsity basketball improved their record to a spectacular 13-2 after defeating Immaculate Conception Academy 52-32 and crushing Mercy-Burlingame in a crucial league game, 60-36. Against ICA, Nithya Vemireddy, grade 11, led the way with 18 points and 13 rebounds. The girls face off against Notre Dame High School on Friday at 7 p.m.
Boys basketball improved to 9-4 overall and 3-0 in league play with their 68-45 win against Woodside Priory. Sophomore Eric Holt had 19 points and 10 rebounds and junior Will Deng had 14 points and 12 rebounds in the victory. The boys traveled to Sacred Heart Prep this Wednesday in a huge league showdown and host Crystal Springs Friday at Blackford at 7:30 p.m.
Soccer
Girls soccer won a blowout 9-0 victory against Latino College Prep this Tuesday to improve their record to 3-5-1 overall. Before facing Latino College Prep, the girls had recently lost to Pinewood 4-0 and tied Mercy-San Francisco 1-1. They host Immaculate Conception Academy on Friday at 3:30 p.m.
Boys soccer defeated Woodside Priory 6-1 at Davis Field on Saturday and then edged out Crystal Springs in an away game on Wednesday. Their record now stands at a strong 5-2 overall. Against Woodside Priory, goals were scored by Oisin Coveney, grade 9, Denis Celik, grade 12, Jeremiah Anderson, grade 10, Robert Deng, grade 12, Jeffrey Hanke, grade 11, and David Lindars, grade 12. The boys travel to Sacred Heart Prep this Friday.
Michaela Kastelman, whose run as DECA Silicon Valley president ends in March, was recently awarded an Applegate DECA Scholarship worth $5,000. She will receive the scholarship, which is sponsored by Hilton Worldwide, at the DECA International Career Development Conference in April.
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During the first week of the new year, 77 students from the Harker Business Club attended the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference hosted by the California state association of DECA, a nonprofit organization that prepares students interested in pursuing careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
The conference presented an opportunity for students to receive feedback from judges (one of whom was Head of School Chris Nikoloff) on their business plans and to brush up on their presentation skills and learn how to respond to real-life situations. There was also a competitive element to the event, as students participated in contests that involved role-playing or written tests. In all, Harker students won 14 trophies and several medals, with Harker teams and individuals earning eight top-three finishes.
Andre Jia, grade 12, and Brian Tuan, grade 11, took first place in the team Marketing Communications competition. Saachi Jain and Brinda Perumal, both grade 11, were the second-place team in the Business Law and Ethics event; juniors Allison Sun and Emily Lin earned second place in Sports and Entertainment Operations Research; Emily Wang, grade 12 took second place in individual Business Finance; Jennifer Dai and Katie Gu, both grade 11, took third in the same event; seniors Tiphaine Delepine and Rachel Yanovsky took third in Travel and Tourism; Kevin Susai and Rohit Agarwal, both grade 12, placed third in Sports and Entertainment Marketing; and senior Neeli Gadagottu finished third in Restaurant and Food Service Management.
The event was a special one for student and current DECA Silicon Valley President Michaela Kastelman, grade 12, who gave a heartwarming farewell speech to the attendees. Her tenure as president will end in March, as she graduates this year. Meanwhile, Sophia Luo, grade 9, ascended to a new role at DECA Silicon Valley after being elected secretary and treasurer for next year.
“I think that Harker was really successful, especially since a lot of our chapter is made up of freshmen and sophomores,” Delepine said. “Of course, we are still learning and we hope to do better at States!”
Delepine noted that the regional event was viewed primarily as an opportunity to train for the state competition in March, where the top three written test competitors and top four role-players will head to the international conference in April.
Over the first weekend in January, the middle school debate team traveled to Spokane, Wash., for the Gonzaga University Conway Classic Tournament. Students in public forum debated “Resolved: On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission harms the election process.”
Aditya Dhar and Alexander Lam, both grade 8, competed in the varsity division, which was predominantly high school juniors and seniors. They made it to the final four. Emaad Raghib, grade 8, was recognized as being the ninth speaker in the division, and Lam was recognized as being the second speaker in the division. These awards are given to individuals who have exemplified the strongest public speaking and communication skills. Judges in the rounds not only vote for a winner but also rate each competitor on a scale of one to 30.
Students in policy debate debated “Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.”
Rahul Shukla and Rishabh Nijhawan, both grade 8, participated in the JV division and made it to the top 16 teams. Ray Xu, grade 8, received the second speaker award and Steven Cao, grade 8, received the first speaker award. Xu and Cao competed in the final round and defeated their opponents on a 3-0 decision to be named JV policy debate champions.
Just prior to the break, Harker hosted a middle school debate tournament at the middle school campus. The tournament had more than 200 entries in the tournament, with 10 different middle schools from all over California and one team visiting from Canada. Harker had 75 students competing at the tournament and an additional five who volunteered to help with the logistical aspect and act as student ambassadors. Harker students helped clean the classrooms and guide visiting students in between their speech and debate rounds.
Divya Rajasekharan and Andrew Tierno, both grade 8, respectively took first and fifth in dramatic interpretation, in which competitors act out a portion of a novel, short story, play or poem. In extemporaneous speaking, in which students must do on-the-spot research for questions posed to them by the tournament director, Adrian Chu, grade 7, took third and Raymond Xu placed fifth.
Rajasekharan also took first place in humorous interpretation, while Sana Aladin, grade 7, took second and Linus Li, grade 7, placed third. Harker had four top placements in impromptu speaking, with Carissa Chen, grade 8, winning first, Praveen Batra, grade 7, in second place, Tiffany Wong, grade 6, taking fifth and Sneha Bhetanabhotla, grade 8, finishing sixth.
The original oratory competition saw Chen take second, Behtanabhotla win third, Ashli Jain, grade 6, in fourth place and Riya Gupta, grade 6, earning fifth. Nikhil Dharmaraj and Akshay Ravoor, both grade 6, both took second place in the poetry and prose events, respectively, and Aladin took first place in storytelling, while Katherine Zhang, grade 6, took third.
For their exceptional public speaking skills, public forum speaker awards were given to Batra, who took second and Emaad Raghib, who earned fourth. Batra and teammate Michael Kwan, grade 7, took second in the team public forum competition. In policy, Rahul Shukla won the second place speaker award, and took second place with teammate Rishab Nijhawan in the policy competition.
Lincoln-Douglas speaker awards were given to grade 8 student Manan Shah for first place, Liza Turchinsky, grade 7, for second place and Steven Cao in fourth place. In the Lincoln-Douglas debate competition, Shah and Kai Ang, grade 8, were named co-champions.
Harker’s best category at the tournament was the congressional debate, where Harker students, all grade 8, took the six top spots, with Aditya Dhar winning first, Alexander Lam earning second, Michael Tseitlin taking third, Venkat Sankar finishing fourth, Sandip Nirmel taking fifth and Rishab Gargeya in sixth place.
Vint Cerf, a celebrated computer scientist lauded as one of the “fathers of the Internet,” spoke to a special upper school assembly on Friday to share his views on where he believes the Internet is headed and the moving story of how technology granted his deaf wife the ability to hear.
Cerf came to Harker after being invited by Zina Jawadi, founder of the Disability Awareness Program, and his visit was cosponsored by the Computer Science department. Jawadi is hearing impaired and reached out to Cerf to help her fellow students understand the challenges hearing-impaired people face.
Along with Bob Kahn, Cerf began the original design work of what would eventually become the Internet in 1973. It was turned on Jan. 1, 1983, with 400 computers on the network. “There are now nearly a billion computers on the network, and those are just the ones you can see with domain names and Internet addresses and the like,” he said. Accounting for “episodically connected” computers and Internet-enabled mobile devices, the number most like climbs to two or three billion.
Now Google’s chief Internet evangelist, Cerf works to bring the Internet to more people around the globe. “I have about four billion more people to convert, so I could use help,” he joked. “If any of you are interested in getting more Internet out there, I am happy to engage your services.”
Cerf recapped the recent evolution of the Internet, including milestones such as the release of version 6 of Internet Protocol (IPv6) and the addition of non-Latin characters to domain names. “This is not a fixed design. This is a very flexible, very evolvable system,” he said. “It was designed to be that way.”
This design allows virtually anyone to invent new ways to change how the Internet works. “There’s nothing stopping any of you from designing a new set of protocols for operating right on top of the basic Internet layer for developing new applications,” Cerf said. “So don’t be shy about saying, ‘Gee, I could do a better job. I could build a better design for various parts of the Internet.’”
As the tech pioneer demonstrated, Internet capability can now be found in many day-to-day items previously not thought to be pieces of modern computing, such as picture frames that can download and display images uploaded onto a website, light bulbs that can be turned on and off remotely and a refrigerator that identifies the items it contains and (provided those items contain radio-frequency identification chips) displays recipes on a door-mounted screen.
One recent innovation that Cerf expects to proliferate in the future is sensor networks, which use small censors that are powered by AA batteries and can be used to monitor changes in environmental elements such as temperature and sound. “They can be extended to be used for security purposes, not just for environmental sensing and control,” he said. “But more important, they provide an opportunity for feedback about our use of resources and what the consequences are of resource consumption.”
A supporter of ‘Net neutrality and a believer in the openness of the Internet as a primary reason for its success, Cerf expressed his concern over the control some governments wish to exert over the Internet and the dominance of major broadband providers. “My position and the position of Google has always been to keep the Internet as open as we possibly can,” he said. “The reason the Internet has become so interesting and valuable is that it has been easy for people to put new applications up on the ‘Net. You don’t have to get permission from every Internet service provider in the world or even from the local government … to try a new application.”
Toward the end of his talk, Cerf touched on a topic of great personal importance to him. Sigrid, his wife, had been deaf for more than 50 years before receiving cochlear implants in 1996. In a particularly emotional moment, he recalled receiving a phone call from his wife after the devices were activated, speaking to her on the phone for the first time in their 30 years of marriage. “Of course, it wasn’t a very deep conversation, but it was pretty amazing,” he said. “So by the time I got home, I discovered I had a 50-year-old teenager. I couldn’t get her off the phone.”
Sigrid Cerf also learned how to enhance the experience of watching movies on an airplane by routing the audio directly into the speech processor and using optical detectors that are supported at certain movie theaters. She also uses strategically placed FM transmitters that allow her to hear audio from almost anywhere in a room. “Her favorite trick is to leave the FM transmitter at the dinner table when she goes to the powder room, and then she listens to the conversation,” Cerf said, eliciting laughter from the audience. “So we have to warn all of our guests that there are no secrets.” Read the Winged Post/Talon story here
In the latest effort to reduce morning traffic in the area around the upper school campus, Harker has introduced an early-morning breakfast to encourage students and faculty to arrive at school before morning rush hour. The program requires participants to arrive by 7:45 a.m. to enjoy the meal, which includes a menu of breakfast favorites such as omelettes, hash browns, oatmeal, bagels, toast, fruit and yogurt. Siblings of upper school students who attend the middle and lower schools are also welcome to enjoy breakfast before boarding the shuttle to their respective campuses. Read the Winged Post story here: goo.gl/4Ixin!
Over the weekend, the First Lego League (FLL) robotics team made up of grade 7 students Aria Coalson, Maya Kumar, Mona Lee, Anooshree Sengupta and Jessica Susai took home the championship trophy at the FLL NorCal Championship, in addition to winning first place in the Robot Performance category. The team, known as “Raining Sunshine,” qualified for the tournament on Nov. 11 after earning top honors in Robot Performance at a FLL qualifier, racking up a staggering 475 points, 100 points more than the runner-up team. In addition, the team was awarded the second-place Champion’s Award for their exceptional teamwork, research and robot design.
“G3ARZ,” another robotics team with Harker seventh graders Shaya Zarkesh, Rajiv Movva and Derek Kuo, also performed admirably at a Nov. 18 FLL qualifier, earning the first place Champion’s Award in a field of 16 teams for their excellent performance in the Project, Robot Design, Core Values and Robot Performance categories. FLL competition teams are parent-organized and supported. We look forward to the girls contributing to the upper school robotics program when they get to the Saratoga campus!