AP Psychology teacher Naomi Schatz sends more of her regards from Australia. Read on for more of her experiences as an exchange teacher Down Under!
June 2, 2009:
“I finally got to do some teaching today! First off, spent some time doing some sport psychology with SSC’s [Saint Stephen’s College] Year 9 ‘Rugby Academy’ boys. As you can imagine, I know basically nothing about rugby, unless you count last year when Kevin [Williamson] and I took the kids to see a Rugby League game in Brisbane. I did learn a bit more on this past Friday when I watched the SSC kids play Rugby Union. For some reason I don’t understand the difference between rugby “League” versus “Union” – not to mention the Australian Football League (AFL) – as all three are very different sports!
“Anyway, the sport psych stuff went really well, in that we talked about performance anxiety, overcoming adversity, fear of injury, goal setting, confidence and self-talk. Hopefully, they also learned how to apply these same principles and strategies from sport into the classroom. Mick, the Rugby coach/teacher, seemed pleased with how the conversation went, so he is planning for me to do more of that during my stay with some of the older athletes, too.
“Later on, I spent some time with the Year 8 kids talking about bullying, sexting, peer pressure and anxiety. Amazing, isn’t it, that half a world away that the kids are still kids! That session, too, went well, and I am looking forward to following up with some of the students later on during my stay. Unfortunately, the older students (equivalent to our juniors/seniors) are all testing this week, so I am not going to have much time with them in the classrooms, although I am offering a ‘one-off’ session or two on managing stress/anxiety.”
June 12, 2009:
“I’ve had another busy week at [SSC]. Got a chance to watch the McDonald’s Cup Rugby Tournament with the MS boys. Major bummer was that Jed Dorrington, the son of the headmaster, got a concussion with his grade 7 team and then spent the afternoon in the hospital! On a brighter note, I did get to do some more sport psych work with the older rugby academy boys, as well as some test anxiety, stress and time management work with the upperclassmen. Very cool. I’ve enjoyed seeing some of the students I met last summer, as well as the chance to meet some new kids.
“Interestingly, their whole upper school essentially shuts down Friday afternoon, and the kids all load up on buses to go play sports at neighboring schools. This Friday, I kept score for the boys’ volleyball team (they won), and then watched some girls’ netball (similar to basketball, sort of), boys’ hockey and soccer, and then my new favorite sport, rugby (they lost). No concussions, but somehow a whole team managed to miss the buses home, so that was kind of funny! Speaking of sports, many kids here take a ‘sports tour’ during the the last week of school and into vacation, traveling to Melbourne and Sydney for some sightseeing and games. Good times.
“Highlight for me this week was watching their dance class! Hilarious! Some students really get into it. Others, well, not so much! On a more cultural note, I did get to join a school trip to hear the Tokyo string quartet play Wednesday night up in Brisbane – awesome! (Beethoven, Haydn & Mendelssohn for those who are interested).”
Naomi Schatz, US psychology teacher, flew to Australia in May as part of Harker’s teacher exchange program. Throughout the summer, she will be sharing her experiences overseas. Watch Harker News Online this summer for further adventures!
May 31: Greetings from Down Under….
“It has been a great weekend here in Aussie land! On Friday, I was a special guest-judge at a ‘Dilemmas’ competition where students had to speak off of the top of their heads about current political issues. Pretty fun, relatively speaking. After the event, the whole student body sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and presented me with a special Saint Stephen’s College rugby shirt… and I love it!
“Friday night I went out with Jaime Dorrington, head of school at SSC, and a few other colleagues I met last summer on the leadership retreat, to a nice dinner and blues festival down on the coast at Broadbeach. Saturday, we went for a picnic and a lovely hike with Jaime and his family up into the mountains in an area called Spring Brook and visited an awesome waterfall, called Purling Brook Falls. Sunday I went for a walk with Eden [former exchange student], who has very fond memories of his time at Harker!
“This week, I’m planning to present to students on stress/anxiety and testing as they have exams in the upper school. Also hoping to do some sport psychology lessons with their athletes, which should be fun! Jaime is keen on me presenting on some team-building and leadership issues as well, so working on that. I’m very excited! Well, that’s it for now!”
In June US Spanish teacher Diana Moss, K-Gr. 5 dean of students Joe Connolly and several students headed to Switzerland to visit with the students from College de Gambach in Fribourg, who visited Harker during the spring semester, and to brush up on their French language skills. Not to mention immerse themselves in the country’s vast culture and beauty.
Students who embarked on the trip were incoming sophomores Shivani Bigler, Neda Ghaffarian, Neha Kumar, Daniela Lapidous, Jay Reddy and Shreya Indukuri; incoming juniors Michael Patland, Jason Young and Michelle Vu and incoming senior Kendra Moss.
The group had plenty to do once they touched down and met with their host families, with whom they stayed for the duration of the trip. Visiting the city of Lausanne by train, the group visited the Olympic Museum to view the vast archive of Olympic memorabilia and learn more about the history of the games. Then it was off on a boat ride across Lake Geneva to the Nestle Food Museum in Vevey, where the students attended a cooking class. Nestle was founded in the city more than 140 years ago and is headquartered there to this day. Following the visit, “you would think all we’ve done here is eat!” Diana Moss exclaimed. “Fortunately, we’ve had plenty of walking too!” The next day, the group went to a cheese factory in Gruyeres, a city so famous for its cheese that the food was named after it.
All the while, the Harker and Gambach students got better acquainted as they shared more and more about one another’s cultures. “All the Harker students and Swiss students are getting along so well,” Moss reported from Switzerland during the trip. “It makes me so proud of them!” Moss was also impressed at how well the students were able to communicate with one another. “Perhaps one of the most enjoyable aspects of our trip has been watching our students interact with the Swiss students,” she said. “The Swiss are amazing linguists, moving between one language to the next with ease, but we are proud of the great efforts and growth our kids are making with their French.” While there, the group was even featured in a local newspaper covering their visit (see photo).
Before leaving, the Harker and Gambach students enjoyed a fondue party before the Harker students departed for the weekend. The whole group reunited and said their goodbyes in Zurich on Monday before majority of the Harker students flew back home. Moss and her daughter Kendra stayed behind to spend some more time exploring Europe. “It was a fabulous experience staying with a family that spoke very little English because it encouraged me to fully immerse myself in the French language,” Kendra said. “Switzerland was just as beautiful as one would imagine it to be.”
In May Harker received a visit from Sue Muir, upper school advanced level math teacher from St. Stephen’s College in Australia. A teacher for 33 years, Muir was on a sixmonth sabbatical from teaching, which all teachers at St. Stephen’s college get to do after seven years of service. She spent her first week observing all of Harker’s US math classes, and also did a lot of team teaching with US math teacher Gabriele Stahl.
“Sue and I had very fruitful conversations about the material,” Stahl said. “Whenever we started a new method we got together before and talked it through. We found out that our teaching styles were very similar. Sue came up with a few worksheets for the students.”
Added Stahl: “Sue adjusted very easily to Harker and I believe she had a lot of fun, too.”
Muir spent a day visiting Rob Regan’s Gr. 5 world geography class, where she talked to the kids about Australian culture. She also spent a day on the MS campus to observe teachers in class, and met with Vandana Kadam, math teacher, to discuss the possibility of St. Stephen’s joining the Harker Math Invitational as well as collaborating on a math exchange. “Sue was highly impressed with the advanced level of math our students do,” said Jennifer Abraham, global education director.
Two Harker teams placed among the top ten finishers in the 2009 national J8 competition. All together, 32 Harker students in eight teams of four students each submitted applications to this year’s J8 contest – the winners of which are invited to attend the annual G8 Summit with world leaders, to be held in Italy this year.
Applications included nine separate essays, three of which address global issues discussed at the G8 Summit. Over 50 applications were submitted from 14 states. Harker earned the distinction of having the greatest number of applications and of being the only school to advance more than one team to the final round, including one group that was named second runner up to the winning Nor th Miami Beach High School team.
Team Paritas et Pax was awarded third place and included juniors Connie Lu, Brandon Araki, Vishesh Jain and Andrew Zhou. Making the top ten was Team 2.2 Billion, composed of juniors Shefali Netke, Elaine Song, Curran Kaushik and Carissa Jansen. Other participants included freshmen Rohan Bopardikar, Jaya Chandra, Frederic Enea and Katie Marcus Reker; sophomores Appu Bhaskar, Jacob Chappell, Tyler Koteskey, Justine Liu, Kristi Liu, Isaac Madan, Shreya Nathan and Olivia Zhu; and juniors Ankur Ahuja, Namrata Anand, Nathaniel Edwards, Kelsey Hilbrich, Andrea Lincoln, Arjun Mody, Kendra Moss and Haran Sivakumar. Carol Zink, history teacher, and Lauri Vaughan, librarian, acted as co-facilitators for the students.
In 2007, a team of eight Harker students won the event and attended the G8 Summit in Wismar, Germany, as U.S. representatives. Significant portions of all eight applications have been posted on the GEO Club’s Web site and are available for your reading pleasure at http://web.harker.org/geo/j8/j8.html.
It all started with author/photographer Rick Smolan’s visit as part of the Harker Speaker Series. That visit spurred the founding of the MS Blue Planet Group and culminated with the visit of Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water.
Eighth grade science teacher Lorna Claerbout and many of her students went to hear Smolan speak. “Smolan’s talk opened my eyes to the need for clean water worldwide,” said group member Emily Wang, Gr.8.
Varun Gudapti, Gr. 8, added “he gave me the knowledge to make others aware of the impact of water.” Classmate Sondra Costa suggested the group could raise money to support one of Smolan’s “water heroes,” Scott Harrison, whose charity charity: water uses 100 percent of donations to build wells to get potable water to people in need.
Thus was born the Blue Planet Group. “About 45 people showed up to our first meeting,” said Lori Berenberg, Gr. 8. “Since then, we have focused on getting organized into committees that have their own focus in educating and fundraising to achieve our goal of funding a well,” she said. The group managed to raise $5,000, enough for the building of a new well in Africa, and doubling their original goal of $2,500.
Harrison heard about the Harker effort and offered to visit while on a visit at the end of May to speak at Apple, Google and Twitter. Harrison came first to the MS campus, then to the US campus to address student assemblies.
Just before the assembly began, Harrison tweeted, “about to talk to kids in San Jose about water. I used to hate first period!” After the assemblies he tweeted about “awesome kids at Harker.” In fact, he was so impressed with the original educational posters created by the Blue Planet Group that he took a photo of one and put it on posted a tweet of it, noted Claerbout.
Harrison’s impact was felt immediately and Berenberg posted comments to the club’s forum right after the visit: ”Well, the big day has come and gone. Scott Harrison gave his speech, and personally, I think it was a great success. I know a lot of my friends who weren’t really into it before are now so excited to help and realize that the clean water crisis is a real issue. That is really what we were trying to achieve here and we got it! I’m so proud of everyone because if it weren’t for each and every one of us, he wouldn’t have come and we would be nowhere near where we are today.”
Students have used a variety of efforts to educate and raise funds, including a school meeting presentation, a bake sale, a photo booth, and a water-themed school dance. “We decided it would be great if we could make it water-themed so people … understand what they are donating to if they gave money to the Blue Planet Group,” said Berenberg.
“The middle school students have been passionately working on the issue since Smolan’s presentation, so it was a fantastic way for the students to not only wrap up their current fundraising project, but help them continue their momentum when they start at our upper school next year. A partnership between middle and high school students has been proposed and is the works for next year,” said Claerbout.
In addition to the student club, water is the focus of a number of class projects. Angela Neff, Assistant Director of Instructional Technology at the Middle School and computer science teacher, noted her Population Studies classes have been “focusing their research on the international water crisis all year as a part of our Global 20/20 program sponsored by NAIS,” she said, further noting, “Tim (Culbertson’s) (computer science) classes are doing infectious diseases which are deeply exacerbated by water: too much, too little, or too dirty.”
Finally, Spanish teacher Susan Moling said her Unit 5 in Spanish class is all about conservation. “My students just made some amazing mini-posters about conservation including water, culminating in video public service announcements created in Spanish. I think the cross-curricular application is wonderful and gives the kids a real sense of pride knowing that everyone is working on such a critical issue,” she said.
For next year, Jennifer Abraham, global education director, is working with interested eighth grade teachers on a water project in collaboration with the Bayn Garden School in Saudi Arabia. Locally the focus will be to learn more about our own watershed and water issues here in California.
Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) reached unprecedented levels with its efforts during its week-long focus from April 6-10 on United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2, Universal Primary Education. After raising over $14,000 in its fight against poverty in the fall, GEO concentrated its efforts on activism this spring. Over 200 students signed a petition created by GEO supporting Education for All, an act that aims to bolster the U.S.’s involvement in the international effort to provide all children with a quality basic education. A group of students – GEO president David Kastelman, Gr. 12 and members Shefali Netke, Gr. 11, Ariel Fishman, Gr. 11 and Katie Forsberg, Gr. 10 – met with U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren to present her with the petition.
Fishman was inspired by the trip. “I thought she was very friendly and helpful in letting us know what we could do to ensure provisions for worldwide primary education in the Foreign Relations Act,” she said. “Representative Lofgren also loved that we were high school students taking an active interest in a cause and I would encourage other students who are passionate about various issues to meet with her in order to find out what they can do to change things. She made me feel like we, a couple of high school students, really did have the power to change the world.”
“When we asked Representative Lofgren about steps Congress can take to promote universal access to education, she suggested the ongoing task of rewriting America’s Foreign Assistance Act,” said Kastelman. “The act hasn’t been reformed in decades, and it essentially governs America’s international aid, and there has been talk of incorporating the MDG’s into the act,” he explained. “She also said that if we got her another petition on this matter of reforming the Assistance act, she could hand deliver it to Howard Berman, the representative heading efforts to rewrite the act.”
A new petition was promptly constructed and was put up for signing on May 4. Over 100 Harker students had added their signatures before it was presented to Lofgren two weeks later.
A special performance by Japan’s Okayama Gakugeikan High School Symphonic Band had the morning crowd cheering at a special US assembly on March 16.
Having recently placed in the top 10 of a national high school band competition in Japan, the 60-member orchestra came to Harker as part of an American tour that included San Francisco, Santa Clara University and New York City. Their performance at the assembly included works from a variety of genres, from classical mainstays such as Pachelbel to more contemporary fare, such as their rendition of “I Need to Be in Love” by the Carpenters.
The band really got amped, however, during their cover of “The Sun Will Rise Again” by the Japanese pop group Aladdin. Musicians wrapped boa scarves around their necks and performed a choreographed dance routine during the number, complete with miniature Japanese and American flags. The crowd interaction hardly stopped there. On one song, the entire band (save for the rhythm section) ventured out into the audience, where they performed the duration of the piece.
In all, a welcome treat and an inspiring display of musicianship from this talented young troupe!
The Gr. 8 trek to China was once again a gratifying and memorable experience for all involved.
After arriving in Shanghai, students had the opportunity to explore the city, see the sights, sample local eateries and of course, shop. On Monday morning, the students went to Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School (SWFLMS), whose own students treated them to a singing of their national anthem and school song. Harker students then got to learn about Chinese opera and play various instruments in the school’s Chinese music class.
The next day, students observed lessons and picked up a few more phrases to add to their Mandarin repertoire. They also got to view some fabulous artifacts and works of art at the Shanghai Museum, and some even made attempts to barter with the locals!
Tuesday’s real treat, however, was an acrobatic show that wowed those in attendance. “From hoops and trapeze to trampolines and motorcycles it was definitely a feast for the eyes!” said Jennifer Abraham, global education director.
The following day, the Harker group got to watch the SWFLMS students do their morning exercises. “It was quite a sight to see with hundreds of kids quickly, yet quietly, exiting the school and lining up on the sports field,” Abraham said.
More class observations followed, with some Harker students sitting in on an English class session. “The kids have commented on several differences between our two schools,” Abraham noted. “The two things that apparently stand out the most are that the teachers change classrooms, and not the students, and that they have a full 10 minutes between classes.”
Later that day, some students learned how to sing in Chinese during one of the language classes. “Surprisingly,” Abraham said, “the boys really got into singing!”
On Thursday, the group visited Zhujiajiao, an ancient water town famous for its boat-filled canals and centuries-old bridges built during the Ming and Qing dynasties. During their stay, the students bought fish to let free in the river along with a wish, and took a boat ride through the town’s canals.
Friday kicked off with a visit to the Wahaha bottled drinks factory. From there, it was off to the Six Harmonies Pagoda, originally constructed more than 1,000 years ago. “The kids raced to the top of the pagoda where they were able to take pictures of the West Lake below,” Abraham said. The group continued to a tea plantation to sample and buy various types of tea, in addition to learning about the process of making tea leaves. After a quick visit to the Chinese Medicine Museum, the tired group headed home.
To celebrate their final day with the Shanghai students, the SWFLMS threw a farewell party that included singing, dancing, heartfelt speeches and poetry.
The group began the following week in Beijing, with a visit to the famous Temple of Heaven. “Walking to the Temple was very entertaining!” Abraham reported. “We stopped to watch people dancing, with a few of our students giving it a try. We followed a long corridor passing older people playing cards, talking and generally just enjoying themselves.”
Afterward, the group visited a family living in Beijing’s “hutongs,” narrow streets and alleys lined with courtyard homes. “We all packed into their living room and, through a translator, spent the next half hour asking all sorts of questions,” Abraham recalled. “The kids had great questions ranging from the one-child policy to experiencing the Cultural Revolution to Chinese perception of Americans. The man was very honest and interesting to talk to.”
As they left the hutongs on rickshaws, the drivers decided to have a little fun and race one another. “It was a sight to see, with 12 rickshaws racing through the very narrow alleys,” said Abraham. “We all had a good laugh and lots of fun.”
The next two days yielded more amazing sights. Students visited the Great Wall of China and took in the fabulous views offered by the ancient fortification. They then took toboggans to the foot of the mountain, where they picked up some souvenirs before heading back to the city. The following day included a visit to Tiananmen Square and the Chinese imperial palace, also known as the Forbidden City.
The group wound up their trip to Beijing with a brief visit to the Summer Palace before returning to prepare for the trip home.
The two weeks LS computer science teacher Joe Chung was at Tamagawa School flew by. “In that short amount of time, I had the opportunity to teach one of my courses from Harker as well as time to observe some of the Tamagawa teachers teach their classes,” he said.
“My lesson was to teach an application called Stagecast Creator. It is a student-friendly application that helps students to learn pre-programming skills along with the ability to problem-solve. It also reinforces the students to do their best illustrating their characters,” explained Chung. “Speaking of characters, I first had the students open MS Word to write a story. Students had a choice to be creative and develop any type of story they wanted. To help them start, I gave an example of ‘Once upon a time….’ The story helps the students get a sense of ownership, which can foster the enjoyment of learning since it is their own and not given to them by a teacher. Once the story is developed, students begin to program it in Stagecast and see it in action.
“The majority of the students I taught were attentive and interested in doing their best on this project. Students who were motivated and excited by the potential of what can be created from this application worked through break time. It is rewarding for a teacher to observe students who are willing to learn and make the best effort possible. A few students were able to go beyond what I explained in class, and I was able to share more ideas, possibilities and changes that could be made to their work. Since the Stagecast used was the demo version, it had limitations, so students were restricted with design and rules. But once again, the motivated students found ways to manipulate the limitations to go beyond my instructions. Overall, I had a rewarding experience sharing with students what I teach back home.”