This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
In late February, the Harker Speaker Series hosted an event by Silicon Valley Reads titled “Invisible Wounds of War: Poetry from War.” The event featured poets Brian Turner and David Sullivan, who each read selections from their works, inspired by the Iraq war. The discussion was moderated by Parthenia Hicks, Los Gatos poet laureate emerita.
The discussion began with Turner, who spent seven years in the United States Army, one of which was on a tour in Iraq. Turner talked about how he was first exposed to poetry in his youth and how he took poetry classes in college in hopes that it would help him write lyrics for his band, which never took off.
He kept a journal during his time in Iraq, which he later used to write “Here, Bullet,” his latest collection of poems.
Turner went on to read selections from “Here, Bullet,” including the titular poem, and “Dreams From the Malaria Pills,” which describes the vivid and often bizarre dreams caused by pills that soldiers were required to take. He interspersed the frequently emotionally intense reading with stories from his tour in Iraq.
The conversation then turned to Sullivan, whose latest work, “Every Seed of the Pomegranate,” explores the lives of not only United States and Iraqi soldiers, but also civilians in both countries being affected by the conflict. A teacher at Cabrillo Community College in Santa Cruz, he taught Iraq war veteran students who were “struggling to figure out how to reintegrate with a culture that says it honors them but didn’t really want to hear many stories.”
Sullivan later met Turner, who encouraged him to continue with the project. Using information gleaned from Iraqi poets, documentaries and blogs by Iraqi citizens, he wrote “Every Seed of the Pomegranate.”
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Author and Santa Clara University psychology professor Jerrold Shapiro was a guest of the Harker Speaker Series on March 7, to give a presentation titled “What Boys Need.” A family psychologist of more than 40 years, Shapiro has made a name for himself with books such as “The Measure of a Man” and “Becoming a Father,” as well as appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Morning Show on CBS.
After taking a couple of questions from the crowd, Shapiro began the presentation, which described the ways in which boys experience difficulty growing up in comparison to girls, who he argued have received more attention during their developmental years than boys have in recent decades.
Among the data he showed were statistics showing that boys are now twice as likely to be diagnosed with learning disorders, are lagging behind girls in standardized testing and now make up less than 40 percent of the student body.
He then showed how differently boys and girls mature and communicate. Boys’ brains, he said, exhibit “kinetic, disorganized, maddening and sometimes brilliant behaviors that likely are hard-wired.” Five-year-old girls may be more articulate, while boys have better hand-eye coordination. Unsurprisingly, boys are also more given to impulse.
Once they hit middle school, boys find that girls are maturing at a much faster rate, and boys begin to fear that they appear weak. Interestingly, MRIs have shown that girls’ brains at these ages resemble adult brains more closely than those of boys.
Shapiro proposed a number of solutions to address the challenges of raising boys, including more parental involvement in their school lives and increasing the amount of time they spend with their fathers. The latter was of particular importance, Shapiro argued, because boys who are raised by actively involved fathers exhibit more self-control and self-esteem, are better at regulating their emotions and are more empathetic.
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
Author and neighborhood organizer Mike Lanza spoke at the first Harker Speaker Series event of the year on Sept. 14 to share his insights into how neighborhoods can be great places for children to grow up and lead fun, fulfilling lives.Lanza made the point that many kids spend too much time in front of screens, be they television sets, laptops or tablets. On average, he noted, kids spend about eight hours each day consuming visual media. Their lives are also highly scheduled, with sporting events, lessons and other activities. “They have no time on their own in the world to do things,” Lanza said.Lack of unstructured play time leads to several problems, he said, among them obesity, depression and lack of creativity. He added, however, that taking away screen time and sending kids off into their neighborhoods won’t work on its own, because many neighborhoods are “boring.”
To remedy this problem in his Menlo Park neighborhood, Lanza made changes to his home to make it into a place where neighborhood children could play whenever they wanted, including a driveway that could be drawn on, a picnic table in the front yard, a whiteboard fixed to a fence and a playhouse where kids can write on the walls.
“We’re defacing everything we can,” Lanza said. “We want this place to look like kids live here. We want them to feel like they own this place.”
As a result, neighborhood children regularly engage with one another in outdoor activities, and families have come to know one another much better.
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
John Hunter, named one of Time magazine’s top 12 education activists, and voted “most influential” TED speaker, appeared at Harker in early October as part of the Common Ground Speaker Series.
Hunter, an award-winning teacher, discussed his invention of the “World Peace games,” a “geopolitical simulation” that is played mostly by students in grade 4 but is suitable for all ages. The game focuses on building real-world problem-solving skills. Students play various roles in the game, such as world leaders, cabinet members and even arms dealers. Some students are even given roles of great power, such as the ability to control the weather or determine if a business venture will succeed. Aside from facilitating, Hunter never directly intervenes.
Students must use the power they have been given in each role to solve the problems presented to them. Every country in the game must also have its asset value raised by the time it ends. “In other words, everybody has to win for the game to be won,” Hunter said. In addition, he makes Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” required reading for all students participating in the game.
The event included a viewing of a documentary film from 2006 that showed Hunter’s students working together to finish the game successfully. In the 34 years that he has been running the game for his students, Hunter said, “They have never failed to save the world. They do it in different ways every time.”
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan-born best-selling author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” was the honored guest of the Harker Speaker Series on Nov. 30, speaking about the writing process, his experiences in Afghanistan and his humanitarian efforts with The Khaled Hosseini Foundation.Hosseini also attended a pre-event reception for attendees who purchased special tickets to meet the author and receive a personalized copy of one of his novels. Warm and charming, Hosseini chatted with ABC-7 anchor Cheryl Jennings on a range of topics. Jennings also participates in Afghani relief efforts and was a natural choice for this informal, interview-style conversation. Before his appearance, a video of an ABC-7 report by Jennings was shown, briefing the audience of about 400 on The Khaled Hosseini Foundation and briefly mentioning Harker’s involvement. Founded in 2007, the organization raises money to build shelters and provide education, food and healthcare to women and children in Afghanistan, which is experiencing many humanitarian crises after experiencing decades of war. Hosseini’s wife, Roya, is also deeply involved, helping with a program that enables Afghan women to sell crafts to raise money for humanitarian aid. These goods were being sold at a table in the gym the night of Hosseini’s visit. Jennings asked Hosseini about his 2003 and 2007 visits to Afghanistan, during which he saw “a ton of people who had come back to Afghanistan from either Pakistan or Iran trying to resettle, restart their lives in their country and were really having a very, very hard time,” he said. “It shattered me.” Although he watched much of the crises in Afghanistan unfold from outside the country, he nevertheless found that his memories of his childhood in the country were helpful in writing “The Kite Runner.” “It took me by surprise how vivid my memories were,” he said, recalling his time growing up with educated parents and living a somewhat “westernized” lifestyle. He was also surprised by how much the events he had written in the book came to life during his visit. “I started having experiences that I had just imagined this character would have, and I had even written a book about it,” he said. While working on “Splendid Suns,” he took on the challenge of writing from a woman’s perspective, something he at first approached with some overconfidence, despite warnings from his literary agent at the time, the late Elaine Koster. “I have to admit I was a little smug about it,” he recalled. “And then, about three, four months later, I began to see what she meant.” He overcame the difficulty by rendering women in a more universal sense. “I’m just going to concentrate on what motivates them; what do they want from life, what are they afraid of, what are their hopes, and so on,” he said. “It seems trite and simple enough, but all of the solutions in my writing life have always been simple – it’s just very hard to get to them.” Hosseini said he was proud to have changed the perceptions people have of the Afghan people through his writing. “I’ve had letters from people who were really kind of toxic haters of people from that region. And yet, they read the book and they saw something of themselves in the experiences of these characters,” he said. “And they slowly changed. That to me is a tremendous gift as a writer. That’s going to outlive anything that I’ve ever done.” Following his talk with Jennings, Hosseini stayed to take questions from the audience and sign books.
Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan-born best-selling author of “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” was the honored guest of the Harker Speaker Series on Nov. 30, speaking about the writing process, his experiences in Afghanistan and his humanitarian efforts with the Khaled Hosseini Foundation.
Hosseini also attended a pre-event reception for attendees who purchased special tickets to meet the author and receive a personalized copy of one of his novels. On this night Hosseini was joined onstage by ABC-7 anchor Cheryl Jennings, who conversed with him on a range of topics. Before the talk, a video of an ABC-7 report by Jennings was shown, briefing the audience of about 400 on the Khaled Hosseini Foundation and briefly mentioning Harker’s involvement. Founded in 2007, the organization raises money to build shelters and provide education, food and healthcare to women and children in Afghanistan, which is experiencing many humanitarian crises after decades of war. Hosseini’s wife, Roya, is also heavily involved, helping with a program that enables Afghan women to sell crafts to raise money for humanitarian aid. These goods were being sold at a table in the gym the night of Hosseini’s visit.
Jennings asked Hosseini about his 2003 and 2007 visits to Afghanistan, where he witnessed “a ton of people who had come back to Afghanistan from either Pakistan or Iran trying to resettle, restart their lives in their country and were really having a very, very hard time,” he said. “It shattered me.”
Although he watched much of the crises in Afghanistan unfold from outside the country, he nevertheless found that memories of his childhood in the country were helpful in writing “The Kite Runner.”
“It took me by surprise how vivid my memories were,” he said, recalling his time growing up with educated parents and living a somewhat “westernized” lifestyle.
While working on “Splendid Suns,” he took on the challenge of writing from a woman’s perspective, despite warnings from his literary agent at the time, the late Elaine Koster. “I have to admit I was a little smug about it,” he recalled. “And then, about three, four months later, I began to see what she meant.”
He overcame the difficulty by rendering them in a more universal sense. “I’m just going to concentrate on what motivates them; what do they want from life, what are they afraid of, what are their hopes, and so on,” he said. “It seems trite and simple enough, but all of the solutions in my writing life have always been simple, it’s just very hard to get to them.”
Hosseini said he was proud to have changed the perceptions people have of the Afghan people through his writing. “I’ve had letters from people who were really kind of toxic haters of people from that region. And yet, they read the book and they saw something of themselves in the experiences of these characters,” he said. “And they slowly changed. That to me is a tremendous gift as a writer. That’s going to outlive anything that I’ve ever done.”
Following his talk with Jennings, Hosseini stayed to take questions from the audience and sign books.
Khaled Hosseini, author of best-selling novels “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” greeted more than 20 attendees who bought special tickets for a reception prior to Hosseini’s appearance at the Harker Speaker Series on Friday evening. In addition to being able to meet and chat with the author, the guests also received a personalized copy of one of Hosseini’s novels as well as admission to the main event.
John Hunter, named one of Time magazine’s top 12 education activists, and whose talk on TED was voted 2011’s “Most Influential,” spoke at Harker in early October as part of the Common Ground Speaker Series.
Hunter, who is also an award-winning teacher, discussed his invention of the “World Peace Games,” which he described as a “geopolitical simulation” that is played mostly by students in grade 4 but is suitable for all ages, and focuses on building problem-solving skills by having students address problems occurring in the real world. Students play various roles in the game, such as world leaders, cabinet members and even arms dealers. Some students are even given roles of great power, such as the ability to control the weather or determine if a business venture will succeed. Aside from facilitating, asking questions and signaling the beginning and end of every game session, Hunter never directly intervenes.
Students must use the power they have been given in each role to solve the problems presented to them. Every country in the game must also have its asset value raised by the time it ends. “In other words, everybody has to win for the game to be won,” Hunter said. In addition, he makes Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” required reading for all students participating in the game.
The Common Ground event included a viewing of a documentary film from 2006 that showed Hunter’s students working together to finish the game successfully. In the 34 years that he has been running the game for his students, Hunter said, “They have never failed to save the world. They do it in different ways every time.”
John Hunter, named one of Time magazine’s top 12 education activists, and whose talk on TED was voted 2011’s “Most Influential,” spoke at Harker in early October as part of the Common Ground Speaker Series.
Hunter, who is also an award-winning teacher, discussed his invention of the “World Peace Games,” which he described as a “geopolitical simulation” that is played mostly by students in grade 4 but is suitable for all ages, and focuses on building problem-solving skills by having students address problems occurring in the real world. Students play various roles in the game, such as world leaders, cabinet members and even arms dealers. Some students are even given roles of great power, such as the ability to control the weather or determine if a business venture will succeed. Aside from facilitating, asking questions and signaling the beginning and end of every game session, Hunter never directly intervenes.
Students must use the power they have been given in each role to solve the problems presented to them. Every country in the game must also have its asset value raised by the time it ends. “In other words, everybody has to win for the game to be won,” Hunter said. In addition, he makes Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” required reading for all students participating in the game.
The Common Ground event included a viewing of a documentary film from 2006 that showed Hunter’s students working together to finish the game successfully. In the 34 years that he has been running the game for his students, Hunter said, “They have never failed to save the world. They do it in different ways every time.”
John Hunter, named one of Time magazine’s top 12 education activists, and whose talk on TED was voted 2011’s “Most Influential,” spoke at Harker in early October as part of the Common Ground Speaker Series.
Hunter, who is also an award-winning teacher, discussed his invention of the “World Peace Games,” which he described as a “geopolitical simulation” that is played mostly by students in grade 4 but is suitable for all ages, and focuses on building problem-solving skills by having students address problems occurring in the real world. Students play various roles in the game, such as world leaders, cabinet members and even arms dealers. Some students are even given roles of great power, such as the ability to control the weather or determine if a business venture will succeed. Aside from facilitating, asking questions and signaling the beginning and end of every game session, Hunter never directly intervenes.
Students must use the power they have been given in each role to solve the problems presented to them. Every country in the game must also have its asset value raised by the time it ends. “In other words, everybody has to win for the game to be won,” Hunter said. In addition, he makes Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” required reading for all students participating in the game.
The Common Ground event included a viewing of a documentary film from 2006 that showed Hunter’s students working together to finish the game successfully. In the 34 years that he has been running the game for his students, Hunter said, “They have never failed to save the world. They do it in different ways every time.”