With the COVID-19 pandemic complicating schedules and making travel infeasible for many around the world, many families were unable to attend Harker’s Summer English Language Institute. “Long story short, most of our Chinese families could not commit to our program due to conflict of schedule,” said ELI director Joe Chung.
However, because there was still great interest among families in Japan, Natsuko Mitsugi of the Tokyo-based after-school program GKCors stepped in so that Japanese students could attend ELI remotely. “We thought if there is any way we can provide the opportunity to local children to experience Harker ELI, we wanted to try,” she said. Mitsugi had heard about Harker in 2017 through a friend in the Bay Area, and had also met Joe Rosenthal, director of strategic initiatives, while he was visiting Japan.
Students met at GKCors and did their lessons together while receiving instruction from ELI teachers, working online from California. “We provided our facility and Harker teachers gave online live lessons for three hours every day,” Mitsugi said. “There are mainly two levels and each class has assistant teachers from GKCors.”
Despite the changes to the program, students enjoyed the lessons and activities planned for them. Karen Glovka’s students “were having fun every day, said Mitsugi. They learned about living things, rainforests and so on. They really enjoyed the games they played.” Although some of the more advanced lessons were challenging, “at the end of the week, we could see their satisfied faces,” Mitsugi said.
Giving the students a place to learn together was very important for the program, as it enabled the students to socialize and learn from one another. “Children had lunch together, played together and learned from each other,” said Mitsugi. “Of course, it would have been better to spend time at a Harker campus, but in a situation like this, we think we did the best we could. We really appreciate what the Harker ELI team did for us.”
Last week, third graders held a fundraiser for the Epilepsy Foundation’s Lemonade for Livy program, raising more than $2,000. The students had read the novel “The Lemonade War” by Jacqueline Davies in their summer classes, and lessons and activities also were designed with a lemonade theme. Fittingly, students also participated in a lemonade-themed service project, creating a virtual lemonade stand and promoting their effort by passing out lemonade.
Students also enjoyed interacting via Zoom with Olivia “Livy” Scheinman, for whom the program is named, and her family, and speaking to Maile Chung ’17, who was diagnosed with epilepsy during her freshman year. “It has been wonderful working with the summer school third graders on this,” said Kathy Ferretti, grade 3 English teacher. “They learned a lot and had fun doing it.”
The middle school Summer Institute’s Poets and Playwrights class offered students in grades 6-8 fun and engaging ways to learn about the many aspects of creating poetry and plays. Poetry was the focus of the first week of class, as students studied the work of Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson and other famous poets. Students learned about different literary devices through fun exercises such as “puzzle poems,” where students read a poem and use what they’ve learned to determine what the poem is describing.
During week two, students learned the elements of playwriting by examining aspects of drama, reading and performing scenes and working together to write a scene. Samples from plays such as “Our Town” and “The Glass Menagerie” were used as examples of structure, and students then wrote scenes and acts for longer plays that they had the option of continuing to write once the class was over.
Last week, the Summer @ the Conservatory’s Conservatory Presents and Conservatory Intensive programs got off to a strong start. Students learned about a wide range of theater principles, including voice anatomy and character studies, in addition to casting the shows that each group will perform. Industry professionals also appear during the program each week to give workshops on various aspects of the arts. Last week, actor, producer and film critic Dennis Willis spoke on producing music and editing for television, and this week students will work with cartoon voice-over casting director Portia Scott and participate in an improv workshop with Justin Smith, an experienced improv performer who has worked with the Upright Citizens Brigade and Chicago’s legendary Second City and is also co-founder of the Chicago-based Canopy Theatre Collective.
The staff behind this year’s Summer @ the Conservatory program went to great lengths to make sure students would be able to explore their love of theater in a safe environment. Head nurse Debra Nott, artistic director Laura Lang-Ree, summer director Cindi Gonsalves and assistant head of school for student affairs Greg Lawson collaborated to prepare the courses for strict adherence to county guidelines. Students have been working in casts of no more than 12 and practice social distancing during rehearsals. “Although masks hide their smiles, these students were thrilled to be together again and are having a great time practicing their craft, even in these most unique circumstances,” said Lang-Ree.
This summer, middle schoolers with a passion for scientific research enrolled in the Summer Science Research Society (SSRS), a class in which the students do individual research on topics of their interest and report on their findings. On the final day of the class, students present the results of their research to their classmates and parents. “This is an interest-based, student-driven project and I’m there to facilitate and guide them through the whole process,” said middle school science teacher Kathy Peng, who runs the SSRS.
Students begin by picking a topic and doing background research. They then design experiments to test their hypotheses. Rising eighth grader Abigail Samuel’s project involved using principles of chemistry to bake cookies, including testing how letting dough rest for different periods of time altered texture and flavor. Caden Ruan, a rising seventh grader, designed and built a small-scale version of a machine that picks up plastic waste in the ocean. Rising sixth grader Evan Yuan investigated a new way of making a plant-based hamburger.
Another important element of the class is learning how to present data. Students document the process with graphs and images, and present their research at a virtual symposium, explaining their research methods and conclusions.