Tag: topfaculty

Upper school speech and debate coach recognized for outstanding results

Greg Achten, upper school speech and debate coach, has been awarded a 2 Diamond degree of membership in the National Speech & Debate Association’s Honor Society.

The award is directly tied to student performance; the congratulatory letter noted that Achten has earned more than 3,000 points from presentations, competitions and service by students. He earned his first diamond in 2013; a second diamond can only be awarded after five years, and the teacher must earn a certain number of points each year in between. Achten will receive his award at the 2018 National Speech & Debate Tournament in Florida in June, and will be noted in the association’s magazine, Rostrum. Huge congrats!

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Teacher Explores Australia, Works with Students on Yearly Exchange

This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Middle school art teacher Elizabeth Saltos headed to Australia this past summer for Harker’s annual teacher exchange with St. Stephen’s College, a PK-12 school located on the Gold Coast in the Australian province of Queensland. Her trip started in Sydney, where she visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, rode the Manly Ferry for a scenic view of the city and went kayak- ing at Sydney Harbor. Later, she traveled to Cairns to go snorkeling and kayaking at the famous Great Barrier Reef, calling the experience “a big bucket list highlight.”

After visiting Michaelmas Cay and Fitzroy Island, Saltos boarded a plane to Brisbane and rode a train to the Gold Coast suburb of Coomera. There, she stayed at the home of St. Stephen’s College headmaster Jamie Dorrington.

During her time teaching at St. Stephen’s, Saltos worked in the school’s visual arts department, teaching blind modeling in clay, doing clay relief projects and teaching grade 10 students about cubist perspective. She also gave presentations on her own work to grades 11 and 12, and collaborated with students of St. Stephen’s art department chair, Samantha Reynolds, to create a silk-screen.

Saltos said that she found the grading process at Australian schools to be very unique. “The school awards a grade and then the students submit their work to a panel of educators statewide and these professionals award a grade,” she said. “The two grades are then averaged and this is the grade looked at for entrance into university.”

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Bay Area Educators Attend Harker Teacher Institute

This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Harker once again invited Bay Area educators to the upper school campus for the Harker Teacher Institute on June 7. Celebrating its 10th year, the event featured presentations by 17 Harker faculty members, who gave workshops on various ways to improve the learning experience in classrooms. It was also sponsored by the Silicon Valley affiliate of Computer Using Educators, an organization dedicated to the innovative use of technology in education.

The workshops explored many different tools and techniques. For example, lower school math teacher Eileen Schick’s presentation on Singapore model drawing demonstrated a visual method of solving word problems. Meanwhile, lower school English teacher Ann Smitherman demonstrated how using questions in feedback helps students better internalize the feedback they receive, and showed her use of comments in Google Docs to achieve this goal.

For his workshop on project-based learning, Juston Glass, business and entrepreneurship teacher, had attendees break off into groups and build structures using Tinkertoys to show how classroom projects can engage students and help them become more invested in the learning process.

Diane Main, the upper school’s learning, innovation and design director, showed how MinecraftEdu – an educational version of the popular computer game Minecraft – can be used to create classroom environments in which students learn how to work together to solve problems.

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English Teacher Treks to Japan for Annual Teacher Exchange

This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.

Lower school English teacher Heather Russell had the great opportunity to travel to Japan as this year’s exchange teacher with Tamagawa Academy K-12 School & University, Harker’s sister school in Tokyo. While at Tamagawa, she observed several classes and taught English to students in grades 1-3. She also used her English lessons to teach the Tamagawa students about the American “Wild West,” including lessons about desert plants, wildlife, cowboys and how farm animals make sounds in English. Students from each class also contributed to a mural that followed the “Wild West” theme.

Russell was impressed at the sense of community among Tamagawa students. “From the start of the day when the whole school would gather on the field for morning exercises, singing the school song and marching to class together, there was a sense of community,” she said. “Teachers would gather in a circle to sing, share announcements and then gather by grade level to connect before the day began.” Russell also was inspired by the community effort to keep the school campus clean. “This act of service also showed great care for their school, teamwork and independence as students cleaned their school grounds together.”

In addition to her time at Tamagawa, Russell also visited a shrine in Tokyo and saw a traditional Japanese wedding procession, stood atop Tokyo Tower to take in the wonder of the city’s skyline, attended a kabuki play and enjoyed a wide variety of Japanese cuisine.

One of the highlights for Russell was a tour around the Tamagawa campus with a teacher nearing retirement after 45 years at the school. “We hiked through the gardens where the students would harvest vegetables. We saw giant spiders, a variety of trees and sculptures, as well as the original and new buildings on the sprawling campus,” she recalled. “Seeing the school through his experienced eyes gave me a new perspective of the history and culture of an amazing school.”

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Teacher Dispatches from Summer Tanzania Trip

More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!

June 7:

We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari … 

June 8:

Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!

Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.

June 12:

We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!

Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.

Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe. 

June 14:

Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!

On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.

After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.

Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!

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Teacher Dispatches from Summer Tanzania Trip

More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!

June 7:

We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari … 

June 8:

Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!

Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.

June 12:

We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!

Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.

Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe. 

June 14:

Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!

On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.

After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.

Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!

Tags: , , , ,

Teacher Dispatches from Summer Tanzania Trip

More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!

June 7:

We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari … 

June 8:

Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!

Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.

June 12:

We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!

Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.

Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe. 

June 14:

Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!

On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.

After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.

Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!

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Computer Science Teacher Active in Outreach

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

Abigail Joseph, middle school computer science teacher, has been very busy! In mid-May, she attended the Making Possibilities Workshop, held at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara. The event was geared toward helping public educators and those working with low-income youth, and covered various formal and informal approaches to teaching on a variety of topics. She also spent several weeks working with Harker students for this year’s Technovation Challenge, a competition for young women in technology.

Joseph also traveled to Nashville in March for the national conference of the National Society of Black Engineers. There, she worked with the Bay Area, New York and Memphis chapters of Black Girls Code, an organization dedicated to fostering coding skills in young women of color. Joseph teamed up with Black Girls Code to deliver mobile app development workshops for nearly 200 middle and high school students. She also worked with a company called Hidden Level Games to hold a game jam workshop.

That same month, she headed to southern Texas to train a team of Latina middle school girls to develop an app idea that was a winner in this year’s Verizon App Innovation Challenge.

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Art Teacher’s Latest Work Featured in Oakland Gallery

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

“ImmersionVapor,” the latest work from upper school art teacher Joshua Martinez, was featured at Oakland’s Backstock Gallery through June 16. Using photographs as its medium, the exhibition invoked the feelings of being overcome and surrounded, with the obscuring nature of fog being a central element. The exhibit also explored the nature of memory and how original sensory experiences fade with time.

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Art Teacher’s Latest Work Featured in Oakland Gallery

This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.

“ImmersionVapor,” the latest work from upper school art teacher Joshua Martinez, was featured at Oakland’s Backstock Gallery through June 16. Using photographs as its medium, the exhibition invoked the feelings of being overcome and surrounded, with the obscuring nature of fog being a central element. The exhibit also explored the nature of memory and how original sensory experiences fade with time.

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