Winged Post Volume 19 Issue 6 by Harker Aquila

WINGED POST THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2018 | THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 19, NO. 6

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS

WHAT’S INSIDE?

HOSCARS 2 History of Manzanita 6 Clean Power Plan 13

Facebook embroiled in data breach controversy anika rajamani & arushi saxena reporters

KAITLIN HSU

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating Facebook to see if it violated its 2011 agreement to keep users’ data private, after the information collected through Aleksandr Kogan’s app was used by Cambridge Analytica on President Trump’s campaign. The data was used to target specific digital ads to users. University of Cambridge researcher Aleksandr Kogan developed a personality app, which utilized Facebook as a platform for its users. 270,000 users took the quiz on the app, but data was also taken from 50 million people, including the friends and other contacts of those who played the quiz. Facebook permitted the data to be used for only academic research purposes, and it removed the app from the online website once it found out that the data taken from Kogan’s app had been turned over to Cambridge Analytica.

OUR GENERATION Seniors Jerrica Liao and Olivia Long brandish signs favoring gun control at the March for Our Lives rally in San Jose on March 24.

Thousands march in youth-organized rallies for gun control legislation

ANVI BANGA

Robotics takes second at regional competition

ROBOTICS REGIONAL Members of the robotics team work on their robot in preparation for competition season.

nicole chen, prameela kottapalli, kathy fang, anmol velagapudi, & katherine zhang

Aquila features editor, features edior, photo editor, reporter, and STEM editor

“Protect lives, not guns.” “Schools are for learning. Not for lockdowns.” Scrawled in black and red paint, these two phrases emblazoned the posters of best friends Gemma Favaloro and Isabella Casteion from Kent Middle school in Marin County. As seventh graders, they were among the youngest activists at the March for Our Lives protest in San Francisco. That morning, they had urged their parents to take them to the demonstration, eager to experience a protest for the first time but even more enthusiastic to support a cause close to their hearts. They were only twelve, but they felt for the young survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School shooting. They were only twelve, but they wanted their voices to be heard, for politicians and policymakers to act upon the demands they shared with thousands of protesters.

zoe sanders reporter

The upper school robotics team, team 1072, qualified for the final round of and took second place in the FIRST Sacramento Regional competition, which took place at UC Davis from March 21 to March 24. Team 1072 had seven wins and one loss. With the help of two alliance teams, Tiki Techs from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and Armijo Robotics from Fairfield, California, the upper school qualified for the World Championship in Houston for the first time since 2005. This year’s competition was a game called “FIRST Power Up,” in which teams find their robots trapped in an 8-bit video game. The team competes next at the Silicon Valley Regional competition on March 28.

They were only twelve, but they’d had “enough.” Gemma and Isabella participated in just one of the more than 800 March For Our Lives protests, which took place worldwide on March 24 to rally for tighter gun control and safety measures in light of the school shooting at MSD in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and faculty members last month.

ing such a big group of students caring about one singular issue would definitely motivate Congress to take some action, hopefully, and if not, we’re all able to vote next year in the upcoming election.” The demonstrations are part of a larger movement spearheaded by MSD students Emma González, David Hogg and several others. González and Hogg

“Seeing such a big group of students caring about one singular sisue would definitely motivate Congress to take some action, hopefully, and if not, we’re all able to vote next year in the upcoming election.” MEGAN HUYNH ASB TREASURER, MEMBER OF SAN JOSE MFOL OUTREACH COMMITTEE “I got really inspired by the Parkland students after the shooting, how they decided to begin their own movement, completely student-led and student-run,” said Megan Huynh (12), who is a member of the San Jose outreach committee of the March for Our Lives. “See-

co-founded the initiative Never Again MSD, an organization committed to promoting gun control. Unlike previous efforts to enact tighter gun legislation, the revitalized movement led by these students and their allies comprises of high-schoolers.

Leaders of the campaign spread their message across the country, organizing marches, challenging politicians, delivering speeches at rallies and speaking to national news outlets. Most recently, the MSD activists appeared on the March 23 cover of Time Magazine alongside a single word: “Enough.” Carrying forward the advocacy of the MSD students, high school and college students across the nation coordinated and attended marches in their respective communities. In the Bay Area, more than eight mass protests took place on March 23rd, including demonstrations in San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Oakland. Harker students and faculty joined the movement and took to the streets to express their own opinions on current policies involving gun regulation. Student council invited students and faculty to sign up for the March for Our Lives as a sign of solidarity support for the students of MSD High School, and posters around campus encouraged students to participate in the demonstration in the weeks prior to the march. Continued on page 8.

SAHANA SRINIVASAN

VIJAY BHARADWAJ

KATHY FANG

GOLD CROWN Kshithija “KJ” Mulam (‘17) and Meilan Steimle (‘17) were the editors-in-chief of The Winged Post for the 2016-2017 school year.

PROVIDED BY ELLEN AUSTIN

Winged Post wins Gold Crown at CSPA convention

maya kumar

managing editor

The Winged Post won a Gold Crown award in the print news category for the 2016-2017 school year at the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Convention in New York on March 16. This award was given to 15 print news publications in the country.

FOR OUR LIVES (TOP LEFT) High school students protest at March for Our Lives San Jose on March 24. (TOP RIGHT) Sumati “Sumi” Wadhwa (12) and Esha Deokar (11) cheer during the San Jose rally. (BOTTOM TWO) Senator Dianne Feinstein spoke at the San Francisco rally in front of City Hall.

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NEWS

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

And the HOSCAR goes to... anika rajamani & michael eng

The return of HOSCARS was spearheaded by juniors Katherine Zhang and Shania Wang and has been well received by the student body. “I’m actually super excited to bring back Hoscars since I feel that it’s an incredibly valuable school tradition that is pretty well-liked. This year, it’s been great since the school community has shown a lot of interest in signing-up and holding it in the RPAC just contributes to that positive energy and buzz,” Shania, head of the student events committee, said. “I think that a lot of people are looking forward to it, and we definitely have an amazing line-up prepared, so we’re just hoping that everything runs smoothly and goes well.” Of the 50 students and faculty members who auditioned, 15 acts were chosen for the final show. “Hoscars was truly a place to express one’s interests and passions,” Andrew Lu (9) said. “One act I really enjoyed was by Andy Semenza, who hilariously portrayed a real-life interpretation of the Last Supper.”

reporters

The upper school hosted its seventh annual talent show, HOSCARS, which included various music, comedy and dance performances, in the new Rothschild Performing Arts Center (RPAC) on Mar. 23. Last year, HOSCARS was cancelled due to the construction of the performing arts center. However, with the opening of the RPAC this February, all future HOSCARS will be hosted here Since the RPAC only has a capacity of 450 people, there were two assemblies: one for the underclassmen and one for the upperclassmen. This marks the fourth major performance in the new performing arts center. The first was United Voices, a choir performance by various groups in the upper and middle schools, the second was an orchestral performance by the upper school orchestra ensemble and the third was an Evening of Jazz by the various Jazz troupes throughout the upper and middle schools.

ALL PHOTOS KATHY FANG

Students perform in annual talent show

AND THE NOMINEES ARE... (TOP) Sara Lynn Sullivan (10) runs her hand through her hair as she is surrounded by her fellow performers in the K-pop dance group. (BOTTOM LEFT) History teacher Julie Wheeler and economics teachers Damon Halback and Samuel Lepler introduce the next act, Tableau Vivant. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Guys Gig performs “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel. 15 acts were performed at this year’s HOSCARS.

ASB-elect plans for upcoming year helen yang

ALL PHOTOS KATHY FANG

Aquila STEM editor

Freshmen, sophomores and juniors cast their votes for the 2018-2019 ASB officers during lunch on Mar. 22 in the journalism room after listening to the candidate speeches during a special school meeting. Neil Ramaswamy (11) won against juniors Alycia Cary and Kelsey Wu for president; Shania Wang (11) won against Richard Wang (11) for vice president; Katherine Zhang (11) ran unopposed for secretary; David Feng (10) won against Sachin Shah (10) for treasurer and Matthew Hajjar (11) won against sophomores Nathaniel Melisso and Arun Sundaresan for spirit coordinator. This year, the spirit coordinator is a new position that has been added to the ASB officer team as a liaison between members of the student council, spirit team and student body. “There might be a misconception that spirit is just there to provide fun, but while that’s true, the overall goal is to make a foundation for being better people in a better community,” ELOQUENT ORATORY (TOP) Matthew said. “[Spirit] is a link Neil Ramaswamy (11) delivers his of pride for our community, pride speech to freshman, sophomores for the campus, pride in being a and juniors in the athletic center. Harker student, and I think that’s Neil won the election for ASB president. (MIDDLE) Students line incredibly powerful.” up to vote for ASB candidates. ASB oversees the student Voting took place during lunch in council members in supervising the journalism room. (BOTTOM) projects and helps plan major Shania Wang (11) addresses events in the school year. This the 11 students. Shania won the election for Vice President, beating year, ASB and the student councandidate Richard Wang (11). cil have worked with different organizations like the Spirit Team and HarkerDev to successfully open the snack bar, adjust

the finals week schedule, organize school dances, launch HarkerPay and more. “The role of ASB is to manage the student council, not to do all the work… [ASB] needs to effectively mobilize 25 people to work together on huge projects,” Neil said. “Five people can only do so much, but when you have 25 people working together? Wow.” For current ASB president Jimmy Lin (12) , serving on ASB has allowed him to help make an impact on the community and offered him opportunities to work with many inspiring people.

“The role of ASB is to manage the student council, not to do all the work...[ASB] needs to effectively mobilize 25 people to work together on huge projects” NEIL RAMASWAMY ASB PRESIDENT-ELECT

“With the natural disasters, we had a lot of really passionate students who wanted to come together and support the families affected. Also with the recent tragedy in Parkland, similarly it’s great seeing members of the student body be passionate enough to spearhead these projects,” Jimmy said. “Definitely the people I’ve met along the way have really defined the experience for me.”

In the upcoming school year, ASB hopes to allow create a clear agenda and allow the student body more input in student council decisions. “The general goal is to make sure everybody at school knows what’s happening with [ASB] projects, and to make sure that everybody’s working well together,” he said. “I think one thing we want to do is just have one huge brainstorming session… We’re gonna make sure to pull together all our ideas and narrow them down to [the ideas] we really wanna execute.” In terms of finance, ASB aims to increase the transparency of the budget and maximize spending efficiency. “We also want to create a platform where everyone can see… how [ASB and student councils] are allocating our budget, what our goals for fundraising are and how we’re actually spending our money, so that we can really help improve the school as opposed to spending on random things that we don’t really need,” he said. In addition, ASB plans to continue to improve overall student life through committees and other projects. “We want to continue the momentum that we have with the committees… but also have them become more productive in a sense,” Shania said. “For example, there are a lot of activities that we have ideas for but weren’t able to implement this year, such as food trucks for lunch music—small things that can make the students’ lives better.”

Artstravaganza displays Scholastic Art and Writing pieces in Nichols Atrium reporter

Artstravaganza, the upper school’s fifth annual art and writing exhibition, will be on display in Nichols Atrium starting on April 9. The gallery will include the work of Scholastic Art award winners, both artists and writers, as well as the art of any Harker student currently taking art classes. “What I like about Artstravaganza is that it’s really a community celebration of all the visual arts that have happened in the year, so it could be students who are freshmen who have just took the study of visual art class, or the students who have done advanced sculpting or ceramics,” visual arts teacher Pilar Aguero-Esparza said. Katrina Liou (11), a scholastic Art award winner who had her work exhibitted in Artsrav-

aganza for the past two years, shared her personal thoughts on the event. “I think [Artstravaganza] is a great way to display students’ art. It’s a one big event that includes not just AP [Art] students

exposes our community to the visual arts programs.” Although the art building does not have its own space for an exhibition, hosting Artstravaganza in Nichols, the science building, has its benefits for both

“What I like about Artstravaganza is that it’s really a community celebration of all the visual arts that have happened in the year, so it could be the students who are freshmen who have just took the study of visual art class, or the students who have done advanced sculpting or ceramics.” PILAR AGUERO-ESPARAZA VISUAL ARTS TEACHER but also the drawing, the graphic arts, the sculpture students, and it’s great,” Katrina said. “It

teachers and students. “We always get comments from teachers in Nichols like

ASHLEY JIANG

sara yen

LOOK AT THIS! Students discuss art pieces displayed in Nichols atrium. AP Studio Art students’ pieces were exhibitted on April 9 in Nichols.

‘It’s nice to have the art and see the colors!’” Aguero-Esparza said. “They appreciate being able to host us, and we really appreciate it because we don’t have a gallery. Everybody goes into that building because they have to have a science class at some point, so we like that too because it’s high traffic, so a lot of people are getting exposed to what students are doing in the art classes.” Like the past two years, Jazz Band is planning to perform at

Artstravaganza to entertain the viewers of the exhbition in Nichols. The exhibition will stay up in the center of Nichols Atrium until the end of the first week. After that, all of the art will be moved to the walls of the room to stay up for another month.

NEWS

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VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Capitol Hill:

What You Missed

Harker alumna pushes ICE for immigration discussion in San Jose editors-in-chief

Jessica Dickinson Goodman ‘07, in her new capacity as a San Jose Human Services Commissioner, is tackling the impact that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has on San Jose families. Dickinson Goodman was sworn into the Human Services Commission (HSC), a voluntary advisory body for San Jose, in January with the goal of serving the Bay Area community and improving transit and disability access.

has learning disabilities, and he has inspired her to volunteer her time helping others. “[I was inspired by] my brother being born [and] a lot of little moments of watching the world just not work for him, and then noticing how the world just doesn’t work for women in a lot of ways, and it doesn’t work for people of color in the United States in a lot of cases, and it doesn’t work for migrant communities in lots of places,” Dickinson Goodman said. “It doesn’t work for minority communities even within countries that are theoretically equitable in other

“We have work to do. It’s not a perfect world that any of us is born into, but we all have the opportunity to make it more fair, and to make it more perfect.” JESSICA DICKINSON GOODMAN SAN JOSE HUMAN SERVICES COMMISSIONER The HSC studies the status of human rights in San Jose, ensures their continual fulfillment and can make policy recommendations regarding human rights to the San Jose City Council. Dickinson Goodman’s brother is on the autism spectrum and

ways. I mean, we have work to do. It’s not a perfect world that any of us is born into, but we all have the opportunity to make it more fair, and to make it more perfect.” Following Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf’s warning of a

LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS Members of the Jose Human Services Commision (HSC) meet at San Jose City Hall on Feb. 15 to discuss police enforcement, homeless property returns and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Bay Area. (RIGHT) Jessica Dickinson Goodman ‘07 speaks at the February meeting. Goodman was sworn in as a member of the commission in January. Her goals are to improve transit for women and children, increase disability access in San Jose and invite an ICE spokesperson to speak to the commission.

large-scale ICE operation, over 230 arrests were made in an immigration enforcement sweep in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the HSC’s February meeting, Dickinson Goodman led a discussion over whether the Commission should send an invitation to Gilroy ICE spokesperson James Schwab to attend and speak at an HSC meeting about ICE’s changes in protocol and enforcement in the Bay Area. “They’ve [ICE] been making a lot of statements about going after sanctuary cities, specifically, and threatening San Jose in a pretty boldfaced way,” Dickinson Goodman said. “I’m for having more discussion about it. My understanding is that city council and SJPD have been trying to interact with ICE, but they have

KAITLIN HSU

kaitlin hsu & sahana srinivasan

KAITLIN HSU

Part six of a seven part series on American politics

not been particularly responsive, and to me that provides an additional benefit, if we’re able to, when we’re developing our list of questions, ask the questions they need answering.” The HSC voted to draft the invitation letter, which Dickinson Goodman did, and will vote at their monthly meeting today on whether they should follow-up with the letter and hand-deliver it to Schwab. Apart from its ICE initiatives, the HSC aims to spread awareness about people with disabilities, explore how to impactfully mitigate stress in children, write bylaws and establish best practices for the commission overall.

Evenings filled with melodies of ensembles Harker hosts Evening of Jazz and Santa Monica concert at Rothschild Performing Arts Center

“It took so much of the stress of the concerts we used to do - whether it was at Blackford, or at the Mexican Heritage theater, or wherever - so much of the stresses were just nonexistent. It just made for a homey experience.”

ANGELE YANG

anjay saklecha copy editor

SCANDAL OVERTURE (TOP) Instrumental music teacher Christopher Florio conducts the upper school orchestra at the Santa Monica exchange concert. The concert took place on March 8 in conjunction with the Santa Monica wind symphony. (MIDDLE) A middle schooler plays an upright bass in the evening of jazz concert. An Evening of Jazz took place on March 16, where both the upper and middle school orchestras performed. (BOTTOM) Brendan Wong (10) plays a saxophone as a member of the evening of jazz concert. The performers played several compositions at the concert, including Danzon 2, Night on Bald Mountain and School for Scandal Overture.

CHRISTOPHER FLORIO INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC the high school program and what they had to look forward TEACHER The theater was packed with 250 audience members to watch the 100 performers from Harker’s orchestra and 75 from Santa Monica’s. Joshua Valluru (10) plays guitar in the jazz band and appreciated the opportunity to play with a younger band. “We performed with them only at the end, one song,” Joshua said. “It was pretty nice, because we had to introduce ourselves to the younger kids, and tell them a little bit about

INTERACT sells Pinkberry for club week

BURKINA FASO Members of Interact sold Pinkberry frozen yogurt and pizookies this week for their club week.

DARREN GU

On Thursday, March 8, the upper school orchestra hosted their first performance in the new Patil Theater with the Santa Monica wind symphony in the Santa Monica exchange concert. On March 16, the orchestra also performed in an Evening of Jazz. According to Christopher Florio, instrumental music teacher, the main goal of the concert was to break in the theater for later performances. “The big thing was to kind of get a feeling for how the theater sounds, when it’s set up for instrumental performance, how long it takes to transport our instruments down the stage, things like that,” Florio said. “It was a great opportunity to test all those things out; now the next time we go in won’t be nearly as challenging. That goal was definitely met.” The performers played a variety of compositions, including Danzon 2, Night on Bald Mountain, and School for Scandal Overture. Anika Fuloria (9) enjoyed listening to the Santa Monica symphony, holding their band in high regard. “We played a joint concert with the Santa Monica wind symphony,” Anika said. “They’re really good, it was really fun to listen to them and learn about how their orchestra works. They had really great conductors too.” Florio added that playing on the Saratoga campus relieved the orchestra of a large amount of stress due to the small transition required to set up the instruments. These were the second and third perfor-

to. But apart from playing with them, we didn’t get a chance to play too much. Because we were there at one point - when we were in their shoes at one point - seeing that transition was pretty cool.” The upper and middle school will perform in a combined concert on April 13. The performing arts department will hold the musical the week after from April 19-21 in the Rothschild Performing Arts Center.

KATHY FANG

reporter

mances to take place in the Patil Theater following the United Voices Concert in February. “It took so much of the stress of the concerts we used to do - whether it was at Blackford, or at Mexican Heritage, or wherever - so much of the stresses were just nonexistent, because we were here. It was just very little transition - we were set up, the afternoons were relaxed leading up to the concerts. It just made for a homey experience.” he said.

KATHY FANG

saloni shah

To get involved in public governance, San Jose commissions have seats open in various councils, ranging from housing and community development to arts and historic landmarks. Nine Youth Commission positions in Districts 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and CW are also available. In addition to a discussion over the ICE representative invitation, at their March meeting tonight, HSC will discuss police protocol on how to handle property from people who are homeless, review a Women’s Bill of Rights policy and vote to approve funding implementation.

Interact Club sold Teaspoon this past week, as well as Pinkberry today and tomorrow and pizookies just tomorrow. Interact is fundraising for Interact District 5170 “Intermunity: The Right to Thrive” Program, which combines international relief and community welfare. They also want to educate students and address people who are discriminated against by race, gender or people who are not given equal opportunities, including victims of human trafficking, immigrants and underprivileged children and adults. “We are essentially raising money for the fundamental rights of sustenance and education in Burkina Faso (international) and the Bay Area (community). Our goal is to not only fundraise for the international project but to spread awareness about these issues,” Stephanie Xiao (11), Interact Vice President, said. ”I think it’s really important to let people know about these problems that are plaguing people worldwide.” Last year, Interact club also sold Pinkberry frozen yogurt to raise money for the service organization Rotary International. The project, “Me the Human,” was intended to raise awareness on the refugee crisis unfolding in the middle east. Following spring break, Green team will hold their club week from April 16 to 20.

GLOBAL

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VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Shots heard around the world

How do American gun laws compare to those of other developed nations?

eric fang

WIKIMEDIACOMMONS

global editor

Russian president Vladmir Putin won his country’s presidential victory, winning 76% of the vote. He will continue to lead Russia for at least another six year term as his main opponent in the election, Alexei Navalny, was barred from running. ON ERIC FANG

Former Russian spy poisoned in Britain

STEEP BARRIERS Japan enforces some of the strictest gun laws in the world. In 2014, there were only 6 deaths by firearm in the entire nation. The U.S. has less stringent gun control laws and had 38,658 gun related deaths in 2016. In response to the Parkland school shooting, the Florida state legislature raised the minimum age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21.

varsha rammohan

ERIC FANG

Vladmir Putin wins election in landslide

ERIC FANG

A former Russian spy and British citizens was poisened by a Soviet nerve agent which has since been traced to the Russian government.

Zambia pardoned 3,000 immates to depopulate prisons

WIKIMEDIACOMMONS

Zambia pardoned 3,000 prison immates citing far too crowded prisons and the need to lessen the cost of sustaining the immates. Those on death row will have their sentences change to prison for life.

Russian mall fire kills 64 with 16 missing A fire killed 64, many of which were children, at a crowded Winter Cherry mall at Kemerovo, Russia. An Investigative Committee revealed that the fire alarm system had been disbaled before the fire by a security guard and that many exits leading out of the mall were blocked.

reporter

Following the recent mass shootings in the United States, advocates have spoken out against the leniency of American gun regulations compared to those of other countries. Americans own nearly half of civilian-owned guns worldwide and are five percent of the world’s population. The country has experienced more than 1,800 deaths by gun this year, according to Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks every incident of gun violence in the U.S. National gun laws in the U.S. dictate that citizens and legal residents must be 18 to purchase shotguns, rifles or ammunition, and gun dealers must conduct a background check. But some states have different individual processes. For example, Oklahoma allows for possession of a firearm without a permit, and in Arizona, one can conceal carry a weapon without a license. With the United States’s robust gun culture comes an equally strong group of gun control critics. The National Rifle Association, a non-profit organization that promotes the second amendment, is one of the nationally established groups that speak out against gun control. Institutions like the American Firearms Association and the National Association for Gun Rights endorse the argument that gun regulation infringes on the rights of American citizens. However, gun control proponents argue that the sentiments of U.S. gun

culture harm the safety of citizens. “Congress should take sensible steps to address the role of weapons of war in civil society,” Anna Eshoo, the U.S. Representative for California’s 18th congressional district, said. “For too long, unreasonable forces have prevented serious consideration of virtually any gun legislation, no matter how common-sense it is. I reject this shortsighted view, as do the vast majority of the American people and the law enforcement community who want to reduce gun violence, without threatening the rights of law-abiding Americans.” There are approximately 88.8 guns per 100 people in the United States in 2007, and 0.6 guns per 100 in Japan, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research group that collects data on small arms and armed violence. The Japanese weapons law of 1958 states, “no one shall possess a firearm or firearms or sword or swords” whereas the second amendment clearly supports the right of an American citizen to own a gun. In Japan, citizens can purchase firearms for hunting and shooting sports only after completing an extremely lengthy background check. Applicants must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, and then receive at least 95 percent on a shooting-range test. Then they must pass a mental-health evaluation at a hospital and a licensing procedure in which authorities check the criminal record of the applicant and hold interviews with his or her’s family and friends. Every three years, owners must retake the class as

well as the initial test, and they can only purchase a rifle after ten years of shotgun ownership. Off-duty police members cannot carry firearms, unlike in the U.S. In a country of more than 127 million people, Japan saw six gun deaths in 2014. The U.S. saw 33,599 fatalities in the same year.

“Congress should take sensible steps to address the role of weapons of war in civil society.” ANNA ESHOO CALIFORNIA’S 18TH DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVE Switzerland also has a low gun death rate similar to Japan’s. A United Nations report states that there were 0.5 homicides per 100,000 people in Switzerland, where the U.S. had 5 homicides per 100,000 people in 2010. In a country of 8.3 million people, there are approximately 2 million civilian-owned guns, which translates into about 24 guns per 100 people. The National Rifle Association has previously used Switzerland in its marketing campaigns as a prime example of a peaceful country with a high number of guns . A license is required for purchasing a gun in Switzerland, yet rifles and semi-automatics are exempt from this requirement. Permits to carry a gun around in a public setting are rarely issued

to civilians. Switzerland also hosts shooting contests for teenagers, and all men are required to fight for the militia, where they learn how to properly handle a gun. The country also enforces an armed neutrality, which dictates that Switzerland is not to engage in an armed conflict with any other country. This policy was designed to ensure internal peace and security. In order to comply with new laws implemented by the European Union, Switzerland will amend some of its policies that will, in turn, further restrict who can buy what guns. “The Federal Council submitted draft legislation and proposes a pragmatic solution to incorporating the directive into Swiss law, a solution that upholds Switzerland’s shooting tradition,” said Michael Maccabez, Media and Communications Manager for the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C. “Especially the upgrading of firearms which up to now were class B weapons (weapons subject to authorization) into class A weapons (prohibited weapons) requires the Weapons Act to be amended...Sports marksmen (proof of regular shooting), collectors and museums (especially storage and logging regulations) must comply with additional requirements.” Countries like Switzerland have successfully maintained peace with societies that support guns. Nevertheless, the United States’s omnipresent gun culture has created for passionate discussions between the two opposing factions.

arya maheshwari reporter

President Trump affirmed the establishment of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum on Mar. 8 in an effort to bolster American companies that struggle to compete with foreign companies. The tariffs were passed amid pushback even from within Trump’s own cabinet and party due to fears that they may begin a trade war and induce unforeseen consequences to the economy, such as higher costs for buyers and hindrances to global economic growth. The tariffs, which took effect last Friday, comprise of a 25 percent tax on imported steel, and a ten percent tax on imported aluminum. While Trump’s initial proposition seemed to signal that would have no exceptions, he later added that Canada and Mexico, partners with the U.S. in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), would be exempt. He also alluded to a possibility of countries being excluded from the policy on an individual basis. Modern International Affairs teacher Damon Halback said: “Part of the slipperiness of this or the transitory nature of these tariffs comes from the kind of ‘declare the policy first and then before actually signing it,

make it more specific.” The main purpose of implementing tariffs is to dissuade the purchase of foreign goods and encourage using domestic products.

““All of [the economists] with very few exceptions believe that tariffs have a net negative effect.” SAMUEL LEPLER UPPER SCHOOL ECONOMICS TEACHER “From an economics standpoint, the purpose of tariffs is to protect a domestic industry [and] try to boost employment in that industry, under the theory or the hope of creating more steel and aluminum domestically and therefore growing the economy,” economics teacher Samuel Lepler said. In addition to the tariffs being a reaction to taxes against U.S. exports that have been put into place by foreign countries, proponents of the tariffs cite the necessity for aluminum and steel to be made domestically, deeming it imperative to national security.

While tariffs might benefit domestic steel workers, most economists agree that the problems induced by tariffs outweigh the benefits, according to Lepler. Major concerns cited by opponents of tariffs include higher costs for those involved in the purchase of taxed goods, the possibility of retaliatory tariffs by other countries and economic harms to foreign countries due to the rising prices of selling their goods in the U.S. “All of them [the economists] with very few exceptions believe that tariffs have a net negative effect,” Lepler said. “You will see contractions in all of steel-using industries both domestically and internationally, so the net loss exceeds the net gain.” Creating the possibility of economic retaliation and a trade war, the tariffs move the international commercial stage away from free trade dynamics towards more protectionist practices. “The U.S., by removing itself from its traditional stance as a country that promotes a legalist and open system of trade, undermines some of the long running relationships really in this trading system,” Halback said. “It’s an erosion of trust, and that’s problematic when essentially you’re engaged in a voluntary trade agreement.”

ARYA MAHESHWARI

Tarrifs imposed on imported steel and aluminum

FEATURES

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2017 ice removals by country of citizenship OF THE PEOPLE

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warned city residents of upcoming ICE raids in the Bay Area and presented an option of legal representation to undocumented immigrants through Twitter on Feb. 27. Three days after her initial admonition, Schaaf defended her actions Tweeting: “I do not regret sharing this information. It is Oakland’s legal right to be a sanctuary city and we have not broken any laws. We believe our community is safer when families stay together.”

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0 7 5 , 33

18, 83

5, 578

226,119

37% increase in

removals after trump inauguration

7,232 detainers rejected

undocumented immigrants removed by ice and homeland security in 2017

2x 15

MORE NONCRIMINAL ARRESTS IN 2017 THAN 2016

sanctuary cities in california

in 2017

GRAPHIC BY ROSE GUAN AND PRAMEELA KOTTAPALLI

232 immigrants removed in

4-day

ice sweep of bay area

over 50%

with no previous criminal record = APPROX. 9 PEOPLE

42% increase in ice arrests from 2016 to 2017

all information from IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE) annual report 2017, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIEIS (cis)

ICE raids sweep immigrant communities to hide out until the agents had gone, so I think it sends a really bad message to the community since she put both ICE agents and those in her city at risk,” Connolly said. The Supreme Court recently ruled that undocumented immigrants can legally be detained indefinitely, and numbers of those arrested during ICE raids is rapidly increasing. In a massive four-day immigration sweep, over 230 residents were arrested in Northern California alone. Though they were offered legal help, the majority of those arrested could not afford it and are facing immediate deportation. Over half of those arrested and subsequently deported possessed criminal records, while

eric fang & arushi saxena global editor & reporter

Immigration is one amongst many policies, like marijuana legalization, climate change, and offshore drilling, upon which California politicians and the Trump administration disagree. Shane Patrick Connolly, the vice chair of the Santa Clara County Republican party, disapproved of Shaaf’s actions as it may allow undocumented immigrants with a history of violent crime to escape law enforcement. “By announcing when ICE is coming, she gave a heads up for the worst people in the community who have committed serious crimes and had convictions

the other half had no previous criminal activity. According to the Washington Examiner, over 72%, around 7 million undocumented immigrants, are currently employed. Oakland is one of the many cities taking a stand against immigration laws they deem unfair and protecting undocumented citizens without a history of violent crime from deportation. The municipalities–known as ‘sanctuary’ cities–prohibit police from detaining individuals based solely on their immigration status or inquiring about to their immigration status. With the rising movement against deportation and those advocating for the rights of immigrants, the opposite side of the argument is experiencing

growing feelings of tension and negative feelings towards those who came here without documentation. “I think we’re seeing an uptick in xenophobia because there has been a growing insecurity amongst some segments of the United States. Whether or not that insecurity is warranted or not, their feeling of insecurity is real,” history teacher Byron Stevens said. “People respond to that in different ways, and unfortunately, several portions of the United States have chosen immigration as a scapegoat. I don’t mean to say that immigration hasn’t affected the economic realities, but I don’t think it has affected them to the degree they think it has or that they are being told it has.”

Math teacher moves to the music through tango career

POISE AND GRACE Stahl dances the evening away with tango partner Sam Safadi. “If you want something challenging, then challenge yourself with Tango,” Stahl said. “When you watch a ball-

rose guan & kathy fang

Wingspan designer & photo editor

A singer fills the air with a plaintive melody. Dozens of tango dancers locked in tight embraces sway in time with the rich music, covering the room with intricate series of steps. Among them is upper school mathematics teacher Gabriele Stahl. Argentine tango, the style that Stahl dances, emerged near the border between Argentina and Uruguay in the late 19th century. Argentine is one of many styles of the rhythmic social dance, distinguished from the likes of ballroom and Finnish tango by its melancholic music.

room tango, it is very stylish and very oriented toward the outside, so the people dance for the spectators,” Stahl said. “The Argentine tango is absolutely not like that. The couple dances just for itself.” Stahl’s own journey with tango began when she observed a workshop on Argentine tango at the Esalen Institute, a retreat center in Big Sur, in the early 2000s. She had previously performed and taught ballroom dancing, but she prefers tango for its more spontaneous nature as opposed to the rigid choreography of ballroom dancing..” Argentine tango, danced with a close embrace between a leader and a follower, relies on improvised, rather than

KATHY FANG

In this installment of “Meet Your Teacher,” math teacher Gabriele Stahl discusses her experience in dance. rehearsed, movements. “The leader has to make sure he’s very clear in his communication and his moves are very subtle, and then as a follower, I have to pick those up and then follow his lead. There is a challenge in there, and that is giving up control,” Stahl said. “It’s very, very intimate. You feel like one body, almost, that moves with four legs.” Stahl attends a milonga, or a social event featuring open dancing with different partners, in the Bay Area every week, and she also takes tango classes and dances in cities around the world. “When I travel, I always dance in the cities that I visit,” Stahl said. “I have danced in Bangkok, I have danced in Seoul, I have danced in Munich, I have danced in Barcelona—all of these cities—and I meet a ton of really, really cool people.” Stahl tries to apply the lessons she learns from tango to her teaching in the classroom. “When I go dancing at night, I try to leave the math teacher at home,” Stahl said. “But very often, I feel like my own students when I take classes. When a teacher teaches something, and I try to do it and it just doesn’t work, and then the teacher comes [and says,] ‘OK, let’s look at Gabi and see how we don’t do

it’—that feeling is always a reminder for me in the classroom.” Stahl recommends tango to any students who want to experience what she calls the “deep, deep satisfaction” and spontaneous style of the dance. “If you want something challenging, and if you want something where you learn about yourself, where you find yourself in a different situation being in the embrace of a stranger, then challenge yourself with tango,” Stahl said. “And I promise the reward is absolutely awesome.” Stahl recommends tango to any students who want to experience what she calls the “deep, deep satisfaction” and spontaneous style of the dance. “If you want something challenging, and if you want something where you learn about yourself, where you find yourself in a different situation being in the embrace of a stranger, then challenge yourself with tango,” Stahl said. “And I promise the reward is absolutely awesome.”

To learn more about Gabriele Stahl’s journey through the art of tango, visit the student news site of the upper school at www. harkeraquila.com.

“[Teaching] relates mostly in lessons that I take. When I go dancing at night, I try to leave the math teacher at home. But when I take lessons, I always look at the teacher in terms of his teaching, so I always assess him, whether that’s my job or not. I can’t help it– ‘Oh my God, he should have really reviewed this because he takes the next step’ or ‘Oh, he should go around more and help individually and not stand by the music and look at his playlist’—that kind of thing.” GABRIELE STAHL MATH TEACHER AND TANGO PRO

FEATURES

6 WINGED POST The

HIST

VOLUME 19• ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

RY of

MANZANITA Commemorating 125 years of Harker

THEN 1

1893: Manzanita Hall is established by Frank Cramer as a preparatory school for boys in Palo Alto.

1932: 13 years after Manzanita Hall became Palo Alto Military Academy, cadets pose outside of the building.

1952: Mother Butler Catholic high school educates girls on the Saratoga property until 1972.

1960: PAMA cadets stand by the doorway to the original Manzanita building in Palo Alto.

1972: PAMA and Harker Day School merge and move to the Mother Butler property in Saratoga.

1983: Students play ping-pong outside Manzanita. Harker accepted boarders from 1972 until the ‘90s.

1987: Crowding around a foosball table in Manzanita, students watch their peers play intently.

NOW

12 2018 PHOTOS AND REPORTING BY NERINE UYANIK

1989: Two classmates chat next to a rotisserie cookout outside Manzanita as friends play table tennis.

1993: Manzanita hall recieves an artistic makeover as its terrace side is painted in a rustic fashion.

2018: Office of Communications Director Pam Dickinson works in her office in Manzanita Hall’s right wing.

2018: Ashna Reddy (10) and Nathan Sudeep (10) eat lunch in Manzanita, where students can relax.

2018: Called Manzanita Hall, the building now contains offices and dines the upper school community.

6 8 “My favorite memory of the old days is that I would have all the boarders on Saturday night get dressed up in suits and dresses and I would turn the [dining room] into a casino. We let the kids stay up late and they gambled and they collected play money whether they won or not, and the next day, they could buy prizes. We called it Monte Carlo night, and it was a big deal.” PAT WALSH RETIRED LOWER SCHOOL MATH TEACHER

“One of the most fun things I remember was in the summer boarding program. We celebrated every single national holiday–in one day. We really went all out; it was very busy for the staff. We celebrated Christmas morning, we had Easter breakfast and an Easter egg hunt, we had a Thanksgiving lunch, we had St. Patrick’s day in the middle of the day, and at nighttime we had a Halloween party and a big haunted house.” JOE ROSENTHAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ADVANCEMENT

ARCHIVE PHOTOS PROVIDED BY OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

“We started a Harker Café–it was meant to spoof ‘Hard Rock Café.’ On Sunday mornings, the kids would sign up to work in the café, and it was so popular. The kids would do the cooking, they would take the orders, they would go up to the counters like a restaurant. The kids loved that. We did that for years.The kids loved that. In fact, because they had so much fun and loved the boarding kids, some teachers would come up on Sundays to eat breakfast at the Harker Café.” PAM DICKINSON OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

DIRECTOR

“I started out not only as school nurse but as a dorm mother. I was in charge of laundry, of making sure that boarding students got their allowance at the end of the week, of keeping their plane tickets and passwords and working on their airline reservations to and from home. [With] dorms, it’s like the school is alive–for nine months of the year there’s constantly something going on–day and night, and I just loved it. It added something to the school.” DEBRA NOTT DIRECTOR OF HEALTH SERVICES

LIFESTYLE

WINGED POST 7

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

A CHEF?

ROSE GUAN

ALL PHOTOS NINA GEE

Chef Steve Martinez provides his clients with personalized, nourishing “comfort food” meals “Don’t be afraid to try it, to do it. Take a cooking lesson here and there to find out techniques you don’t understand. Read cook books, cooking magazines; there are a thousand ways to cook things and there’s really no right or wrong way.” STEVE MARTINEZ PERSONAL CHEF

MIXING IT UP (LEFT) Chef Steve mixes vegetables in a bowl after washing them. Though comfort food is often associated with greasy and unhealthy food, Martinez says, “My purpose in naming my company that was just the notion of food being nourishing and comforting.” (RIGHT) Chef Steve tries out a new recipe given to him by a client. He is often given recipes that clients want to be made for the week.

He is self-taught but has taken cooking classes, including at the Professional Cooking Series at UCLA Extension. He prices his services between $300 and $350, which include 12-20 servings, along with meal-planning, purchasing ingredients, and cooking the meals.

“Never apologize, never explain; if that’s the way it turned out, that’s the way I meant it to be.” This philosophy inspired by his culinary hero, Julia Child, is one that Chef Steve Martinez lives by each day. Steve Martinez, 65, owns a Bay Area personal chef service named “Comfort Food”, a reference not to the stereotypically greasy food that we associate the name with, but to the comfort that a good meal could bring a person. “I think comfort food has a kind of connotation to it that people think it’s going to be all fatty food, but that’s not it,” Martinez said. “My purpose in naming my company that was just the notion of food being nourishing and comforting.” Martinez is a personal chef, meaning that he prepares food for different clients based on their needs and preferences.

Humans of Harker SHARAD CHANDRA srinath somasundaram reporter

A series of cheers emanate from the crowd as Sharad Chandra (12) travels deftly down the soccer field, each coordinated pass a wordless conversation. “Normally, when you play soccer, you just get to play with your ‘teammates,’ but those teammates are my friends now,” Sharad said. “You see each other every day, and it just makes your bond with them so much stronger.” With his calm, charismatic nature and plethora of friends, Sharad might superficially seem like a carefree spirit with no real sense of duty. However, once under his facade of poise, his friends say he’s a completely different person. “He acts like he’s chill, but he cares a lot about everything,” his

Aquila asst. news editor

Alix Robinson-Guy (12) strategically eats her Skittles. Carefully tearing open the fun-sized packet, she pours them all in one hand and gently sifts through them, searching for each color. She groups them together on top of the flattened empty wrapper, and then pops them in her mouth, one by one. “I think the best way to eat Skittles is if you seperate them all into each flavor and then you eat them one at a time” Alix said. Rainbow Skittles, rainbow backpack — as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Alix wears an array of colors with pride. As she’s progressed through high school, Alix has broadened her LGBTQ+ rights lens to include

more general human rights. This focus manifests itself in both her reading choices — she loves fantasy and sci-fi but also historical fiction. “I loved The Great Gatsby,” she said. “I feel like it’s a really fantastically written novel, from the first page it is spot-on. I don’t usually say this about books, but I think it’s one of the few books that speaks to human experience.” Although her writing doesn’t typically involve 1920s America, she still aims to capture the human experience in its flawed glory. “I do like to write but not the kind of stuff that ever gets finished,” she said. “I usually write science-fiction with aliens and stuff. Aliens are a really good writing tool because you can use aliens to examine how humanity functions and how they contrast.”

customer asked me for,” Martinez reiterates. “That’s the personal in personal chef.” To anyone who is interested, not just in this specific industry, but in cooking in general, Martinez advises that while it is rare to become a culinary star with TV shows and cookbooks immediately after leaving school, it is important to persist in doing what one loves to do. “Don’t be afraid to try it, to do it. Take a cooking lesson here and there to find out techniques you don’t understand,” he said. ”Read cook books, cooking magazines; there are a thousand ways to cook things and there’s really no right or wrong way.” Although this career wasn’t initially his first plan regarding his future, Martinez has truly found his calling in the science, art and magic of cooking. “Well, I found a way to do what I love for a living, and that’s a pretty important thing. I’m not making a killing money-wise, but I’m doing what I love and I make people happy.”

The goal of this cross-platform project is to profile all members of the senior class of 2018. To view all the senior features and the full versions of the ones below, visit Harker Aquila, the student news site of the upper school at harkeraquila.com.

teammate * do-gooder * friend

close friend and soccer teammate Sparsh Chauhan (12) said. While the 400 hours Sharad’s clocked in at organizations like the Red Cross, El Camino Hospital, the Red Cross and the Alzheimer’s Institute might be impressive on paper, Sharad finds more meaning in the individual human connections. “I think to understand yourself you need to understand others as well,” he said. “All the people that I have interacted with whether through volunteering or not have really shaped me.” “For sports, when you go to watch a game, that’s when everybody comes together for a common cause,” he said. “Everything else goes away when you’re on that field. ... When I’m with other people, it feels like all our problems go away.”

ALIX ROBINSON-GUY anvi banga

else does it.” Martinez eventually found that he enjoyed the role of a personal chef the most because of the freedom of the menu and the opportunity to help many families who would otherwise not be able to cook for themselves. “I heard about personal chefs who cook for many different clients and I decided that that’s what I want to do, so I started my business, created a website,” he said. Upon signing up for this service, clients will initially meet with Martinez for an in-home consultation, where he finds out about their likes, dislikes, and dietary restrictions in terms of meals, before working with them to develop a menu for that day, week, or however long he will be cooking for them. Afterwards, he manages all the shopping, cooking, and packaging of the food so that the client can expect the dishes to be already ready for them by the time they get home. “It’s all based on what the

MELISSA KWAN

Martinez worked as a sales and marketing representative for a national food magazine for many years before starting his business.

reporters

Unlike a restaurant chef, who cooks food based on a set menu, he is able to make any food for his customers that they choose themselves. “The fact that it’s completely personal and adaptable to each person, each client [is what makes it unique],” Martinez explains. “One client may be on so many dietary restrictions that they can’t get food anywhere else, they don’t know how to cook it, they can’t get it in a restaurant, they can’t get it in a fast food place, and I can do that for them.” Martinez, who never went to culinary school, is completely self-taught. Having only realized in his 30s that cooking was what he wanted to do, he had mostly cooked as a hobby. However, that was enough for him to make a business out of his passion. “I learn something new almost everyday, and I pull my knowledge from so many different sources: cookbooks and cooking magazines and the internet and the way somebody

reader * activist * writer

MELISSA KWAN

FAST FACTS

nina gee & anna vazhaeparambil

“To understand yourself you need to understand others as well. All the people that I have interacted with whether through volunteering or not have really shaped me and my view of myself. I think that empathizing with other people is a huge part of understanding who you are and being who you want to be.” SHARAD CHANDRA (12)

“My old backpack broke, and my mom was buying me a new one. She was like, ‘Oh, it’s a rainbow backpack, it’s gay like you.’ and I was like, ‘Oh, yes it is’. I have my rainbow backpack, and it’s very distinctive. I’m really straightforward, so a lot of the things that people assume about me turn out to just be right. There’s not really a lot of layers going on here. It’s all on the surface, I’m an open book.” ALIX ROBINSON-GUY (12)

8 WINGED POST

FOR OUR LIVES

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES “I’m glad that so many young people are getting into protesting and voting and all that. I think that’s one of the only good thing that’s come out of all this as people are knowing that voting makes a difference for the first time and understanding that it makes a big difference whether or not you are involved in the democracy.” -Suzanne Waters, protestor at March for Our Lives San Francisco.

“I’m never going to forget this day in my life because like the Women’s March, it means so much. I think this march is a great catalyst for social advocacy among teenagers like me that have a voice.” AVI GULATI SOPHOMORE CLASS PRESIDENT “No more silence, end gun violence!” Jason believes that the youth-powered activism of the movement will encourage tangible change in gun legislation. “The Parkland students definitely inspired me to organize this march,” Chen, 14, said. “They’ve been leading students all across the nation, bringing people to show their support for the youth and for gun control.” Over 25,000 demonstrators, many of them high-school and college students, attended the march in San Francisco alone. “It’s an intersectional crowd–we see people from a variety of races and ethnicities, a span of socioeconomic class, and some representation of the LGBT community as well,” protester and Berkeley resident Janie Pinterits said. “We are multifaceted people, we are not single issue people, and we have to work together to be more effective in the change that we’re seeking.” The massive turnout of the San Francisco protest–as well as the thousands of people who marched in cities around the world–is due in part to social

Students organize walkout, debate and town hall on gun control Prior to the March for Our Lives protests, the Harker community held a walkout and vigil on March 14 to commemorate and honor the lives lost in the massacre, an event hosted by various student organizations and clubs on campus. Students also had the opportunity to sign a banner for MSD, write letters to local congressmen and district representatives or purchase snacks to support the MSD community. “I hope that [the vigil, the banner and the video] lead to a sense of love among our community. I hope it fosters a feeling of grief,” sophomore class council president Avi Gulati (10) Feb. 14, 2018: A former student shot and killed 17 people—14 students and three faculty—at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL Page design by Kaitlin Hsu

said. “To the MSD community, I hope that they see what we’ve done and know that they’re supported. I mean, they obviously already, with so much of the efforts around the country, know that they’re supported, but so many other people doing something about it is not to say that we shouldn’t.” Student council, Harker journalism and the speech and debate program collectively organized a session hosted by History teacher Carol Green on informed voting, a pre-registration opportunity for 16 and 17 year old students and a bipartisan debate and town hall on gun control.

Feb. 17, 2018: Students David Hogg, Emma González, Delaney Tarr and Cameron Kasky speak at Gun Control rally in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

media. “We’re able to talk and so many people are able to listen,” Emma González said in an interview last month with the Winged Post. “Now, they have to listen because we are better at Instagram and social media and Twitter and Facebook than they are.” While the MSD students have mobilized the movement on social media, these students and their fellow activists across the nation have demanded stricter gun legislation that encompasses policies ranging from required background checks to a ban on assault rifles. “We still have guns in the UK, but after a similar incident that happened in an elementary school, we really tightened our gun laws. We haven’t had any incidents since,” attendance coordinator Sue Prutton, who is from the United Kingdom and attended the San Jose march, said. “We [Americans] need to take a close look at guns. I think I’m just incredibly proud of the students for stepping up and doing what so many of us adults should really have been willing to do in the first place.” This call for “common sense gun laws” has yielded action among Florida lawmakers. The Florida legislature passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act on March 8, which raises the minimum age requirement to purchase a firearm to 21, establishes longer waiting periods, and allocates $400 million to mental health resources and for the hiring of school resource officers. Despite the changes in Florida’s state policies, congress has yet to pass comprehensive legislation on gun control. According to California senior senator Dianne Feinstein, a pending judiciary committee bill with 30 co-sponsor proposes to ban assault weapons. “It is the third bill that we have written,” Feinstein said in a speech delivered at the San Francisco march. “The problem is the gun industry. They will go out, and they will support mightily people in other states that will refuse to do this. If we want a new America, if we want a one-family America, we cannot do it through guns.”

Protests ignite na

KATHY FANG

Uplands School Maya Segal said. “We’re here to show them that we are sick and tired of constantly being afraid of guns, and that we won’t stop fighting until they’re no longer a threat.” Jason Chen, a freshman at Lowell High School and the head student organizer of the San Francisco march led the chant

KATHY FANG

Continued from front page. Sophomore Avi Gulati marched at San Jose with friends to advocate not just for gun control, but also for women’s rights. In his hand he held a poster stating: “A woman’s body should not be more regulated than guns.” In the end, Avi believes the movement and its organizers inspired him to become more involved in political action. “I’m never going to forget this day in my life because like the women’s march, it means so much,” Avi said. “The speakers today, the rally chants, everything just came together in this powerful, poignant manner, and the Prospect students did a great job organizing this. I think this march is a great catalyst for social advocacy among teenagers like me that are passionate and have a voice.” Standing by the side of Harker students were students from schools across the Bay Area as a surge of student-led activism sweeps the country and culminates in today’s marches. At San Jose, students, teachers and allies alike marched from the City Hall to Arena Green, where a dozen speakers ranging from high school activists and survivors of gun violence to military veterans and local government officials called for reform in gun legislation. Among the speakers at the rally was Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of of California’s 19th Congressional District, who urged attendees to support state representatives championing their causes. “I just really believe in the cause, honestly,” San Jose marcher Meona Khetrapal (9) said. “I feel like we’re all receiving more power. We should take that chance and show the power that we all have.” Although the protest in San Francisco followed a slightly different agenda with speakers heading a rally at the Civic Center Plaza prior to the student-led march down Market Street, the turnout and participants of the protest were no less spirited in their cries for reform. “We shouldn’t have to be here, but when the government doesn’t do their job, we’re here to show them that we don’t want to sit by anymore,” rally speaker and freshman at Crystal Springs

POSTER CHILD: (TOP) An attendee at the March for Our Lives rally holds up a peace sign during a speech. (BOTTOM) An elementary school student holds up a poster during the protest in San Francisco. Over 25,000 demonstrators attended the march in San Francisco alone with many others in the Bay Area attending the San Jose event. Protestors were inspired by the recent events at MSD as well as students such as Emma González, David Hogg and Cameron Kasky.

“It’s stupid that we still have to be talking about this and fighting about my right to be alive, but it’s that’s kind of the way it is and that’s why I came here.”

“As a history teacher, we’re always learning from history and trying to apply it to modern day. It’s always a struggle to talk about how we put it to action.” JOSHUA HOLLISTER

CAITLYN CURRY FRESHMAN AT SAN RAMON VALLEY HIGH

“How brave are these kids that are coming out against NRA, which is a huge thing. Congress isn’t brave enough to take on the NRA.” SUZANNE WATERS

HISTORY TEACHER

“I think it’s ridiculous that people think it’s ok to have guns in classrooms. There are so many other resources that are needed and necessary.”

PROTESTOR FROM BERKELEY March 9, 2018: Florida legislature passes bill raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21, establishes background checks, bans bump stocks, and allocates $400 million for hiring school police and arming some teachers

March 14, 2018: Nationwide school walkouts inspire vigils and memorials. In some schools, students are penlized with suspensions for leaving class

MARY WALLACE UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND, CLASS OF 2017

March 20, 2018: Shooting in Maryland’s Great Mills High School wounds two and sparks greater outpouring across the nation for gun control legislation

WINGED POST 9

KATHY FANG

FOR OUR LIVES • VOLUME 19 ISSUE 6 • MARCH 29, 2018

KAITLIN HSU

VIJAY BHARADWAJ

ation as students rally for gun legislation

GEN Z RISES: (TOP) Upper school history teacher Byron Stevens, senior Jessica Wang and juniors Jennifer Hayashi and Zachary Hoffman listen to speakers during March for Our Lives San Jose on March 24. Dozens of upper school faculty, staff and students attended the protests. (MIDDLE) High school students protest at March for Our Lives San Jose on March 24, walking from San Jose City Hall to the Arena Green in the rain, along with thousands of others across the Bay Area. (BOTTOM) High school students cheer during the rally at March for Our Lives San Jose, which was organized primarily by a group from Prospect High School inspired by their peers advocating for gun control at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Over 25,000 demonstrators, many of them high-school

and college students, attended the march in San Francisco.

Student journalists cover marches

>3000 walkouts held on March 14

>40

Harker students registered to vote

SOURCES: Wikipedia, Chicago Tribune, The Hill.

SAHANA SRINIVASAN

>200 815

colleges and universities that promise not to penalize students for walkouts protests in California from Jan. 2017

PRAMEELA KOTTAPALLI

WORLDWIDE MARCH FOR OUR LIVES DEMONSTRATIONS

GUN-RELATED PROTESTS IN THE COUNTRY IN MARCH

MAYA KUMAR

979

PRAMEELA KOTTAPALLI

>800

Fourteen Harker student journalists attended March for Our Lives rallies in San Jose and San Francisco to take photos at each event, interview attendees and listen to speakers. To see expanded versions of the articles, videos and other multimedia content, visit HarkerAquila.com

10 WINGED POST

Managing Editor Maya Kumar

Facebook breach underscores our own lax privacy standards

News Editor Vijay Bharadwaj Features Editor Prameela Kottapalli Opinion Editor Derek Yen STEM Editor Katherine Zhang Global Editor Eric Fang Lifestyle Editor Mahika Halepete

Adviser Ellen Austin, MJE Aquila Editor-in-Chief Meena Gudapati Wingspan Editors-in-Chief Kaitlin Hsu Sahana Srinivasan Wingspan Managing Editor Maya Kumar Wingspan Designer Rose Guan Aquila Staff Neil Bai Anvi Banga Krishna Bheda Nicole Chen Adrian Chu

Jenna Sadhu Alex Wang Tiffany Wong Helen Yang Gloria Zhang

Humans of Harker Staff Ashley Jiang Nerine Uyanik Reporters Karina Chen Zoe Sanders Michael Eng Arushi Saxena Nina Gee Kushal Shah Farah Hosseini Saloni Shah Vivian Jin Jin Tuan Irina Malyugina Anmol Velagapudi Anika Rajamani Jessie Wang Varsha Rammohan Anya Weaver Aditya Singhvi Sara Yen Anna Vazhaeparambil Srinath Somasundaram

Visit The Winged Post Online at www.harkeraquila.com Follow us on social media with the handle /harkeraquila

The Winged Post is published every four to six weeks except during vacations by the Journalism: Newspaper Concentration and Advanced Journalism: Newspaper Concentration courses at The Harker Upper School, 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129. The Winged Post staff will publish features, editorials, news, sports and STEM articles in an unbiased and professional manner and serve as a public forum for the students of The Harker School. Editorials represent the official opinions of The Winged Post. Opinions and letters represent the personal viewpoints of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Winged Post. All content decisions are made by student editors, and the content of The Winged Post in no way reflects the official policy of The Harker School. The opinions expressed in this publication reflect those of the student writers and not the Harker board, administration, faculty or adviser. Letters to the Editor may be submitted to Manzanita 70 or emailed to wingedpost2017@ harker.org and must be signed, legible and concise. The staff reserves the right to edit letters to conform to Post style. Baseless accusations, insults, libelous statements, obscenities and letters that call for a disruption of the school day will not be considered for publication. Letters sent to The Winged Post will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff. The Winged Post is the official student newspaper of The Harker School and is distributed free of cost to students. 2017-2018 Gold Crown-winning publication 2016-2017 NSPA Pacemaker Finalist 2016-2017 Silver Crown-winning publication 2015-2016 Gold Crown-winning publication 2014-2015 Silver Crown-winning publication 2013-2014 Silver Crown-winning publication 2012-2013 Silver Crown-winning publication 2010-2011 Gold Crown-winning publication 2009-2010 Silver Crown-winning publication

EDITORIAL THE OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE WINGED POST Facebook users across the world were shocked to learn that private data about them may have been collected—through a breach of Facebook’s policies— by a political marketing firm. In 2013, Russian-American academic Alexsandr Kogan created a personality quiz app to collect data that he claimed would only be used for academic purposes. Notably, this app was able to collect data not only of the quiztaker, but also of the quiztaker’s friends. Under Facebook’s policies, this data could be collected given that it would only be used for academic purposes.

DEREK YEN

Copy Editor Anjay Saklecha Photo Editor Kathy Fang

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

In a violation of this arrangement, Kogan gave this user data to the political marketing firm Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica was later hired by the Trump presidential campaign in 2016, and used this

We shouldn’t be surprised when the information that we thought we could give privately to Facebook alone can find its way elsewhere.

data to create voter profiles for enhanced political outreach. To be sure, these revelations have underscored the need for reform at Facebook. Facebook’s current structuring is woefully opaque; when Facebook first

learned that Cambridge Analytica had improperly acquired user data in 2015, Facebook demanded that the information be deleted—but didn’t follow up. Cambridge Analytica clearly had not deleted the data; Facebook should have staged a much more comprehensive investigation in the service of protecting its users’ privacy. Mark Zuckerberg’s recent apology for Facebook’s dereliction of duty seems sincere, but it is also belated. Regardless of how comprehensive Facebook’s request to Cambridge Analytica to delete the data was, Facebook should have informed its users in 2015 that their data may have been compromised. Certainly, Facebook requires greater transparency so that users know how their data is protected, and when that protection is breached. But at the same time, it is intellectually dishonest to single out Facebook alone for breaches

of user privacy. Facebook is not the only company that collects mass quantities of user data; or to be more precise, that users voluntarily give data to. One of the defining features of the internet is that information, once uploaded, lasts forever. One can delete posts and images, but copies likely exist somewhere. This is true of the front-end of social media networks, but also of the back-end. We shouldn’t be surprised when the information that we thought we could give privately to Facebook and Facebook alone can find its way elsewhere. For years it has been public knowledge that one’s social media information is far less secret than it seems. The fact that Facebook is currently the company embroiled in a scandal is secondary to the fact that this could happen with any social media platform. So perhaps you may #deletefacebook, as the growing movement exhorts—but is that truly an escape from the broader problem of private data collection? Is there any reason to believe this same breach of user privacy cannot occur with Instagram, or Snapchat or Twitter— or hasn’t already, just without public knowledge? Again, this is not to say that Facebook shouldn’t be blamed for this outcome. But if you truly desire privacy, it will require reforms to far more than Facebook. It will require the abandonment of all social media platforms, your email account, as well as your smartphone. Data collection is simply a ubiquitous feature of modern technology.

eart of Harker: What it means to be conservative raymond banke guest writer

Imagine a tightrope, high above the ground. On one end, a donkey is biting the rope, occasionally yanking it an inch back. Across from the donkey rests an elephant, its trunk wrapped furiously around the line between death and safety. Treading this narrow rope is a creature unknown to many: the porcupine. To espouse conservative ideologies at Harker is one of the trickier social tasks at our school. Conservatism is too often associated with only its most well known facet: Republicanism, the political belief system that is supposedly filled with racists, bigots, and other so-called “de-

plorables.” Classmates who harbor good intentions and believe in freedom of speech seem to eschew them both when they hear the word “conservative,” immediately imagining someone who hates gays, is staunchly Christian, and probably wants to “Make America Great Again.” There is a large degree of inflexibility that I encounter as a conservative at Harker as to what beliefs I can and cannot have due to the fear of falsely being seen as a bigot. As a result, whenever someone asks me about my political ideology, I just say Libertarian, as the nametag holds a less negative stigma, and the party’s values align relatively closely to my own political views. Unfortunately, the result of associating with the Libertarians is that people think I don’t

care for the disadvantaged and am crazily obsessed with Ayn Rand. Yes, I may have written about 2.5 English essays in the lens of objectivist theory, but do you really think I want to remove Social Security? We happen to live in a liberal oasis at Harker, and I accept and embrace that environment that I chose to go to high school in. However, to harbor a truly diverse student body, we should not discourage those who believe in right-wing politics. Instead, we should choose to foster that conversation between someone who is a conservative in order to better understand where his views are coming from. The gun control discussion held earlier in March that invited conservative speakers to express their thoughts was a good example of

how we can at least begin this conversation on campus. This sort of informal discourse not only helps to strengthen your own political beliefs but also creates an environment for more sincere dialogue between our school’s right and left. For now though, I continue to carefully walk the political tightrope.

Raymond Banke is a junior at The Harker School. When he isn’t procrastinating debate prep or his English essays, Raymond enjoys creating art and reading Humans of Harker. In this repeating guest column, we encourage all writers from around the community to share their memorable experiences while at the Upper School. Please email all column ideas to wingedpost2018@gmail.com.

The ethics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests gloria zhang

Aquila asst. features editor

The world turned upside down when a new era of polarization stumbled through not the doors of the White House, not the doors of American citizens, but the doors of the world. When will this back and forth quarrel be over? When will we pause to think of the people? On Oct. 5, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Senate Bill 54, or California Values Act, proclaiming California as a sanctuary state, preventing local and state agencies to release information on criminals or suspects to federal officers unless they have committed a serious crime. On Feb. 24, 2018, Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf warned of a large-scale U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation on undocumented immigrants. A day later, her warning proved true as hundreds of people were detained by ICE agents. ICE director Thomas Homan declared that she jeopardized their agents’ safety, comparing the ar-

rests to gang operations. ICE states that they arrested 20,201 people in California in 2017, with 81% carrying a criminal record. Therein lies the question: was mayor Schaaf justified in her actions? Did the warning prevent criminal arrests and endangerobstruct public safety? Aside from a rollercoaster ride, full of bumps and sharpturns, involving politicians and ICE agents, it is important to remember the undocumented immigrants themselves. [this] They are families who have come to America to search for better opportunities for their children, escape life-threatening dangers in their home countries, or both. They are the brave who have entered a foreign society full of strangers and unfamiliarity. It’s easy to think about the safety of our community, our friends, our family. As humans, we of course strive to eliminate the risk of harm to our loved ones. After all, our families support us in our ups and downs. The arrests of the convicted 81% of undocumented immigrants may decrease the risk of danger. But what about all the other im-

migrants? What about their own safety? On Mar. 6, the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions sued California, Governor Jerry Brown, and California’s Attorney General Xavier Barrera over three laws that limit federal immigration agencies in acquiring information of undocumented immigrants. On Mar. 13, Trump assessed eight prototypes for his U.S.-Mexico border wall in San Diego and criticized Governor Jerry Brown’s governing of California. “You have ‘sanctuary

cities’ where you have criminals living in the sanctuary cities,” he said. It’s time to show empathy to the young and old who are living with the anxiety of unexpected deportation and the fear of threats to their lives at home; neither America nor their home countries foster an atmosphere of stability. Most of us have never and likely will never experience the hardships of the undocumented immigrants. It’s time to lend not only a voice, but a heart to them. It’s time for them, and not for us. It’s time to be selfless.

ERIC FANG

Editors-in-Chief Kaitlin Hsu Sahana Srinivasan

OPINION

WINGED POST 11

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Dialectic:

Technology and Modernity

In our recurring Dialectics, two authors with contrasting viewpoints discuss an issue of prominence in the local or broader community. We hope to use these multiple views to provoke deeper thought among the student body and help readers explore new perspectives.

ZOE SANDERS

Throughout human history, technological progress has improved humanity’s faculties but come with negative consequences. How can reconcile the benefits and drawbacks of technological progress? Reporters Vivian Jin and Zoe Sanders discuss this issue. vivian jin & zoe sanders

WP: Going back to something Vivian said about ebooks per-

reporters

Winged Post: Some critics of technology acknowledge

that it alleviates human needs but also creates new needs. In America you require a car to get around in most places. Cars represent a technological improvement over walking or carriages, but at the same time, they’ve created an environment in which you have to have a car, where a convenience becomes a necessity. Where is the balance between convenience, and forced necessity? Vivian Jin: I think the balance is very hard to define. For me personally, I have a romantic mindset and—I like technology and the internet, that’s great, but sometimes I just think it might be better or richer in life to go back to the time when everyone rode around on horses, or on bicycles, and it was a smaller community. Zoe Sanders: As [Vivian] said, technology now is obviously very different from what it used to be, but then again, our generation was born into the world with all this technology around and have never really known a world without it, so it’s kind of hard to even know a world without it if that’s all you’re surrounded by. I think it’s great that in the olden times, people didn’t have to rely on technology to do everything on a daily basis, but in the long run, technology has helped the majority of people, whether it comes to transportation or communication or VJ: I think you have a really great point there with transportation, communication and medicine, because maybe those things can be things that save peoples’ lives. In our world, we kind of take that for granted. But I’d also like to point out that those things are bad for the environment too, and for peoples’ lives because if they’re too dependent on them and, say, the power goes out, then immediately everyone panics. Also I’d like to point out something about books. Right now, print books have become a great part of many peoples’ lives, and for people who enjoy reading, print books are really important to them. But maybe one day, [books] will go out of date and everybody will be reading ebooks and [books] will become prized collectibles. That just seems like a sad thing—while we’re moving into the future, to also lose track of the past. ZS: To that, I would say that everything comes with a bad side effect. If you have the greatest advancement in technology and the greatest new computer, or car with great aspects, you’re going to lose something else. With the new addition of ebooks to our society, people are lacking in the use of print books—but you can’t have it all. VJ: I see. Another thing would be that, with technology solving all of these problems, it also creates more new problems that may or may not be harder to solve. With the manufacture of, say, phones and solar panels—these are really hi-tech, really cool things that would be unimaginable in other days. But just making a smartphone or a solar panel costs a lot to the environment. We’re kind of like damaging the world in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without the use of technology. ZS: While there are a lot of setbacks and things that make technology seem not as good as it is, I just think that the overall point of technology and what it does for our society and people in our world is so much higher than any setbacks that there have been. The goods outweigh the bads.

CORRECTIONS TO ISSUE 5 • Page 14 “Spring sports teams begin”: All words like “today,” “yesterday,” “in two days,” (temporal indexicals) in the sports section for games are one day late, as the paper was released a day later than expected. • Page 15 “Upper school basketball and soccer teams”: The article misstates the number of playoff games the team had won. The varsity boys basketball team had won two playoff games, not four. • Ibid.: Article text is unclear. The varsity boys soccer team is the number 2 seed.

haps overtaking print books in the future, there are two questions I would like to pose. The first is, is it necessarily bad that newer technologies may supplant old ones? The second is, do you truly believe old traditions will be completely lost? Some may argue that ebooks will not completely overtake print books: things like the “vinyl revival” in gramophone records, or the increased sale of fountain pens suggest continued cultural value of outmoded technologies. VJ: I don’t think that old traditions will ever be completely erased, because they will live on in people’s memories. I don’t think that technological advancement is bad, I just feel that I don’t want to let go of the things in the past. Sure, maybe riding a car or going on a plane would be really fast, but people like riding horses, right? That’s a fun experience to have. Same with the ebooks and the print books. Ebooks are a lot more convenient: you can take them anywhere and they won’t get stains or fall apart, and you’ll be able to access it [anywhere]. But the feeling of reading a book and the smell of the pages, the feeling of the pages as you turn them, the different sizes of the books, the covers — all of those are different from ebooks.

ZS: Regarding losing old things: I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but I do think that, with all of our modern advancements in technology, these past traditions are no longer necessary to our society. However, I think that most of them will stay and should stay. All ebooks, in whatever process of their writing or publishing, were sometime printed. A lot of historical books, a lot of them we don’t have any more just because of physical things that have happened to them, but ebooks can never truly be destroyed. That’s why, I think, technology is really good for the future—not only the present day. I don’t think that books, old cars and old traditions will ever be entirely erased, but I do think that with time, a lot of them will fade into the background and be considered artifacts and ancient things.

WP: The original definition of the word “computer” referred

to an actual person who had trained to a high level of skill at performing calculations. Of course, the advent of superior electronic computers has obviated computers role in society. There were once many skills humans could perform unaided by technology—what do you think of the loss of these skills? VJ: I think for this topic I’m pretty neutral, mostly because even though there are these technological advancements, there are still competitions and things where people can exercise these skills that they don’t use in daily life. Even though there are cars now, [we] still have footracing, athletics and the Olympics. As for calculating things, there are speedcalculating competitions and the use of the abacus—and in competitions too.

ZS: There are still certain people in the world that have these mathematical skills. Advancements in technology improve education and help people that before couldn’t do these math problems—whether it’s new ways of learning in school, or something bigger, like experiments. I think that technology actually helps a lot with education in general and I think for this topic I’m more pro-technology, mostly because these skills are not like objects: the skills are still being preserved, and we learn new skills too, like with the introduction of Computer Science courses in schools. There are new, valuable skills to have. ZS: Yeah. I think we’re still preserving those skills that people may have but still improve more and more every day with new advances in technology.

Editor’s Note: letting go of mottos and prioritizing myself kaitlin hsu

editor-in-chief

“Five minutes early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” “Positive mental attitude.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “Everything does not happen for a reason.” “Failure is the path to success.” “Fake it until you make it.” Harker (and Silicon Valley in general) is a special place. Even if I’m not responsible, I should care deeply about my relationships with others and their wellbeing. Many people I’ve encountered throughout high school,

both in and out of the Harker community, operate with some sort of life motto. Personally, “supreme confidence” is my aphorism of choice. It’s common to be inundated with conflicting messages of a similar strain—from friends, teachers, family members and even strangers. I’ve been told to stand up for myself and not be a pushover, and in the next breath, the same person tells me to let go; I need to learn to live with people’s flaws. I should strive to eat healthy and go to the gym regularly, yet also accept how I naturally look without concern for external standards. Perhaps the contradiction most clearly felt is the impulse to externalize while also maintaining an interior: be mindful those around me;

But, I must also put my own desires first. Prioritizing selfcare, alone time and “Parks and Recreation’s” “Treat Yo’ Self” attitude comes before satisfying the needs of the people around me. And, these tough decisions will eventually present themselves: do I help an acquaintance struggling with homework or take a nap because of a late night designing the newspaper? The true answer probably lies somewhere in the gray area between every duality, but it often seems that the only way forward is to cleave to one half of the binary. If I don’t invest my 100 percent into an extreme, it sometimes feels as if I’m meandering down a path to lukewarm mediocrity. In reality, no one is ever going to make the right choice in

every scenario—even equipped with the pithiest of sayings. The terrifying tangle of life can be simplified with a motto, but sometimes it’s necessary to acknowledge the complexities inherent in existence. Mottos are fun and act as a whimsical heuristic in most situations. I definitely won’t stop using “supreme confidence” to hype myself up before an interview or a test. But, it’s okay to take a little more time to figure out how to act. In these formative four years, filled with opportunity, worries and joys, being deliberate in everyday judgements has helped me more than frantic ranting or that extra hour of studying (and definitely more than caffeine). It might help you, too.

12 WINGED POST

STEM

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Shoot for the Stars

Space industry’s privatization leads to new breakthroughs, challenges

HITCHHIKER’s GUIDE

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

THE MARTIAN Later adapted into a movie, Andy Weir’s debut novel showcases the main character fighting to survive after being stranded unexpectedly on Mars.

Local research center provides window into past and future space exploration.

Just as Earth is destroyed, protagonist Arthur Dent is whisked off of his planet. This fictional account explores the meaning of life and the universe.

jin tuan & kathy fang reporter & photo editor

PLEIADES SUPERCOMPUTER To execute missions, scientists rely on the Pleiades Supercomputer, the third most powerful in the world at the time of its release in 2008.

PIONEER VENUS PROJECT Pioneer Venus, a project that was meant to study the atmosphere and surface of Venus in 1978, involved two spacecrafts and five probes.

APOLLO 15 MOON ROCK The Visitor Center also displays part of a sample of a moon rock from the 1978 Apollo 15 mission, NASA’s eighth successful manned mission.

SCIENCE ON A SPHERE The Science on a Sphere Visualization System allows observers to look at data collected of our own planet as well as explore other parts of the universe.

PACKInG FOR MARS

INTERSTELLAR

Mary Roach examines the various challenges of space travel; from going to the bathroom to confronting loneliness, there’s a lot to face in space.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Since the Soviet Union’s launching of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 and the United States’ landing of the first humans on the Moon in Apollo 11 during the Space Race years, aerospace research agencies internationally have pushed the world’s boundaries of space exploration knowledge. From NASA’s ongoing development of the James Webb Space Telescope to the upper school’s own Astronomy Club, every generation adds another piece to the universe’s puzzle. Many of today’s space telescopes and observatories fly between 160 and 2,000 kilometers above the Earth. This range, low Earth orbit, allows the satellite to observe weather patterns, orbit the planet at a fast enough rate to visit the same region multiple times a day and avoid the radiation of the inner Van Allen Belt. “Low Earth orbit is generally close enough that you can set up a satellite to be that you’re not dealing with significant air resistance from our atmosphere,” Dr. Cameron Hummels, postdoctoral scholar in astronomy at CalTech, said. “The inner boundary is made so that you’re not going to start having significant air resistance as the satellite passes over, which ultimately will cause it to burn up and fall into the Earth.”

INSIDE NASA AMES

NASA has expressed interest in SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy spacecraft, which launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 6. Capable of lifting 64 metric tons into low Earth orbit, more than twice the amount of NASA’s retired Space Shuttle’s maximum carrying capacity, it’s comparable to NASA’s upcoming fellow heavy lifter the Space Launch System. While it’s designed to lift even more than the Falcon Heavy, current development plans estimate it to be 10 times as expensive as SpaceX’s spacecraft. However, both of these projects have enough power to reach Mars. “One of the really difficult things about sending people to Mars is you’re going so far away and you’re going to an entirely different planet; you’re signing up for a multi-year trip,” Andrew Owens, NASA Space Mission Analysis Branch Pathways Student Trainee, said. “If you think in terms of going camping, you’re camping for two and a half years, and you’ll never be able to stop at a grocery store or get supplies delivered.” Regardless of which celestial body the space industry does decide to visit next, it’s clear part of the future of space travel lies in the findings of spacecraft like the already-launched Falcon Heavy and the Space Launch System, scheduled to take off in 2019.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

aquila news editor

While government space agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) historically have managed the majority of the world’s space expeditions, private spaceflight companies are taking on an increasingly larger role in rocket development in the 21st century. One such enterprise is SpaceX; founded in 2002 by CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX manufactures spacecraft with the “ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.” As industry privatization often changes government services’ availability to the public, critics argue that private companies may prioritize profit over quality. In the space industry, they could restrict access to satellite data to only those willing to pay for it. “When you propose to do an observation, say on Hubble, you have one year to have the data private to yourself before the data becomes public to the world for free,” Dr. David Helfand, department chair of astronomy at Columbia University, said. On the other hand, privatizing the space industry could cut down government taxes and allow the government to focus spending on other industries. With various organizations tackling space exploration from multiple angles, partnerships between the government and the private sector are common.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

tiffany wong

ALL PHOTOS BY KATHY FANG

The future of space exploration

In a quest to find a suitable planet for all of humankind, scientists travel through a wormhole in the search for a new home after catastrophic crop failure.

REMEMBERING STEPHEN HAWKING

WISE WORDS Hawking gives a lecture for NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008. He died on Mar. 14 at age 76 in his home in Cambridge, England.

gloria zhang & nicole chen

Aquila asst. features editor & Aquila features editor

Renowned theoretical physicist and author Stephen Hawking died at age 76 on March 14 after a long battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Hawking’s family released a statement stating that he died at his home in Cambridge, England. As the Director of Research at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, he researched gravitational singularity theorems in relation to general relativity and the prediction of “Hawking radiation,”

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

radiation from black holes. “I learned about Stephen Hawking during my primary school years in Beijing. We had a Chinese textbook and one of the passages was about Stephen Hawking.” Emma Li (10) said. “A description that really [impacted] me was that it took eight hours for him to type his speech, but still he ended up being one of the most influential people.” Recognized as one of the most influential scientists in the modern era, he has revolutionized the way physicists and scientists view the universe. Accordingly, Hawking was an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, mem-

ber of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hawking published his work in 1988 in the best-seller “A Brief History of Time,” which made his work accessible to individuals with no physics background. He is a role model for chemistry teacher Dr. Smriti Koodenjari, who saw Hawking several years ago at a conference. “I was a teenager, and my dad brought home “A Brief History of Time,” Dr. Koodanjeri said. “In the beginning I was a little confused with the physics, but I persisted, and it was almost like, ‘Wow!’. I had this feeling. I was so stunned and surprised.” Hawking was diagnosed wtih ALS, a rare early onset motor neuron disease, at age 21, when doctors predicted only two more years to live. He survived for much longer though he developed paralysis and impaired motor functions and speech ability. “The resilience he has. He could’ve given up. He could’ve told himself that ‘I’m going to die’ and ‘I’m going to be completely paralyzed’. But he’s always been grateful. What I admire about him is his having the will to live and living a good life, in spite of not being able to move,” Dr. Koodenjari said.

JIN TUAN

Hawking leaves legacy of theoretical physics research and groundbreaking discoveries STUDENT SCIENCE Ellen Guo (10) presents her project to a judge at the Synopsys Science Fair. Students presented to judges interested in their projects from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mar. 15

Annual Synopsys science fair draws student researchers krishna bheda

Aquila columnist

The 2018 Synopsys Championship took place at the San Jose Convention Hall on March 14th and 15th. High school students displayed their projects from 1:30pm to 5:00 pm for judges and were available for public viewing from 5pm to 6pm. Among many middle school and high school students from Santa Clara Count, 51 students from the Harker School participated in the competition this year. Students can submit projects for juding in numerous categories, such as biology, physics, bioinformatics and chemistry. Projects can win first, second and honorable mention prizes and may also qualify for other competitions, such as the California Science

and Engineering Fair and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Specialty judges from companies and organizations also select projects for their own awards. Upper school biology teacher Dr. Gary Blickenstaff, shared his thoughts on what Synopsys helps students experience. “[They gain] experience of actually doing research; doing some science where they have to develop a hypothesis, come up with a way of testing that hypothesis by way of an experiment of some kind, and then presenting their results, which is a big thing,” he said. On April 8th , the awards ceremony will take place at the Campbell Heritage Theatre. The ceremony will occur at 1:00pm for middle school contestants and at 3:30pm for highs school contestants.

STEM

WINGED POST 13

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Students fight Clean Power Plan repeal

Green Team members discuss environmental policy with EPA members

jessie wang reporter

SCHOOL

GLOBAL RESET Part twenty of an ongoing series

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Fitbit Versa, the company’s third smartwatch, will debut in April for $200.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Samsung’s newest phone models, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, were released on March 16, with price tags of $719.99 and $839.99 respectively.

Apple will release a charging mat, Airpower, in March. It will be capable of a maximum charging performance of 29 watts at a time. There is still no word on a price.

“This year the registration just exploded. I’m excited to see how the competition will pan out with just so many more people.”

FAN AN TU JIN

G AN ZH INE ER

Harker’s annual research Symposium will be taking place on Saturday, April 14, 2018, from 7:30 am to 5 pm. The 2018 keynote speakers are Jeff Dean, Google’s senior fellow on the Google Brain Team, and Andrew Beck, co-founder and CEO of PathAI, a company which uses AI technology to diagnose and

GLOBAL

The Oculus Go, a lightweight VR headset with no wires and no need for a smartphone or pc, is scheduled to arrive early 2018, at a price of $199.

SALONI SHAH

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

reporter

Students disperse across Nichols Atrium, competing for the top spot in the Harker Programming Invitational. Serious faces focus on computers, and students nervously chat amongst themselves as they race to solve the contest’s programming problems. The Harker Programming Club hosted the annual Harker Programming Invitational on Mar. 18 in Nichols Auditorium. The PRO PROGRAMMERS Programming club officers Rakesh Nori competition consisted of (10) and Alexandra Michael (12) sit in the audience before a programming competitions talk. The club hosted talks and also featured a keynote speaker. as well as a guest speakers. advanced division. Club of- talks from sponsors, which The Harker Program- ficers created problem sets mainly consisted of speakming Invitational invites for teams to solve, writers from startup companies high school students across ing challenging algorith- and universities like IBM the Bay Area and Harker to mic-based questions for the and Carnegie Mellon Unicompete in programming versity. In addition, the club competitions. Teams of invited a keynote speaker, two or three students solve Jeremy Doig from Youtube problems within a twoand Google Virtual Reality, hour time limit. Last year, who discussed his technical 44 teams attended, and the experiences. number has nearly doubled “It’s kind of a mix of this year with 78 teams what a big company is docompeting. ing, as well as technical “It’s a really involved programming aspects of it,” event with multiple conKatherine Tian said. “He test rounds and lots of good can give a really inspiring events to go through to evspeech with also a lot techKATHERINE TIAN nical information because erybody,” Katherine Tian (11) said. “This year the PROGRAMMING they’re just really talented registration just exploded. CLUB CO-PRESIDENT people in programing.” I’m excited to see how the Out of the 78 teams, competition will pan out contestants. Lynbrook High School team with just so many more “Because I wrote some 405 Found were the winpeople.” of the problem sets, I’m ners in the Novice division The Harker Program- looking forward to seeing and AlphaStar Academy A* ming Invitational is based the people solve the prob- Fire were the winners in the off of Stanford ProCo, a lems that I made,” club of- Advanced division. Harker larger programming con- ficer Bennett Liu (10) said. teams were not eligible for test. Students competed The Harker Program- prizes due to conflicts of inin either the novice or the ing Invitational also hosted terest.

Preparation begins for research symposium

IA C

karina chen

Synopsys regional competitions took place on Thursday, March 15, from 12:45 to 6:00pm at the San Jose convention center. Synopsys is a science competition where contestants do project based research in various fields.

NASA projects summer probe launch This summer, NASA will launch the Parker Solar Probe, which will reach near 40 million miles from the sun’s surface, bringing humans closer to the sun than ever before. The public is able to apply to have their names stored on a microchip that will be carried on the probe.

BU S

Senior Satchi Thockchom, sophomores Jai Bahri, Anvi Banga, Avi, Alex Shing and Anthony Shing and freshman Akshay Manglik spoke about var-

Students participate in annual science fair

KA TH

SATCHI THOCKCHOM GREEN TEAM CO-PRESIDENT

economic consequences of the repeal and drawing on their own personal experiences. “When I was younger, I lived in China for four years. The polluted air in Shanghai was terrible for my health and I had a breathing problem there. For many years, China ignored climate change and did not regulate their carbon emissions,” Alex said. “Now, however, China is doing even better than the United States regarding the adoption of renewable energy.” The seven students were among hundreds of Californians who poured into the San Francisco Public Library to protest the repeal of the plan. Activities began with a rally in the morning and were followed by a listening session.

“The EPA wanted to repeal the Clean Power Plan that affects the entire country.”

ious negative implications of repealing the plan, from economy to emissions. The students are all members of the upper school Green Team and were accompanied by advisors Kate Schafer and Diana Moss. “The EPA wanted to repeal the Clean Power Plan that affects the entire country and they were going on a nationwide tour and only stopping in four places so we were really lucky that one of the places was San Francisco, just an hour’s drive away, so we wanted to seize that opportunity,” Green Team co-president Satchi said. Students discussed the negative impacts of carbon emissions, citing recent natural disasters like the wine country wildfires, predicting negative

WI KIM

the latest. Currently, the EPA under the Trump administration has begun to move forward with its repeal.

AIR

jessie wang reporter

The upper school science bowl team will participate in the national competition from April 26 to 30 in Washington, D.C. They qualified by winning their regional competition on Feb 3. This is the second year in a row that the team has qualified.

CLEAN POWER (TOP) Green Team members speak to EPA officials after the listening session. (BOTTOM LEFT) Satchi Thockchom (12) gives her speech during the session. (BOTTOM RIGHT) Students protest the repeal outside the San Francisco Public Library. The listening session was held by the EPA on Feb. 28

Bay Area’s coders compete in Harker Programming Invitational

TECH TALK

Science Bowl team prepares for nationals

ANVI BANGA

The words “Speaker 117” echo through the room as a teenager, the first speaker of the session, shakily rises from her seat. All heads turn towards her as she slowly makes her way to the podium at the front of the room, takes a deep breath and begins to speak. “My name is Satchi. I’m a senior in high school, and I do not support the repeal of the Clean Power Plan.” In light of the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, upper school students from the Green Team and the Speech & Debate Team attended a special listening session held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco on Feb. 28 in order to voice their opposition to the proposal. Seven students spoke in front of members of the EPA. “If Hurricane Harvey and the California wildfires were wakeup calls to our nation that our fragile environment needs fixing, then the phone is still ringing,” Avi Gulati (10) said. “Without strict regulations we can expect a hurricaneof environmental turmoil.” The Clean Power Plan (CPP) is an Obama-era policy that mandates that individual states meet specific standards with respect to the reduction of their carbon dioxide emissions. First proposed by the EPA in 2014, it required that states submit a plan for emission reduction by September 2018 at

ANVI BANGA

Aquila asst. news editor & STEM editor

KA TH Y

PROVIDED BY DR. KATE SCHAFER

anvi banga & katherine zhang

Airbus harpoon allows debris disposal in space The European Firm Airbus is designing a “space harpoon” in order to retrieve the Envisat Earth Observation platform, which the European Union lost contact with in 2012. It will also be used to get rid of the near 20,000 pieces of trash floating in space, ranging from rogue satellites to random debris.

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SPORTS

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

KATHY FANG

IN THE MOMENT

SOFTBALL SUPERSTARS A member of the varsity softball team, arrives at second base as the opposing player catches the ball at the game on March 6 against Notre Dame. The team finished this game with a score of 12-13. They have a current overall record of 1-3, with their next game on Friday against Pinewood at Blackford.

Spring sports teams continue seasons Girls lacrosse

ALEXANDER WANG

NINA GEE

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SPRING SPORTS (TOP) A member of the varsity boys volleyball team, spikes the volleyball over the net in a game against Mountain View on March 21. The team currently holds an league record of 6-1. (LEFT) varsity boys golf team captain, Victor Shin (12) hits a golf ball during practice.

Swimming

Track & Field

Aquila opinion editor

The varsity swim team opened its season with a meet against Monterey High School, in which the varsity boys relay team of Ethan Hu (10), Matthew Chung (9), Jason Kwok (9) and Alex Yu (11) became the first swimmers to qualify for CCS this season. The swimmers have since competed in the Palo Alto Invitational, Small School Invitational, and WBAL Jamboree #1. The team is coached by coaches Tania Chadwick and Sachi Ujifusa. “This season has been great so far, and it’s sad to think that this is my last year swimming for Harker, but I’m ready to swim my best these last two months and to have fun,” Vivian Wang (12) said. The swimmers will compete at the Ron Freeman Invitational on Apr. 7 at Monta Vista High School.

The varsity track team opened its season at the Willow Glen Invitational. At the King’s Academy Track Classic, the boys distance relay team of Henry Wong, Anthony Contreras, Alex Rule and Ryan Adolf set a new school record in the 4000m distance relay event. At the Firebird Invitational, the girls spring medley relay team won the medley relay event, setting a new school record time of of 1:59.99. “In all honesty, the season has had a slow start because of the weather. We’ve been working really hard though, and we’ve been pushing through rain and even hail to get solid marks,” Grace Koonmen (12) said. “I’m just looking forward to having fun at my last few meets and enjoying my last season with the group.”

alexander wang

Baseball adrian chu

Aquila copy editor

Aquila columnist

The varsity girls lacrosse team play against Priory in an away game today. The team began their season strongly with consecutive wins over Salinas High School, Woodside High School, Robert Louis Stevenson, Notre Dame High School and Lincoln High School to start their season. The team had a particularly strong performance against Lincoln, winning by 10 points at 13-3. The team sits at a 5-0 record, as of Monday, when this paper went to print. The team plays Lincoln High School for the second time today at the upper school on Davis Field at 5 p.m. and will play Newark High School on April 10 next. Their league’s WBAL playoffs begin May 8 starting with the quarterfinals.

The Harker varsity baseball team improved their season record to 3-2 with a 19-4 victory over Summit Rainier last Friday played at the Blackford Campus. The team has won against San Jose High School and Trinity Christian while losing to Menlo and Independence. The team is coached by head coach Michael Delfino and assistant coaches Ric Foley and Greg Cox. Captains Zack Hoffman (11), Dominic Cea (12), and Matthew Kennedy (12) lead the team. The team hopes to improve their record in an away game against Jefferson High School today and in the 13 scheduled games left in their season.

Softball kathy fang

Boys tennis adrian chu

Boys volleyball kathy fang photo editor

Varsity boys volleyball holds a league record of 6-1, as of Monday, as they advance into the second half of their season. The team opened its season with a scrimmage against Bellarmine College Preparatory and a win against Saratoga High School. This year more than half of players on the varsity team are underclassmen, a shift in the team composition from previous years. JV boys volleyball continues into the season with a record of 0-6 as both varsity and JV prepare to play their next games against Cupertino High School tomorrow.

Boys golf alexander wang

photo editor

Aquila columnist

Aquila opinion editor

Varsity softball opened their season with an overall record of 1-3, as of Monday, with their next game today against Pinewood at Blackford. The season started with a game against Palo Alto High School, which the girls lost 1316 on Feb. 28 and was followed by games against Notre Dame High School, 12-13; Fremont High School, 6-9 and King’s Academy, 6-3. “We’ve got a really solid set of girls that are coming back, experienced girls, and we got some great freshmen, both with some experience coming in and some that are learning,” assistant coach Dr. Matthew Harley said. Practices have included running through drills such as working through plays to prepare the girls for their upcoming games and, later on, for CCS playoffs, which will take place in May.

Led by coach John Fruttero, the varsity boys tennis team kicked off its season with four 7-0 league victories against Sacred Heart, Nueva, Priory and Aptos High school; a 6-1 league victory against Kings Academy; a non-league 5-2 victory against Aragon High School and a 1-6 league loss against Menlo, as of Monday. Frequent rain has interrupted the team’s games and practices. “We’re working as hard as we can to reschedule as many matches as possible, but unfortunately we had to cancel some out of league matches just because there’s not enough days before CCS to play them,” team captain David Wen (12) said. “It’s also hurting our practice schedule, but we’re making the most of the days we are able to play.”

The varsity boys golf team has opened its season with a 3-0 record in league defeating Crystal Spring Uplands once and King’s Academy twice, as of Monday. The season started with the Cowboy Classic, where the team placed fifth out of a field of 25 teams. They have since placed fourth out of 18 teams at the Pahrump Invitational and fourth out of 21 teams at the Wildcat Invitational. The team is coached by coaches Ie-Chen Cheng and Don Allio and led by captain Victor Shin (12). “We have been posting solid scores and coming in with a positive and confident mindset so that we can succeed and play to the best of our ability,” Victor said. “With the way that we are performing at this stage, it can only get better for our golf team.”

SPORTS

WINGED POST 15

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

Dance meets martial arts Students participate in Capoeira, a Brazillian martial art “Students learn a lot about their bodies and themselves. I have had many students who start the class unsure of themselves and leave feeling confident.” LOREN DUE UPPER SCHOOL CAPOEIRA TEACHER

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Soft Brazilian music echoes across the multi-purpose room in the new gym as a group of students stretch, preparing to begin their Capoeira lesson. As the lesson begins, the mood of the room seamlessly switches from relaxed to intense to elegant all through the effort of the students in their yoga gear performing various Capoeira moves. Capoeira is one of the ways students can obtain physical education credits. The semester long classes are held Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 5 pm. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art form which combines self-defense, acrobatics, dance, music and song. It was developed by African slaves who used dance moves to mask the fact that they were practicing martial arts. Along with music and singing, Capoeira is played in a circle called a roda with only the hands and feet touching the floor. Loren Due, known to his students as Mestre Poeta, teaches Capoeira at the upper school. One can become a “Mestre” after about seven years of training. He emphasizes that Capoeira is a combination of all the different elements. “Capoeira can start off as a dance and progress to self defense and back to a dance,” Due said. “It depends on the situation because Capoeirista, people who train in Capoeira, can be playing a friendly Capoeira game and then it becomes a real combat situation. The art is always present.” Sian Smith (11) enjoys Capoeira, primarily its exhilarating nature, as well as its focus on acrobatics and tumbling. “In Capoeira, you get to do flips and rolls, and you also get to flip people,” Sian said. “Somebody stands there and you can do a handstand on them, and they’ll grab your feet and fling you.” Students do not need any special skill set or previous knowledge in order to join the class. During the course, they learn about their own bodies, often improving their confidence through the course of the semester. “I have had many students who start the class unsure of

themselves and leave feeling confident,” Due said. Jessica Jiang (10) has participated in Capoeira since her freshman year. She initially joined Capoeira to fulfill her physical education requirement and because she thought it sounded unique. Her love for the Capoeira class has evolved with time, and she will unhesitatingly take the class again. Jessica enjoys the escape and looks forward to the class. “Capoeira, to me, is a time of day where I focus on only the present: moving, spinning, cartwheeling. There isn’t room to think about my classes or to freak out about homework I have to do when I get home,” Jessica said. “Capoeira is an organic class where everyone just somehow fits. I don’t think anyone feels left out here.” In addition to fitness and exercise, Capoeira has other benefits. “The Capoeira roda teaches us about life,” Due said. “You learn to pick yourself up when knocked down and how to interact with another person cooperatively or when they are not!” Due had been learning martial arts for six years when he joined the Capoeira Academy of San Jose after reading about it in Black Belt magazine and watching the movie “Only the Strong,” the only martial arts film to ever feature Capoeira. The path to be an instructor in Capoeira is long. It usually takes about seven years to train to be an instructor and about 12 to 15 years to be a Mestre to learn the culture and history, but the time to become a Mestre is not fixed as the system is based on promotions that take place during batizados, large events in which members, depending on their progress, receive new cords or belts. In the Bay Area, there are many Capoeira academies with students from three to 60 years old. Capoeira is more than just the acrobatics. “Students learn a lot about their bodies and themselves. I have had many students who start the class unsure of themselves and leave feeling confident. My Mestre always says the Capoeira roda teaches us about life. You learn to pick yourself up when knocked down and how to interact with another person,” Due said.

ALL PHOTOS BY KATHY FANG

saloni shah & srinath somasundaram

CAPOEIRA COOL (TOP) Students in the after school capoeira class listen as their instructor, Loren Due guides their practice. (MIDDLE) Sian Smith (11) practices her headstand as her peers watch. (LEFT) A student practices a handstand. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art form which combines self-defense, acrobatics, dance, music and song.

Final Four selected in March Madness meena gudapati

Aquila editor in chief

Michigan will play Loyola-Chicago and Villanova will play Kansas next Saturday as the Final Four in the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, March Madness. Each of the Final Four, Michigan, Loyola-Chicago, Villanova and Kansas, won the West, South, East and Midwest regions respectively. Loyola-Chicago, the 11seed of the South region, is the underdog in the tournament, defeating 9-seed Kansas State to earn its spot in the Final Four. Loyola-Chicago matches the record for lowest-seeded team to make it into the Final Four. Taylor Kohlmann (12) has been following March Madness. “I was supporting Duke because I’m going to Duke next year, but for the rest of the tournament I think I’ll support Loyola Chicago because they’re the underdog, and it would be a great story if they won.”

In light of the tournament, many Social Science classes, including certain sections of AP US History (APUSH) and AP Psychology, have been competing with bracket projections for the tournament. In addition, the Class of 2018 has a bracket tournament challenge group open

“Friends and classmates compete for those coveted bragging rights, and that healthy competition helps bring people together.” AMITEJ MEHTA (12) SENIOR CLASS PRESIDENT to seniors and senior advisors. Taylor is one of 37 participants to fill out a bracket for the challenge. “I made a bracket because I’m in Mr. Sutton’s AP [Psychology], and he has everyone in his

[Psychology] and [AP Environmental Science] classes make brackets,” she said. “My friends and I made brackets for the 2018 group too, because we had a good time doing it last year in APUSH, so we were like, ‘why not do this again?’. I was doing pretty average until Duke lost to Kansas; now I have 0 possible points remaining.” Senior class council president Amitej Mehta (12) created the Class of 2018 bracket group. “The real prize is just pride,” he said. “Friends and classmates compete for those coveted bragging rights, and that healthy competition helps bring people together. So I guess that’s why we created the Class of 2018 bracket. It’s been a hit in the past, and more importantly, it becomes a talking point or an ice breaker of sorts for the members of our class to bond.” The winners of Saturday’s two matches will compete in the National Championship in San Antonio on Monday.

Keeping up with Krishna Memories from four years on a team krishna bheda Aquila columnist

After my last soccer game playing as a Harker Athlete, I cried like a baby. My last practice, my last warm up, my last “Eagle out”, and my last time playing center defense with my favorite team; it had all disappeared in a flash. I have played soccer for fourteen years, and been a part of many teams. I played soccer in the beginning because I genuinely liked the game; I liked running and having a ball at my feet. But I fell in love with the game because of the concept of team and community. My first three years on the Harker team, we lost all the time, so as a team we focused more on growing and developing. I did feel a part of team traditions such as sharing pre-wrap or getting jamba juice together, but I also felt like I had to try really hard to fit in. I wanted to feel a surge of solidarity and energy; I wanted to feel completely a part of it. It’s

really cool to be a part of something bigger than yourself, something that people are passionate about. In soccer, that passion is supposed to be about playing for something bigger than yourself. This year, that finally happened. This year was different. I grew exponentially as a player, mentally, tactically, and physically. I was an asset to the team. I grew confident and proud. And, more than I had in past year or on different teams, I felt more connected to my teammates. We were a stronger team compared to past years, so we actually cared about winning and it meant something to us. And with that, we cared about each other and looked out for each other. So, I think cried on that last game because, yes, we hadn’t won, but also because this season, I truly felt like a part of a team, and that, is what had come to an end. Something really special.

KATHY FANG

VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 6 MARCH 29, 2018

KATHY FANG

POWER OF PLAY

NICOLE CHEN

BACK PAGE

POWER OF PLAY Experts on play promote relaxation and creativity irina malyugina & anjay saklecha

it will be more practical if I can encourage a judgement-free way of communicating with people your age,” she said. Sonsteng changed her life through choosing to have fun and spend her time consciously.

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In a nation –– and a school –– where hard work is emphasized, some turn to play for a break and relaxation. Molly Sonsteng creates projects as the head producer of Madcap Factory, a Brooklyn-based production house dedicated to bringing play to adults. She’s also worked with Daybreaker, a company that seeks to motivate people by holding morning dance parties everywhere from big cities to college campuses to the White House. “We are a culture that focuses so much on what we can do after work,” she said. “There aren’t that many opportunities for adults to connect that don’t revolve around those activities. I think [play] is a way to live your life with more meaning, creativity and attention.” In an interview with the Winged Post last year, Sonsteng declared her interest in promoting play among high school students. “It’s fun for me, but I think

EMILY LAMBERT

“We are a culture that focuses so much on what we can do after work. I think play is a way to live your life with more meaning, creativity and attention.” MOLLY SONSTENG EXPERT ON PLAY

“For me, play is like a way of communicating. It’s a way of taking the individual experience or something that you share with another person,” Sonsteng said. “What I came to realize is that play is a way of being. It can be any number of things.” Dr. Bowen White, a physician, founding member of the

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National Institute for Play and part-time hospital clown, values unstructured, free time for relaxation. “We see work as something separate from play,” Dr. White said, “Ironically, people who are the best at what they do don’t tend to see their job as work, as much as play.” White recognizes that play and its definition is unique to each person. “My definition would involve something where you forget about time, or you forget about where you’ve been or were you have yet to be and doing something that’s enjoyable. I guess that’s how I define it in this moment,” he said. “What that means is, what is play to me may not be play to you.” Another benefit is academic motivation: students are incentivized to learn about a subject when they spend time playing and interacting with it first, according to a study at the Children’s School at Tufts University near Boston, and the American Journal of Play. Game bars and cafés such

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GUESS THE SONG Learning, Innovation and Design Director Diane Main throws her hands up after guessing a song correctly at the Homecoming spirit rally in September.

SCREAM-OFF Seniors Amitej Mehta, Makenzie Tomihiro and Krishna Bheda yell during the scream-off at the Homecoming spirit rally.

PARADE OF SPIRIT Junior Meghna Phalke, class of 2019 Homecoming princess, leads students in the annual spirit parade.

SOPHOMORE SCREAM Sophomore class President Avi Gulati fronts his peers in the spirit rally scream-off. FRESHMAN FUN Freshman Alissa Gao grins during her class’s first upper school spirit rally in September.

Dance Quad

Singh Aquatic Center

as Illusive Comics & Games, located in Santa Clara, are gaining increasing popularity all over the country. For a small fee, these businesses provide staff that help to select and teach games, eliminating the dreaded chore of reading the rule book. “Learning anything new is great for the brain, but regarding games — learning new game rules, styles of play and playing with people of differing levels of expertise keeps our brains rewiring and flexible,” Anna Warren Cebrian, founder and CEO of Illusive Comics & Games said. “[Board games] also promote conversation and interpersonal skills, problem solving, math and language skills and sometimes fine motor skills.” Students have developed their own mechanisms of dealing with stress through play. “I think [play] is a really good way to de-stress. My biggest way to de-stress would probably be playing volleyball, but also like small things at lunch, and in free time when I don’t have homework or a test,” Isabella Spradlin (12) said.

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Winged Post Scavenger Hunt Inspired by the Spirit Organization, Molly Sonsteng and the power of play (check the above article to read about the latter two), we’d like to sponsor some “play” and community reflection of our own, via a journalism-themed scavenger hunt. We would like all participants to adhere to principles of journalistic ethics and the honor code: for videos, please ask the interviewee for permission to record them and have it potentially published by Harker Aquila. For the photos of students laughing or someone holding a door open, it would be easy to stage the photos among your friends, and for the thankful question, it would be easier to ask someone you already know, but we hope you’ll act honestly and, hopefully, have fun getting to know new people. Please put all submissions in a folder and share with wingedpost2018@gmail.com.

The first person to complete the following tasks and email us proof (requirements for proof delineated below) will win lunch of their choice, up to $100, delivered to the upper school during long lunch, for up to five people between April 16 and May 4. The editors-in-chief of the Winged Post will serve the food to you in the journalism room––couches and blankets included!–– and let you enjoy the room for the entire lunch.

Tell someone a joke at lunch and take a video of their reaction. Tell us the joke and send us the video, if they give their permission.

Take a photo of what spring in the new Plaza looks like to you.

Find one typo in this issue of the paper. Tell us in which article it was.

Take a video of you and some friends/classmates singing part of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline in RPAC’s lobby. Send us the video.

Take a “before” photo of trash on the ground, then throw the trash away, and take an “after” photo of the ground again.

Take a photo of people playing soccer or lacrosse (or any game) on the field.

Take a photo of people laughing in Main.

Take a photo of someone holding the door open for someone else.

In Shah, ask the following question to someone you’ve never spoken to before and send us a video of their answer: (Ask them for permission to record before doing so.) Who is one person you are thankful for, and why?