6 minute read
Head of School Brian Yager takes lessons from the landscape
From its early beginnings in 1893 – when Stanford University leaders assisted in its establishment – to its reputation today as a leading preparatory school with graduates attending prestigious universities worldwide, Harker’s mission has remained constant: to create an environment that promotes academic excellence, inspires intellectual curiosity, expects personal accountability and forever instills a genuine passion for learning. Whether striving for academic achievement, raising funds for global concerns, performing on stage or scoring a goal, Harker students encourage and support one another and celebrate each other’s efforts and successes, at Harker and beyond. Harker is a dynamic, supportive, fun and nurturing community where kids and their families make friends for life.
HARKER MAGAZINE
Harker Magazine is published biannually, in December and June, to showcase some of the top news, visionary programs and inspiring people of the greater Harker community. This magazine and its predecessor, the Harker Quarterly, have been recognized with CASE silver and bronze awards, and three gold and four platinum MarCom awards.
Subscribe to Harker News and get the latest daily updates. Visit news.harker.org.
FIND, FRIEND & FOLLOW US!
Join us for tweets, videos, announcements, photo sharing and more! Search “harkerschool”:
You can opt out of receiving Harker Magazine by mail and just read it online at https://issuu.com/ theharkerschool. To be removed from the mailing list, email us at communications@harker.org.
The Harker School is an independent, coed, college-prep school serving kindergarten through grade 12. K-Grade 5: 4300 Bucknall Rd., San Jose, CA 95130 Grades 6-8: 4525 Union Ave., San Jose, CA 95124 Grades 9-12: 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129
Produced by the Harker Office of Communication 500 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, CA 95129
communications@harker.org · 408.345.9273 NEXT ISSUE: SPRING/SUMMER 2023
lines head
WORDS BY BRIAN YAGER PHOTOGRAPH BY BY RACHEL ERICKSON
LESSONS FROM THE
This is the sentiment with which the author Edward Abbey begins his seminal book, “Desert Solitaire.” Abbey spent many years living in and roaming the western deserts of the United States. The essays and stories compiled in “Desert Solitaire” reflect his love for the wilderness in general, and for the uninhabited portions of the state of Utah in particular. Copies of Abbey’s book line the shelves of the gift shops of our country’s national parks, including the one at the Grand Canyon, where Harker’s grade 7 students and their chaperones, myself included, spent the first full day of our October trip to Arizona and Utah. Twenty adults led 165 students on the journey on what we refer to as the national parks tour, which included stops at many stunning destinations: Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Monument Valley, Sedona, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and the aforementioned Grand Canyon. Later in the day of our visit to the Grand Canyon, our buses stopped at a Part of the reason lookout center on the east rim of the we take our students into canyon. Below us, the stunning stripes the Southwest … is so of red, magenta and golden sandstone that they can appreciate deposits stood in stark contrast to the the challenges we face, deep blue and the stunning whites of and also so that they can the clouds in the sky above. On the floor of the canyon, nestled at the foot of the magnificent sandstone cliffs, the waters of a snaking band of rapids shimmered see firsthand what it is that they have the power to preserve. silver in the sunlight. The river was the Colorado, and from our perch on the east rim, we could follow the meanders – wide, loping turns and abrupt corners alike – 10 miles away and 5,000 feet below our point of repose. The landscape of Arizona and Utah is starkly different than the terrain around our campuses at Harker. Yet, the vistas and the Colorado River provide a metaphor – several, in fact – for our endeavors in San Jose.
At its inception, a river’s course is determined by the landscape around it. The waters are at the mercy of the topography in which it resides, and they flow where the terrain allows. As it matures, and as its canyons deepen, the roles reverse; it is the river that determines the landscape around it, carving and reshaping the very earth that cradles it. In this issue of Harker Magazine, we celebrate the milestone of the 25th year of Harker’s upper school program, and also the 25th year of our lower school’s presence at the campus on Bucknall Avenue. When the upper school started in 1998, the staff and students were full of energy and purpose, but also had to be nimble to respond to the new terrain within which the nascent operation existed. The school had to find its path within the landscape around it. While that path is still evolving, it is far more defined now than it was 25 years ago, and, like an established river, it now is the school that is defining the educational landscape around us. The Colorado River also provides a stunning visual reference point within the desert through which its waters flow. It wends through the desert, its waters reflecting and refracting the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, and inspiring all who look upon it to contemplate the beauty of nature, and the nature of beauty. These are also the notions which occupy the domain of our artists. In this issue, we explore these concepts as we look into the visual arts program at Harker, highlighting how our arts teachers guide students to make personal discoveries about art and their relationship to it that remain relevant even after they have graduated. A river is also a provider of life to the flora and fauna in its path. There are many things that sustain the programs and the people at Harker, but few are as important as the food that fuels our minds and bodies. When asked what is their favorite thing about Harker, students often remark that one of them is “the food.” The food service program at Harker makes sure that we have an incredible array of options to sustain our activity and also to help us enjoy those moments when we break bread together. This issue of Harker Magazine explores the evolution of this program too. There is one other relevant storyline linked to the Colorado River: the story of the current state of the river itself. While the river continues to inspire those who view it and to nurture the civilization through which it flows, it is not a healthy system at the moment. The river’s flow continues to be lower than usual, as snowfall and rain in basins that feed it have remained below average for decades; simultaneously, demands on the river’s waters continue to rise as more people occupy the deserts of the southwest, and as agricultural, industrial and residential demand continue to increase. Reservoirs along the river – most notably Lake Mead and Lake Powell (which the grade 7 students visited) – sit well below capacity.
Part of the reason we take our students into the Southwest and other parts of the country is so that they can appreciate the challenges we face, and also so that they can see firsthand what it is that they have the power to preserve – both in the lands they visit, and the lands they call home. We hope that all of our students will find their own landscape to call “the most beautiful place on Earth,” and that their experience at Harker will help them appreciate and protect it.
