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Staff Updates ■ The per forming ar ts and recreation depar tments are ver y pleased to announce the addition of a new par t-time dance instructor. Karl Kuehn is a graduate of Santa Clara University and has trained in jazz, hip-hop, tap, modern and ballet. “He is a talented and energetic person and I am ver y excited to have him working with our dancers!” said dance instructor Gail Palmer. ■ We suspect several faculty and staff may have run in the San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon on Oct. 8, but did anyone run it with as fast a time as Gr. 4 English teacher Natalie Philpot? Philpot ran the race in 1 hour and 45 minutes, placing 38th in her division. ■ On Oct. 5, Gr. 3 teacher Tammy Coia had a book signing at Barnes and Noble in the Pruneyard. Coia also spoke at the event. Her recently published children’s book is called “Fig on a Stick.”
Chef’s Corner Editors Note: Executive Chef and Food Service Manager Steve Martin, who oversees food service on all three campuses, will be writing a periodic column for the Harker News on food-related issues at Harker. You can contact Chef Steve at stevem@harker.org.
Nutritionist Joins Kitchen Staff to Help Fine Tune Menus I am pleased to announce the addition of Anne Kolker to my team. Anne is a registered dietician and received her master’s degree in nutritional science from San Jose State University. Her experience includes working as a dietician for a non-profit medical clinic in Palo Alto, a public health nutritionist for Santa Clara Public Health Department and a nutrition consultant for the Head Start preschool program in San Mateo County. The first thing Anne and I did was sit down and chat so I could educate her on current nutritional efforts at Harker. She was impressed with what we are already doing and gave me some great feedback. She noted that we have many good things going on, and we decided our next step is to refine the menus to add new healthy choices to them.
“I have long believed in telling people that variety in diet is key – don’t get hung up on one thing...” We are going to focus the rest of this year, for example, on a fruit-of-themonth program. We’ll kick off with apples in December. Anne sent me a note pointing out that there are 7,500 varieties of apples grown through out the world and 2,500 varieties grown in the U.S. I didn’t know that – everybody is stuck on eight different varieties! We are going to serve different varieties of apples in desserts, entrees and salads. In addition, Anne and I plan to look at the specific menu needs for each school, starting with the LS and moving to the MS, which is, nutritionally speaking, a whole different animal; then we’ll move on to the US, with its different set of needs. We will also try to spend time working on dietary needs for specific groups, like athletes. We talked about how Gatorade has too much sugar for non-athletic uses, but is valuable to athletes to encourage re-hydration. In the larger picture, the biggest thing we will do is educate people. I have long believed in telling people that variety in diet is key – don’t get hung up on one thing, like turkey sandwiches, because you think they are healthy for you. Try different foods. Then, Anne and I hope to address those that don’t even care about their diet, who eat pizza every day. To that end we are going to stress education, making people more aware that they can choose smaller portions and should diversify their diet. —Steve Martin, Executive Chef and Food Service Manager Harker News — December 06
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A Primer on Homework Debates in education almost always occupy positions at the remote extremes of any given topic. Traditional versus progressive. Content versus skills. Objectives versus process. Teacher-centered versus studentcentered. The debate about homework itself is polarized too. Should there be homework? If so, what form should it take, and how much should be given? Some educators, including Alfie Kohn in “The Homework Myth,” are questioning long-held assumptions about the value of homework. This is healthy, I believe. We should continually question our own assumptions. After doing so myself, I have rediscovered some long-held beliefs that may be helpful to parents which I will share here in this short primer on homework.
“...typing furiously on a computer or surfing the Internet is not necessarily an academic activity.” One, homework is here to stay, like it or not. The debate ought to be about how to improve homework, not whether or not homework ought to exist. Two, homework should increase slowly over the years. Lower school children are in the early stages of developing their attention spans, learning independently, improving their focus. However, the sooner students work on these skills, the better. Three, yes, parents can help with homework, as long as they don’t do the homework for their children. Four, there is a point of diminishing returns on homework, as with any activity. Teachers have to craft well-designed homework that has a purpose and that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Five, typing furiously on a computer or surfing the Internet is not necessarily an academic activity. Students can fritter away time and exhaust precious per-
sonal energy on the computer. Know the purpose of your child’s electronic activity.
“Each family has to find the time of day, location, materials, environment and approach that works for each child.” Six, homework is individual. What works for one student may not work for another. If your child spent a long time on an assignment, that doesn’t mean every child had the same experience. Each family has to find the time of day, location, materials, environment and approach that works for each child. Seven, when in doubt, talk to your child and his or her teacher. You would be amazed how much you can learn from your child with a few basic questions. What are you doing? What is the purpose? Do you understand what you are doing? Do you understand why you are doing it? How much time does that take you? Why? I didn’t really learn how to learn until late high school. Before that pivotal time, I am sure I slogged away connecting the dots at night simply to complete assignments on time. In the end, however, something clicked, and ever since I have been a lifelong learner. I think all those years of homework had something to do with it.
—Christopher Nikoloff, Head of School
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