Teachers Bring Passion Projects to Enrich Classroom Offerings

One of the most distinctive aspects of a Ravenscroft education is the way that the teachers — thought leaders with deep knowledge in their disciplines — imbue the curriculum with opportunities for students to explore their interests in ways that enrich their learning. Often, such opportunities grow out of the teachers’ own interests, which spurs them to undertake projects and develop courses that allow them to share their passion for a topic or lean into their own expertise.

Here, we take a look at three distinctive curricular programs, one from each division, that grew from an educator’s vision and a desire to draw students into learning and growth that takes them beyond traditional curriculum.

Students from Crystal Garris’s PreK class pose in front of their plantings in the raised beds of the Lower School garden last year.

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Hands-on Learning: The Lower School Garden

Visionary educator

Chris Harper has been a Raven for 40 years — as a counselor in both the Upper School and the Lower School, as a consultant and Lead From Here trainer and, now, as a volunteer educator in the Lower School garden.

The garden beds had been dormant since the COVID pandemic. In 2023, with the support of the administration, Harper, a lifelong gardener, guided staff in the Facilities Department in installing new raised troughs near the Butterfly Garden behind the Kindergarten center. Soon, a fruitful collaboration with PreK and Kindergarten classes took root. Harper couldn’t be more thrilled.

“It gives me a way to introduce kids to something that I enjoy and that some of them do not have a lot of experience with,” she said. “Kids and dirt just kind of go together, you know?”

Harper has partnered in this work with parents, other faculty and members of the Upper School Sustainability Club, all of whom are interested in how they can contribute and involve even more students.

Standing in the PreK Learning Center, Chris Harper introduces students to the different kinds of plants they will be putting in the Lower School garden as they kick off the hands-on learning project in the 2023-24 school year; PreK assistant teacher Warsha Rao uses a spade to dig holes as Niylah Bolton ’37, Mason Britton ’37 and Gabriella Neubauer ’37, students in Lana DuBose’s class in 2023-24, look on.

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Program and impact

Last year, PreK and Kindergarten classes planted seeds and enjoyed broccoli, lettuce, marigolds, lima beans and onions harvested in the spring and summer. This fall, classes added flower bulbs to the beds.

Lower School leadership and teachers noted that, while students have had a lot of fun working with Harper, the project is strongly rooted in learning.

“Hands-on learning experiences add depth to our Lower School curriculum and bring abstract concepts to life. It provides a tactile, sensory experience that helps them connect deeply with what they’re learning in the classroom,” Assistant Head of Lower School for Student Learning Erin Cole ’04 explained. “The best part is that hands-on learning is often messy — and that’s OK! We can explore, experiment, make mistakes and learn from them.”

Addy Boachie-Adjei ’37 and classmates from Crystal Garris’s 2023-24 PreK class lean into their work to plant items in the raised beds; Harper works alongside Simon Greenbacker ’37.

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Kindergarten teacher Laura Crudup added that the garden provides a direct connection to the new K-5 Wit & Wisdom curriculum for English Language Arts, particularly the section on the five senses. The garden work also integrates seamlessly with PreK’s Language Arts module on Growing Things.

“Students learned to identify which senses are used during different activities and discovered that, often, multiple senses are engaged simultaneously,” Crudup said.

Voices

Feedback from students and their parents has been overwhelmingly positive. Parent and Kindergarten assistant Iyenda Bolton said of her daughter’s experience, “Niylah ’37 developed a deeper understanding of how plants grow and what they need to thrive. …The experience has fostered her teamwork, responsibility and a growing appreciation for nature!"

“My favorite thing about the garden is planting,” Savannah Autenreith ’37 said of her experience. “I love the flowers. They are pretty, and we sometimes get to see butterflies.”

Grayson Ledford ’37 said he loves to dig out roots, adding, “I learned how to plant a bulb, because you don’t want to put it in the ground the wrong way or it won’t grow.”

Harper enjoys a moment of levity with students from Mercy Irvine’s PreK class after spending time teaching them about gardening last year.

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Science in Action: Middle School Forensics

Visionary educator

Mark McLean joined Ravenscroft in 2018 after a 27-year career as a medical illustrator and digital media creator for researchers and teachers around the world. “I wanted to contribute to society in some major way,” he remembered thinking as he considered his next steps. “And I was truly inspired by those scientists and educators.”

As a science teacher in the Middle School, he has brought that experience and passion into his classes, developing the semester-long Forensics elective.

Students in Mark McLean’s Forensics elective display their completed blood-spatter analysis labs in the Middle School hallway; McLean helps Caspar Addison ’29 with a dental mold during a forensic odontology lab.

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“Forensics has always intrigued me,” he said. “Science has brought a level of objectivity and precision to how evidence [in criminal investigations] is collected, analyzed and presented. This shift is something I want my students to understand: how we’ve moved to a more scientific, evidence-based approach in the pursuit of justice.”

McLean credits Science Department colleagues Melissa Spainhour and Janice Hedges, who had taught forensics as a capstone project for sixth-graders, for helping lay the groundwork for a semester-long class. He said he is grateful as well to department chair Michelle Nunalee and Head of Middle School Bernardo Guzmán for supporting the vision for this elective. Currently, McLean and Hedges each teach a section of the course.

Program and impact

Students taking the course learn about modern scientific methods including DNA analysis, fingerprinting, blood-spatter analysis and testing substances such as bodily fluids. They learn the basics of how evidence is secured, collected, stored, tested and presented in court. The course includes information on how the criminal justice process works and how investigators solve 21st-century crimes such as identity theft, counterfeiting and cybercrime. Among other recent advancements they explore is community-based policing and predictive policing.

Ultimately, McLean sees forensics as a way to teach young people how to think critically and become aware of both their own biases and those of society as a whole.

“Forensics is a subject that opens students’ eyes to the broader implications of science in society,” he added. “Whether they pursue careers in law enforcement, medicine or technology, the skills they gain here will help them think critically, make informed decisions and contribute meaningfully to society.”

Embrey Zola ’29 and Riley Shoemaker ’29 work to identify ink in a handwritten note during a chromatography lab in the Forensics class taught by Janet Hedges; Lieutenant Nicholas Grimaldi of the Raleigh Police Department talks with students about some of the tools used in criminal investigations.

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Voices

Jack Gottsegen said he took the course initially because of his interest in science and medicine. He was particularly struck by learning “how every single person’s fingerprint, hand print, lip print and every other type of skin print is unique” and that the class has led him to consider a career as an anesthesiologist.

Athena Vreeland said she took the elective “because of the significant role forensic evidence plays in criminal trials and my interest in true crime podcasts. We examined how fields such as biology, chemistry and psychology intersect.” Since completing the course, “I find myself practicing critical thinking when reading news articles or listening to podcasts,” she said. “Additionally, I have a better understanding of the legal justice system and my rights as a citizen.”

Ainsley Villaroel ’30 and Emma Grace Stansell ’30 simulate a urine analysis using colored water and vinegar in this Forensics lab with Hedges; Carter Manning ’29 expresses amazement as she and her classmates in McLean’s Forensics elective participate in a DNA extraction lab using strawberries.

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Upper School Honors Seminar in Music and Society

Visionary educator

When Mark Laskowski joined the Ravenscroft faculty in 2002, he already had an appreciation for the school’s robust fine arts program. “Theater, visual arts and music are truly celebrated here,” he said, “and students have the opportunity to express themselves in any number of formats, venues and ensembles.”

A teacher and chair of the Upper School History and Social Studies Department, Laskowski — who plays the violin and performed in vocal ensembles throughout his school years — enjoys sharing his playlists with students as they settle into class. He quizzes them to see how many songs they can identify, from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”

Honors Seminar in Music and Society teacher Mark Laskowski leads a discussion in class; Sawyer Maynard Parker ’26, at right, looks on as classmate Avery Perry ’26 talks about her memories of music.

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“These impromptu conversations … led me to wonder if I might be able to develop a seminar topic on the history of music,” he said. “Students offered suggestions about the kind of things they would like to learn, such as song structures and rhyme schemes and the ways music has informed social change.”

In the fall of 2023, what Lawkowski said started as “the kernel of an idea” debuted to rave reviews as the Honors Seminar in Music and Society.

Program and impact

The course poses two central questions: Why do people make music? and Why do people listen to music? Students learn the basics of ethnomusicology, the study of music in its social and cultural contexts; look at musical traditions of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Europe and the Americas; and explore the evolution of music in the United States.

Students listen to groups of songs and discuss their different aspects, such as their significance, where they originated and what social values they reflect. As a capstone project, students conduct research on a specific musical subgenre and analyze its attributes and connections to the larger social and musical culture.

Importantly, the course also meets “larger departmental goals of helping learners to develop the tools of historical inquiry, careful analysis and effective argumentation,” Laskowski said.

Beatrice Laskowski ’25, Arabella Mitchell ’25 and Anthony Omonte ’25 join the class’s discussion on the day’s topic, “Your Musical Origin Story,” in which students share which songs they remember from their early lives; Sachin Lakshman ’25 tells Arabella Mitchell ’25 about his memories.

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Voices

Austin Greene ’25 was introduced to Laskowski’s fascination with music during an AP U.S. History class. He said he took the Music and Culture course last fall because he is a musician.

“I thought the class would be listening to music, talking about our favorite kinds of music and what made a good song,” he said. “However, there was so much more: we talked about the four-chord progression in pop music, the different parts of a song, how music varied in different cultures and regions throughout the world, the different purposes that music served, what music meant to us and the hundreds of musical subgenres that exist.”

Grant Corkum ’25 said he was drawn to the opportunity to study the intersection of music and society.

“Although I have taken music classes for many years, I learned new ideas about music and music theory,” he said of his experience. “Things like sound versus music versus noise and how music affects our moods — topics I had never learned about in class but had subconsciously thought about. I loved getting to explore them in depth.”

At top, clockwise from top left: Longtime Ravenscroft employee-turned-volunteer Chris Harper works in the Lower School garden with Simon Greenbacker ’37, a student in Crystal Garris’s PreK class last year, to plant vegetables; Alaina Brown ’29 looks at DNA she has extracted from a strawberry during a lab in Mark McLean’s Middle School Forensics elective; Cesar Bassim ’25 shares his first memories of music with Cole Rogers ’25 in the Upper School’s Honors Seminar in Music and Society, taught by History and Social Studies teacher Mark Laskowski.

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