Inside the Hall: Upper School

Welcoming the BearBots to Harpeth Hall

Students have geared up and embarked on a year of building, coding, driving, and strategizing as members of the BearBots, Harpeth Hall’s new robotics team. Matthew Groves, a STEM teacher in the Upper School and the new head coach of the robotics team, is impressed by the student leadership, experience, and passion he has seen so far. “I’m most excited about the potential we have,” Mr. Groves said. “We have girls with interest and ability in all of the different areas you need to make a complete team, and we will become competitive in our region very quickly. It is great to be part of expanding STEM opportunities at Harpeth Hall.” Junior Sarah Joffrion is one of the BearBots’ newest members. Right now, the team is working to build and code a robot that can lift an object and move towards a platform. “At our upcoming competition, we do not have to use starter robots so we get to design our own robots,” Sarah said as she looked over her notebook full of diagrams and strands of code to determine what worked and what didn’t. “It is going great so far, but there is still a lot of work. I love problem solving. It is a lot of trial and error.”

From Nashville to Seville, exploring culture in Spain

As a project-based learning class, the goal of Spanish III is that students are actively engaged in the rich cultural history they learn about. The outcome is centered on students exploring the world and reflecting each day to better understand how they belong in the world around them. During the class’ Spain exploration project, students chose a passion of their own such as architecture, fashion, and cooking and researched how their interests are a part of Spanish culture — connecting to their peers in Seville, Madrid, Valencia, and more. Students further connected Spanish culture to their world by filming traditional Spanish dances across iconic locations on campus for TikTok. “In the forefront of all we do, the goal is that students are actively engaged in their learning,” Spanish teacher Bela Lodygensky said. “These classes, projects, learning, and outcomes extend beyond the walls of the classroom.”

Introducing Film Studies: the newest course in the visual arts curriculum Film Studies introduces students to film analysis as a means of engaging more deeply with cinema and culture. The course focuses on important films from all genres and eras with a central aim to understand what makes certain films connect meaningfully with an audience and stand up over time. Students began the year studying silent classics before exploring the cinematic details of enormously influential films including “Citizen Kane” and “Singin’ in the Rain.” Throughout the term, the course provides students with the tools to understand the technical and aesthetic dimensions of film and how they come together to create meaning.