Dr. John Paul Aldrup-MacDonald, World Languages Department Chair Dr. John Paul Aldrup-MacDonald joined Laurel for the 20202021 school year as a Latin teacher and took on the role of World Languages Department Chair starting in the 2021-2022 school year. He oversees languages across all divisions from Kindergarten to Grade 12. This includes French and Spanish in Grades K-12, Latin in Grades 7-12, and Chinese in Grades 9-12. He has more than 15 years of teaching experience but disliked language learning until late in high school when a teacher gifted him a copy of Pablo Neruda’s sonnets. He said “I realized, upon trying to work through them, that language was the key to a wish I had wished since I was a young child: that other worlds existed, and that there was some magic through which I could visit them. I discovered that there are as many worlds as there are cultures, and that language is the magic of traveling through them. It is no accident that most magic is done through language because language IS magic!” When it comes to applying LCRG research to language learning, Dr. Aldrup-MacDonald highlighted his colleague Karl Frerichs, who joined Laurel part-time this year to teach Latin. “Mr. Frerichs recognized early on in the year that students
crave agency and that they need the right conditions in which they can achieve the growth mindset that we know is central to learning. To foster this in a class with a lot of anxious testtakers, he invented what he calls a ‘leave-behind’: a quiz that the individual student can either leave behind for a grade or take away at no penalty to their grade. Thus, students get some agency in their assessment and also some responsibility as well, since they have to determine their level of confidence in their mastery.” He went on to say “I think this little classroom procedure dovetails so well with what we know about girls' learning from LCRG that I immediately adopted it in my classes.”
as performing arts teacher ever since and is now Department Chair. Mrs. Sector says “I love music so much, it just ‘clicks’ for me. I love how fun it is, how hard it is, and how good I feel when I learn something incredibly difficult. That’s also why I love teaching! I get to be goofy and creative at my job. I have worked as a professional classical musician for years, and continue to do so, but nothing beats teaching Middle School music!”
Kristen Sector, Performing Arts Department Chair (6-12) Kristen Sector first started teaching in 2009 and came to Laurel in 2015. Despite a short one-year hiatus, she has enjoyed her role
As in every department at Laurel, the Performing Arts curriculum is grounded in research from LCRG. For example, the Sixth Grade performing arts classes that Eugene Sumlin (who teaches drama) and Mrs. Sector (band and choir) teach are focused on building artistic habits, grounded in LCRG research on executive functioning. She said “We coach students on effective practice strategies when learning lines or a new song. Re-reading your monologue is not going to help you perform it as much as speaking it again and again in different ways. When the girls prepare for their annual performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, they set short-term goals and long-term plans; practice inhibition and flexibility; and strengthen their working memory. Rehearsals are for learning, so when you mess up, you get to try it again the next day.” L
Highlights | WINTER 2023
15
