In the 2023-2024 school year, Riordan’s faculty expanded when three new teachers joined the school, bringing new perspectives and ideas to the students.
Corie Altaffer is a talented dance teacher. She believes dance gives people insight into their own complexity, physiology, and emotions, and because it helps dancers gain awareness of their bodies.
She promotes an environment where students have the space to explore their bodies and their abilities, find similarities and differences between each other’s unique way of dancing, and learn from each other.
“My students are my greatest teachers too, so I hope that I can continue to learn from them,” mentioned Altaffer.
Next, Alexei Angelides started teaching math at ARHS midway through the first semester.
Angelides encourages his students to break free from the shackles of being human calculators. “I want to help my students learn to think analytically and problem-solve beyond the classroom,” said Angelides.
Angelides also brought his passion for music to the school. Music is something he has stuck with his whole life.
In his math analysis class, students turned math into music after he realized that the GarageBand is able to import sine waves to create songs. The students combined their math skills with their musical taste to create originals.
Angelides believes teaching is his calling and presents the material ways which help students unleash their creativity. “I love teaching at Riordan, it’s a special and unique place.”
Lastly, Swecha Thulasi is a new chemistry teacher at Riordan.
History inspires her to teach chemistry. “I believe it’s a wonderful subject in terms of how it’s filled with stories from the past.”
Ms. Thulasi values community in her classroom, shown by her classes’ labs and experiments.
“Experiments question our understanding, it makes us rethink, and it teaches us how to think more than it teaches us to just to think,” said Thulasi.
Thulasi inspires her students to take something purposeful and important from the science labs. “They are able to derive information from an experiment and make meaningful conclusions,” Thulasi said.
These new teachers have already made a massive impact. They help students gain an individual and a communal experience as dancers, express themselves through music and math, teach them how to think by doing experiments, and most importantly, help them develop skills that can be used beyond ARHS.
