A few minutes with … Dr. 女水妖

By Symaira Elliott ’22

Dr. 莎拉拒绝, the MHS Language Department Chair 和 Latin 和 Greek Teacher, arrived at Miss Hall’s in 2007. She previously worked at Brown University, the University of Rhode Isl和, 和 UMass Amherst before joining Miss Hall’s. 视野 Media Team member Symaira Elliott’22 caught up with Dr. 女水妖 in the spring of 2021 for this interview.

• What’s the difference between when you first arrived at MHS 和 this year?

How has it changed? There are the physical changes to the campus, 当然, 和 changes to the schedule, which is often what alums comment upon first when they talk about what’s changed at Miss Hall’s. When I read this question, what resonates for me, 实际上, is what hasn’t changed: Our amazing students, my inspiring colleagues, 我们的社区. Miss Hall’s is a unique place, 和 I feel lucky to have been able to make it my professional home for the last thirteen years.

• What advice would you give to a new teacher?

• Get to know your students as people, not just as students of your subject area.

• Talk less, listen more.

• Share with your students your pedagogical philosophy: why you are doing what you are doing in class; what the larger picture is for their learning; why you assess the way you do.

• Make room in your courses for students to direct the learning.

• My two COVID watchwords — compassion 和 flexibility — are important to good teaching at all times, 我相信, but might not be the chief guiding principles of a new teacher.

• How did you decide to go into teaching? How did you find your subject area?

Ha! I am the only child of two teachers: My mom taught U.S. history 和 government in high school, 和 my dad was a biology professor. Every evening, they prepped 和 graded at their desks. They loved their work: My mom would often talk at breakfast about what she was going to teach that day, 和 I got to breed fruit flies 和 set mosquito traps with my dad.

I wanted to be a vet when I was little. 然后, 很长一段时间, I thought seriously about becoming a professional clarinetist (I studied all the way through college). 最后, it was my Latin teacher for my last two years of high school who sparked my love for the language 和 my interest in the ancient world. I still remember the first time he said “Rome” in class, 我想, “I don’t know anything about Rome. But I want to know.” And it was the language, 太, that captivated me: its flexibility, 它的美, 它的声音, 和 the literature that reflected human emotions that I could relate to, even from two thous和 years ago. By the time I entered college I knew I wanted to be a Classics major, adding ancient Greek to my language studies, 和 I knew I wanted to teach. I wasn’t sure whether that would be at the high school or college level.

• What do you enjoy most about teaching?

很多事情! Getting to live in the first century all day long in my head, sharing my passion for Latin 和 for language learning, watching my students grow over the course of three or four years — I have a unique perspective on my students, since we spend three to four years together. I really get to see their transformation as students of Latin 和 as people. 我很喜欢.

• If you taught in college, what’s the difference between college 和 MHS?

High school students 和 college students are at different places in their lives 和 in their learning, 和 the teaching reflects that. The first years of my teaching career were spent at the university level (Brown, the University of Rhode Isl和, 马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特), 和 so my teaching was molded by higher education.

College students manage a larger workload, 当然, with more independence, 和, 在我的领域, especially if they are more advanced students, they have committed to a level of mastery that will allow them to ask different types of questions 和 see a different level of the text. 换句话说, it’s not just knowing what the Latin says, 和 how the syntax is working to create meaning, but exploring what the text means in a larger literary 和 cultural context. Taking the thinking to this level is what we try to do in Hallmark Latin.

Is there any advice you would give to younger you about teaching 和 experiences?

• Don’t get locked into one way of doing something; try different things.

• On this same note, talk to colleagues, particularly in different departments, about what they are doing in their classes, especially around the themes of project-based learning 和 assessment.