RAPPORT
Volume 3 Issue 1 (2018)
A Student’s Perspective
[Michaela Muckell was in the second cohort
of students taking the Compass class – in
her case during the semester in which she
was completing her undergraduate degree in
spring 2017. She has just (spring 2018)
completed her Master of Arts in Teaching.]
“My time at Manhattanville was an
incredible whirlwind in which I was
encouraged to pursue my passions in
several areas. For me, primarily, that
passion is teaching English Language
Arts, but I also pursued a minor in Studio
Art and completed Manhattanville’s
interdisciplinary Castle Scholars Honors
Program, all while completing the many
required general education classes. I
enjoyed Manhattanville immensely, and I
worked hard. However, I never really
paused to actively think about the
connection between my liberal arts
experience and my future teaching
career. The Atlas Compass class,
however, provided me with just that
platform to reflect and connect.
Manhattanville is big on communication;
there was a huge emphasis on making
sure we students would graduate with
experience in articulating ideas, speaking
in front of an audience, writing clearly,
analyzing information, and collaborating
with others. During my undergraduate
experience, I really enjoyed this aspect of
Manhattanville (maybe because I was an
English and Education major!), but it was
the Atlas Compass class that helped to
make the connection between these
skills and my career explicit.
Each week, Professor Hannum asked us
to home in and reflect on a specific part
of our experience at Manhattanville, and
one of the earlier assignments we had
was to reflect on this connection to the
liberal arts. It was then that I realized all
the transferable skills I had acquired,
ones that have developed my mindset
and can be applied to several different
areas of my life and career (Cuseo &
Thompson, 2010). In my teaching career,
I'll constantly have to be articulating
ideas, presenting information, speaking
in front of others, and collaborating with
other teachers. In fact, this exercise of
examining my experiences even helped
me to develop my own personal teaching
philosophy and pedagogy. Teaching is
communicating, and an effective
educator can communicate in many
different ways and settings.
Each assignment we were given was
purposeful and connected to the ultimate
goal of preparing us for the professional
world. One assignment asked us to
choose an extracurricular experience and
think carefully about the purposes of that
experience, the skills used, and the
connection to our careers. I chose to
focus on an experience I had at The
Hotchkiss School in Lakeville,
Connecticut, in which I was a Residential
Teaching Fellow. This position is
essentially that of teacher, advisor,
coach, and Resident Advisor all in one.
After some careful thought and reflection,
I put everything together into a Google
Slide Presentation, which was then
presented to the class (and also found a
home on my Professional e-Portfolio).
This assignment is entirely indicative of
the kind of work we students were asked
to do each day. We reflected purposefully
on a specific experience or aspect of our
college career; we connected to our own
lives and careers; we carefully edited and
honed our work; and we presented our
finished work. As shown in Figure 1, the
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