Ms. Connolly teaches MCSM’s Freshman Seminar
By Felicity Rivera
If you’re a Freshman at Manhattan Center, you definitely have to attend Freshman Seminar. For people who don’t know, Freshman Seminar is a 9th period class (which is officially “after school”) that all freshmen must attend either on Tuesday and Thursday or Monday and Wednesday.
Some students say that it’s a complete waste of time to stay after school for these sessions, while others enjoy this more laid-back supplemental program. Whatever your feelings may be, below we interview Freshman Seminar instructor Ms. Connelly to get the inside scoop on what the Freshman Seminar is all about.
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Q: What exactly is this Freshman Seminar class? What are its components?
Ms. Connolly: “Freshman Seminar class is something that we do to make sure that all the freshmen are as prepared as possible to deal with everything that comes with attending high school. For example, all the academic skills needed like studying, note taking, building relationships with teachers, and making friendships with other students. We also deal with the social and emotional sides of it too, like how to deal with stress, how to deal with time management, and just how to deal with everything that comes with high school.”
Q: When was it introduced to MCSM? Why?
Ms. Connolly: “It was introduced around 5 years ago. It was introduced because Freshman Seminar is a program done in several other high schools and it had been there for a couple years. It was so successful in helping prepare those kids for success in their high schools, that we wanted to start it here to make sure that our kids had every single tool possible to help them succeed.”
Q: Was October the first full month of implementation? Have you noticed growth or change in how students are learning month to month?
Ms. Connolly: “Yes, October was the first full month of implementation. I have noticed growth, at least in the students that —for the most part— I have seen. They have felt much more comfortable and confident in navigating around the school and their work. Everybody is adapting really well, but it did take a while for everyone to get used to everything.”
Q: How do you teach the class?
Ms. Connolly: “I teach my Freshman Seminar classes differently than my English classes because in your English classes the focus is on academic skill. In Freshman Seminar class however, I want to make sure that my students have the opportunity to build relationships with each other, and with me, and I want to facilitate that. Sometimes we have a couple minutes of free time to chat, and I give them a lot of discussion-based questions so they can turn and talk within their groups. We have done a couple projects where they are encouraged to work together. Since I’m not trying to focus on academic skills like in English class, the social/emotional learning is what I’m trying to develop. So they do things that are maybe a little more fun, or a little more interesting … and things that are not just skill-based so that they can talk about it, and discuss it, and do work from that place of interest, instead of just skill-based work.”
Q: What is the goal of Freshman Seminar? What do you hope students take away from it?
Ms. Connolly: “The goal is sometimes harder to define, because in an English class or in a Math class it’s a very simple goal—like I want them to learn these skills so that they are able to do certain things. In a Freshman Seminar class, I essentially want to help each student to be able to do their best in school. I ask all my students what they want to learn about. In some group classes we talk a lot about academic things like study skills, note taking, time management, creating a calendar, and creating a plan. I have other seminar students who are interested in things that might be useful in the real world, like creating a budget, financial literacy, taxes, stocks and other things that are vital and important, but aren’t always taught because they’re not specifically academic subjects. I tell each group that they do learn these things as upperclassmen, but a lot of kids are impatient and they want to know about them now.
Essentially, my goal is to help give students whatever they need so that they can then take it away with them and be successful”.
Q: From previous years, what have you noticed worked and didn’t work?
Ms. Connolly: “One thing that I do that I’ve done every year in Freshman Seminar that works well, is that I ask the kids what they want to learn about. I give suggestions and say what I want to do, and I ask if that’s what they want to do too. I do this because if literally not one kid cares about creating a budget, I don’t want to stand there and teach them how to create a budget if no one cares. The whole thing becomes pointless.
Something that also worked really well that we don’t do as much anymore, is that we used to spend a lot of time on skills that we found you guys already have. For example, when we first started we were using a lot of ideas from other schools. Some of the lessons were like: ‘How to properly shake hands with someone’ or ‘How to speak to teachers’ and the students would say things like ‘We already know this.’ Instead, now we talk a lot about how to choose the right college, because while Columbia is an amazing school, it may not be the right school for everyone. We talk about scholarships, and financial aid, and things that can relate to their lives.”
Q: How is it going so far? How are parents reacting to it?
Ms. Connolly: “In general, I know that parents really like the idea of Freshman Seminar. I haven’t spoken to many parents yet this year, but in general parents do see the value in the class because we are learning all these different skill sets. And we are also learning in a way that’s more interesting about topics that they don’t get to talk about in their other academic classes. Essentially, it’s just a fun place to explore different topics that are otherwise skipped over … and also discuss it in an academic setting that doesn’t need to focus solely on academics.”
Q: Why is this seminar only given to freshmen? Are there certain things in this class that apply especially to freshmen and the start of high school specifically?
Ms. Connolly: “This is the type of class that we would love to have the upperclassmen take as well. We would love to have a different version of it for each grade because there are so many important [coping] skills that are taught. The seniors would definitely benefit from a class about life skills and living in college/the real world. I think part of it is that we don’t really want to overload the seniors and juniors with work. I mean, the juniors take the SAT prep class. I think we would really want the sophomores to take a similar type of class. It just hasn’t happened yet. It may happen in the future, maybe even next year.
Ultimately, we want to make sure that everybody has all of these skills—so that they are able to succeed in life and also have a bit of fun. We want to make sure that starting in ninth grade you [get familiar with] these skills. We don’t want to wait until Junior or Senior year to even start talking about these things! ”