Ms. Atlee, an alum from Stuart’s Class of 2019, spent seven years here as a student. After graduating, she headed off to Denison University in Ohio to study Spanish, International Relations, and French. After spending five years in the Midwest, she packed up her things and moved back to the East Coast to be closer to home. Ms. Atlee has now returned to these green brick walls, this time as a teacher. She fondly remarked, “Stuart was such a big part of shaping my identity growing up. It’s kind of like a full circle moment to come back and teach.”
Language has always been something Ms. Atlee is drawn to. She started learning French at just nine years old, picked up Spanish in high school, and then learned Portuguese three years ago. She is adding Serbian to the list of languages so can she connect with her mom’s culture. She is also learning Japanese “just for fun,” but she commented how it is very difficult. To recap, she speaks four languages fluently and is working on putting two more under her belt.
Ms. Atlee has quite a bit of experience teaching French, as she did so at her previous school in Ohio and also served as a teacher’s assistant in college. Still, she admitted that she prefers teaching Spanish because of its relevance in the country: “we share a border with Mexico, so I think everyone in the United States should speak Spanish.”
While in class, you’ll often see Ms. Atlee encouraging her students to speak in the language she’s teaching, since “you learn language by doing.” She also encourages mistakes, saying, ““If you are wrong, I will correct you because I want you to learn if you’re wrong. Don’t be afraid, though, because then you are not going to improve.”
Apart from grammar and vocabulary, Ms. Atlee really wants her students to walk away with greater cultural awareness. In her Upper-Level classes, she emphasizes history, culture, and politics in her lessons. To her, it is important that students know what is happening outside of the United States and have a sense of cultural competence.
Ms. Atlee is not all languages all the time, though. If she was an animal, she decided she would be a cat because “cats like to lie in the sun.” She also sees herself in hummingbirds because of her “frenetic and sometimes frazzled” energy. If she had to eat one food for the rest of her life? Easy: chicken katsu.
It is a joy to have Ms. Atlee back at Stuart as a world language teacher. We are lucky to have such an intelligent and caring person working with Stuart Girls. When alumnae return to Stuart, it is always a sure sign that Stuart left a lasting impact and is a community that will always welcome people home.
