EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Educational Philosophy

I'm dedicated to apply my expertise as a performing artist, an educator, and a communications professional to develop sustainable and structured access to equitable arts education in public school and non-profit settings.

I believe that every student has the ability to learn and that it is essential for educators to provide tools, and most importantly opportunities, to discover personal potential.

It is imperative to embody antiracist pedagogy daily.

Pedagogical Approach

Curriculum is student-centered, utilizing the artist mediums of theatre, dance, improvisation, and spoken word as conductors for collaboration, whole body listening, and confidence in autonomy.

Example #1

Unit Overview: Perspective Storytelling

Theatre Arts | Grade 9-12

Established Goals:

· Identify action, dialogue, and character

· Identify beginning, middle, and end

· Define and identify nonverbal communication

· Identify somaesthetic responses to pieces of theatre arts

· Self-reflect within the key patterns of Critical Literacy

Essential Questions:

How do personal perspectives affect the meaning we see in a performance?

How is our physical body effected by the people, community, spaces around us?

How is our physical body effected by media and art that we consume?

What is critical literacy, and how can we identify when we are experiencing it?

Know

The definition of:

Somaesthetics, nonverbal communication, action, dialogue, and character.

[Ideally this unit will be proceeded by a Theatre Basics unit, where students learn stage directions and common terminology.]

Habits of Mind

(Social Emotional Learning)

Spatial awareness

Nonverbal communication skills

Perspective taking to identify emotions of self and others

Begin to develop awareness of somaesthetic response

Understand

How nonverbal communication affects the meaning of a theatre art piece and the way in which it is interpreted.

That identifying action, dialogue, and character in a performance helps analyze the storytelling arc.

Theatre arts are interpreted through the perspective lens of the audience member and typically told through the perspective lens of the arts makers.

Be Able To

Use and identify use of non-verbal communication

Identify somaesthetic responses to pieces of theatre arts

Identify action, dialogue, and character within a piece of theatre arts

Example #2

Unit Overview: Perspective Storytelling

Theatre Arts | Grade 9-12

Established Goals:

· Identify action, dialogue, and character

· Identify beginning, middle, and end

· Define and identify nonverbal communication

· Identify somaesthetic responses to pieces of theatre arts

· Self-reflect within the key patterns of Critical Literacy

Essential Questions:

How do personal perspectives affect the meaning we see in a performance?

How is our physical body affected by the people, community, spaces around us?

How is our physical body affected by media and art that we consume?

What is critical literacy, and how can we identify when we are experiencing it?

Unit Overview: Weaving Patterns of Critical Literacy

Theatre Arts | Grade 9-12

Students will be assessed on Seeds of Critical Literacy, Probing Assumptions, Perspective Taking, and Creative Changes/Transformations. They will be asked to self-assess during the course of this six-week unit by taking comprehensive notes of their educational journey through the exercises, activities, and assignments. The final summative assessment will be a paper, written play, performance, or multimedia project – student choice – that incorporates the key patterns of critical literacy into contemporary language and social structures.

Lesson Introspective | Perspective Taking

Established Goals:

Formulate two main aspects of critical literacy described by Tasmania’s Department of Education (2014), (1) “providing students with opportunities to consider and clarify their own attitudes and values,” and (2) “providing students with opportunities to take social action” (1-2).

Define monologue and first-person point of view.

Essential Questions:

What narratives do you seen formed and re-formed by the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
Is re-forming a narrative a positive thing? Is it a negative thing? Why or why not?
What happens when someone else re-forms your narrative for you, without your permission?

Structure of the Class:

Following a discussion about the essential questions for the day, students will play Gibberish Interpreter. Directions for the game are listed in below.

Move chairs to create an audience and a stage space.
Demonstrate speaking in gibberish - a made up language, and immediately after demonstrate translating the gibberish just spoken. Invite a student up to further help demonstrate. Let them know they get to translate the teacher’s gibberish!
Invite two students to take the stage (square colors rug). Assign one to speak gibberish, and the other will translate the gibberish into English.
The gibberish speaker should speak only one line at a time, using as much physicality as he/she can. Then the interpreter will mimic the motions and translate the phrase into English.
Repeat until each student has been the gibberish speaker and the translator at least once.

NOTE: Encourage the gibberish speaker to be very specific in their intention and actions. Encourage the interpreter to think very carefully about trying to make the gibberish make sense.

Ask the question: how does it feel when someone tells your story for you?

Define monologue and first-person point of view for the class. Then, ask students to tell the story from one specific character’s perspective. Students may choose any character in the play. They will be asked to write a one-page, free form monologue.

When students are finished, they will pair and share their monologues.

Ask the question: what elements of perspective taking did you notice in each monologue?