My Teaching Philosophy
Making art - any kind of art - requires a tremendous amount of courage. It calls for a willingness to be emotionally vulnerable and take risks. This could also be said of any learning process, since learning requires us to extend ourselves into the unknown. As a teacher, I take seriously my responsibility to create an environment where risk-taking, courageous choices, and mistakes can happen. Where students feel and know that they belong and are valued. I'm committed to fostering an environment where we can actually talk about differences of opinion, name microaggressions, allow for how material is landing with various identities in the room, and examine all the feelings that accompany those moments.
In each of my classes, I unapologetically spend all the time necessary for students to learn each other's names. We play lots of games, because it's been said that you can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in 10 hours of talking. We get to know each other as human beings, and before you know it, we're fond of each other. We start to care about each other. And this is good. Because then we'll really care about the art our classmates make, and we'll care about the feedback we give each other, and HOW we give that feedback. We'll be honest and considerate. And that's essential, because the quality of our feedback affects the quality of the art that's made in the class.
My classes are highly participatory. If I have a superpower, it's being able to take any bit of content and make it an interactive experience. For the last 30 years I've done this all over the country this with corporate executives, non-profit professionals, educational leaders, and students spanning the ages of 3 to 90. My students encounter Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process through assessing cookies that I've baked. Story editing is practiced through a speed dating style exercise. The concept of POV is encountered through an involved pantomime of attending a state fair. We are deeply involved with material if nothing else.
I'm a graduate of DePaul's Theatre School, which is one of the places where I now teach. Back in the '80's, when I attended TTS, there was a very different style of pedagogy and teaching in acting conservatories all over the country. There seemed to be an underlying, unspoken requirement that performance students needed to be "broken down" and their bad habits eliminated before they could be taught new skills. It was pretty harsh. That being said, my conservatory training certainly prepared me for a career in professional theatre. For that I am incredibly grateful. Now, decades later, I have the opportunity to teach these same skills to DePaul students using a much more inclusive, encouraging approach. There is rigor, and there are high expectations, along with flexibility, sensitivity and compassion.
If I thought my job was just about improving an emerging artist's or a future teacher's skills, there would not be enough purpose in that to keep me excited about entering teaching, year after year, every day. However, that's not how I see my job. I view my classroom as a place where students work to grow into better humans through trying hard things and failing, and then succeeding, while supporting fellow students in the class to do the same.
It's utterly compelling. I absolutely love it.