"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."
Gail Godwin
TEACHING STATEMENT
As a teaching artist in community settings and schools, I introduce students to a range of creative strategies that can help them feel centered within the world and their place in it. My experience working with traumatized children has led me to advocate for creative interventions that allow growth, learning, and healing. Children show us who they are and what they've experienced.
In managing the complexity of inclusive classrooms and understanding the role of the teacher in relationship to diverse student needs and goals, Kozleski & Waitoller (2010) explain that general education teachers in diverse schools bring implicit ideas and assumptions into their classrooms. These preconceived assumptions impact how teachers support or thwart learning for students based on their ethnicity, gender, social class, language, or ability.
In order to challenge and change biased assumptions about difference we must bring these notions to light – to unpack them and transform them into more inclusive understanding and practice.
As a teacher educator, I want to help classroom teachers incorporate new ways to construct identities in their classrooms. I believe we need to help youth buy in and connect to their teachers, projects, and educational opportunities, creatively. Engagement is a crucial factor for adolescents’ success in school and in the community and crucial for cultural relevance. The term engagement often refers simply to recruiting people to attend a program. In a broader sense, however, it includes the concept of power sharing: working with them, as opposed to developing programs for them, so they become co-creators of programs that reflect their needs.
As a teaching artist in community settings and schools, I introduce students to a range of creative strategies that can help them feel centered within the world and their place in it. My experience working with traumatized children has led me to advocate for creative interventions that allow growth, learning, and healing. Children show us who they are and what they've experienced.
In managing the complexity of inclusive classrooms and understanding the role of the teacher in relationship to diverse student needs and goals, Kozleski & Waitoller (2010) explain that general education teachers in diverse schools bring implicit ideas and assumptions into their classrooms. These preconceived assumptions impact how teachers support or thwart learning for students based on their ethnicity, gender, social class, language, or ability.
In order to challenge and change biased assumptions about difference we must bring these notions to light – to unpack them and transform them into more inclusive understanding and practice.
As a teacher educator, I want to help classroom teachers incorporate new ways to construct identities in their classrooms. I believe we need to help youth buy in and connect to their teachers, projects, and educational opportunities, creatively. Engagement is a crucial factor for adolescents’ success in school and in the community and crucial for cultural relevance. The term engagement often refers simply to recruiting people to attend a program. In a broader sense, however, it includes the concept of power sharing: working with them, as opposed to developing programs for them, so they become co-creators of programs that reflect their needs.
