teaching
I am a passionate educator with a diverse range of interests in the field of teaching. I specialize in Drama Pedagogy for students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, utilizing innovative approaches to engage and inspire young minds. My areas of expertise include Documentary Theatre, where I guide students in exploring real-life stories through performance, as well as Directing, Devising, and Playwriting to foster creativity and collaboration.
Additionally, I have a keen interest in Musical Theatre and Theatre for young audiences, creating memorable experiences for students through the power of music and storytelling. Furthermore, I believe in the transformative potential of Arts Integration, seamlessly blending the arts with other subject areas to enhance learning and deepen student engagement. I invite you to explore my portfolio and discover the exciting projects and achievements that showcase my commitment to providing dynamic and impactful education experiences.
A Chinese originated proverb that I come to love and apply to my practice expresses, “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.” By including students in their own learning, through different teaching strategies such as role playing, process drama, teacher in role or group work, makes learning more profound, intricate, and significantly increases retention. In the classroom teachers need to enable students to decipher, explore and build on prior knowledge, thus allowing them to achieve the outlined goals in a more comprehensive manner. Undoubtedly every learner, regardless of age, race, ethnic background, religion or sex possesses something special to offer to the world.
Consequently, my responsibility as an educator involves helping young people actualize their potential and discover oneself through student driven activities; thus, ushering into the world expressive, creative theatre artists and global citizens. Education should provide students with the skills and knowledge to be change makers.
Theatre and drama naturally provide a fun and fascinating way of learning and teaching. These subject areas are critical to the development of students, who better understand educational materials when presented using engaging and relatable methods such as role playing, storytelling or dance. It is my observation that students are more receptive to materials that are less rigid and traditional and delivered in a space that is free of judgment. Through theatre games and techniques, students acquire fundamental social and problem-solving skills necessary to develop critical thinkers and lifelong learners. This includes engaging in class discussions and exploration on global matters. Additionally, these skill sets become transferable across all other classes taken by a learner, thus becoming influential in their whole academic success.
As a believer in the philosophy of John Dewey, who champions the idea that learning ought to be authentic and democratic, I allow my students the opportunity to discover their own knowledge through supervised exploration. This is based on the understanding that every student possesses their different way of learning, therefore I ensure to create a diverse and student-centered environment. To accomplish this, I guide students in developing a community contract at the beginning of the school year that allows students to create their own expectations for themselves, myself and the class, while holding each other accountable during the time together, as well as acts as a classroom management strategy. Along with this, I incorporate community building activities. These allow for a safer classroom and give students an opportunity to voice their needs and co-develop a productive and equitable learning environment. To cater to and support diverse learners, I utilize modern styles and newly learned and popular jargons that students easily relate to. I utilize hands-on, group and solo work, video and audio interactions, arts and craft, creative journaling as well as my students' interests and fascinations as teaching tools to guide my classroom instructions. My goal is to encourage thinking and create an environment that allows for personal connections with the material, their classmates and the world around them by building opportunities for reflection, discussions and critique.
As an international educator who gained experience with education and theatre in the Caribbean, the US and other parts of the world, I bring a global perspective into my classroom and curriculum and the work I engage in. I include different cultures and experiences when working with plays, classroom games and activities, practices and subject matters that reflect different cultural backgrounds. I also allow students to incorporate their community and national world issues when creating and devising in the classroom. I believe in a harmonious school environment where everyone works together in harmony for the development of students. I play my part in achieving this by constantly finding ways to involve all departments and members of the school in my theatre and even class projects. I also collaborate with teachers of different subject areas by volunteering different theatre strategies and techniques to improve learning outcomes in other subjects such as Language, Social Studies and History. I strongly believe in the development of students outside the classroom through extracurricular activities and programs such as drama clubs and productions. This is where I include and solicit the involvement of the community, teachers and parents and get them involved in the development of students. This affords me an amiable and respectable relationship with all stakeholders of the school community with whom I interact.
