Teaching Philosophy

As an educator, I think it is so important to create an environment that is student-centered and allows the students autonomy in their learning. Student choice and student voice in the classroom allows the teacher to get to know better the students they are working with and what their interests are. In addition, giving students a choice in how they want to learn in what works best for them shows the students that the teacher cares about their needs and interests. It’s important to me that I implement this into my own teaching practice; no two classes, or students, are the same and it’s important as a teacher to be flexible with how the students are learning and to really get to know the students in order to accomplish this. 

 

As a drama teacher I teach my students not only the fundamentals of theatre as an art form but also how it can be applied within everyday life. How can games and activities promote social emotional learning? How can various roles in a production make you a more well-rounded individual? How can drama teach collaboration that can be used outside the classroom? I teach lessons that promote all these ideas while also making it clear to students how these skills can be applied in their lives. It’s one thing to teach the “how” in drama, but it’s also important to teach the “why.”

 

As a drama teacher, I find a balance between the fun, creativity, and practicality of what the students are learning. Drama is all about being silly, thinking outside the box and finding your place while also making connections to opportunities and experiences that will help you become a more well-rounded individual. I find that instilling these ideas within my students allows them to feel that although they may not want to be actors, and have other ideas on what they want to be when they grow up, they are welcome and have a place in my drama classroom.

 

I fell in love with performing at a very young age. I enjoyed the thrill you get on the stage, the chance to be someone you’re not, plus dressing up in fun costumes is always a blast. But it wasn’t these things that kept me going in theatre, and it wasn’t these things that put me on the path to becoming a theatre teacher. What kept me going was my middle school drama teacher, who taught me that drama was made for everyone. She found a place for everyone in her musicals and in her classroom, whether they were performers or not. On days I didn’t feel confident in myself, she reminded me that I had a place in the theatre. This idea that has been instilled in me is what pushed me to become a theatre teacher and why my teaching philosophy is to promote drama as a place for everyone and an art form that every person can benefit from and use in various aspects of their lives. 

 

As Dorothy Heathcote said, “we create a race of teachers who are unafraid to make relationships with classes, who are unafraid to admit that they do not know, who never stop seeking to learn more about the dynamics of teaching; who bring all to themselves to school and demand their classes do the same; who can actually change their modes of work to suit the needs of their classes at any time so that learning is kept meaningful, who like to get on with the people they teach because they are so unafraid of the dull, the aggressive, the unacademic, the ‘naughty’; who are able to do it that they are tired today, so that their classes can take some responsibility,” (Dorothy Heathcote: Collected Writings on Education and Drama).