It is incredibly important to me to establish a classroom culture free from shame. Shame is the antithesis to learning, curiosity, collaboration, and community. I have observed so many of my peers silenced, losing agency in their own learning, because fear of looking stupid or less than. My mother would often tell me horror stories about Soviet Russian classrooms and how her only escape from the physical and emotional abuse was through the arts (piano). I even experienced a silencing of myself and my potential when my own more extraverted communication style was over-regulated, over-pressured, and eventually silenced throughout the first twelve or so years of my educational experience. It wasn’t until I found art, and later teaching artistry, that I returned to my child-like state of curiosity, wonder, and discovery (attributes essential to the classroom culture I intend to cultivate).

 The key to operating on a system of celebration/collaboration rather than punishment/reward is to empower and embrace diverse behavioral and learning styles early on. It is through acknowledging failure as integral to growth. 

This requires making knowledge the object to subjectively critique and investigate, rather than the student the object to fill with knowledge and “objective fact.” I am incredibly inspired by Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and find it most effective in celebrating questions and comments as not only valid but uplifting and essential to an educational environment.-- establish a classroom culture that is engaging, diverse in learning styles and energy, and embraces mistakes as stepping stones to further discovery.

Education is the bedrock of accessibility in the theatre. It is often the department within theatrical institutions that is the most keyed into DEIA because sensitivity and community engagement are so central. I am proud to be that part of the theatre, the part where we not only nourish and give unconditional opportunities to young artists from historically erased or underrepresented communities, but check in on how our work is tangibly affecting the communities we are situated within.