Breaking Bounds

I tend to push boundaries, yet I am fortunate enough to have an administration that somewhat supports my rebellion.  Somewhat - keyword. My latest request was for the district to fund an experiment where I completely redesign my English classroom like a coffee shop and replace all of the classroom furniture.  My principal facetiously asked if I was drunk.  

I currently teach English and Dance at Windsor High School in Northern California and am the program coordinator for the Nueva School for the Performing Arts.  We initially designed Nueva as a school within a school and obtained California Partnership Academy funding to establish a career focus for the program.  Our vision was to introduce a project-based learning model on a traditional high school campus, using theater as a vehicle for authentic experiential learning.  We are an atypical performing arts program in that our students are not necessarily "performing artists."  Instead, they are innovators and risk takers, and we encourage creative exploration and offer as much choice in learning as allowable within the confines of the school’s master schedule.  We believe in true interdisciplinary education and use theater as a way to teach transferable skills and expose students to different career experiences.   

After twelve years of teaching in the California public school system, I am highly motivated and inspired by the recent philosophical and pedagogical shift in education and want to contribute to the progress made by educational entrepreneurs and researchers.  I am currently working with a team educators on and educational “startup” that supports secondary schools in the transformation of learning environments and pedagogy, trains innovative educators in the school and program restructuring process, and provides frameworks for authentic interdisciplinary curriculum and courseware to project-based learning programs. Furthering my education is essential to this journey, and  I am ready to focus my energy on professional and educational growth.  I look forward to becoming a designer as the education reform movement gains momentum.  

With my classroom as ground zero, I push my students to take ownership of their education.  I am inspired by innovation and feel a need to engage in meaningful dialogue with twenty first century learners. As an educator, I recognize that in order to make school relevant, I must accept the fact that I am actually irrelevant. Where I once took solace in my two years of rotating curriculum, I now look at my files and question the authenticity of every lesson.  I stand in front of my classroom daily, yet the strangeness of the existing structure becomes all more apparent. I am more of a facilitator than a teacher, and my classroom is more of a place of exposure than instruction.  The room itself should be conducive to learning.  It should have the things we seek out in public learning spaces.  It should a place where people want to come to think.  Like a cafe.