Teaching. Leading. Growth.

I am a complex yet simple minded person who believes in serving others in the best way I know how. I lead and teach by putting the growth of students at the top of my priority list. Through various teaching styles including command, reciprocal, practice, and guided discovery, I can help students learn and explore concepts deeply in class. In my teaching I like to use various intelligences to speak to different types of learners in the room. It is important for me to understand the differences between people and respect different learning abilities and strengths. Teaching students through these different intelligences of musical, bodily-kinesthetic, visual, linguistic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal, creates a deeper learning experience for students as it becomes a full mind and body experience. 

Using critical thinking in my class is essential to my dancer's accountability for growth and comprehension of concepts. Through my class my dancers should understand the reasoning behind each movement and see the purpose to each exercise. Questioning dancers is a beautiful way to further strengthen the mind and body connection. This method helps me evaluate my effectiveness as a teacher; for my dancers' thoughts and experiences are a result of my guidance, methods, and teachings. 

I believe in a holistic, vulnerable, and experimental approach when teaching. I value the environment, closeness between dancers, and the brave community I establish, ultimately creating abundance for student's self-esteem, individuality, and artistic expression. Through a guided, improvisational warm-up dancers are welcomed into a safe space for individual exploration. Following warm-up I decide the needs of the students by entering a phase of exercises the dancers can perform and aim to execute. This part of class is essential for the dancer’s progression of understanding conceptual content. Finishing the class with a phrase offers students an opportunity to align their personal endeavors with the class’s agenda. Dancers who take my class walk away with a sense of courage and empowerment through gaining knowledge and mindfulness of what their mental and physical strengths are in dance. The impact and influence I have on a student fuels me to be a better teacher, student, and leader overall. With the heavy passion I carry for teaching, I am humbled and fulfilled by my students’ growth. My ability to have an impact on my students is equally as strong as the impact the students will have on myself. I love this part of teaching, dance, and my life.