Teaching Philosophy.

Learning is a “full person” endeavor. Certainly it is an intellectual pursuit that thrives on rigorous challenges. Intellectual rigor, however, is a house built on a foundation of socioemotional understanding and support.

Neurologists tell us that in high stress situations, the amygdala can hijack the brain’s ability to process and prioritize input rationally. Instead, it crashes into red alert mode and loudly insists that we address a single piece of input RIGHT NOW. We’re primed for this to be the case in school by our experiences outside of it. Most of the messaging we all receive on a regular basis in our daily lives aims at using this instinctive fear response to manipulate us. A significant portion of advertising, for example, boils down to “If you don’t buy this product / vote for this candidate / try this diet, you will be undesirable to others.” There have been studies on the impact of existing in this “fight or flight” mode for extended periods of time. Spoiler: it’s not good for us.
 
So, what calms down the amygdala and allows us to properly contextualize our emotions, simultaneously creating the ideal circumstances for the brain to think critically and integrate new information (aka learn)?

Play. And what discipline uses play better than any other? Theatre.

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