PART TWO: Introduce Yourself
My name is Kim Taylor Knight and I am a full time dance educator in the Boston Public Schools. Our school is an urban population with a high percentage of English Language Learners and in a high poverty neighborhood. I have been teaching at this school for twelve years and before that I was a storytelling and dance teaching artist in various capacities. What I learned as a TA has given me insight into my mission and why arts education is so critical for the education of our young people and children. It is a belief held by many more that the arts are a human right.
This year I began my second year in the Disney Musicals in Schools program and I am serving as director, with a team of four teachers assisting, and four students (some who have graduated from our school) coming in to assist. We have over fifty students in the second year of the program.
Every year the grade band I teach shifts; this year I teach Kindergartens 0, 1, and 2, 1st grades (inclusion classes), Practical Academic Community Education classes (PACE) our Autism strand and Middle school electives.
I also direct a after school dance company with only 2nd grade this year. It is a program that I have begun to rebuild after taking a break last year. At the height of the program I served over 50 students in this weekly free afterschool performance group.
My documentation follows a rather pedestrian route of filming, and photographing the students’ work. My confidence has grown the longer I have taught. This documentation has grown out of the teacher evaluations we submit yearly; I must submit “artifacts” and have gotten quite proficient at providing critical evidence to administration.
My personal process includes self-talk (often in the shower, or on the train in the morning) followed by visual doodles, which help me to remember what my direction my work is going. I love to work with big or divergent ideas, and poetry inspires me to choreograph.
My blog is on a Wix page, which allows me to keep track of my work online. Learning new technologies and trying out new digital environments fascinates me. If I were younger I would be a tech geek. I journal more as short notes and doodles than coherent entries in a journal; it is no surprise I write more poetry and impressions than full essays. I jot ideas and talk out loud in the shower to flesh out my big picture ideas. To make my writing fully formed I find myself reading outloud and editing many times. But it is in my nature to just “get it on the page” without extensive planning. For me it is all in the editing.
I really loved Dr. Anderson’s approach to process; it was a great voyage of self-discovery. If I am able to dream on the page, it will help me not miss any ideas that might otherwise escape and evaporate.
I look forward to a new process of self discover with you Dr. Shanahan. Thank you for the invitation to dream on the page.