From Union Stage Manager to ski instructor to Grad School

The biggest factor that has guided me to teaching is my journey through life and careers.  I started my professional life before graduating from college and continued in that vocation for years.  I was a professional stage manager for operas, ballets, theatres, rock and roll, and eventually a consultant for all kinds of performing organizations.  However, the nature of the work and my rapidly increasing dissatisfaction with it led me to explore a wide variety of other work, from slinging coffee (not fun) to working at a banking call center (less fun) to managing the flowers for the Rose Festival parade (not as fun as you might think), to name a few.

Shortly after moving to Portland, I met my mentor, now the artistic director of Oregon Children’s Theatre.  Stan Foote saw my potential as an asset to his organization, and in addition to hiring me to work as a stage manager, he also asked me to work for him as a summer camp administrator.  Eventually he guided me into a teaching role.  This came as something as a surprise to me, as I had little experience with kids or teaching. 

The nature of theatre work, especially for a young practitioner, means that you never work for the same company for more than a month or two, then you move on.  From Oregon Children’s Theatre, I went on to become the “child wrangler” and expert for Portland Center Stage and Oregon Ballet Theatre.  During these years, I was struggling to define myself as a stage manager, as a Portlander, and as a woman.  I rarely enjoyed the actual theatre work, but working with the kids was a blast and clearly something I had a knack for.  In fact, it made me a lot happier. 

Eventually I decided to move away from the theatre and found work as a docent and studio guide at the Children’s Museum, as a nanny, and as a teacher for a bike safety club teaching five to twelve year olds how to fix bikes and ride in the city.  That job led me to a formal, well paying position as an educator with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, where I helped develop curriculum for the bicycle program as well as a pedestrian safety program.  The work was extremely challenging, characterized by a constant change in funding sources (thus necessitating a change in schools, materials, and bosses).  But I got into the schools.  In four years, I taught in over thirty different classrooms in twenty or so schools.  I had grade one through to high school.  I got to see so many different kinds of teachers and learn from them.  

Eventually I realized that I wanted my own classroom.  After that it was just a matter of deciding when and how to realize this new dream.  Moving to Lake Tahoe was an unexpected, joyful detour. I learned that California schools aren’t that scary, and my bilingual experiences in Portland (volunteer teaching through a service learning program) were going to serve me very well as a substitute teacher.  I also have been able to explore the realm of physical coaching, tagging onto my experience teaching cycling.  I became a full-time certified ski instructor with specialized training in teaching for kids.  Winter ended, so here I am.