Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy has been derived from a combination of John Dewey’s Experiential Learning and Paolo Freire’s ideas in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  I both think and know that learning happens through doing, and I both suspect and hope that a new relationship between student and teacher can be forged that is not based strictly on hierarchical models of dispensing information.  I came across these pedagogical philosophers long after I started teaching, and I recognized my own aspirations and practical experience in their writings. 

            The idea of experiential learning has become ever more crucial to me as I continue to teach.  I start every new semester off with doing first and talking later.  I start nearly every session with doing first and talking later.  I have observed the dynamic shift that happens in a room full of people, particularly when they are first meeting me as their teacher, from wary detachment, anxious anticipation,  or bored tolerance, to engaged, amused, and intrigued interest.  I find that by doing first and talking later, the students are given the intellectual room to make their own discoveries, come to conclusions that perhaps I had in mind, but are more authentically theirs, and are more deeply integrated into their knowledge about the subject at hand.  I have a very sensitive inner clock; when I feel like I have been talking too long, I always shift into doing.  Doing can include everything from writing in class, performing, doing experiments, reading aloud their writing, discussion, and operating interactive media.  I am also very comfortable with the experience of failure in this context; not every experiment or conceptual game I have the students undertake bears fruit, or is all that meaningful for every student.  But the object lesson of finding out through trying it is well worth the times it is a bust. 

            I have begun, in the last few years, to include the notion of paying attention as an active form of doing.  I have observed that most people have a hard time paying real, close attention, and so I have made explicit the problem and speak of attention as one of the learning objectives in class.  This includes making explicit the intoxicating pull of social media and email, and the incessant checking of same, that happens whenever someone sits in a classroom full of computers, and has pockets full of blackberries, or whatever the current technologies are.  By drawing attention to this intoxication, and by not approaching it censoriously, but rather, by mimicking what I see as the subtle shifting of eyes from the room to the screen, for humorous effect, I find this can disarm the students enough to make them self-regulate, and to avoid the terribly deadening effect of “mama-teacher” scolding the student. 

            Being an artist, I see my role in the classroom as a facilitator and composer of experience, more than a teacher who is imparting knowledge.  I am deeply interested in how 2 hours and 50 minutes can be shaped into an experience, a ride of doing, reflecting, re-framing, and doing again.  I think this is why I am so compelled by Paulo Freire and how he approached teaching/learning…Much of the time, I am in class with people who are not children.  Thus, I don’t want to treat them like children, but like adults who are contributing to what is happening in the moment.  I like to think of them as co-conspirators, because, in my mind, we are all there together in that room, bucking the pull of distracting media and outside life, and for those 2 hours and 50 minutes, we are creating a paradise of attention both given and taken. 

            As I continue to teach over some years, I have noticed that one way I use my personal charisma and theatricality in the classroom is through the use of judiciously placed vulgarity.  I have thought a lot about how this works, and I observe that my somewhat matronly appearance can lull students into thinking of me as motherly, which I intuit is the beginning of an insidious infantilizing of themselves.  The more they infantilize themselves, the less responsible they are for what we are creating together in the room in that moment.  They have very hard wired hierarchies in place that determine a lot about their sense of authority, responsibility, and accountability. I am firmly committed to drawing attention to these pre-conceptions and critiquing them through my own behavior.  By using vulgarity, I am both being more myself (I am quite foul mouthed in my private life), and less the mono-dimensional “mama-teacher” they might want.  I see that it disarms and surprises them into suddenly paying a different kind of attention.   I am not going to take care of them in the way they think I am.  I am going to take care of them by creating a situation within which they have to operate as adults and co-creators of their own education. 

            I am deeply compassionate towards my students as human beings.  I experience true compassion as that which cuts like a knife, down through the confusion, resistance, and expectation, and posits candor as the greatest form of respect.  I think it is more important to be kind than to be nice.  But I never leave anyone hanging, unable to continue.  Critique is followed by a rubbing of hands together, and saying, “Ok, now what are we going to do about it?”  I don’t aspire to be friends with my students, but I know that we are comrades, and it is only in this circumstance that lands me in the position of being their teacher. 

            Within all these thoughts, I have come to consider my teaching as a part of my art practice.  At first I segregated the two modes, and thought I was bringing teacher-mind to school, and artist-mind to rehearsal.  But now, I know that creativity and facilitation are all part of the same game, the exploration and expression of the things we don’t know yet, are trying to figure out, or are just fun to do.

            Right now, as a teaching goal,  I am particularly working with the notion of productive discomfort.  I am practicing allowing difficult silences, not filling in every gap with explanation or nervous talking; I am confronting directly my own limitations and prejudices about intersectionality and omni-culturalism, through discussion in class, admitting when I don’t know something, and not just soliciting the students to offer examples of works they think are pertinent, but doing research outside my immediate interests; I am practicing Socratic feedback, asking questions of the works offered, rather than prescriptive suggestion-based critique, as well as introducing critique models, such as The Field, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, and non-hierarchical discussion methods,  to use as a group, to help raise the discourse above the dreaded “I liked it/I didn’t’ like it” level.             

Classes Designed and Taught

Creativity Facilitation- private workshops and individual sessions focusing on making.

Introduction to Writing as Art- writing in all different kinds of styles and modes

Story/Telling- Writing as genre exploration

Writing For Time Arts- Writing for all works that move forward in time: plays, films, performance etc

Writing for Film, Video, Performance- focus on time art structures, audience

Writing From the Body- writing through experiment with physicality 

Dialogue, Monologue, Silence- 3 modes of performative writing

Story Development for Interactive New Media- narrative structures for video games

Drama Theory and Practice- performance concepts and styles

Media Performance- performance with media

Connected Images- art boot camp, A-Z concept through realization of any kind of project

Thesis I/II- facilitation of year- long MFA thesis projects 

Conceptual Strategies- modes of structure and approach to making

Connected Studio Practices- professional practices

Performance Aesthetics- modes of performance

Intermediate Playwriting- just that

Making: A Process Seminar- all kinds of making, exploding the idea of art making

Art as Spiritual Practice- just that

Testimonials:

"...Thank you so much for the space to grow in my practice !!! I had a terrific experience in this class, you fostered one of the more welcoming and nuanced classroom dynamics that I've experienced (everyone spoke!!!)" -MH

"...Jenny Magnus's class gave me permission to not only experiment but to honor dreams and visions of what I one e thought as impossible performances or ideas that I felt at the time could not be staged. From there I realized they actually could be represented, if not in the original ideal way certainly in another more economic theatrical way that still carries the essence of the original vision..." -MK

“...When I was earning my graduate degree, I was truly honored to have Jenny as a mentor and advisor. She has a way of cutting to the heart of the matter when critiquing work. She masterfully maneuvered through difficult conversations, never glad-handing, and often gave the artist specific encouragement, and direct questions to grapple with as they moved forward. To this day I carry bits of her feedback with me.  There was a very specific moment in my final project, which left me riddled with doubt. Jenny heard me and responded with such compassionate advice to focus on the work, not the doubt. It was a profound moment that I will always remember and still utilize that advice to this day..." JH

"...Jenny Magnus is an honest, direct, perceptive, and compassionate teacher whose insight has helped me develop my work, push my boundaries, and change my own expectations for myself. Every artist should have the benefit of her candor, her attention, her presence and her thoughtfulness - all the work she has made, all the life she has lived, and all the paths she has traveled amount to an incredible wealth of knowledge and dedication to returning, always returning to work. I love Jenny's work and I am devoted to her guidance and wisdom. .."  EB

"...Jenny is an incredible teacher and practitioner, full of exercises and approaches to nurturing the creative process and making work move forward. She is hilarious, down-to-earth, supportive, and incredibly open-minded which makes her a joy to learn from. Plus, she adapts each class to who is in the room. She speaks with enthusiasm for each idea a student offers and understands how to shape a project so it matches the vision of the maker. I highly recommend working with her if you get the chance!..."CL