I am new to Steem and am very excited to be here. After doing a bit of research, I have decided that Steemit is a space that I desire to invest a bit of my daily time to, every day.
Here are some facts about myself.
I am 22.
I love to make music, be it singing, playing guitar, experimenting with the Teenage engineering OP-1, or basic audio production.
I am a kindergarten teacher.
I recently moved from urban Minnesota to semi-rural Thailand (Chiang Mai).
I came to Thailand to follow a three-fold opportunity:
- Thailand, as well as many other nations in South East Asia, is quickly moving into cryptocurrency adoption in many ways. I believe in blockchain technology and both Steem and the move offer new ways to interact on the road to mass adoption
- I have a masters degree in education and was offered a job that would allow for my extended stay in the country.
- I was always told that if I had the opportunity to travel as a young person, it would help me grow into a better version of myself.
Due to extenuating circumstances surrounding the nature of my job, I do not currently feel comfortable fully disclosing certain details about my personal self. As a teacher, there must exist a separation between my professional identities. This separation is something I intend to talk about quite a bit within my blog posts. I also intend to curate a series of stories that are appropriated or inspired by some of my classroom activities. If you are familiar with "Axe Cop," a web-comic series created by a pair of brothers separated by 25 years of age, then you have a vague idea of where I what I intend to create here as part of my content contribution.
Having my bachelor's degree in Theatre, many of the activities that I like to design for my classroom are centered around student choice and student participation. The pedagogy that I am most currently interested in is called "Storytelling/Storyacting." This is a framework where students are told a story, tale, fable, myth, or parable and then tasked with creating something new from their experience of the story and presenting it as a group, for themselves. A basic outline of this practice can be broken down into a few steps:
- I tell the students a story that does not have a visual representation. I may gesture or make facial expressions to convey an idea, but I will not show them a picture on a screen or a book.
- The students are guided through a series of questions, where I ask them to tell me and each other what occurred in the story. This opportunity for reflection allows for the students to internalize what they find important about the story. In the theatrical world, these moments that are stressed may be called "Beats."
- The students are tasked with creating the new story. Other activities may exist between the 2nd and 3rd step, such as pretending to be certain animals from the story or walking around as old people. The process of creating the new story is an attempt to have as many students as possible participate in the creative process. I may assign an order that students will be called on, or may ask students who are less inclined to participate to offer any idea.
- A gesture or action is assigned at the genesis of each Beat. This gesture or action will be repeated many times and will be learned by each of the students.
- I write down the story while it is being written, adding quick notes about the gestures and who has submitted this idea.
- I read the story back to the children while we all act it out together. Sometimes everyone is every character and games are developed in the middle of a Beat. Sometimes students want the opportunity of a role to exist between their self and perhaps a close friend. I am pretty open as to how this part of the process, as it should be the most fun.
- We sit down and talk about what happened, and then I ask each of the students to tell me their favorite part of the story.
In an effort to continue what has already yielded amazing and hilarious moments, I want to create a series short stories that build off of the base that the students put forth. In their rawest form, there exists a culmination of genuine and absurd ideas put forth by young minds. I would like to develop my creative writing skill in a way that doesn't quash their original stories.
Perhaps once a week or so I will create a new posting in this kind of content and title it in a way that makes it clear that there is an order. I am sure that there is a way to link to previous and next within a post itself, but I will have to learn how that works some other time.
I would also maybe be interested in collaborating with a graphic artist to create a simple webcomic that presents the stories in a new medium, but maybe that can happen after a couple of months.
My other interests in content creation for this ecosystem are travel videos, reviews, introduction to the Thai language, collaborative music making, film photography, discussion of various crypto projects, development of online persona, sociology, and a "how-to" on surviving after uprooting your entire life. I'll have to find out a bit more about that last one first, however.
Glad to be here,
Here's a picture of a Hibiscus flower from near my hostel from a couple days ago.