Jamie Thiessen Shares Some Parting Words

Graduation season is upon us! And as I reflect on my time in the program, it is hard to imagine a more life-changing experience than the Educational Theatre program at City College. 

Truthfully I almost didn’t apply, not just because teaching is hard, but because I knew that once I did start teaching I would be the only theatre teacher at my school, and possibly the only arts teacher too. It seemed like such a lonely career and I didn’t know if it would be worth spending all that time going back to school only to end up alone in my field. But when I looked around at the end of 2020, I had a baby to raise and a mortgage to pay, no covid vaccines available yet, no job, and no community nearby, so I took the leap. And I’m so grateful that I did, because what I found here in Ed Theatre, what my cohort and I created together, is a better community than I could have ever hoped for. Everyone in this program, from the students to the professors, is so generous with their time and their talents and expertise, and we have all grown so much together. I know that every person in this cohort is already a fantastic theatre teacher. Your students are, and will be, so lucky to have you.

As I reflect on how we’ve grown in this program and everything we’ve learned together, I’m struck by the ways our professors challenged us to rethink how education should look. From Sobha we learned about all the theatre practitioners who came before us, reminding us that we are not alone in this field, and she stressed the importance of de-centering whiteness and de-colonizing the curriculum so that our students of all backgrounds can see themselves reflected in theatre. From Jan we learned the importance of making our teaching practices accessible, and she challenged us to confront and unlearn how we think about disability and our students' access needs. From Elizabeth, we learned how to use the arts to teach literacy skills so we can proactively tackle the literacy crisis raging across the country. Elizabeth also took us on a deep dive into brain science in our curriculum class, and challenged us to be better at receiving feedback during student teaching.

Sobha, Jan, and Elizabeth, thank you for your consistent commitment to our growth, and helping us build a community together; not a safe space, but a brave space. A space where we can take risks in the classroom, where we can share our failures, and learn from them, and a space to share our victories, no matter how small. 

Our final year in the program we all collaborated to create our thesis in a class called Ethnodrama. The task was to choose a research topic, then pursue, research, question, write, conduct an field study, and ultimately take our findings and present the data as a piece of theatre; our Ethnodrama show. For those who couldn’t attended the performance, our research centered around the idea of Post-Truth, and we asked the question: how can we construct truth while living in a post-truth society? 

This year we spent together in Ethnodrama questioning everything we think we know and then somehow turning a year’s worth of academic papers into a theatrical presentation is an experience I will never forget and one that I will cherish forever.

We have all been through so much together. We’ve all seen our cohort experience loss and heartache beyond belief, and still come to class the following week to pick up where we left off. Because at the end of the day theatre isn’t just a hobby. It’s not just what we do or what we teach. It’s what we as a species need to survive. We are meaningmakers and storytellers, just like our ancestors before us. Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of the world around us and so we rely on art and theatre to understand what is happening in our world; to construct our truths even in a post-truth society. 

I want to thank each and every person in this cohort. The last 3½ years I’ve spent in this program have been immeasurably life-changing. I am a better person, a better teacher, and a better parent because of our time together. And as we go our separate ways and get jobs in different boroughs, I know that the WhatsApp chat we share will carry on, and bring our community with us into our next chapter. Thank you to our friends and family who supported us on this journey, thank you to City College for reopening campus so we could perform our Ethnodrama, thank you to my cohort for your endless creativity, thank you to our professors for leading the way to make all this possible. And to next year’s Ethnodrama class just remember: trust the process. 

Congratulations to the Educational Theatre graduating class of 2024. We did it!