TRAINOR DANCE
is committed to educational engagement through master classes, artistic residencies, lecture demonstrations, and outreach. Caitlin is a member of the dance faculty at Barnard College/Columbia University and has taught at numerous colleges, universities, and studios domestically and abroad.
Teaching Statement
Just as the body is not separate from the mind, thought is not distinct from emotion. I believe that learning is optimized when students are engaged in a holistic process, into which thought, feeling and experience are dynamically integrated.
Based on the belief that students learn best through experience and discovery, my classroom is dynamic and action-oriented. In a composition class, this means that students will spend more time creating than critiquing, and that analysis remains secondary to engaging directly with creative processes. In a movement class, language is used as a tool to connect to embodied knowledge, and students are encouraged to process ideas physically. In order for true learning to take place, the freedom to fail is necessary. Students are therefore encouraged to experiment, and then integrate successful ideas into their knowledge base through reflection, practice, discussion, creation and writing.
Teachers have the potential for a great impact on society by effecting change through education, a great responsibility particularly given the injustice and inequity that plagues the American education system. Similarly, it is the role of the artist to awaken the senses, provoke thought, question assumptions, and disrupt the status quo. It is essential, therefore, for the teaching artist to critically consider the manner, methods, and mission of education, and endeavor to create a better world through teaching.
I approach teaching from the assumption that student empowerment is the key to a better future. A world of socially conscious, resourceful, intellectually curious, and thoughtful people is a world that I want to live in. I want for my students not only to be prepared to succeed in the world in the world that exists now, but also to succeed in creating a better world that doesn’t exist yet.
-Caitlin Trainor