Giving Back

Shawn B. Saunders
TETA BoG
Membership Chair

My first TETA experience was in the early 90’s, in San Antonio. What, I thought--Classes for teachers with actual information that I could use? Sooooo much better than the in-services offered by my district. When I finally got home and spread out all my handouts and notes that Sunday night, I thought I had just got back from heaven! I went back and forth for the next few years, bringing back more and more notes, handouts, free stuff, and phone numbers and emails for new friends and contacts. Then one January, one of presenters for a PowerPoint workshop I wanted to attend didn’t show up. I had brought a PowerPoint on a disc to work on, and offered to teach the class. That is how I first started to give it back.

Schmoozing between workshops and at the end of the day, I’d find myself telling people about my favorite lessons, or about how I taught set design or costuming—and realized that I had a lot to share with not only kids, but also, the TETA Membership!

When I brought kids for auditions, I’d use them in the Fairy Tale/Theatre History workshops I taught. I’d bring my crew, who designed, to help me teach set design workshops. And now, as I am putting more and more of my old lessons into powerpoints and on-line, I am (slowly, and with advice from Darve) moving into the Technology World, and find myself even more prepared to share with the Membership my lessons, handouts, scripts we’ve written, designs, and other truly usable ideas for teaching.I encourage every Theatre teacher I meet to join TETA, to come to the January and the Summer Conferences, and to teach something—something they are good at, or something they are developing, or something they found or borrowed. We all know that as teachers, when you teach something, you become better at it. Neat, huh?


And I want to encourage all of you to reach out to any teachers you know who might benefit from membership to TETA: not just Theatre teachers, but Speech teachers, local Theatre people, former students (whether or not they are majoring in Theatre). As so many of us have come to realize, that for all we take, it really feels great to give back—it’s a little like Christmas, but in a different month.Theatre isn’t a core class? C’mon. All the world’s a stage! We are the core!

Ms. Shawn B. Saunders
Technical Theatre, Brennan HS, San Antonio
sbrown3348@yahoo.com