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Gretchen Berg

What is the vital conversation we should be having as teaching artists right now?
We should be talking about the artwork our students are making. And about the artwork we're making.

What inspires you?
There's a moment that happens a lot, when I see a student COMPLETELY into what they're doing. It's very serious. And very moving.

What do teaching artists bring to the classroom/studio in 2010?
They bring the possibility of fresh, authentic, and action packed learning. Students learn so much from the educators they work with every day. Plus they learn in new ways from real life practitioners - real scientists, real writers, real historians. And real artists. Of course, we (as well as all of those scientists, writers & historians) have to work on teaching every single student in that classroom/studio.

How do you know when you have reached a student?
I know I've reached students when:
They make jokes they know I'll like.
I'm a little jealous of their work.
We're glad to see each other.

Why are you a teaching artist?
Let me start by describing my route to becoming a teaching artist. First I was a teacher, next I became a performance artist, and then I began working as a teaching artist. In my 20's I lived and worked in a small, lawless, rural progressive school. Next I was teaching at a big regional junior high school when, on a dare, I auditioned for the community musical & got the lead in "Once Upon a Mattress" - my leading man was an 8th grader. The director, Benny Reehl, asked me to join his new traveling vaudeville company so I quit teaching and hit the road. We restored a 1928 REO Speedwagon and toured New England. I juggled, played music, sold soap, told jokes, and reveled in physical theater - doing 3 shows a day was an extraordinary education. Next I toured with Tony Montanaro's Celebration Mime Theater. In both companies we did school residencies, which felt right to me because I enjoyed mixing my love of teaching with my love of performing. Next I left the world of family entertainment and jumped into more avant-garde theater and dance - first making new performance works with pals in NYC and then touring with modern dance company Berg, Jones & Sarvis. But I still kept teaching. I co-founded and directed a summer performing arts camp, did school residencies in over 100 Maine towns, used performance to look at work in art museums, and for many years taught improvisation, feminist theater, playwriting, and avant-garde theater at Bowdoin College. My teaching is directly connected to my life as an artist. In all of my teaching I ask students to create and perform new work in much the same ways that I (and other professional artists I respect) make work.

I'm a teaching artist because I find it completely un-boring. It's pleasurable and intellectually engaging. I like the work that my students make. And I'm a teaching artist because I live in Maine and in Maine everybody does a bunch of jobs.

Gretchen Berg is an integrated arts educator who has been collaborating with K - 12 classroom teachers and students for more than 30 years. She lives in Maine.

How would you answer these questions? Send us your responses.