Kathryn Exit Slip

I wasn’t there for her lecture, but upon reading the Butterfly Catcher, which is the piece that I didn’t read, I am quite intrigued by her way of using art and dance in education. Her experience with her friend dying of AIDS is very intimate and touching, as she used dance as a way of honouring one’s life.

I see a big parallel of this article with the garden activity we did with drawing with charcoal. Everybody perceive themselves as someone who “isn’t good with math” or “isn’t an artist,” so it is reassuring to see Kathryn’s story about her experience with dance. In a classroom setting, it is crucial to dismantle the notion of “being bad at math.” It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that deeply affects one’s confidence, despite them being perfectly proficient in math themselves. So perhaps, I should be teaching my students the willingness to explore rather than being good at something. It feels subjective and “made up” a lot of the times.