News and Media

Article By: Piper Hale
Published: Nov 21, 2011

Kaitlin Stone has been involved in theater since high school, where she acted in school plays and volunteered one year as a camp counselor for a theater summer camp for younger children. At this camp, she directed first- and second-graders in short plays based on fairytales. During this time working with children, she realized she had found her future career. "I had always said, 'I'm not sure what I'll do, but I don't want to teach,'" says Kaitlin. "And then after that, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, now I have to put my foot in my mouth, because I want to teach!'"

She went on to study musical theater performance in college, where she kept her nose to the grindstone so that she could finish her B.A. in just three years. She also started looking around for master's programs in teaching, but though she found several two-year teaching programs, she couldn't find any specifically geared toward theater. Around this time, her boyfriend casually mentioned that he thought Savannah would be a fun place to live after college. Kaitlin researched the city, and in the process stumbled across SCAD's teaching program.

"It was perfect! It was just one year and it was exactly what I wanted to do," says Kaitlin. She was elated by the idea that she would be finished with both her B.A. and her master's in four years.

Kaitlin started the program in the summer immediately after her college graduation. In her first quarter, she helped out with SCAD's children's summer camp, Art Smarts, while in classes. She says this low-key teaching position was a good transition into her more rigorous schedule in the fall, when she was put in her first student teaching placement at an elementary school. After spending some time in this teaching placement, Kaitlin cycled through placements at a middle and high school as well.

These schools have ranged from public schools in underprivileged districts to chartered arts academies. This kind of variation in environments, Kaitlin says, helps to prepare her for her teaching career, and spending time in classrooms while she completes her course requirements helps her to translate education theories into practice. "By the end of the program, we're all going to have roughly 900 hours of in-class observation in teaching," says Kaitlin. "We're able to connect what we're doing in our classwork to what happens in the classroom, so we're able to try these classroom management techniques from the very beginning."

In addition to her student teaching placements, Kaitlin got to choreograph a middle school musical last year, an experience that she says confirmed that teaching theater is the right career for her. "Seeing how really great things can come out of our work is why most of us go into teaching to begin with," she says. "When you see a student have that light bulb moment where something just clicks, that's what makes all the struggle all worth it: seeing all those kids finally get it."

After Kaitlin's recent graduation, she accepted a position teaching theater at Lighthouse Academies in Chicago. Her specialized degree, she says, helps set her apart from other candidates, many of whom have their master's degrees in English. "The whole concept of the education master's specifically is really new," she says. "There aren't many of us that are certified theater teachers."

She hopes that, as a theater teacher, she will be able to help students realize their potential. In her own high school, says Kaitlin, "no one told us that we could have a career in the arts, that we could do what we're passionate about." Kaitlin's best friend from high school, a very talented artist, went on to study organic chemistry in college, staying for only two years before declaring she hated the field and transferring to SCAD, where she is now doing very well in the animation program.

If someone had guided her friend to embrace her artistic talents in school, Kaitlin believes she would have found the right program earlier. Now that Kaitlin is a teacher, she says, "I'll tell students, 'You can do this for a living, even if you're not performing. There are so many careers in theater and you can have a successful career doing what you love. Don't let people tell you otherwise.'"