Teaching the Next Generation; A Full Circle Opportunity by Amaya

Teaching the Next Generation; A Full Circle Opportunity by Amaya - January 2024 Scholarship Essay

My biggest contribution to my local community has been through the not-so glamorous stuff; calming down a student who is crying because of stage fright, putting a band-aid on a student who had just scraped their knee, sitting with a kid who was all alone at snack time. These were all part of my responsibilities as assistant voice/dance teacher at my local community theater. The same community theater where I discovered my love for being on stage. I was able to give back to the community the time and energy they had invested into me in the hopes one of these students would grow up to do the same.

This summer, I volunteered for over 80 hours, Monday through Friday, reaching over 100 students ages 5-12, many of whom it was their first show ever on stage. I spent three weeks of my summer teaching choreography, leading warm ups, and helping them memorize their song, in preparation for the final showcase at the end of the week. In summary, it was just a really condensed version of what a real show would look like.

However, during our dress rehearsal, the final practice before the actual performance, one of the campers pulled the fire alarm, which spiraled into chaos of children crying. My fellow teacher assistants and I were able to get all the students out safely and thankfully no one was hurt physically, but a lot of students, especially the younger students, were rattled and anxious. It was more of a challenge getting certain students on stage and calming their nerves down after that event, but we were able to get every student on stage and perform what they had been working so hard on for a full week.

Although it was chaotic and stressful, I believe we were given a unique opportunity to teach the students something that we wouldn’t have been able to do even if we tried; how to be brave and overcome our fears after something didn’t go as we had planned.

If I was only able to help even just one student discover their love for the arts, then I still say it was worth it because I know just how hard it is to put yourself out there and embrace your vulnerability in learning something completely new. It's hard. And it's scary. I applaud any one of my students who were able to face their fears of singing, dancing and acting in front of an audience. Something that many people are still afraid to do even in their adult life. My hope from contributing my time and energy is that they take what I taught them and apply it to all aspects of their life.