“I can’t make them see what I see, but I see it”

For my third interview I had the great opportunity of meeting with Sandra Kaufmann, a brilliant and inspiring artist, professional dancer/choreographer, and educator. She challenged me to rethink what I believed to be true of the performing arts and how dancing in particular can play a key role in simplifying the seemingly most difficult subjects to achieve accessible learning for everyone.

Starting as a student teacher, she created a physical activity lesson to teach the menstrual cycle for a health education course to students with a wide range of intelligence. However, one of these students came to her and emotionally exclaimed that this had been the first lesson she had attended in which she had been able to understand everything. This experience along with serving as a lead arts-based curriculum developer for the Empire State Partnership a statewide education initiative in New York were both formative influences that enthralled her into scientific literacy theory.

Inspired by John Dewey and Benjamin Bloom with their philosophies of “Learn by doing”, and Bloom’s three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) she strongly believes that dance is an activity that engages all three domains at once which makes it one of the best ways to teach. This is why she uses it to explain scientific literacy, whether it's about biology, cellular systems, or subatomic-super string theory. She is creating a space for people to feel a connection and rhythmic pull from the universe to bolster a better understanding of it.

Although she has worked on many pieces/projects, here in Chicago as well as internationally, she still feels that there is so much left to do. And will continue to reach as many as she can through her artform, invoking environmental thought/connections to create positive change.