EDUCATORS:
ALLOW YOURSELF TO DREAM AGAIN
ABOUT YOUR CURRICULUM & WHY YOU TEACH
I’m in! $250
SUMMER: CLOSED
(Want to know future dates? Sign up for the mailing list here.)
This online playground is 3-week course/consulting session for new and seasoned teachers ready to create an inspiring curriculum that incorporates the necessities as well as adaptability and passion.
I designed it especially for those of you who want personal accountability, to learn on your own time, one-on-one creative consulting, and the support of a network of fellow teachers.
My personal approach speaks directly to where you are in your process as an artist and a teacher.
During the 3-weeks, you’ll receive:
- A weekly package with daily assignments for you, downloadable in our secret Facebook group.
- A digital copy of Creatively Independent to use as a reference and future support in the work.
- Creative consulting on your work each day (my coaching rate is $250 for a one-hour session, here you’ll have over 20 hours available to you).
- Accountability (nothing like a workout buddy to make sure your goals are met. I’m there for you.)
- Freedom to work within your schedule.
- Provide paperwork if your school/organization supports professional development.
IMPORTANT: Because I spend so much quality time with you, I limit the size of the class to 15.
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Let’s do this! $250
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Jess Pillmore’s An Inspiring Vision has changed who I am as an arts educator from the ground up. This course, designed specifically for teachers of the arts, challenges us to understand who we as artists, teachers, and humans; it helps us distill down to the essence why we teach. Using that knowledge, we completed daily exercises that, in my case, resulted in designing a year-long curriculum from the ground up in under 5 days. With Jess’s “what-if” questions and “have you considered” alternatives, I had not just 7 units that connected logically and scaffolded the material in a manner that supported learning and growth, I had a course that I was on fire to teach and a journey that I couldn’t wait to travel with my students….
The best thing about this course is that if I took it all over again, I’d come out with a completely different curriculum. Jess’s personal attention helps you find different material within your content that you may have forgotten or taken for granted. Her guidance also helps you find entry points into elements of your content about which you are passionate but couldn’t quite find a way to introduce to your grade level or within your time frame. I’m excited to see what happens when she offers the course again. I wonder what journey my students and I will end up taking next time.
– Jennifer Thomas Trice (Full-time Theatre Arts teacher, Green Run Collegiate High)
Read the full testimonial here…
WHAT IS IT?
A holistic 3-week online course/consulting session where you will:
- Delve into why you teach.
- Own your unique skill set.
- Design your dream class.
- Create the playground for you and your students to explore.
- Bond with fellow teachers passionate about their life.
- Have a dynamic curriculum designed for your class with adaptable components and a reusable structure for future classes you create.
WHEN IS IT?
July 29 – August 15, 2019, interactive office hours 3:30-4:30 pm ET.
CLOSED
(Want to know future dates? Sign up for the mailing list here.)
Due to my commitment to give you quality one-on-one time for your class, I only offer two sessions a year.
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WHO IS IT FOR?
- For teachers (elementary-college) in any subject, ready to revive the passion and hope that started them teaching in the first place.
- If you are:
- Sick of feeling overwhelmed with other people’s expectations of your curriculum and class.
- Ready to teach, play, and learn in a healthy, sustainable way every day.
- Stuck in the scarcity mindset of “I don’t have enough time and resources to do what I want in my class”.
- Denying yourself the joy of dreaming big because of the hard realities around you.
- Desiring to be inspired by fellow risk-taking educators, and inspire them in turn with your fabulousness.
- Eager to smack down assumptions holding you back.
- Curious about playing with your students and student-driven projects.
- Bored with your current curriculum and want to reinvent it to fit your current skills and outlook.
- Ready to make your class and how you teach it playful, magical… even transformative.
- Bogged down by all the “How’s” & “What’s” (How can I get them engaged?… This is what I have to teach…).
- Forgetting to add the heart, add the poetic, add the “Why’s” (Why do I love this subject?…)
- Screaming inside “To Hell with prescriptive! Give me passion and purpose!”
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IT IS NOT FOR YOU, IF…
- You’re looking for prescriptive material. I don’t create your curriculum, you do.
- You’re hoping for a formula to insert your current curriculum into.
- You believe solely in vertical teaching (the more traditional status of you at the front of the class behind the desk or at the board 90%+ of the time).
- You shut down when things get messy or become hard to see the outcome immediately. This process plays in the unknown in order to achieve something new for you and your class.
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Jess Pillmore is a true professional at what she does. Two Parts Magician and One giant part Mamma Bear. In her care, she makes daring comfortable. She coaxes, prods, pokes then pulls back the curtain and reveals the goods you didn’t even know were hidden in you. I’ve had plenty of mentors and teachers who “get you there” but none as safe and pure as Jess. She is exuberant, playful and incredibly knowledgeable in her field. I do believe she is an expert guide. Her positive psychology is addicting.
– Jennifer Riker (Actor, Full-time Theatre Arts teacher, K-8)
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WHAT DO I GET OUT OF IT?
If you do the work, take full advantage of the resources and jump in head first… You’ll have created a solid, awe-inspiring curriculum at the end of 3 weeks, including:
- A horizon to teach towards and a sense of adventure and mystery even in a class you may have taught for years.
- Course block structures with resources, assessments, and inspiration.
- Understanding of why you’re the only one to teach this class in this way.
- A flow of learning that allows for adaptation and student ownership.
- Actionable plan to start engaging students in assessment, projects, ownership of the classroom, play, inquiry, and passion.
- Personal ritual to get into your groove and work/play at your best.
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HOW DOES IT WORK?
- Through daily prompts, we explore how you teach and how you can focus that fabulousness into a semester or entire school year.
- A weekly packet is given, broken down into manageable chunks Monday-Thursday. You can work on your own time, within your own schedule.
- Work posted throughout the day will be lovingly poked, prodded and supported with my sustainable artistry consulting. Solid office hours are 3:30-4:30 PM ET for more one-on-one sessions online.
- You’ll get to the root of your passion for your subject and teaching; prune what’s not working for you; craft a horizon, structure, flow, add play, envision adaptations, and engage students as co-learners with you.
- All this happens in a secret Facebook group made solely for this gang. Here you can post your work, asking me questions, get 1:1 consulting and boost your success rate with ensemble accountability (it’s not just you doing this).
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HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE ONE COURSE FIT SUCH A RANGE OF EXPERIENCE AND SUBJECTS?
Because it’s about you, the individual wherever you are on your journey towards inspiring education. I excel with all experience levels and have developed the course to speak directly to where you are in your process as a teacher. Plus, you’ll have the advantage of a wide range of experience within the group. We will have newbies and seasoned professionals with gifts to give and questions to provoke.
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I’ve been looking all over for this! $250
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I’m really in a place I can’t explain! No fear, no inhibition, no denying what I want to do. I’ve come into a place of peace and I can’t deny that what I have to offer is important and correct!! I just know without a doubt where I am and what I have to offer! I want to play, I need to share, and I have the courage to make it happen! It all started with a question from Jess about the boxes and I no longer live for them and they no longer have a place in my life. It was like identifying them made me see what was actually holding me back from living my life to the fullest. Like living everyone’s exceptions of my life was what I lived by. If I had not completely given into change I might not have ever had the courage, but now I see the other side. I now know something different, tangible, and real.
– Misty Muesing (Theatre Educator/Performer, former Department Head at Lavilla School of the Arts)
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WHAT DO I NEED TO TAKE IT?
Daily access to a computer or smartphone, a Facebook account and 2-3 hours/day*.
*The time varies depending on the assignments and your readiness to dive in.
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WHO’S LEADING THIS MAGIC…?
I am, Jess Pillmore, Founder/Horizon Activator of Creatively Independent, a revolutionary arts education company. I’ve spent over 20 years as a teaching artist in America and Europe: full-time, adjunct, guest artist and artist-in-residence. While on the road, teachers and artists would pick my brain about how to create unique offerings in a saturated technique-based market (a.k.a. “How do I stop teaching a carbon copy of what I was taught and tap into how I work now?”). Those coffee talks and late night chats turned into lectures I now give at conferences and colleges, as well as one-on-one consulting. I’ve taught Professional Development residencies for elementary-graduate school educators, presented lectures and experiential workshops at regional and state conferences. My work has been published in a book: Creatively Independent: Life on Your Terms with Play, Community and Awareness, Psychology Today, and I have a current series featured on HowlRound. The differences are vast from loving your art* and teaching it, but they inform each other greatly. I have successfully balanced both for 20 years and I can help you do it, too. It’s a revolution, baby, one passionate teacher at a time. Check out other teachers’ thoughts on the work.
*Read – your passion, whether that’s geometry or English literature.
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WHAT ABOUT CANCELATIONS OR REFUNDS?
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ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? DROP ME A LINE.