Hannah Flint is a dedicated drama teacher in New England, and one of Sarah’s three sisters.
Q: How have you handled the challenges of teaching this year?
A: With flexibility and grace, and many late nights!
Q: Can you speak to the importance of arts education?
A: Arts education develops creativity, communication, and collaboration skills. Theater education, in particular, is one of the greatest empathy builders I know.
Q: What do you find most rewarding about your job?
A: My students and colleagues! Particularly this year, when collaboration is imperative not only to learning but to safety as well, I am grateful every day for the opportunity to connect with the incredible young people and adults at my school. I would also say, and this is related, that I love having a job where my words, my actions, my choices—they all matter. It matters if and how I show up every day.
Q: What’s one thing you wish people knew about teaching?
A: Teaching is ridiculously fun. Exhausting, yes, but more joyful than I ever could have imagined.
Q: Is there a play you really love and why?
A: My favorite musical to direct for middle school students is A Year with Frog and Toad. The music and friendship themes are wonderful. My absolute favorite play is Chekhvov’s Three Sisters. Most broadly, it’s about a Russian family struggling with the passage of time at the turn of the 20th century. It has everything: tears and laughter, suffering and joy. It is exquisite.
Q: What can we all do to help support teachers this year?
A: Be patient. We are all doing a different job than the one we signed on for, and we are doing it with passion, intention and joy, all while balancing the realities of pandemic life.
