TEACHING

John believes that providing opportunities for the next generation of lighting designers and electricians to learn and enter the industry is an essential part of practicing the craft. He strives to create a welcoming environment on all productions on which he works, and actively seeks out collaborators from diverse backgrounds.

Through his work with Brighter Boston, John mentors high-school aged students who are interested in lighting, from a variety of diverse backgrounds, and who are enabled by the program to dedicate significant paid time towards learning lighting. Through this program, he attends an event from start to finish, advising and assisting the students to hang and cable lights, focus, program, and run the show. He strives to enable the students to make all design decisions, acting as a facilitator of these decisions in any way; whether it means being their electrician so they can call focus, helping with programming syntax, or asking questions to help improve and further their design. It is crucial to John that the students have a sense of ownership over the design.

John also had the opportunity in Spring of 2022 to act as the Teaching Assistant for a Lighting Crafts class taught by Aja Jackson. He pursued this position to learn what it's like to teach in a college classroom, and to try out some teaching methods and skills that he acquired in his education coursework. Through this opportunity, John discovered better how to explain and rephrase things in ways that can help get through to students. He offered himself as a resource for any questions or help deciphering assignments, from design ideas to wiring an adapter, to soldering, to calculating DMX footprints and planning DMX addressing for a show's worth of fixtures.

One moment stands out, while he was explaining the connection between DMX and dimmer racks and channels versus addresses. He had broken off from the group to three students who all had similar questions, and after drawing several diagrams and explaining the data path in multiple ways, he got to witness a light bulb go off as it finally clicked for these students. They informed him that they had been confused about this for years and never thought they would understand it. This feeling was incredibly satisfying, and the opportunity to provide these moments of clarity and understanding to students, motivates him to continue down the path of teaching.

View a few of his recent educational projects below