Grace "Tashi" McKirdy

• Dickinson Community Choir
• Dickinson Community Band
• Women's Voices Milwaukee
• Milwaukee Community Band
• Death Blues Tour
• [nameless] impromptu percussion ensembles and drumlines
• Cottey College Chamber Choir
• Alverno College Singers
• The Charlie Short Ensemble
• Hilo Community Chorus

I founded evening drum language studio to accommodate the variety of teaching, tutoring, and coaching I found myself doing in diverse, and yet overlapping, circles around me, across the borders of Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Thailand, Laos, and finally Hawai'i. I teach reading and writing to English Language Learners. I teach contemplative writing and art as a Buddhist practice, as they originated in my Tibetan tradition, to anyone who can use them. I teach theory of gender, sex, and sexuality to community organizations seeking to understand the unveiling of these certain truths of the human condition. I teach practice, theory, and expression of music to people who have been consistently, formally, and fatally taught that perfection is more important than joy. I coach by accompanying students into their own minds to ask questions, make connections, and learn to observe without judgment.

As a virtual tutor, I taught students whatever they wanted to learn at the drop of a hat. I never knew what I would be teaching until the question was asked. It was my task to step up to wherever the student was, no matter how far ahead or behind their assignment they were, no matter how short the time, and no matter how capable of describing their predicament they were.

As a teacher at the LiT English School housed at Khon Kaen University, I taught high school and university students as well as adult learners in the community in essay writing, test prep, and conversational English. Classes contained from three to twenty students and used curricula tailored to each class's needs.

As a classroom teacher at Patanadek School in Khon Kaen, Thailand, I taught the three formal subjects of English, Social Studies, and Health to four classrooms of fifth and sixth graders. The position also required the development of presentations of music, dance, acting, costume design, and cooking throughout the school year. Thai culture expresses itself primarily in the arts, and their education in schools was foundational. I regularly wrote and produced music, dance, and theater selections for rehearsal and presentation.

Instruction took place in three languages: English, Thai, and Isaan. Students often spoke other languages as well, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Bahasa, and French. As much as possible, I used their linguistic experiences to further open them to opportunities.

As Program Coordinator at Storm Mountain Center, I produced and directed all activities for visiting guests, groups, and camps of all ages, abilities, and needs. The site could hold up to four groups at a time and contained anywhere from 10 to 300 people each. Each group had unique needs and requests that utilized common space and resources, and therefore had to be closely managed. Activities regularly included music, games, day hikes, pack-out hikes, campfires, meals, and field trips, as well as trainings in CPR, wilderness survival, community health and mediation, and leadership. I also collected and produced photography from each group's experience on a weekly basis to send home with them.

The program office was also responsible for maintaining guest health records and coordinating necessary care among housing, maintenance, transportation, and kitchen personnel.

As the assistant to the Cottey College theater, I worked daily with the theater faculty to meet the needs of each semester's theater and speech curricula as they interacted with the facility's stages, production shops, and classrooms. I assisted all productions from rehearsals to showtime, the theater producing two of its own large shows each semester and hosting four to six guest shows in the same time period.

Most significantly, I was the sole manager of the theater's costume shop. When I took on the position, the costume shop was in disarray, with no system of inventory, no schedule for airing and cleaning, clothes crumpled in boxes and on the floor, mold spreading, and alterations incomplete and uncatalogued. Within two years, I turned the costume shop into a functional station for any department or guest to access and utilize.