UWP lecturer takes part in life-long learning with mini-sabbatical grant
PLATTEVILLE- Rebekah Demaree received the opportunity to play a new role last semester-student. The University of Wisconsin-Platteville performing and visual arts associate lecturer took a break from teaching studio voice, voice class and diction to take four credits of Elementary Spanish.
Demaree enrolled in the class because of a mini-sabbatical grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Education. The purpose of the mini-sabbatical grant is to allow faculty and staff from the College of LAE to participate in a life-long learning experience by enrolling in a course offered at UWP, at no cost to the faculty or staff member. Demaree is the first faculty member to participate in the mini-sabbatical experience.
The main reason Demaree decided to take the Elementary Spanish course was to enhance her own knowledge base for teaching. Demaree teaches a course entitled Diction for Singers; in this course, she teaches her students how to pronounce six languages at sight in order for them to perform and teach art songs in a variety of languages. While familiar with most of the languages required to teach the course, Demaree felt a need to increase her knowledge of the Spanish language.
"Over the past several years, Spanish vocal literature at the collegiate level as become more widespread," Demaree said. "Now, having taken Spanish academically, I feel much better equipped to teach this unit of my course."
Another reason Demaree chose to take Elementary Spanish was to increase her awareness of the Spanish culture. Demaree said that she would seek out opportunities to travel to Spain and South America now that she has a better understanding of the language and culture.
The idea of life-long learning has always been supported by Demaree and taking this course allowed her to experience the classroom from a different perspective. "It was refreshing to be the student rather than the teacher. I worked in groups, participated in discussions, and used campus resources such as the Writing Center," Demaree said.
Demaree plans to integrate many of the things she learned from being a student into teaching her classes. For more information regarding the LAE mini-sabbatical grant, contact Demaree at (608) 342-1041 or demareer@uwplatt.edu.
Contact: Rebekah Demaree, associate lecturer, Performing and Visual Arts, (608) 342-1041, demareer@uwplatt.edu Written by: Anne Killian, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, killiana@uwplatt.edu
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