YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION....

As we embark upon 2020, a year that connotes a clarity of vision of both looking back and looking ahead, we naturally ponder what is most important - and even essential - in our lives, What has true meaning to us and is worth building upon,

Most importantly, how we've helped others by giving the best of ourselves.

Which in turn, of course, helps us as human beings grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually richer,

And as custom at this time of year, we naturally - to the point of cliche - make resolutions which we vow to ourselves this year we won't abandon by the advent of Groundhog's Day, as in the past,

And so, allow me to share something I consider important with you.

When I look back on the year about to go into the history ledger, perhaps the most satisfying aspect to my 2019 was to - after a few years' hiatus - once again make time to teach.

There is an old expression - when the student is ready, the teacher will come. But I found it also works in reverse. When the teacher is ready, the students will come. Which was true in my case.

And thus, by a series of unforeseen chain of circuitous circumstances that in retrospect seemed somehow preordained, I was offered - and accepted - for the Fall semester, a position as an Adjunct Professor of Playwriting in the BFA theatre program at a Lynn University, a private college in Boca Raton which was put on the national map in 2012 when it hosted in the theatre complex the third and final Obama / Romney presidential debate.

I had taught graduate professional creative advertising courses in the past at the School of Visual Arts and at the Miami Ad School. But I always desired to teach other forms of writing - be it playwriting, screenwriting, journalism, poetry, fiction, or directing, all of them disciplines in which I also work to one degree or another in addition to advertising.

And so when the opportunity presented itself this year, I jumped at it.

It was just one course, two days per week, an hour and half per day, so it fit rather comfortably into my professional schedule. It was a tidy class of BFA students who were also studying acting, musical theatre, and dance. Even my own one lone class required a good deal of planning, thought, reflection, and preparation time. And gave newfound appreciation for those who teach on any level full time.

It was hard work. But deeply meaningful work.

And as all educators know, we also learn as teachers. We are forced to mine ourselves and dissect the entire gamut and gestalt of the subject we teach to deconstruct and break down what we know and practice instinctively and intrinsically into elemental lessons, making the complex understandable - and hopefully stimulating and exciting to the students - while exploring the breadth and depth of the subject matter. Planning the syllabus, I found myself developing and synthesizing the lessons of dramatic writing in terms of character, narrative, construction, and so on, fed by that which I was taught in school and subsequently I absorbed through the years via professional practice and hard-won experience, into some more or less original methods and paradigms. It was distilling art into a science - while also reverse engineering that - insofar as it is possible to do while respecting the mystery of the process. That was exciting to me, and in a way, creative in its own right.

Which in turn gave me a freshly realized conceptual, structural, and even ontological understanding of the art and the craft of what always seemed to come naturally,

My point in sharing the above with you is to respectfully suggest to all who have worked hard to achieve a measure of professional success in any field, to consider sharing the knowledge and experience gained in a lifetime of practice by making the time to teach.

We spend hours upon hours distracted by media - including social media - lost in our various glowing screens. And then we complain that we "have no time." But actually, we do.

Whether at a university, or in a workshop, at a local library, as a volunteer in an inner-city community center, or at a senior citizens facility - whatever the venue or forum - you will find a part of yourself opening up. Specifically, that part of you which may have been closed for a while.

That very part, in fact, you may have forgotten even existed. Or thought you had somehow forever lost.

There are millions of professionals in all fields with so much knowledge to impart to students of all ages and levels. We spend so much energy and effort in the pushes and pulls of our lives furthering our ambitions and feathering our nests. Yet somehow, when we reflect on the year that is rapidly leaving us (and by the time you likely read this, has in fact already flown) and when we consider who we are in full measure, all we have accomplished all too often leaves us feeling somehow, unaccountably, a bit empty. Or at the very least, there is that small voice inside of is that keeps hinting that is more of ourselves we can give to the world.

Perhaps this is the year that you as the teacher will be ready for your students to come.

I humbly suggest it is a resolution worth making. And one, I will guarantee, you'll be so very happy you kept.

- Peter Hoffman