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To Teach or to Act…Why not Both?

April 21st, 2010 by

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CRW_0002After a successful career as a young actor in Hollywood, I decided to go to college and then travel and teach around the world. While teaching in China I was revered because of my title. The word for teacher in Chinese is “laoshi” which means old master. Everyday while working in China I was expected to bestow a wealth of knowledge upon eager minds that never wanted to stop learning. Every mind is an eager mind no matter where you are–I refuse to believe anything different.

Being a teacher is like being an actor that is never out of work. Not only that, teachers always have captive audiences and get to perform five times a day. Teachers get back exponentially what they put in and have living records of their accomplishments–students–rather than just media. So why are there many more self-professed actors than there are self-professed teachers? There is a pervasive ignorance about what it means to be a teacher in today’s age. We are all teachers just as we are all actors; all the world is our classroom just as all the world is our stage.

As technological innovation continues and internet connectivity expands, every place on the planet will become a potential classroom as well as a stage. That is why I chose the MAT@USC. It is the only program I know of that fully understands and embraces the limitlessness of learning. It offers an opportunity for educational equality that the world has never seen before.

The MAT@USC program shatters the barriers of conventional education and empowers every one of its students. I do not know if I will be in a traditional classroom in five years, but I know wherever I will be, whatever I will be doing, I will be teaching and acting.

In the MAT@USC my classroom is the world, my teacher is experience, my learning is my own.

If you’d like to know about how MAT@USC can help prepare students to earn their TEFL certification and teach abroad contact our Admissions office at 888.MAT.1USC or email us at matadmit@usc.edu.

Ed. note: This is the first post by our newest blogger, Michael Morgan. Find out more about Michael here.

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  • Eric Brown

    The most important reason there are more aspiring actors than aspiring teachers is the pay scale. Even as a part time actor, you make money. Teachers oftentimes augment their classroom supplies with their own money. This seems to be the only country where airheads with pretty smiles are more respected than educated, committed educators. Make the school systems a business, turning out quality students, and watch the change in attitude. As long as politics dominates the school program, we are going to continue pumping out people who don't have a clue about quadratic equations, the location of Bosnia and/or the grand history of our presidency.

    Too bad, really. We seem to excel in athletics and make-believe. But, math and science is left to prodigies. In other countries, an education is a gift from the gods. In the US, it is a secondary consideration to an athletic scholarship.

  • Michael Morgan

    Hi Erin,
    Thanks for your comments. It's fascinating to think about how we glorify actors–who are, actually, really at the bottom of the holistic production totem pole if you think in terms of decision makers, content creators, and distributors. Actors, and I know from experience, are simply front men for a lot of other very creative, very determined, very powerful people behind the scenes. Actors, actually, get the short end of the stick!

    However, in the classroom you are not only an actor, but you can be a producer, writer, director, and designer! You can turn your classroom into studios by encouraging students to think of themselves in these roles as well which will only benefit creativity and learning.

    Coming from LA I know that part-time actors do not always make money because they don't always get to work. Just because your SAG doesn't mean you work. Acting workin Hollywood is sporadic, at best, and almost all actors must work other part-time jobs in the service sector. There is no “credential” process for actors–but you are seen as “credentialed” once you have a body of work under you which is established almost entirely by personal connections and networking–the same can be said for substitute teachers. Teaching in California pays nearly the highest salary in the nation: $57,604. That's pretty good! Few part time actors make that much in a year from acting alone.

    We, the people of this nation, are the reason that teaching is not glorified. We think American Idol is more interesting than a great teacher teaching a class which is, of course, totally ridiculous! If you put cameras in certain classrooms you'd have unbelievable entertainment value–and people would learn something, too!

    Through the MAT@USC program we can prove to the country, and the world, that teaching is an important and satisfying job that benefits the teacher, students, community, and the country in the most powerful way–shaping the future in a more intimate way than any media production company can.

    If we really want to talk about problems in comparative employment, let's talk about teachers versus prison guards–especially in the state of California…

  • Francess Tiger

    I agree and have had this same outlook for many years since teaching. Think of how dynamic classes would be that were led by the plethora of unemployed, talented actors there are; especially in SoCal. Why don't they get this?
    What I'm not sure of is the leap to this MAT program and further indebtedness so if you have any light to shed on why to engage specifically in the USC program after having credentials and teaching, please respond.

  • Francess Tiger

    I agree and have had this same outlook for many years since teaching. Think of how dynamic classes would be that were led by the plethora of unemployed, talented actors there are; especially in SoCal. Why don't they get this?

    What I'm not sure of is the leap to this MAT program and further indebtedness so if you have any light to shed on why to engage specifically in the USC program after having credentials and teaching, please respond.

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