SCOTT D. PAFUMI
FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THEATRE EDUCATOR
1995 to Present
To be a teacher is to answer a calling. Teachers are not just professionals whose job it is to educate others; they are individuals who are answering a call to serve their community. As a proud undergraduate of VA Tech (BA, 1995) I live by the VT motto – UT PROSIM, which means “that I may serve”. I continued that mission in my graduate studies from George Mason University (MA, 2010) under one of their visionary statements: Driven to Serve.
For the last 24 years, I have been serving as an arts educator, teaching theatre and music through community centers, churches, summer programs, private schools, community college, and every grade level, K-12, in the public school system of Fairfax County. I am proud to say that I have the ability and experience to teach and adapt to every age and grade, from elementary school to college to adult professionals.
As a teacher, I am always the head learner within any instructional lesson. We have so much we can learn from one another. Good teaching should generate discussion, create questions, and help inspire or challenge new ideas. Greek philosopher Socrates once said “Know what you know, know what you don’t know, and never profess to know what you don’t know.” I am on a journey to seek new knowledge and worldly experience at every path I take.
My passion is for arts education, and specifically for the application of theatre. As a director, teacher, mentor, and performer I am constantly seeking opportunities to embrace the shared experience through empathy and the human condition.
I believe in the creative process. I believe the true learning happens in rehearsal, and performance is the celebration. I believe that the ensemble is greater than any one person involved in the process. I believe that every theatre practioner should be disciplined and follow a plan, while knowing how and when to live in the moment to allow for new creativity and shared happenings. I believe that the working theatre is a historic, magical, spiritual, and educational forum.
According to Shakespeare, “Some of us are born great, some of us achieve greatness, and some of us have greatness thrust upon us”. I truly believe there is greatness in all of us, and as a public servant to education, it is my job to cultivate that from every student by bringing out the best in them. My calling in life is to teach, and it has been my pleasure and honor to teach over the last two decades the great Commonwealth of Virginia.