Maria Fagan Hassani, M.A., ET/P

I’ve always been an educator and a performer.  As far back as I can remember, I found myself in the role of teacher or actor (and sometimes both!).  Four years older than my younger brother, Tom, I often was entrusted with his care.  Dancing since the age of three, around the age of twelve, I began teaching dance at Diana School of Dance on 59th Street, on the Southwest side of Chicago.  I even had the pleasure and honor of teaching my mother a tap class or two and if memory serves me right, we performed on stage together.  From there, my family proceeded (as a unit) to community theatre.  My parents produced and my brother and I performed.  It was a blast.  I still have many friends from that time in my life.  From there, I went on to Goodman and studied there for a year as part of their teen program.  I also performed in many high school shows.

After graduating high school, I floundered a bit.  What would I be when I grew up?  How would I make a living?  I tried nursing and accounting, among other things, but none of them seemed to fit.  So I got married.  Seems like a logical choice, yes?  We moved to Northern California and I continued acting.  My husband, at the time, and I even started a theatre company together.  Even more important, I went back to school.  I attended Santa Rosa Junior College and finished my general education requirements.  Now I really had to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up!

I went on to Sonoma State University, all the while acting, but also now, I found myself in the role of teacher again, teaching dance again, acting, math, tutoring, etc.  I realized when I took on a position at the tutoring center at SSU, under the guise of helping with tuition, that I really enjoyed helping people learn something they thought they had no chance of learning.  Once I finished my B.A. Degree and acquired my teaching credential, I taught in the most nontraditional of environments. Sure, I found myself in many traditional classrooms, but it’s the times when I had to create a learning environment out of seemingly ‘nothing,’ I found the most rewarding.  Like on the set of Trading Mom.  On this movie, I had two roles, one as studio teacher and one as actress.  On the days I was acting, I didn’t teach, but on the days I wasn’t acting, I taught.  It was similar to a one-room schoolhouse, in that I had students ranging in age from five to eighteen.  They would shuffle in and out for their time in school, while on set.  Often times, we held lessons outside on the porch or on the curb.  It was glorious to have this kind of freedom, yet the student was still learning.  Then there’s the stint at the in the Juvenile Court School in East Oakland.  While this was considered a teaching job, I sure did a great deal of ‘unofficial’ acting.  I taught students, male and female, in the same room, from the ages of thirteen to eighteen.  The girls were primarily in group homes and the boys were on probation.  It was a challenging environment to say the least and often, I was very scared.  But as time progressed, I began to know and love my students, in spite of the fact that they often didn’t like me.  They accomplished great growth and I am proud of the fact that I played a small part in their academic career.

Eventually I found my way to more traditional school settings, teaching just about every grade level.  It was in these environments that I realized I was drawn to the students who found school most challenging.  I began to intertwine my creative side with my more analytical side, finding unique and specific ways to break down challenging concepts into bite-size pieces for my students.  I reveled in how much their confidence grew when they were able to accomplish something they initially found daunting.  I eventually found out this type of teaching was called Educational Therapy.  I went back and acquired all the credentials necessary to give myself this title and quickly moved into private practice.  In private practice, I have had the opportunity to meet and work with many professionals, from all walks of life, from neuro-psychologists to tutors.  I have learned so much and continue to love my work.

Around the time I found Educational Therapy, I also rediscovered my love of performing.  I returned to the stage in community theatre and began studying the Meisner Technique.  It wasn’t long before I was commuting back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles for auditions.  I had truly been bitten by the bug.  As my contacts and opportunities in Southern California grew, I realized I was going to have to truly dive in and find a way to live both my dreams.  I had to find a way to connect my performing and teaching professions.  As I paused to reflect, I realized I already had been doing this throughout my life, in one form or another.  Now I was just making it official.  So, three years ago I moved to Los Angeles.  Since the move, I’ve worked alongside many great speech and occupational therapy professionals at the Child Success Center in Santa Monica.  And after three years, I’m proud to say, it’s time for me to return to private practice.  And this time, I’m perched and ready for flight in both careers.  It is truly now clear what I should do when I grow up, perform AND teach!