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Meet Bush’s New Upper School Drama Instructor, Jéhan Òsanyìn
For over 100 years, The Bush School has cultivated a community of creativity and diversity, ensuring students and staff alike can fully express their uniqueness through various forms of art. Students can play jazz, recite enlightening literature, and assemble 3-D visuals in classes taught by passionate faculty members striving to create an unparalleled learning environment. Bush faculty and staff encourage all students to hone their creativity, embrace their differences, and learn by doing.
Bush happily welcomes Jéhan Òsanyìn, the newest addition to the Upper School Drama Faculty. Jéhan has had a passion for theater and the arts for over thirty years and aims to bring their knowledge and dedication to Bush. They had many reasons to choose The Bush School, but it was the motivational tagline at the forefront of the website that most captured their interest.
“I resonated with ‘experiencing education,’ because I am an experiential educator,” Jéhan said. “I started doing outdoor experiential education in 2008, where I was hired as the drama instructor to help create a residential boarding school for seventy-seven Sixth through Eighth Grade students. I switched over to drama and wilderness, where I did fourteen to thirty-day backpacking trips. When I saw what The Bush School did with Cascades and E-weeks, I thought: ‘that's literally what I do’!”
Experiential Education goes further than creating a “hands on” experience—Bush forges an immersive environment which pushes students to step outside of their comfort zones, explore different perspectives, and welcome new experiences. Bush believes students learn best by doing, and that’s exactly what excites Jéhan about teaching this year.
“The thing I’m most excited to do is center the needs of these young people,” Jéhan shared. “What do they want to learn? What do they want to be able to do when they leave here? If I know that information, I can help cultivate and create a curriculum that can get them to that place. I’m just really excited to meet the needs of the community.”
Jéhan hopes to choose plays that encourage students to think, ask questions, and embrace the vulnerability of the unknown. They believe it’s important to showcase art that parallels our world in a relatable way.
“I’m super excited to get to the point where I’m able to reflect the world I see on the Bush stage alongside the students,” Jéhan said. “I want to introduce some playwrights that they may not have known about, like Caryl Churchill.”
Bush continues to inspire students to nurture their innate curiosity by providing a unique educational experience. Faculty and staff hope to better understand students’ perspectives, passions, and how they best connect in new or unfamiliar environments. Students who have the wonderful opportunity to be mentored by Jéhan should have their best pair of walking shoes handy, because taking walks is how they best connect.
“I love going for walks with people,” Jéhan said. “I love the side-by-side conversation, being in nature amongst plants and the environment where I can better listen and speak freely.”
The Bush School believes leading with empathy and leaning on one another in tough times is how to best cultivate a community and form unbreakable connections.
“I do metalsmithing and jewelry work,” Jéhan said. “There are different ways you can connect two pieces of metal together, so when I think about ‘connectedness’ and connected communities I wonder how will we be flexible and how will we be malleable as our roles and lives pull us apart from one another? We’re a community regardless of where we are physically, but things can happen when there’s distance, so I am most curious about how to stay connected when hardships occur.”
Jéhan is looking forward to connecting with The Bush School community by bringing an artistic and theatrical curriculum that centers innovative plays and writers. In addition to theater, Jéhan enjoys hand building pottery, painting, and canoeing. You can find Jéhan in Benaroya Theatre, where they’ll be excited to meet you and share their love of the arts.
The Bush School is an independent, coeducational day school located in Seattle, WA enrolling 735 students in grades K–12. The mission of The Bush School is to spark in students of diverse backgrounds and talents a passion for learning, accomplishment, and contribution to their communities.
3400 East Harrison Street, Seattle WA 98112 (206) 322-7978
The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment, recruitment, admissions, or administration of any of its programs on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. In addition, The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment on the basis of age or marital status.