Rebecca Hare

Q: How long have you been teaching?

A: So, my history is a little different. Before teaching I was an industrial designer. So I have my BFA in industrial design, which means anything product-related. I worked in an architecture firm and designed hairbrushes, spaces and MRI machines and everything in between. I did that for 10 years in northern Italy. Then I came back to the US and got my Master’s in education. I’ve taught art in Fort Lauderdale and I was a design specialist in Miami. When I moved back [to St. Louis] I taught at Wydown and taught one class at CHS.

Q: What prompted you to begin teaching?

A: Well, I was hiring young designers in my firm and they couldn’t solve problems. So if I gave them exactly what they needed to do, they were fine, but if I presented an issue that needed to be resolved, they were stuck. And I just realized that we aren’t really teaching people how to think and how to work through problems. So I thought I would get my MFA and teach at a university for designers, but I figured out that this is not just a problem for designers not thinking well, it’s kind of a lot of us. In education, there’s a lot of hoop-jumping. Like take a test, get something done, etc. It’s very rare that you’re given a problem and you just have to figure it out. So I wanted to come back into education and really change the way that people learned.

Q: Do you have a teaching philosophy?

A: Really I think that all learners need to figure out how they learn best and really understand what that looks like for them as an individual.