“One thing that has helped me as an autodidact is the mutual exchange of knowledge with students, theatres, teachers, actors, but also family. Exchanging knowledge occurred while I was working as a performing and teaching theatre maker. I was seen, acknowledged, heard and also ensured this was the case for the other person. This created an awareness that wisdom is possessed by many people. Through this exchange, my knowledge/wisdom increased: ‘higher wisdom’, which – in addition to professional knowledge – also provided me with a broad network with which I could share this knowledge again.  This is characteristic of the Each one teach one philosophy that traces back to the way in which enslaved people shared knowledge among themselves, because they were not welcome at schools. This way of passing on common knowledge is recognisable in the manner in which the hip-hop community, for example, shares knowledge among themselves.

The organisation sQuare applies Each one teach one to learning communities with enterprising creatives. What stands out is that the room for mutual exchange of knowledge within the Theatre in Education study programme is still limited sometimes. The knowledge transfer is aimed at what the student needs to learn and this sometimes neglects what the student can teach the educational system, but also the professional field. This creates a gap for some students, but also the professional field, in which the two worlds do not meet. In collaboration with stichting sQuare (sQuare foundation), I will conduct research into the Each one teach one methodology and how we can implement this methodology in the Theatre in Education study programme."

Yahmani Blackman started as a self-taught performing creator in various theatre productions: Engelenbak, Bijlmer Parktheater, Likeminds, MC Theater. She has performed with self-written pieces at various festivals, such as Afrovibes, BlackMagicWoman, Bijlmer Boekt and GoGoGo Festival. In addition, she studied Educational Theory (Pedagogiek) at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) and she developed a great love for arts education. She ultimately decided to delve into that deeper and graduated from the Theatre in Education at the Amsterdam University of the Arts in 2018.

Nowadays, she is a teaching creator in various theatre institutions and she teaches in higher arts education. In her work, she challenges her environment and herself to question and examine individual and collective paradigms, and to translate them into meaningful arts experiences.