About Me

As a young child, I was fascinated with dressing in elaborate costumes and using comical voices to pretend to be someone completely different and extraordinary. I remember begging my brother to play Knights or Cowboys and, while he reluctantly agreed to put on a costume and join me in my antics, we managed to create literally hours of fictional adventures that felt so real we would completely lose track of our time, wrapped in our own magical world. At the age of five, I had no idea that such behavior could lead to a rewarding life focus in education. So my passion for theatre began at an early agewhether it was the elementary school plays where I devoted hundreds of after-school hours to rehearsing and performing classic childrens fairy tale stories or the required classroom educational plays. In high school, I discovered theories and philosophies behind my work, methods with which I could experiment, strategies to try out, and ideas to consider and above all, ideas that I could eventually teach to students. After high school, I attended UC Irvines Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and I continued this education further, both onstage and in the classroom. I played with aspects of theatre to which I had never been previously exposed (such as absurdism and film acting) and recently developed my own methods and theories of acting, Bruce Lee-ing my technique by taking bits and pieces of the masters and combining them into a system that works for me. This is where I discovered my passion for teaching. Watching my teachers work in this environment I realized that so much of teaching is beginning the process. If you can start students, but let them continue on the path, you have done your job. You don't have to teach the "right method" or one that works every time--rather you should expose students to ideas and thoughts and let them choose what is most helpful to them. As a tutor, I have always striven to do only 20-40 percent of the talking in each session and let the students do the work, discovering their own ideas through minimal prompting from me. Teaching requires constant curiosity, exploration, and re-thinking, and I cannot wait to work with you. To me, all academics are a type of performance and I hope to help you craft your ideas into a more manageable structure that showcases exactly what you want to say. Your work should be the stage on which your ideas are performedId love to help you create and explore those thoughts and theories. Theres no one way to do it. There is only your way! I look forward to meeting you!

Education & Certifications

Q&A with Vinny

Tutoring Subjects