Teaching Philosophy

Theatre of Possibility:

Embracing Agency and Cultural Identity in the Classroom

Each year, I continue to grow as an educator, stepping more into a leadership role within my practice. I am creating my work and programs grounded in the philosophies of Freire and Boal, adapting these ideas to the realities I see in Arizona schools. Much of my teaching focuses on marginalized communities, particularly among BIPOC or Latine populations—many are or have undocumented family members. They live under the weight of an education system that doesn’t prioritize them and a political climate that often sends the message that they’re not wanted here. They rarely have an educator who speaks their language, shares parts of their identity, and is willing to push back against the legislation that prevents bilingual support outside designated language classes. I believe in meeting them where they are and making them feel seen.

I also believe in a flexible, day-by-day approach to lesson planning because students can’t learn if they don’t first feel safe and respected. Grounded in practical experience, a defining moment for me was leading “Play!,” an after-school program where I served as an SEL Teaching Artist. We delved into a book about loss with students as young as first grade, and I chose to share my own experience of losing my sister, realizing that we can only receive from students what we’re willing to give.

At Emerson Elementary, I run an after-school drama program I initially didn’t plan to conduct in Spanish. However, once the student population settled, it became clear that many felt more comfortable mixing languages or speaking Spanish outright. So, I intentionally create space for them to use Spanish if it helps them express themselves. Sometimes, we improvise entire scenes in Spanish; other times, we blend English and Spanish. We started small—playing simple games, talking through them in whichever language felt right—and gradually introduced theatre exercises, short scenes, and even cooking shows. Navigating English all day can be exhausting, so this approach allows them to communicate on their terms. Arizona’s laws are strict about bilingual education, but I’m not here to reinforce systems that silence them. I consider it part of my role as a revolutionary educator to challenge policies that ignore or suppress whole communities. My students are my co-creators. If someone wants to do a cooking show because food is a big part of their culture, I build a lesson around that. If another student wants to design a stop-motion Lego project, I figure out how to make it happen. And it will happen in Spanish.

Daily check-ins, community agreements, and personal narratives have become foundational to my teaching. These practices let us gauge who needs extra support and who’s ready to dive deeper. More recently, I’ve faced an entirely different context at that same site: sometimes, students arrive anxious about rumors of ICE in the neighborhood or a family member’s sudden detention. In those moments, I pause whatever lesson I had planned and acknowledge what they’re dealing with, maybe using a drama exercise to help them process their fears. It’s not about handing them a script or a quick solution; it’s about building a space where they can confront real concerns on their terms and know they’re not alone. We shift gears, acknowledge that reality, and let them process what’s on their mind. That same readiness to share openly is crucial; I can’t expect openness from them if I’m not also willing to be authentic.

I’ve launched a program that fuses theatre exercises with analyzing video games—something I researched in depth last year. I’ve always loved video games, especially single-player narratives that let you immerse yourself in a world at your own pace. At Mesa Arts Academy, we’ll pause a game like Splatoon to discuss how it portrays oppression or conflict through the environment, characters, and gameplay mechanics. Then we connect those insights to theatre exercises—maybe devising a scene that mirrors the game’s themes or discussing how we’d stage a conflict like the one we just played through. We are boosting media literacy and social-emotional learning: showing them how to engage with a story critically and helping them see they can be storytellers. The goal is to realize that our everyday interests can be a gateway to creativity, empathy, and expressing who we are.

I’ve also drawn on my experience with forum theatre in projects like “Safa’s Story” and “Zion’s Story,” where we addressed issues such as bullying, racism, or sex trafficking through staged performances and pre- and post-show workshops. By guiding participants to become spect-actors, we encouraged them to experiment with different outcomes and methods in a safe environment and then apply that thinking to real-life situations.

Students don’t have to wait for permission to be creative or to shape their environment. They’re pushing back against a system that tries to keep them silent. I use theatre to help students see they have agency in a world that tries to strip it away. I bring my language, background, and activist mindset into every class I lead. I recognize students as experts in their own experiences, and I want to show them we can all be revolutionaries in the face of unjust structures. By speaking Spanish in a place that wants me to avoid it, by inviting students to design whatever stories reflect their realities, I’m saying: “Podemos hacer esto juntos.” And in that collective act, we’re reshaping the classroom into a space where their stories, cultures, and identities matter.