I take the opportunity to speak about how and why drama/theatre can and should be used to create more just, equitable, and inclusive learning environments in education. Specifically, I hope to share brief case studies from twenty years of transformative professional learning in arts integration with arts/non-arts educators and young people in a wide variety of K-12, university, and community-engaged contexts. This may look like: Examples from our initial co-development of the Drama for Schools program with a Koyukon Athabascan community in the northern interior of Alaska based in culturally responsive teaching and learning methods. 

A brief overview of our local, Texas, Creative Learning Initiative - a 10 year collective impact model working to build and sustain arts-rich schools. 

I’ll share our six-year project in Australia, focused on using creative body-based learning and Aboriginal ways of knowing in mathematics and science education. From Australia, I can briefly touch on our co-developed Student/Teacher Learning Community model, where students are trained alongside teachers to lead drama-based lessons. 

I’ll also share learning from 10 years, and 12 projects with the U.S. Embassy/State Department in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland. This work brings together educators in post/conflict regions to increase perspective taking in education across ethnic divides. 

Finally, I’ll share either our work in Taiwan where we used drama to explore EMI teaching methods, and critical/creative teaching for university and K-12 educators; OR, my most recent work in climate change resiliency and youth participatory action research.