Escalante's Four Objectives

At one point in high school, my trigonometry teacher played Stand and Deliver to inspire us as we worked towards our own AP exam. To see Jaime Escalante take personal stake in his students academically and emotionally was exactly what I needed to discover what I will be during for the rest of my life: working to inspire passion, curiosity, and excellence in my students. But the question is: how do I pursue this outside of Hollywood fantasies? I believe these goals can be achieved through four objectives: by practicing radical empathy every day, by cultivating agents of social change, by encouraging agency in disenfranchised students, and by providing a nurturing space in which students can grow.
Radical empathy is the very foundation of theatre.
It is the active intention to better understand and share in the experiences of those around us. In theatre, we are literally set in front a myriad of people with stories foreign to us in order to to understand their perspective. In the creation and consumption of these productions, we are forced to consider the other, their tribulations, and their aspirations. This, unfortunately, can be a double-edged sword if we continuously consume familiar stories. We cannot expand our ability to empathize if we cling to what we know. If we restrict ourselves, we can perpetuate these perspectives, possibly perpetuate these prejudices. In my artistry, I have experienced the Argentinian Dirty Wars, Maori people desperately trying to preserve their culture, and gender non-conforming individuals trying to survive in a familial thunderdome. Because of these stories, I have appreciated points of view I did not know I was neglecting. My goal is to incorporate a canon of diverse texts, unfamiliar to the students and to myself in order to expand our worldview and practice radical empathy in every class period. In this expansion, we often confront uncomfortable realities in stories like Bhopal, where children die because of the toxins of a neglectful corporation; The Laramie Project, which encourages forgiveness despite atrocities; and The Heresy of Love, where censorship destroys lives.
These stories do not exist to depress the audience but rather as a call to action: stand for your beliefs, rectify injustice you see in the world, and become champions of love. I intend to inspire agents of social change who are unafraid to stand with the downtrodden. I directed a devised production based around the question, what injustice do you see in your world? Many students wrote about micro-aggressions, cultural appropriation, or comically unfunny stereotypes of people of color but one student was struggling. Every time I asked her that question, she said she did not see injustice in the world because people who loved her surrounded her. I then asked her what she was afraid and she went silent. After a moment, she said she was afraid of being mistaken for a criminal and losing her life because of her skin color. This was during the Black Lives Matter protests. She wrote that phrase down and could not stop writing about what terrified her. Eventually she performed this as a monologue for a sold out show. She saw injustices she had not realized she experienced and she had the ability and space to make art to amend them. This is my goal as an
educator. This student was not my only experience of a student finding their voice. While reading a play about Latinx heritage, tamales came up - a staple of Latinx cuisine. After the lesson, a student approached me and talked about her father’s perfect homemade tamales. She was so excited to hear her Southwestern Native American heritage represented in the play that she asked if she could bring a tamal for me. In that moment, I realized the power of diverse texts. It allows students the opportunity to see themselves represented and therefore validates that they deserve to see their culture depicted in academia. My hope is to inspire this agency in students by showing the minoritized, the oppressed, and the downtrodden in artwork that highlights success and cherishes diversity of all kinds. Representation matters and by utilizing it, I can support every student. These three previous objectives are difficult to pursue let alone achieve.
This is not to glorify these students or myself as martyrs but rather to celebrate these challenges and meet them head on. In order to do this, the students must know that not only do they have a teacher upon which they can rely but a community behind them with open arms should they fall. To establish this community, I believe it requires a space where students cherish mistakes and failures as opportunities to learn. It requires students to give themselves permission to be foolish and embarrassing in order to learn to laugh in joy. Once they have given themselves this permission, they can dismiss the self-monitoring, judging spectre that hangs over the shoulder questioning every single decision. I want to create a space where students know that they are respected as individuals, as learners, and as artists by both their peers and by me. This relationship can only be based on mutual understanding, respect, and the combined effort to improve at every opportunity. We are a company. We are an ensemble. And we are going to be learning and growing every single day. We need to give ourselves permission to do so and let our peers do the
same. I do not believe that I alone can change the world. I do not believe that I can necessarily change every student that passes through my classroom. But I do know that if my students remember me as someone who challenged them, who supported them, and who made them excited to explore every aspect of the world around them, then I believe I have succeeded in my goal. I will do everything in my power to inspire passion, curiosity, and excellence in my students. This is not only my goal, however, I believe this is my responsibility.