Paralysis and Outrage: Channeling Emotions Through Strategizing Among Bilingual Teacher-Advocates in the Making

• In Event: 51.032 - Finding Freedom and Fugitivity in Literacies: Multimodal Narratives as Lived Resistance in Educational Spaces

Abstract

This paper examines the emotional process of reaction, sense-making, and agentic action though drama-based pedagogical tools of a group of 20 Mexican-American/Latinx pre-service teachers as they explore issues of racism, linguicism, and discrimination in the field of bilingual education. This study moves away from a traditional model based on a solution-oriented preparation (Souto-Manning, Cahnmann-Taylor, Dice & Wooten, 2008) and “more than readings” (Cahnmann-Taylor & Souto-Manning, 2015). Using drama-based pedagogies (Boal, 2000) as spaces for self-authoring and improvisation (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 2003) for game-playing (Urrieta, 2009), this study focuses on the way pre-service bilingual teachers develop a critical consciousness as a socio-emotionally layered process. The exposure and vulnerability of the body through drama-based pedagogy provided a space where the messiness of emotions became a springboard for creativity, collective strategy planning, and emergent advocacy. This year-long ethnographic study (Madison, 2011) follows a group of 20 Mexican-American/Latinx bilingual preservice teachers during a content course for certification. I collected data through the videotaping of sessions, participants’ reflections, artifacts, and 2-hour long semi-structured conversations (Alim, 2004) and an inductive mode approach for analysis (Connelly and Clandinin, 1990) to identify common themes across the data. Findings show some participants went through stages of paralysis and outrage. Paralysis was caused by the strong emotions some of the participants experienced when exposed to the stories of marginalization. Outrage was also an emotion the participants dealt with during the improvisations. As they realized the professional context of the stories to perform, the participants understood they needed to move away from reactionary and oppositional attitudes towards the antagonist(s) of the narratives. After a collective and dialogic process, the participants created a set of strategies and rules to “play the game” (Urrieta, 2009) during improvisations. By creating these strategies, they started rehearsing their teacher selves on stage by imagining what an educator sounds when confronting differing ideas in professional settings. This prompted to imagine themselves as teachers-advocates when on stage and when providing and receiving feedback during the performance debriefings. The participants also took the advocacy they rehearsed in the (dis)comfort of the classroom and located it in the real world as they found themselves advocating for language rights and bilingual education among their peers, family, and colleagues. The use of drama-based pedagogies places physicality and agency at the forefront to connect viscerally and emotionally with social justice as an embodied action; dimensions not readily available when using an intellectual-only approach. The use of drama-based pedagogies might prevent or alleviate feelings of disempowerment, anger, and fear by the task of becoming agents of change (Zembylas, 2013) since they can help channel strong emotions that come with the potential confrontation of challenging events.

Author

• Blanca Caldas, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities