From Approximation to Transformation: Using Theater of the Oppressed as Rehearsals for Critical Teacher Education

• In Event: Critical Commentaries on Teaching for Social Justice

Abstract

Rehearsals and other approximations of practice are often touted as effective pedagogies for preparing novice teachers to reproduce and replicate practices deemed universally beneficial. However, scholars have noted that reproducing practices across contexts risks undermining equity and justice. The article reports on a three-year project that examined the potential of Boalian Theatre and Freirean culture circles to facilitate learning among justice-oriented teacher educators. In these spaces, participants dialogued about and re-enacted challenges to equity that they encountered in teacher education, then role-played possible approaches toward addressing such conflicts. Using an ethnographic approach, the paper shows how critical pedagogies and rehearsals can facilitate transformational learning by re-imagining responses to dilemmas of practice in equity-oriented and contextually sensitive ways.

Authors

• John Luciano Beltramo, Santa Clara University

• Jamy Stillman, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Kathryn Ahmed, Hunter College