Science Improvisations: Reconstructing the Past Through a Sense of Belonging

• In Event: Communities of Resistance and Dissent, Aztlán-Anáhuc-Ixtepec, Gran México--Part 1: Critical, Local, Transnational Teachers and Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
This study explores improvisation as an arts-based pedagogical tool for Latina preservice teachers to make meaning of their transition from student to teacher what this means in terms of identity. This action research integrates arts-based pedagogies in teacher education at an HSI during a methods course. Role playing, improvisation, creating scenarios, and audience interaction led to discussions and performances (Anderson, 2004; Norris, 2020).

Perspectives or theoretical framework
Via Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2015) notion of embodied epistemologies in geography of selves, this study uses action research (Hendricks, 2016) to explore arts-based activities in a science education class in Aztán, Gran México. A shapeshifting and nagualísmo aligns to improvisation as an embodied transformation where improvisations allowed participants to embody multiple selves through role-play and character creation shifting between identities and imaginative space. This mirrors naguales as it transforms and marginalizes people often navigating multiple identities.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
In Vivo coding was used for this study as it helped keep data rooted in the participants’ own language (Saldaña, 2021). Participant observation and field note data was analyzed using thematic analysis across participants and data sources. Three arts-based activities were incorporated: Letter-to-Self, Pulling Pulls Through Zoom, and Fourth Wall reflecting upon, “What if I was in that situation?” (Saldaña, 2010). Primary sources included field notes from beginning, middle, and end of a semester with transcripts from three interviews in three rounds from five participants, three performance Zoom recordings, and a researcher journal.

Results
A finding was a sense of belonging inherent in Anzaldúa’s archival work when referring to improvising dialogues and restructuring the past as participants took on a voice to rewrite their identities. The embodied learning and emotions referred to new identities filling their life with purpose while closing painful pasts. Some participants’ sense of not belonging was expressed as difficulty navigating hostile or impatient teachers while others were ignored. Agogó recalled being afraid of her fifth grade teacher while it affected academics. Red is the emblematic participant whose school experiences in terms of challenges reflect broader educational and societal polycrises pertaining to intersecting issues such as discrimination, language barriers, and systemic marginalization. Red’s identity was challenged due to fear and intimidation as teacher identity is continuously under construction (Reeves, 2018). Her sense of belonging was deeply unbalanced when placed in basic courses due to language limitations similar to students who arrive in the United States often placed in the same setting (Goldschmidt & Miller, 2005). Red was placed in ESL class and then asked to drop out of school. She mentioned how improvisations helped because “I have confianza no more fear.”

Scholarly Significance
Improvisations helped preservice teachers engage in promoting critical thinking skills, problem solving, and gaining a sense of belonging. There is a dire need to continue to promote science and arts-based learning through improvisations that prove how it can lend insight as a way to engage practicum in English.

Author

• Zulema Williams, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley