AATE 2025 National Conference

In this participatory workshop, Wheelock Family Theatre educators will engage participants in collaborative reflection and dialogue as we examine the dilemmas and discoveries that can be found at the intersection of youth, theatre, and social justice. Over the last year, a group of Wheelock Family Theatre educators met monthly in our Teacher Leader Cohort (TLC) and embarked on a practice of collaborative reflection. Adrienne Maree Brown, in Emergent Strategy, writes that deep, adaptive change happens like a fractal. How we are on the small scale is how we are/will be on the large scale. Though we did not know the outcomes of the work at its onset, we trusted that our work in our small cohort would have ripple effects. The purpose of our TLC was to create a community of practice rooted in accountability as both a quality and a function of the TLC, to gather a group of educators willing to go public with their practice, and to grapple with complex issues of equity, to engage in praxis (an iterative, reflective approach to taking action). Utilizing feedback protocols from the Center for Leadership and Educational Equity (an organization whose mission is to transform systems and empower collaborative leadership to create environments where every child engages in learning that unleashes their unlimited potential and joy), we will model some of the tools we found helpful as together (presenters and participants) we engage around real issues from our collective practice.