Call to Lead

“My new role through Sealaska Heritage is as an Arts Integration Literacy Coach. And if you look at our job description, it’s to help teachers make their literacy practices place-based and culturally relevant, and the other piece of it is trying to help them continue with arts integration practices wherever we can. And that’s a challenge because some teachers, new teachers, haven’t had a lot of background. But if I can help build those practices by sharing thinking routines or sharing about reading portraits or, you know, all of the different things that I’ve learned through Artful Teaching, then that’s super important to me.”

 “I was asked if I wanted to teach the curriculum development course at UAS. So I did that for the first time last spring…I don’t think I would have done that without Artful Teaching. It kind of led me to being willing to try. And because of all of that work, I thought, okay, I can do this. I’m learning how to be a facilitator– I can learn how to facilitate a class of adults!”

“I didn’t set out to be a leader – that wasn’t the goal. I wasn’t like, oh, I’m going to be a school leader or I’m going to be a leader in our district and never was I, like, I’m going to be on a board of some organization. Those weren’t goals I had. Leaders aren’t self proclaimed; those roles come to you because people choose to follow. But if I know that arts integration is the right choice; if I know that it’s the most culturally relevant choice, that it’s the one that supports all of our divergent thinkers, that includes our families and tells our living story every day, then I have to put myself into positions where I can have influence.”