03/22/2019
Dear AATE family:
I’m running for AATE Board.I’m very interested in how the dynamics of our organization are unfolding and feel compelled to be a part of the conversation. I see great potential for unilateral growth that is no - exclusionary and inclusive across multiple ideological positions within our current movement. I also see the struggle that faces us across ideologies.
Please take a moment to look at my statement. I hope you feel motivated to elect me and to intact me to discuss your thoughts.
Statement of Purpose:
It continues to be life changing to be a member of AATE. My AATE family has shaped and formed, not only my pedagogy and art, you have informed the way I look at the world and who I am. I have been blessed to be a member for over 10 years and learned so much from our founders, grown with my contemporaries and am amazed, uplifted, excited and energized through the vibrancy of the new guard. Within the last five years I have seen such amazing growth in terms of diversity, critical thought and advocacy for youth across our arts based pedagogy. It is my hope to assist that growth through continued Board emphasis on initiatives that promote and sustain openness, love and welcome for diverse and critically complex voices and ways of being. I would use what I have learned about the multiplicity of ways our inquiry and research within and through our practice (Shared in our journals) helps to create equitable access to social, intellectual and material goods to leverage our AATE presence and power for systemic educational policy change. To that end I am interested in further support for our efforts to increase our presence in local, state and national political spaces. I also support increased presence through TIOS, other AATE sponsored regional conference events as well as explore how we can provide greater access to our wonderful journals. AATE will always remain the single most professionally and personally influential group of friends, family and colleagues with whom it continues to be my good fortune to include in my world. It would be an honor to serve on our board.
Bio:
Gustave Weltsek PhD, Assistant Professor of Arts Education at Indiana University, School of Education. Gustave teaches graduate courses in imaginative and creative pedagogies and critical performative inquiry as well as a wide range of undergraduate courses in drama and theatre in and as education. His research examines how a critical performative pedagogy (Weltsek and Medina, Pineau) may function as a space of emergent identity for social change and explorations of equity.His current work examines the ways in which arts and artistic thinking may improve, develop and promote social justice, equity and student agency as well as learning across disciplines and subject positions. A sample of his publications appear in; Youth Theatre Journal, Arts Education Policy Review, Language Arts, and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and include; Deconstructing Global Markets Through Critical Performative Experiences in Puerto Rico, and Reading the Maps of Meaning Within Drama: Visible Discourse(s), Multimodal Semiotics, and Analogous Reflection in Applied Theatre Inquiry. His service to professional organizations includes past editor of the Youth Theatre Journal, past Chair of Research and Publications for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, professional presentations at AATE, IDIERI, AERA, and IRA. Gustave is the 2013 recipient of the AATE research award and recently served as one of AATE’s representatives for the writing of the new United States Standards for Theatre and Drama Education.
