ABOUT ME
I was awarded the 2025 National Preservice Art Educator of the Year award at the National Art Education Association (NAEA) annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
Throughout my life, I’ve found great joy in learning and conveying knowledge from my experiences to others–whether it be visual arts education, tutoring in French, Spanish, or Russian, teaching figure skating in my community, or teaching young creatives about arts entrepreneurship and marketing.
As a first-generation, neurodivergent, disabled, queer, and Latina preservice art educator, I am deeply passionate about equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in all forms of education. I use my platform of over two million followers across social media platforms to promote awareness of and organize for social causes, including (but not limited to!) the ongoing genocide in Palestine, immigration justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and voter mobilization for progressive causes.
I am currently a senior in the Honors College at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and will earn my B.S. in Art Education with a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Certificate in May 2026.
Teaching Philosophy
Intentional Inclusion in Art Education
I firmly believe that the art classroom is a space where real, meaningful learning that contributes to the intellectual growth of students happens, as opposed to the common misconception that art classes at school are a time for traditionally negatively-connoted ‘arts and crafts’. Art education facilitates problem solving, visual communication, expression, experimentation, and acts as an interdisciplinary link for information concurrently being taught in other classes. I view art education as a multifaceted field of study.
Art education scholar Olivia Gude (2013) advocated that art projects should be “...designed to open out into unexpected possibilities, not narrowed into predetermined channels.'' (p. 10). In developing my lessons, I emphasize giving my students freedom of choice when creating in my classroom. When students are prompted to choose different avenues through which they can solve problems, there is increased opportunity for risk-taking and mistake-making, which are imperative to the learning process. The promotion of continued experimentation, trial and error, and problem solving has been one of the most beneficial factors in my own art education experiences; thus, I want to create a similarly choice-based environment through my teaching and in my physical classroom. Not only are my lessons designed in ways that allow for creative freedom, they are also intentionally designed to include opportunities for peer collaboration and conversation (Broome, 2013); sharing ideas and building interpersonal relationships allows for a more welcoming environment where students are not afraid to take risks.
Furthermore, I strongly believe that students should feel intentionally included in every choice teachers make. Consciously designing the physical environment so that “...all students feel a sense of belonging, regardless of their needs and differences” (Broome et al., 2019, p. 39) is imperative in promoting psychological security (Broome, 2013). This sense of belonging further promotes students’ ability and willingness to make mistakes, and therefore, learn. I intend for my classroom to be one where students are encouraged to creatively problem-solve, experiment, and above all, explore their creative interests in novel ways.
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References​
Broome, J. L. (2013). A case study in classroom management and school involvement: Designing an art room for effective learning. Art Education, 66(3), 39-46.
Broome, J. L., Bobick, B., Ruggiero, A., & Jesup, C. (2019). Responding to the challenge to care: Suggestions for art education curricula. Art Education, 72(2), 36-41.
Gude, O. (2013). New school art styles: The project of art education. Art Education, 66(1), 6-15.
