when was the first time you felt like a
professional when was the first time you
held a paycheck in your hand and thought
I deserve this I earned this I’m proud
of this three years ago I moved to New
Mexico from Pennsylvania to take the
best job in the whole world I’m the
theater conservatory director at working
class room working classroom is a
non-profit right here in Albuquerque we
nurture the artistic civic and academic
minds of historically ignored youth we
do this through in-depth art theater and
new media projects that cultivate
diverse voices in the arts and demand a
more equitable society most of our
students live in the South Valley or the
west side many of their parents don’t
speak English most of them would be
considered low income these are the
students the rest of the world might
consider disadvantaged underprivileged
and my least favorite at risk but at
working classroom we see students for
what they are professional young artists
at work in classroom we believe that
students have a voice that needs to be
heard we believe they are professionals
now they don’t need to wait and we
believe that by investing in them we’re
investing in their future and in doing
so creating an environment where they
believe they can do it whatever do it
means is decided by them not all of our
students are going to go on to be actors
directors muralists but what they will
walk away from when they leave working
classroom when they graduate is that
they are worth it they are worth
people’s time they are worth people’s
money and they are worth their own time
currently I’m producing a year-long
project called solving for x the
education project with this project we
develop a new play inspired by the topic
of educational equity right here in
Albuquerque we’re doing this in
collaboration with playwright director
milto ortiz and scott barrel from
tectonic theater project and the working
class room theatre ensemble since
februari i’ve been working with for
incredible interns ages 12 to 16 and
we’ve been interviewing various
stakeholders in education we’ve been
researching the topic both nationally
and locally and we’ve been training for
over a hundred hours with the best guest
artists from around the country recently
we just added eight cast members to the
ensemble ages 11 to 45 and they too have
a hand in creating solving for x which
premieres at the National Hispanic
cultural center in February of 2617 and
the best most crazy part about this is
that they’re getting paid to do all of
it and it’s more than just the money
it’s the fact that when you give someone
a paycheck you are saying to them you
earned this your time and your skill are
valuable and we see it paid back in so
many ways sometimes it’s when they come
in for 30 hours in a week to do a
workshop with tectonic tectonic theater
project and then volunteer to do five
more hours just to get the piece just
right sometimes it’s when one of my
interns runs into the building and says
Megan I just heard my
I ins teacher tell another student in my
class that since he couldn’t read his
note book that was written in Spanish
she couldn’t great it he gave him an F
sometimes it means that they’re just so
excited to be at working classroom that
they’re in the room before I am but it
always means that they understand they
are a part of this process this is not a
play where they simply memorize lines
and our stand where they’re told this is
a play where they create the characters
where they say I want to transgender
character in our play where they say I
want to let Tina character but she’s
white and that’s really confusing for
her where they say I want a character
who only speaks Spanish and not because
he doesn’t understand English because
but it’s because it’s simply the
language he prefers and they created
they create this world and what does
that mean well right now it means
they’re creating a play that speaks to
nearly one hundred percent of working
classroom students graduate from high
school nearly all of them go on to
college with scholarships many of them
are in schools in Los Angeles New York
Chicago and they do so because they
believe they deserve it they believe
they can succeed this is monumental in a
district that has a sixty-two percent
graduation rate in a state that ranks
and it all comes back to seeing
themselves as professionals at 11 years
old they can walk through our doors and
we can tell them I see you and what you
say and think and do aren’t important
just to our organization but to our
collective future there’s a quote that
says students might be twenty percent of
our population but they are a hundred
percent of our future I believe that
everyone in this room has been a student
at one time education has impacted all
of our lives in both positive and
negative ways it is vital to be able to
say your future is important to us let
us show you by investing in you there’s
another quote from Augusto Boal wall and
he said theatre in itself is not
revolutionary it is a rehearsal for the
revolution we live in a society that too
often wants artists and young people to
work for free that doesn’t see students
as a valuable resource but rather a
product that needs to be fit into a box
these students the same students will be
when these students write a play about
education they are also getting an
education and so am i we are training
alongside some of the best artists in
the country as equals and the students
don’t have to say I want to do this but
I can’t afford it or how am I going to
fit this into my schedule when I have to
work to support my family this is their
work this is their contribution not just
to their education but to the future of
their community and we all benefit we
can’t train for the Industrial
Revolution anymore it’s time we train
these students are creating a map for
the future and in this map they get to
lead us at working class room we don’t
believe that students or that teachers
no more than students we’ve simply been
around longer I know I learned more from
my students every day than they learn
from me I guarantee it and when i get my
paycheck i’m able to look at it and
think i deserve this I’m proud of this
so let me ask you again when was the
first time you felt like a professional
how old were you and what difference
would it have made if you felt that by the time you were 11 years old