Heidy M. Perez-Cordero

I am a Puerto Rican-Dominican PhD student-researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. My research project explores the formation of the professional identity of migrant language teachers (Cambridge, UK). The exploration was conducted through a series of applied drama workshops. My interests include drama as methodology, identities, teacher’s training & wellbeing, decolonizing education, art-based research, teaching artist development, language teaching, and the correlation between identity and pedagogy. I am an active member of Decolonising Language Education Collective (DLEC), Second Language Education Group (SLEG), Cambridge Research in Community Language Education(CRiCLE), and Cambridge Community School Leadership Forum

I have been an educator for 17+ years in Puerto Rico, US and UK; arts, drama in education, dance, movement, storytelling and applied drama. Until November 2022, I was part of the board of trustee and directors (former chairperson) of Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (CECF), a community school advisor for Cambridge Research in Community Language Education (CRiCLE), and was previously the Chair and the outreach coordinator of Escuelita CIC (a Cambridge heritage-community Spanish language school specialising in the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) pedagogy). I completed a Master’s Degree in Educational Theatre (Drama) in Colleges (higher education-university) and Communities from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University (NYC), and previously a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education with a major in Theatre (Drama) from the University of Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras campus). I have trained in community theatre (drama) and education with Teatreros Ambulantes troupe (under Dr. Rosa Luisa Márquez, Puerto Rico), Centre of Theatre of the Oppressed (under Augusto Boal, Brasil), as well as performance studies with Grupo de Teatro Malayerba (Ecuador) and Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani (Peru). My pedagogy is based on art-based research, democratic teaching and learning process (Freire, 1993), and teaching artistry. My lifelong motto as an educator and artist is “Education is Action!”.

During the covid-19 pandemic, my skills were re-addressed to support community-based entities. I created the Services and Resources, during the Covid-19 outbreak pack. This live document contains information regarding food provision support, education support for all ages, wellbeing support, virus information in over 20 languages, government support, domestic abuse helpline, mental health support, vaccination services, among others. When the pandemic started, I was a Latin American & Spanish Caribbean dance instructor at Cambridge Community Arts (CCA), and transitioned from in-person teaching to online teaching. CCA offered artists professional development to facilitate the opportunity to teach online arts summer school for adults’ mental health. I developed the Storytelling through Movement Course (now called “Embodied Storytelling” and currently facilitating it). I co-created a hybrid educational model for teaching Spanish in Escuelita CIC, where the online classes offered were about visual arts, drama, dance, culture, sciences and music. The in-person class was a two-hour forest school experience once a month. I became an art consultant for the CECF-Crafting the Self project to support the mental health of migrant and refugee women in Cambridge. I had the opportunity to present at the Cambridge Arts Network conference to share the process of Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (CECF) providing artistic and cultural support during the covid-19 pandemic.

Publications:

Cordero, H. M. P. (2019). El teatro aplicado como herramienta educativa y recurso social. In Dramatúrgies contemporànies per a la igualtat, autories, escenificacions, recepcions: Una visió comparatista (pp. 349-364). Universitat de València.

349-364perez Download

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