Cohort 10
Maria Hickman
EDUCATION • Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction Concordia University-Wisconsin • B.A. in Theater Direction Carroll University
ENROLLED • Cohort 10
LOCATION • Franklin, Wis.
Maria Hickman is an educator, advocate, and lifelong learner whose work centers on creating educational environments where multilingual learners and their families feel seen, valued, and empowered. Since 2009, she has served students in K-12 and adult education in the United States and abroad, including teaching in Argentina and working extensively with newcomer and refugee communities in Milwaukee. These experiences have shaped her understanding that lasting educational change grows by recognizing the strengths, cultures, and lived experiences every learner brings to the classroom. Maria holds degrees in Theatre Direction, Modern Dance, and Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in TESOL. Throughout her career, she has integrated language development, the arts, and community partnerships to create meaningful learning experiences while advancing educational equity and language access for multilingual learners and their families. Working alongside newcomer and refugee families has reinforced her conviction that schools are strongest when they recognize the knowledge, resilience, languages, and cultures that students, families, and communities already possess. As a doctoral student in Educational Sustainability at UW-Stevens Point, Maria’s emerging research interests focus on how schools can create sustainable systems that support multilingual learners, strengthen partnerships with families and communities, and cultivate belonging through culturally sustaining educational practices. She sees sustainable educational change as the result of relationships, shared leadership, authentic partnerships, and creating spaces where students, families, and communities are not simply invited into conversations but are trusted as co-creators of educational solutions. Guided by the belief that educational systems are strongest when they are designed with communities rather than for communities, she seeks to ensure that the voices and lived experiences of those most affected help shape the decisions that impact them.
UW-Stevens Point
86
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