Queer Educators Collective: Spring 2025

For the first time in 2025, The Teaching Well is launching a nationwide Queer affinity space, designed to support LGBTQIA+ educators stand in their power and thrive in school communities. Many of us have experienced the legacies of homophobia, transphobia, and exclusionary practices in our work and professional lives. This affinity space is an opportunity to heal together in our rainbow fullness—inviting our diverse and intersectional identities to come play together in an inclusive environment. 

With the co-facilitation team of Salina Mae Espinosa-Setchko (she/her/hers) and Bong Lau (they/them), we will collectively explore the intersection of gender identity and education, understand the impact of heteronormative trauma in the professional sphere, and engage our bodies through mindfulness and somatics as a way to release trauma and make space for presence and joy. Join us as we do this important work together in Queer community!

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About Salina Mae Espinosa-Setchko (she/her/hers) 

What would happen if you mixed a fairy, cowgirl, and warrior princess – you’d get Salina Mae, of course! Salina Mae is a passionate and creative healer who advocates for the equity and wellness of all. She is gifted in building creative, inspired, and socially woke trainings and curricula that lead to action in the areas of mindfulness, social justice, and systems change. Salina Mae, a former educator and current Mindfulness coach, creates beauty and ceremony in all things, and will have you feeling like you just left a wellness retreat at the end of any meeting or learning opportunity she facilitates. Salina Mae is a loud and proud queer, Chicana woman and is our resident “Rich Auntie” who always makes sure we play and rest, just as hard as we work.

About Bong Lau (they/them)

Bong is a dynamic musical and visual artist whose presence is like medicine to all who witness them. After serving Bay Area youth and schools as an art teacher for 8 years, Bong now works with The Teaching Well by helping adults deeply and bravely explore personal wellness and healing techniques. Bong invites others to approach sustainability in ways that are attuned with, and sensitive to, the specific needs of the individuals and communities being served. Bong is a gifted space holder who seamlessly infuses their musical, artistic, and somatic gifts in their educator coaching and facilitation practices. Bong’s brilliant mind and soulful artistry helps ensure the Teaching Well’s content aesthetic synergistically melds form, function, and human-centeredness. Although Bong’s genuine humility would never let them admit it, at the Teaching Well we lovingly refer to them as Royalty because their encapsulating presence and gifts invites reverence.

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• Are pre-K to college level educators and school staff, school or district leaders, working in the United States 
• Self-identify as queer or LGBTQIA+
• Can commit to attending at least 5 of the 6 sessions 
• Seek to develop new tools and skills to make positive change in their school or district 

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• Connect with an intimate group of other Queer educators to build empathy and systems of support across difference 
• Explore self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-love practices 
• Navigate “professional authenticity” in the workplace as a Queer bodied person 
• Uplift each other, celebrate our unique forms of expression, and encourage deeper individual and collective authenticity
• Learn a diverse array of somatic practices, creative expression, mindfulness practices, and play to support themselves, their colleagues and their students with self regulation and co-regulation 

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I’m Seen: “I’m Here, I’m QUEER, and I’m powerful!”- Thurs, Jan 30th at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Understand the Teaching Well’s values, mission, and goals for this work
• Collectively engage with agreements to co-create a container of safety
• Experience extended guided somatic practices to witness and source power from the loving parts of yourself
• Explore the gifts and qualities that make you uniquely and perfectly yourself

I’m Real: Exploring “Professional Authenticity” in the Workplace - Thurs, Feb 20th at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Process how traditional ideas of professionalism may silence parts of your identity and create feelings of insecurity or lack of belonging 
• Engage with a somatic and creative arts practice that supports you in standing in your authentic expression
• Define the term “professional authenticity” for ourselves and envision what it looks like to feel safe being yourself at work

I’m Worth It: Self- Empowerment and Advocacy - Thurs, Mar 20th at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Share positive stories of moments and relationships that helped heal prior experiences of discrimination
• Explore feelings of shame or grief around our relationship to worthiness
• Learn rituals to transform and compost negative feelings into awareness, intention, and action
• Engage in somatic practices to increase our ability to self- and co-regulate in the face of feelings of unworthiness

I’m Rooted: Staying Grounded During Triggering Interactions - Thurs, Apr 20th at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Process experiences of homophobia or transphobia they may have experienced working in a school system
• Build collective empathy and solidarity with other queer educators
• Experience a variety of somatic tools to regulate the nervous system and ground in the face of triggering experiences
• Learn a supportive protocol for after a triggering interaction has taken place to help reflect and integrate

I’m Loved: Falling in love with your bad-a** self - Thurs, May 1st at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Engage in a loving kindness meditation 
• Participate in expressive arts to illuminate the parts of themselves and their identities that they unconditionally love and the parts they  want to heal
• Collectively build an altar of self and community love
• Share the practices that consistently help them experience self love

I’m Uplifted: Activating Support From Queer Ancestors, Allies, and Co-Conspirators - Thurs, June 5th at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET (1.5hrs)

Participants will:

• Learn about queer ancestors that can be a source of strength and power 
• Engage in a visualization practice to connect with ancestors 
• Identify the people you advocate for: the “who” and “why” of healing for the future
• Share the actions you plan to take outside of this space 
• Provide feedback on your experience participating in the pilot program

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Host or Publisher The Teaching Well