Arts Integration & Dance Education Consultant
Rachel Oliver Young has been teaching for almost twenty years, in private studios, college courses, in-school residencies, after-school residencies, and PK-5 public school positions. Rachel is the Education Director of the Classical and Contemporary Pre-Professional Dance Program at Denver School of the Arts. Rachel is an American Ballet Theatre® Certified Teacher, has an Alternative Teaching Licensure through the Colorado Department of Education with endorsements in Science and Dance, a certification in Progressing Ballet Technique, and is Limón Teacher Trained, all of which have deepened her knowledge in dance education. Rachel is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction, Critical Pedagogy through CU-Denver.
Rachel is passionate about sharing her expertise with new educators and dance and general education majors. This information is based on the mentorship, evaluations and coaching received in the PK-12 public setting, in which she was often coached through the lens of general education, and learned how to manipulate these classroom management strategies to work in my dance classes, and to still maintain the culture of a dance studio in a K-12 setting. In addition to dance based classes, Rachel has led Dance & Popular Culture, both in person and online, a 90 student lecture style class that fulfills Arts and Science Core Requirement at CU-Boulder, Study Skills and How to Be Successful in High School for 9th grade students at Denver School of the Arts, reading intervention for 1st grade students at Rocky Mountain Prep, and various social emotional curricula. Rachel was heavily coached in No Nonsense Nurturing, and has been doing outside research in Conscious Discipline, Responsive Classroom, and resources on management and research for young learners from National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), and multiple education and pedagogy based research journals.
Rachel’s research was presented at the 2013 Special Topics Conference through Congress on Research and Dance, the 2023 National Dance Education Organization Conference, Teaching is Leading: Embracing our Impact & Opportunity as Dance Educators, and she has previously served on the Colorado Dance Education Organization (CoDeo) Board, and is currently serving on the board for Presenting Denver.