As the muted red lights of the darkroom flicker and dim until they completely evanesce into darkness, Upper School Visual Arts Teacher Alexandra Pacheco Garcia finds herself transported back to her own high school photography class. The familiar scent of the processing chemicals and the buzz of students in the classroom make the shadowed space feel soft, just as they did in Albany years ago. Growing up, Pacheco-Garcia attended a public high school in New York before earning a bachelor’s degree at New York University’s Tisch School for Arts. Pacheco-Garcia said this was where her love for photography truly began.
“I took a photography class, and I fell in love with being in the darkroom,” Pacheco Garcia said. “Being in this quiet, dark cave and just printing, I would get really lost. I just loved everything about it.”
In her mid-twenties, Pacheco-Garcia moved to California to enroll in a photography program at the University of California, Irvine, where she would go on to earn her master’s degree in studio arts. Pacheco-Garcia said that at Irvine, she became even more enthralled by photography because it gave her control in a rapidly-changing world.
“You’re taking pictures in a world that already exists,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “It gives you this kind of control where you’re not having to create something out of your head, you can just use the world around you as your medium. That really gets rid of some of the anxiety of ‘making.’”
UC Irvine allows their graduate school students to work as assistant or associate teachers as a means of earning experience and income, a program that Pacheco-Garcia participated in while earning her master’s degree. While teaching in college, Pacheco-Garcia said she felt a lack of connection with the community at UC Irvine.
“With college adjunct teaching, you get there, you teach your class, and you’re done,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “I wanted to be part of something bigger than just teaching at the head of class. Honestly, I just really wanted to be part of a community.”
Pivoting, she turned to high school teaching. Pacheco-Garcia said that though she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, she fell in love with the job once she found it.
“It was so random,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “I was looking for a transition and this job just came up. I was surprised because I hadn’t taught high school kids before, and I just love it. It’s as important to me as art making.”
In Feldman-Horn 106, where Pacheco-Garcia teaches her Photography 1 class, the shelves are lined with art-filled books and memoirs told through photographs. Pacheco-Garcia said that teaching and reading these books made her realize that she too wants to publish something one day.
“I realized the value and importance of having [family] archives, and I’m using them as a starting point for me to think about who I am, who I’ve become and my culture,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “They’re really points of meditation for me to think about my relationship to all of those bigger themes of family and identity.”
42% of teens experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during their high school experience, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pacheco-Garcia said that teaching high school students made her realize how difficult those four years can be and how she can help others through them.
“The teen years are turbulent and hard, regardless of who you are or where you come from,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “I’ve found that by connecting with my students through art, it heals a part of me. I could have used a mentor and someone to connect with in that way, so I’m trying to be the person that I didn’t get to have in high school. I feel like now I’m someone to guide the way a little.”
Pacheco-Garcia said that the relationship between her and her students is reciprocal in that they inspire her as much as she hopes to inspire them.
“I take so much inspiration from my students,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “When I get depressed about the state of the world, the fact that I’m with teenagers gives me so much hope, so our relationship is reciprocal. I get as much out of it as hopefully they do.”
On March 2, 2023, a previous student of Pacheco-Garcia’s named Jordan Park ’25 took her life . Pacheco-Garcia said that Park was a student who had an immense impact on her and her life.
“The year I did [a camera obscura project] with Jordan’s class, we just had such a beautiful day,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “It’s one of those things where we left the space buzzing, we were so excited. And [Jordan] wrote me an email saying how meaningful that was, and so that experience was really special sharing that with her class. That year was painful because we lost someone, but [the community] was who I turned to when I needed solace.”
Pacheco-Garcia said the school has fostered a supportive environment where students feel that their voices are worthy of being heard.
“We form this little mini creative community within the arts,” Pacheco-Garcia said. “The emphasis that’s placed on real authentic connection, I take it at face value. I just want my students to feel comfortable in their own skins. Knowing that there’s an adult out there that feels like your story is interesting, and valid, worth telling, that’s who I want to be for them.”
