Jason Bush

Jason began his graduate studies in theater at Ohio State University, where he taught university courses while pursuing research focused on global theater and performance. His scholarship led him to Latin America, where he developed a specialization in Peruvian and Latin American theater and performance. Through multiple research trips to Peru, including a full year living there, Jason became proficient in Spanish and gained firsthand experience learning within a different cultural context—an experience that continues to shape how he teaches language, literature, and global perspectives.

After returning to Ohio to complete his dissertation work, Jason began teaching Spanish at the university level and quickly found a deep connection to language education. Drawing on communicative language teaching methods, he built engaging courses that helped students use Spanish as a living tool for connection and cultural exploration. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in performance studies at Stanford University, Jason transitioned into independent school education in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he continued teaching Spanish and expanded his work in curriculum development.

Jason eventually became the Spanish specialist at Khan Lab School, where he designed a research-based language program from the ground up. Through professional development in content-based language instruction and multiliteracies teaching, he developed a project-based approach that placed cultural inquiry and meaningful text creation at the center of learning—an approach that led to unusually high student retention in language courses.

In recent years, Jason has brought his expertise in project-based learning and textual interpretation into English language arts as well, teaching at Lydian Academy and School for Independent Learners. There, he helped shift ELA curriculum away from textbook-driven instruction toward inquiry-based study, where students explore cognitively engaging themes through fiction and nonfiction and respond by composing real-world, multimodal work that blends writing with design and technology skills.

Jason continues to deepen his practice through advanced coursework toward a single subject credential in both English language arts and languages other than English, as well as a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. He has also completed extensive professional development through programs including the Stanford World Language Project, the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition, Southern Oregon University’s Summer Language Institute, and California State University’s Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum.