Youth Work:
I was still a teenager when I got my first job as an educator- I was hired to teach literacy in a public school in Brooklyn, NY. I saw that students felt alienated by the ways English & Language Arts were taught- as if the ways they had learned to express themselves were "wrong" and my job was to teach them what was "right." That was not a paradigm I was interested in upholding, so I began to host lunchtime Creative Expression Sessions where students could celebrate the languages and cultural forms of expression they were raised with. This built trust and common ground, and allowed us to look at how learning academic languages might be of use in their lives. From this place of mutual respect, students could choose to participate in English & Language Arts lessons because it would enrich, rather than replace, the many ways they already expressed themselves. The students involved in Creative Expression Sessions showed significant improvement in academic work and classroom participation, and my job became alot easier and more fulfilling. From there I began to facilitate spoken word poetry and hip-hop cyphers as part of Lyricist Lounge's "MeeWee Productions," creating safe spaces for young people to build relationships with each other and share their artistic voices in their school and home communities. These experiences, along with my work as an artist/ctivist inspired my focus at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study- "Community Empowerment and Creative Culture." After I graduated I was hired to coordinate Make the Road New York's "Youth Power Project," leading arts-based campaigns around park space, environmental racism, ending military recruitment in the schools, and re-humanizing Bushwick youth in the eyes of local police officers. From there I continued to work with various community-based organizations and teaching artist agencies, facilitating arts-based workshops to support young people as empowered and engaged members of their communities. I have had the opportunity to travel out of the country with this work several times, facilitating cultural exchange with young people from the US and abroad. In 2003 I brought 8 youth artist/activists from Make the Road New York to Vieques, Puerto Rico to do a cultural exchange and support the rebuilding of community spaces that housed the movement against military occupation of the island. Then in 2006, I traveled with UMCOR to facilitate a dance exchange in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with youth whose families had been displaced by conflict in Chechnya and Abkhazia. In 2010 I traveled to Mexico to facilitate a movement exchange through Machincuepa's Circo Social youth program in the community of Las Aguilas, Mexico City. |
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Work with Adults:
Since 2010 I have had the honor of working with The Leadership Program to facilitate professional development workshops for teachers and administrators throughout the NYC Public Schools. My professional development work is in the areas of Arts Integration, Restorative Justice & Restorative Practices, Conflict Management, Culturally Responsive Education, Mindfulness in the Classroom, and Self-Care Practices for Teachers. I am also part of a NY City Council initiative to integrate Restorative Justice practices into school culture at Academy for Young Writers, a middle and high school in East New York, Brooklyn. My first experience working with adults was in 2005, when I toured with a series of performances and creative empowerment workshops called "We Got Issues!" We worked in diverse settings from prisons to universities to domestic violence shelters, to empower women to raise their voices about the issues most important to them. The common denominator between all the spaces we worked in was that adults, as much as any youth I'd ever worked with, were in need of safe spaces to express themselves and engage with their communities. We used an arts-based approach to personal and community empowerment, working with these women to lift up the voices and perspectives that had been unheard. As this project drew to a close I began to develop The 6 Project, a series of performances and workshops that explored how race and identity can shape our perspective. I toured with the project to 12 US cities, engaging over 2000 people in dialogue around racial justice and racial healing. The project was hosted by professional theater venues as well as colleges and universities, conferences, and community organizations, including the CODEPINK House in Washington DC on the eve of President Obama's Inauguration. In 2009 I facilitated a workshop on "Authentic Community Engagement" for the Bioneers Conference, and led Restorative Circles for the Liberty Science Center's "RACE" Exhibit. In 2010 I lead a day-long institute at the White Privilege Conference with my colleague Ariel Luckey on how to build upon family stories to open dialogue around racial justice and racial healing. Over the past decade I have also lead workshops at Columbia University, Brown University, Sarah Lawrence College, UMASS Amherst, Insight Meditation Society, CORE Dance, The Brecht Forum, American Jewish World Service, and in many other spaces for learning and growth. I offer adult ed workshops in the following areas: For Educators - Engaging Youth through the Arts - Culturally Responsive Education - Restorative Practice in Schools (Tiers 1, 2 and 3) - Civic Engagement and Experiential Learning - Mindfulness Practice for Educators For Artists - Cultural Literacy & Accountability for Artists - Authentic Community Engagement for Artists - Mindfulness Practice for Artists - Self-Care & Sustainability for Artists - An Arts-based Approach to Social Change - An Embodied Approach to Social Change - Performance as Ritual for Racial Healing - Documentary Theater for Racial Healing For Activists - Mindfulness Practice for Activists - Acknowledging & Leveraging Privilege - Diversity & Cultural Literacy Practices - An Arts-based Approach to Social Change - An Embodied Approach to Social Change - Performance as Ritual for Racial Healing - Documentary Theater for Racial Healing |