Teacher/Artist

Name of Event: Teacher/Artist
Organizer and Location of Event: Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute
Amount of Hours: 2hrs

After getting a bunch of emails on professional development event, I finally found something that truly interested me. This professional development workshop was made for teaching artist, and as an artist myself (dancer) I was really intrigued by it. I was anticipating to learn on different ways to include this type of art and others also in the classroom. Also it was free; and that is always a motivation. I got to the Caribbean Culture Center/ African Diaspora Institute, around Columbus Circle, exactly 30 mns before the workshop started. Just by the look of the place, the art on the wall, the goods they were selling in the shop, I felt that my evening was going to be interesting. I sat on a seat and was greeted by this man, that would be the facilitator of the workshop. A couple of people started coming in, and by 6:30 pm there was a great amount of people and the workshop started.

We started off by giving libation to our ancestor. The way we went about this was by pouring water in to a plant, which was said to be a living animated object, and saying the names of the ancestors; the facilitator would pour water in to the plant little by little after each name is called out. Once a name is call out, as the water is being poured, the group of people giving the libations would say "Ashe" meaning and Hebrew saying "let it be so and so it is". I thought this opening was very interesting, and I felt that it gave us the right energy to start off the workshop.

So the premise of the workshop, according to the facilitator, was to focus of cultivating the teacher/artist. Its goal was to identity virtue, morals, values, etc.. of who we are as teaching artists and align ourselves with the vision we have for ourselves as educators. Overall, the workshop was all about self-reflection and thinking on our views and philosophy of teaching, through arts and in general.

The workshop was constructed around this unit, the Nia Driven Unit: An Artist/Educators Guide to Staying Aligned with Their True Artist/Teaching Voice. The purpose of this activity was in order for us to start thinking about how we would go about keeping our "true voice". This was viewed as the passage of an artist educator's journey.

The way we were asked to do this was by feeling out several prompts, given to us on paper) as we introduced ourselves to the community of people. The three prompts we asked to answer were the following: 1) Illustrate or present symbols that have significant meaning to your purpose as an educator. Explain. 2) Identify the Ancestors that you feel are essential to your journey as an educator during this passage. Explain. 3) What statement(s), affirmation(s), or quote(s) will guide your instruction for this unit?

We were given about 7 mns to complete these prompts and then started the introductions and sharing process. By this time more people had come in to the meeting and we were about 20-25 people. The first few people went on for about 2-3 mns each, some more or less. At some point the facilitator pointed out that we should try to keep it about a minute just for the sake of time; however some people still went on longer; which I felt hurt the workshop. I will elaborate later.

During the introductions, all of the people had great things to say. It was great to have real people on the field sharing their ideas and views on how the go about their teaching and what they think are important factors they always have to have as teacher. It was very clear to me, that all of them were really student centered and did their work for the sake of their student. This notion of reaching out to the students, giving them the tools to find their voice (which was in great connection with the theme of the workshop) seemed to flow throughout everyone's ideas. I connected a lot of many of these teaching artist. I appreciated it, because I felt that all the things that I am learning right now in class as I am writing my philosophy and constructing meaning to what it is to be a multicultural teacher, can sometimes seem to be cliche and just plain theories. But being around these teachers that have been teaching for some time now, and hearing what they had to say about their experience, kind of put these theories in to practice. It was just great to see that the things that I want to be able to do as a teacher, are being done by teachers already (outside of those that I read about in class), and therefore attainable by me.

Although I learned a lot during the introduction process, I felt that it took more time than needed. As I mentioned before, I felt that it hurt the workshop. People were taking longer than one minute, so with about 20 or more people having to talk, we took about an 45 mns to an hour for the introduction. We only got the chance to do one more activity; the chart paper and markers that the facilitator had brought in with him, never got the chance to be used. I was very curious to know what he had planned for us, but we never got the time for it.

However, the one activity we did before closing was very interesting. Three volunteer were asked to demonstrate something that they would do in the classroom, in relation to what we discussed during the first part of the workshop. One of the volunteers did some singing with us; he would say the line and we would repeat. The song, a folk song, was in Creole, as he was from Haiti (represent), and the words were a call to bring the community together and working towards the same purpose. The other volunteer another Haitian lady who's a photographer, talk to us about an activity she does with her students; she would ask them to go back in their old family albums and pick out some pictures. The idea behind her activity, is to get the students to know where you came from, in order to understand where you are going. I volunteer to demonstrate an activity that is done as a closing in our integrated seminar class; "I put my hand in your hands because I care and I recognize your strength."

The facilitator ended the workshop by reciting a poem. It was in interactive poem where the listeners would response by saying 4 lines when ever the speaker would put his fist up. The following was the 4 lines we had to respond: "Sharpen your eyes, Tune your ears, So you know what you see, Understand what you hear."

After that the facilitator asked for any suggestion that could make this workshop better as it is done once every month. A lot of people shared their thoughts and ideas. After that people did some networking. I really enjoyed this workshop. I learned from these people in a different way for each and everyone of them; and that I appreciated.