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2019-2020 TAP Anthology

May 11, 2020
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  • Trainee Voices

Presenting the Graduates of the 2019-2020 Teaching Artist Project (TAP) Class. This anthology is a compilation of their work, experiences, and the fun we’ve all had together during this academic year.

Community-Word Project’s TAP is in its 22nd year and is the longest-standing professional development program open to the Teaching Artist field by a non-profit organization in New York City. TAP is a collective of diversely experienced arts educators training emerging and working teaching artists who are looking for a supportive community to engage in a self-reflective, justice-oriented learning practice in service of their teaching. The program prepares Teaching Artists to provide high-quality arts education to underserved youth in New York City public schools. The rigorous training involves intensive seminars in curriculum design and teaching techniques, led by CWP staff, Teaching Artists, and the TAP Cohort. During this yearlong training, participants gain invaluable classroom experience interning with mentor Teaching Artists, in both during-school and after-school multi-disciplinary collaborative arts residencies.

This year, like the rest of the world, TAP faced a challenging time during the outbreak of COVID-19. As we transitioned to digital learning both in the internships and training workshops, we faced the difficulty that the arts always do in times of crisis: making known why this work is so vital. However, our TAP trainees worked diligently and intentionally, even during the most difficult of moments. Their dedication to this work has inspired us all and we are so thrilled to graduate this group of artists. We know the arts education field will be better for it.

The 2019-20 class of 30 visual and media artists, writers, musicians, dancers, and theater artists learned how to transform creative processes into teaching tools, experimented with how to create lesson plans and teaching paths that meet city and state standards, explored Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, investigated their own power and privilege in the classroom, tried out a myriad of classroom culture strategies, developed co-teaching and partnership skills, incorporated inquiry and reflection in their lessons, and helped students create work, remembering to remain relevant to students’ lives and to create community.

Special Thanks

TAP is made possible through the generous support of New York State Council on the Arts, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The Wiley Fund, The Dan Paul Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Trust, the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation, the TD Charitable Foundation, and the Endeavor Foundation.

TAP Staff & Facilitators

CWP Staff

A special thanks to this year’s CWP Mentors.

CWP Mentor Teaching Artists:

Special thanks to all of our arts-in-education partners who make up the TAP Cohort and helped make this year a unique collaboration. This year, we were able to offer over 30 collaborative elective seminars facilitated and hosted by various arts organizations.

These series of professional development seminars and panels were available to Teaching Artists outside of TAP and that was made possible by the collaborative efforts of CWP and the following organizations:

Over the year, our TAP trainees participated in a series of workshops, seminars and residencies to complete their internship. The fall workshops were dedicated to creative elements, scaffolding and presenting lessons, reflection and assessment, classroom management, exploring social justice in the classroom, exploring philosophy and pedagogy, and creating philosophical statements. In the spring, TAP held a series of elective seminars in collaboration with the TAP Cohort, and each trainee was placed in a CWP residency at various schools throughout NYC, including:

  • PS 132 Juan Pablo Duarte, Washington Heights
  • PS 132X Garret A. Morgan
  • PS/MS 279 Captain Manuel Rivera, Bronx
  • PS 84 Jose De Diego, Brooklyn
  • PS 316 Elijah Stroud, Brooklyn
  • PS 171 Peter G. Van Alst School
  • IS 126 Albert Shanker School of Visual & Performing Arts
  • PS 85 Judge Charles Vallone, Queens The Young Women’s Leadership School, Queens
  • Bronx Community High School
  • Bronx Envision Academy
  • New Directions Secondary School
  • PS 37 Multiple Intelligence School

In celebration of their creativity, we are sharing each TAP graduate’s work and artistry in this anthology. This compilation includes biographies, memorable moments, photographs, quotes, lesson plans, artistic samples, and more to give you a full picture of their accomplishments this year.

A Letter from the TAP Facilitators:

Dear TAP Class of 2020,

Congratulations! You are all now TAP Alums! Thank you for your dedication to completing the training and being an active member of our community in the midst of a global pandemic. The last few months have been unexpectedly brutal and yet it’s been one of our best years in the program. That is largely due to each of you bringing your full, beautiful selves to our time together. You see each other and your students in a way that we need more of in this world: the conviction that communities can and must be more inclusive, equitable and loving. We have watched you grow as artists and educators, and we are so proud to graduate this class.

From intrapersonal journaling to dynamic discussions in your Care Teams, lesson plan presentations to making human machines, you’ve made our Saturdays so fun and loving. We hope that you are taking away as much as we are from this year. We are living in unprecedented times and we do not know how this pandemic will change the country and shift the landscape of teaching artistry. We do know that teaching artists are invaluable during times of extreme grief, injustice and uncertainty, and so the work you have done and will continue to do is vital. Thank you for making the time and space to do this work. Through your eagerness to grow and make a difference in this world, we are renewed in our hope for the future.

Please keep in touch. The TAP community is always here for you, whenever you need it. It has been a privilege for us all to work with you this year.

With love and community,

Katie, Karla, Jay, Amanda, Andre & Adriana

Presenting the 2019-20 TAP Graduating Class! Click on their names below to find out more about them.

“We Must Remember”

A Collaborative Poem inspired by Audre Lorde

We must practice self love in order to go on

I am forgetting to really take myself seriously

I must remember who I am and how important my dream is

We must express how we feel in order to go on

I am forgetting my purpose

I must remember

I am forgetting the difference between “I can’t do everything “ and “I can’t do anything”

I must remember

We must close our eyes and listen deep in order to go on

I am forgetting to listen to my silence

I must remember

I am forgetting the connection between my body and my mind

I must remember

We must connect to our whole selves in order to go on

We must walk, not run, alongside others in order to go on

We have a long way to go

We must be very strong and passionate in order to go on

looking for opportunities as Teaching Artists during this pandemic

We must take our time and breath deeply

in order to help our head and feelings

without letting it overwhelm us

We must imagine in order to go on

I am forgetting to hope

We must remember

We must enjoy the bite of the unpeeled fruit we’re holding

In order to go on we must feel the drops of rain

smile at the flowers and caress the grass in order to go on

I am forgetting the flames of passion in my heart

I must remember

We must honor the moment in order to go on

I must continue to dream

I am forgetting to have fun

I am forgetting resilience will outlast this moment in time

I must remember

We must look at the sun, the birds, the flowers just blooming in order to go on

I am forgetting I’m part of this cycle

I must remember

I am forgetting our great big promise is to our Mother nature,

not work contracts, not the government, not the machine

I must remember

We must be compassionate with ourselves to go on

I’m forgetting that you don’t need to change the way you are to fit in society standards

I must remember

The 2019-20 TAP Anthology was designed by Katie Rainey.

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