P.S. ARTS has lead a series of training sessions recently designed to inspire and teach educators skills and new techniques for the new school year. Here is our Associate Director of Educator Development, Jaime Reichner, sharing information about our recent trainings, including TASI and Arts Integration Coaching.
It’s been a busy Summer in the Educator Development department. In addition to our annual Summer Teaching Artist Seasonal Intensive (TASI) and Full Faculty PD workshops, we added two additional training sessions for Teaching Artists including an Arts Integration Coach training.
Our “Spring” TASI was designed to meet the growing need for Classroom Studio programming in the Paramount and Hawthorne school districts. This session was uniquely designed to prepare Teaching Artists to go directly into a Classroom Studio 10-week visual arts residency. In response to the increased number of TK classes, we added a new session focusing on Early Childhood Education strategies. Donzell Lewis, P.S. ARTS’ Curriculum and Instruction Specialist led trainees through best practices for offering “voice and choice” to early learners.
We also began a new partnership with Think Together. Our Extended Learning department, led by Lui Sanchez serves students in the after school and summer space. It has long been our desire to expand our Teaching Artist training programs beyond LA County. After a few months of visioning, brainstorming, and collaboration, we held our inaugural P.S. ARTS x Think Together TASI in San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga. We brought 9 new Teaching Artists from these regions onto our faculty after a 2-week intensive and 5-week practicum, where they taught summer programming for students at Los Amigos ES in the Cucamonga School District. Under the direction of Lui Sanchez, P.S. ARTS Director of Extended Learning, we are thrilled to continue to serve students in expanded geographic regions this fall!
In early June, Jasmine Jackson, P.S. ARTS’ Senior Program Manager of Educator Development led the team through an Arts Integration Coach Training. Ten artists and educators (many from our existing faculty) participated in a two-week training covering arts integration lesson planning and facilitation as well as an exploration of what it means to coach and support adult learners. The training culminated with demo arts integration lessons aligning core subject standards with theater, dance, music and visual arts standards.
In July, we welcomed 19 new participants to our Teaching Artist SUMMER Intensive. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to hold this training on-site at the Children’s Institute campus. Through our hybrid training model, participants experienced cross-disciplinary model lessons, completed our online training course, engaged in rich and inspiring dialogue around best practices in the arts classroom and taught a “demo” lesson to their peers.
This was our 3rd Summer TASI and the feedback continues to support the need for this type of training that increases access for both seasoned and new-to-the-classroom artist educators.
And finally, in August we held our annual Full Faculty Summer PD. This year, we were able to expand the training from two to three days, which allowed us to increase our offerings to our teaching artists and coaches. All three days included workshops, model lessons, lesson visioning, “think tanks”, and collaborative art-making centered around our 24-35 theme, “Come As You Are: The Art of Belonging.”
We kicked off the training with a Keynote Address from Sterling de Stutter Summerville and a “fireside chat” with artist Matt Maxey whose artistry includes the use of ASL in Hip-Hop. Matt’s (deafinitelydope.org) focus on accessibility and inclusion provided a beautiful catalyst that planted an inspired seed for our staff and faculty that carried through the entire training. We are so grateful to Sterling for introducing us to Matt and for his continued and invaluable support of P.S. ARTS (Sterling volunteers on both our Arts Advisory Board and DEIB Committee).
A personal highlight of the training was on Day 3, when inspired by our theme song: You Belong (written by our incredibly talented Music TA Otieno Stephens-Terry), the faculty sang and signed in ASL lyrics from the song, choreographed a “flash mob” to “Freedom” inspired by our Dance anchor work: #InfiniteInclusion by Axis Dance Company and our Music anchor artist Jon Batiste, shared a spoken word performance in over half a dozen languages, and created a collaborative “quilt” representing community and belonging.
As I enter my 10th year working with P.S. ARTS, I continue to be amazed by our staff and faculty’s talents, dedication, and commitment to our mission. It was an incredible (and exhausting) summer that I know will carry us into the new school year ready to serve our communities.
Thank you, Jaime! To learn more about our Educator Development offerings, including our trainings, please visit psarts.org/programs/educator-development.
