Located on a quiet corner in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, P.S. 84 Jose De Diego School’s facade displayed a handsome mural as befits an educational institution dedicated to the visual arts. A vibrant mosaic shone behind the security desk where I sign in each time I arrive for my classroom experience. I was assigned to a third-grade class with Phillip Berezney and Phyllis Capello as the Teaching Artists. We started off with a Maori chant that also engaged the students’ b

On October 28th, the first day of the 2017-18 Teaching Artist Project (TAP) training, the Community-Word Project facilitators asked my cohort of 30+ multi-disciplinary artists: When is the first time you shared your art? What can’t you create without? What do you want your art to do? After posing the aforementioned questions, the facilitators asked us to free write about our artist map. A few individuals shared. We continued on with the day as our facilitators guided us throu

When I first started the Teaching Artist Project training, it was quite the eye-opening experience. Using the arts to teach, and incorporating them into lesson plans, has led me to notice how students learn. They are excited and eager to participate, it brings the spark and ignites their drive to learn. As a result, it leaves them exploring on their own, and - more importantly - learning with each other. The way TAP works is that they train both new and experienced teachers t

I’m a performance artist – I turn the irritants of my life into dance/theatre work. You could say I am part oyster and part cat. Oyster because I attempt to make pearls, part cat just because. For me, a large part of the TAP process is learning to turn my work as an artist into lessons. It’s as if I took an idea for a piece and got inside it so as to create a map for the journey, keeping the steps concrete and transparent enough to take the whole class with me. Just like my p