NYU ART+EDUCATION CERTIFICATION

NYC DoE

Inviting Risk: Building school community by centering the social and political realities of NYC students

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ItAG Participants: Jovanny Leon, María Molina, Annie Yoo

The purpose of our itAG “Inviting Risk: Building School Community by Centering the Social and Political realities of New York City Students” is to raise awareness of the social and political realities of young marginalized people enrolled in NYC DOE school communities in the contemporary world. Implementing a multicultural/anti-racist curriculum will allow students to build upon their identities and clarity of their roots with the result of preparing students for modern society. We believe that there must be a structural shift in how schools build community and how they treat and include incoming immigrant students. We name the art classroom as sacred; a space where students of marginalized identities can share stories and experiences and disrupt the “fear of not knowing”. We acknowledge the art classroom as having a vital role in modifying curricular approaches and strategies to be inclusive of students’ cultural backgrounds and needs (i.e.: linguistically, academically, etc). We are a group of future art teachers who are immigrants/or belong to immigrant families residing in NYC learning to center the experiences and lives of our students in the classroom.

“Inviting Risk” in this project is defined as an invitation that is fostered in the classroom to create a space where authentic learning is occurring where the fear of “messing up” for both the students and the teacher is slowly becoming diminished. Both students and teachers are “taking risk” in learning with one another and learning from each other when embracing home life and student experiences.

In our itAG, we use photovoice as one of the many strategies to uplift students who are both new and accustomed to NYC DOE school communities. By using photovoice, we are using it as a tool for social change. With the responses of our students, in addition to their photography, we are hoping to prove a relationship between home and school and the value of inviting “Risk”. As a group, we want to emphasize the importance, now more than ever, of incorporating our student’s lives and experiences into the classroom and the school culture. 

We created a website to demonstrate to future teachers, current teachers, and admin what students are saying and to create a toolkit to enact change within the classroom, and the school community at large! This website and toolkit includes a description of our itAG, about us, what NYC DOE community members can do, Photovoice resources, a bibliography, and our process.

Screenshot of Inviting Risk website

Flyer with QR Code: Taking Risks

Class Size Policy and Practices: A Public Performance

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ItAG Participants: Rebecca Maric, Melissa Quizhpe, Stephanie Wan

Our inquiry topic centered on the effects of class size policies in New York City public schools, driven by our shared identities as former students and student teachers within the NYC Department of Education. We each chose this topic because of its negative impact on students in the educational system. Our research process involved brainstorming sessions, researching academic literature, and examining artistic strategies and tactics. This led us to develop an action research project near Astor Place subway station, where we aimed to engage the public in dialogue about class size experiences. Our artistic action involved interactive questions to people passing by. By utilizing visual aids, such as chalk and posters, we drew attention to the issue and had meaningful conversations with individuals who are either current students, former students, partners, and teachers. As future art educators we hope that this project will serve us and many others as a starting point to change class size policy. We encourage others to join us in advocating for students and as we raise more awareness we will listen to the ones most affected. 

Screenshot of presentation: photograph and description of performance proposalScreenshot of presentation: photos of brainstorming materials and artist inspirationScreenshot of presentation: photographs of preparing for the performanceScreenshot of presentation: image of resources shared about class size policiesScreenshot of presentation: Image of surveyScreenshot of presentation: photos of performance (Site 1)Screenshot of presentation: photos of performance (Site 2)Screenshot of presentation: Interactive questionnaire examples       

Student Mental Wellness: The Heartfelt Teaching Project

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ItAG Participants: Heather Brody,  Emily Nodell, Skylar Spitaleri

Screenshot of website with project description and logo
Heartfelt Teaching Project: https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/the-heartfelt-teaching-project/home

Mental wellness has a significant impact on both academic achievement and the general learning environment in schools. More attention has been drawn to the topic of mental health in recent years due to the extreme need for additional support in educational settings. Mental health initiatives are gaining traction as educational institutions prioritize the emotional and psychological needs of their students. Students need a space to process their experiences, reflect on the lasting effects of the pandemic, and look deeper into the influence of social media. Social-emotional learning through art is a gateway for students to understand themselves and the world around them and process the traumas that still have a hold on them. Not only are they able to reflect on their own mental health through art, but they can share their feelings with others who may have had similar experiences. Art serves as an outlet to give students a creative way to express their emotions, reflect, discover themselves, and connect with others. This ItAG invites you to inquire how art can be utilized by students as an effective outlet to help themselves as individuals but also shed light on the growing need for mental health awareness for all. 

As individuals, we each have our own experience with the need for mental health support in school settings. This comes from our school experience and the lack of attention and transparency when it comes to topics of mental health. This drew us to inquire about how things might have changed, or not changed since we were in high school. 

One creative tactic that inspired our work is developing a sense of “communal meaning.” From the beginning of this research project our intention was to diminish the stigma surrounding mental health and show students and teachers that they are not alone on this journey. We looked at the Subway Therapy project and it’s use of post-its as inspiration to gather information from students using Google Jamboard so they could share how they feel anonymously for others to see and relate. For our final action, we created a website: The Heartfelt Teaching Project to share information and resources with other art teachers and build a sense of community in navigating student’s well-being in the classroom. This is a topic all teachers face, and providing resources for art teachers can make a great impact by showing students that they can use art as an emotional outlet. 

Screenshot of website with QR code

One goal we have for our action is to reach as many art teachers as possible. We want the resources we gathered and lessons we created to help teachers who are unsure how to help students with mental wellness, and in turn, help students feel more comfortable in the classroom. We also hope that this action will inspire teachers to take mental wellness into account in the classroom more often by doing check-ins and offering activities to help them de-stress during difficult times. Finally, we hope to build a community by sharing this with others through online platforms such as Facebook and share information and ideas with other art teachers. So far our website has received all positive feedback from different Facebook groups in which we shared it. 

Screenshot of Facebook page Photograph of a hand holding a group of stickers with QR codes

Restoring Voices Zine

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Research and Final Project Spring 2023 ItAG: Restorative Justice and Students at Risk

ItAG members: Rae Powers, Clare Eunbi Cho, Mayumi Tan, Antonella Damelio 

Disciplinary approaches vary from school to school, but research shows that punitive disciplinary actions are prevalent across NYC Public schools. These policies negatively affect students on mental health, overall well-being, academic performance, and their relationship with the school. In addition, they disproportionately affect Black and Brown students, who are more likely to be suspended, expelled, and arrested for minor offenses compared to their white peers, ultimately leading them through a pipeline to the criminal justice system (González, 2012).  The inequalities that BIPOC and low-income students receive for funding, support, and over-policing reinforce racial and economic imbalances and perpetuate the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

As a response, our group looks towards Restorative Justice and its compassionate humanizing practices that look away from harm and punishment, and deeply considers the support and accountability for harm with people directly involved (Project Nia, 2021). This provides an alternative route to addressing discipline in schools. Art can play a critical role in this process as it can be used to help explore emotions, thoughts, and perspectives that help us build empathy through the sharing of experiences. Restoring Voices, a zine made in collaboration with students, faculty and staff around NYC, hopes to explore the ways in which restorative practices can be applied in schools to foster a sense of community that directly supports students and addresses their needs. Restoring Voices, aims to elevate student experiences and help restore power to the voices that matter most, the students. 


Research methods for this project included: Interviewing student led restorative justice circles, interviewing deans and practitioners of restorative justice, running group writing reflections on school experience with students, Photovoice: Mapping Student Experience, power mapping with teachers/faculty/staff, & student/faculty/staff surveys.

Download a copy of the Restoring Voices Zine

The Art [Ed.] of Wellness Podcast

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Research and Final Project Spring 2023 ItAG: Teacher Wellness

ItAG members: Janice Quiles-Reyes, Marianne Vormer, Vila Gao

Teacher burnout is a continuous conversation that is happening among educators everywhere. As an ItAG group, we were interested in looking at the different elements that lead to burnout, as well as resources and support for educators. We specifically looked at mental health, general responsibilities for teachers, and the increased stress with a lack of administrative support that teachers are experiencing. We also wanted to hear advice that current teachers have for new teachers entering the DOE to help subside some of this burnout. 

There are several reasons why our group wanted to focus on teacher wellness. As new art teachers about to enter the profession, it’s helpful to know what it’s like to be a teacher; questions such as the responsibilities, workload, and support from the community are just some of the things that we centered our conversations around. After learning about the burnout that teachers are experiencing, it was also essential to learn how teachers can actually work to overcome this burnout. Through research and interviews, our group was able to compile short podcast episodes that break down teacher wellness into the following episodes: teacher burnout, self-care rituals, and advice for new teachers. The podcast is meant to be supportive and helpful to new art teachers specifically, although new teachers in any subject area can benefit. Our team hopes that the podcast can inspire and shed some light on the profession as a whole, as well as prepare teachers for the role they are entering. 

Screenshot of Spotify page featuring the Art[Ed] of Wellness podcast with abstract visual.

https://open.spotify.com/show/0gGZxoIBwILSurxzWemNgw?si=68a61cb2351744df

We invite all those who listen to the podcast to record a sound bite or write a comment that connects back to our topic and can help generate a conversation around teacher wellness overall: https://www.videoask.com/fd7d1tsbu

Teacher wellness is a topic that everyone in the NYC Department of Education should be talking about, and we hope that this podcast not only serves as a resource for new teachers but also as a starting point for voicing concerns and opinions centering on teacher wellness.

What Choice? Unpacking How School Choice Leads to School Segregation

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Who has the power to choose in the most racially segregated school system in the US?

Research and Final Project in Art+Education by: Brianna Racoosin, Erin Reid, and Bernardo Siatong 

For our culminating graduate work for the Art+Education program in Spring 2022, we focused our energies on how we could make a critical intervention into school segregation in New York City, one of the most racially segregated school systems in the United States. In particular, through our research we became invested in exploding the myth that School Choice creates a fair and equitable high school education in New York City. Rather, we understand that the policy of School Choice exacerbates segregation and contributes to deep inequities across the many high schools in NYC. This seemingly colorblind policy is steeped in the values of neoliberal racial capitalism and does not adequately serve the students of NYC.

Motivated by our research, we began developing a connection with the youth-led activist organization IntegrateNYC. Through this organizational partnership, we thought about how we might be able to uplift the perspectives of student activists who have the greatest stake in advocating for a better and more just school system. By leaning about IntegrateNYC’s expertise and direct experiences within the system, and contributing our skill set as artists and educators, we developed a workshop series implementing the artist-activist process of visual mapping that serves to visualize some of the harms of School Choice and segregation on youth.

We turned our research into a toolkit for activists, educators, and youth. This toolkit offers background history and context on the connections between School Choice and segregation in NYC, as well as a workshop series implementing the artist-activist process of counter-mapping. Through these activities, our goal is to help participants visualize some of the impacts of School Choice and segregation.

You can download the toolkit from this website:

https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/unpackingschoolsegregation

Image of toolkit cover and title. The text in the image reads: What Choice? Unpacking how school choice leads to school segregation with an image of a student backpackImage is a handdrawn image of a web if topics as a table of contents

As pre-service artist educators, we are invested in building towards a more liberatory and just future for the students of New York City. We envision a future in which students and families have equitable access to opportunity and a reliably strong public school system. We hope that participants who utilize this toolkit can help us grow an archive of activist counter-maps that together tell a powerful collective story which can be used to advocate for change.

Hand drawn visual map of East Village and Bushwick in New York City with streets and buildings Hand drawn visual map that includes visual symbols about school and identity including a bascketball, drawing of a hand, money sign Hand drawn map using X and Y axes to show relationships between power and oppression, limitations and opportunityScreen shot of a classroom with people holding up images of personal maps

The Pink Slip Project

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BIPOC students are disproportionately suspended in U.S. schools. During the pandemic, in-school suspensions have dipped while out of school suspensions have continued to steadily rise. Once school returns to in-person, students will continue to be unjustly punished in school. Ideally, school should be a place of learning and growth. Suspensions stand in the way of that goal, actively taking students away from their education and failing to provide them with the support they need to thrive.


A public performance in a park. People dressed in pink with a large bulletin board saying 'Suspended'

The Pink Slip Project: Avalon Kenny, Molly Rutledge, Mary Anderson, Zoe Stern

In an attempt to unveil the reality of this unjust system, The Pink Slip Project included a public performance/intervention using pink suspension slips and a QR code linking to online resources. This is  participatory “installation” had multiple methods of engaging the public and encouraging reflection and action to address the inequities surrounding public school suspensions and their implementation. Bright pink slips made people curious about the information we were sharing and interested in participating. Passersby could sit in a typical school desk to fill out their own pink slips sharing a personal experience of school suspension or to learn more. Participants also helped identify alternatives for suspensions by writing ideas on the suspension slips and  in chalk and used our desk installation to share their own stories.  Throughout the day, each of the Pink Slip Project collaborators were talking to people about their stories and engaging in dialogue and advocacy for more just suspension methods including discussing restorative justice methods and other alternatives to suspension.

Image of a bulletin board with many pink slips attached to it. The top of the board says "Suspended"A detail of a 'pink slip' suspension card from the bulletin board

There is also a more anonymous and student led side of this project. Pink Slip Project collaborators worked with New York City high school students to create the materials for the installation and conducted a series of interviews and focus groups to  archive their voices and experiences with suspension. These high school perspectives were integral to designing the public performance piece at Washington Square Park. 

Screenshot of the project taken from Instagram. A woman sits at a school desk in front of a board that says 'Suspended' A Gif file includes 4 images of women dressed in pink sitting at a school desk in front of a bulletin board that says 'Suspended'

Image of posters that are on the ground. They include statistics and pie charts describing suspension rates in New York City