THE CENTER FOR ARTS EDUCATION

The 2nd Annual CITASI, a three day professional development summer institute for NYC middle and high school educators, was held on August 11th-13th, 2008. Educators including career counselors, teachers, librarians, and internship coordinators were encouraged to put themselves in their students’ shoes while engaging in activities that parallel the Career Development Program’s Boot Camp, a two week intensive geared towards preparing selected high school students for internships in arts organizations in NYC. Boot Camp-like activities included a Q & A with an arts professionals panel on employer expectations within the creative world, strategies to activate the CDP curriculum using themes such as self-assessment and career exploration, creative group research presentations on specific careers in the arts, mock interviews with CDP alumni, and team building activities inspired by theater practitioner Augusto Boal. Participants also learned ways to create a careers/arts-related action plan and gained tips for becoming informed facilitators and coaches within their own internship/career education programs. Highlights from the institute included a behind-the-scenes tour of the New Amsterdam Theatre, which culminated in a performance of Mary Poppins. Participants completed the institute with a renewed sense of energy as one educator stated, “Thank you for restoring and reviving my enthusiasm for teaching and learning as the time approaches to reenter the classroom!”

Date: February 1, 2008
Time: 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
The three School Arts Support Initiative (SASI) grantees will be offered opportunities to come together and share their work. This event is taking place to offer guidance to grantees as they integrate high-quality arts based learning and teaching into their arts education programming. Topics to be discussed include evaluation and assessment, updates on programming, as well as a chance to see MS 223’s arts programming in action. Click HERE for more information.