Teach the Teaching Artists

This grant will support the development and implementation of a formal training process for Town Hall’s teaching artists. Town Hall wants to improve its Educational Outreach Program, which provides arts education to New York City public school students. Town Hall staff work with school administrators to develop a curriculum that is tailored to the needs of the specific site, and the resulting program is delivered by a teaching artist in collaboration with the classroom teacher. Half of Town Hall’s teaching artists have no experience teaching in New York City public schools, which makes it difficult for them to engage with staff at partner sites, hampers their ability to craft lessons that align with standards, and leads to challenges with classroom management. To address this, Town Hall will hire consultants to develop and run workshops for teaching artists, which will focus on classroom management skills, alignment of lesson plans to New York State Common Core standards, and communication with school staff.