Next #Flyychat
Monday, November 23rd @ 8pm EST on Twitter!!
They Schools: Language, Culture and Power in Schools
Join me as I welcome expert educators Pam Jones, professor at Banks Street and NYU doctorate candidate, along with Renee K. Smith, Director of Operations and Digital Strategies at Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy. We will discuss how language, power and culture impact the educational experiences of Black and Latino students. Join the conversation!!!!
BIOS
Pam Jones is an Advisor and Instructor in the Special Education Department
at Bank Street College of Education. She graduated from Princeton University in
1993 with a degree in Politics and concentrations in Afro-American and Latin
American Studies. She later
graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs
with her Master in Public Administration (MPA) degree and worked as a policy
analyst researching issues ranging from welfare reform, health care, child
care, and education. Eventually,
her research took her into Head Start classrooms and it was in the midst of
that research that she realized she wanted to be working with the students as
their teacher as opposed to collecting field notes on what she’d observed. To facilitate this change in careers,
Pam attended and graduated from Bank Street College of Education with her
M.S.Ed. degree in childhood special and general education. Before joining the faculty at Bank
Street, Pam worked as a learning specialist for grades K and 1, as a 3rd
grade general education teacher in an inclusive setting, and as a 5th grade
teacher in a general education classroom. In addition, Pam served as Child
Study Coordinator for grades K-2. In
addition to her work as an Advisor and Instructor at the College, her
professional development work has included (but is not limited to) the
following: facilitating workshops at the Family Involvement Conference in
2013-14 & 2014-15 (where she presented workshops titled “Families as
Educational Partners” and “Families & Educators: Partners in the Referral
Process,” respectively); Bank Street College’s 9th Annual Language
Series (January 24
th, 2009) as a co-facilitator of a workshop
entitled “Before and After: How Differentiation Works”; consultant for the
Higher Education Disability Supports—Universal Design Principles (HEDS UP)
project, where
Pam worked with her colleagues to employ Universal Design for
Learning (UDL) and differentiated instruction approaches to revise course
materials and instruction to better meet the needs of graduate students;
co-facilitator of a series of workshops for the Early Childhood Assessment in
Mathematics (ECAM) in 2010-11; and in 2011,
Pam presented as a panelist at the
Congressional Black Caucus’s Annual Legislative Conference (i.e., “Ensuring
African American Students Get the Education They Deserve: Exploring
Differentiated Instruction as One Viable Approach to Combat One-Size-Fits-All
Education”). In addition to her
full-time work as a graduate instructor and advisor,
Pam is pursuing her
doctorate in critical family literacies at New York University
.
Over the last ten years, Renee K. Smith has
served in many capacities at Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy. Her roles
have included teaching artist in the dance and visual arts departments,
coordinator for the Cultural Arts Program, Arts Education Director
responsible for arts programming throughout the organization and Senior
Faculty Member empowered to share proven engagement techniques with new
faculty members as Ifetayo continued to divine it’s pedagogy through the
creation of the Rites of Passage Training Institute. During these
roles, she has had the amazing opportunity to sit and learn firsthand
from the Founder of Ifetayo, Kwayera Archer-Cunningham how to engage
youth and families in high quality arts and cultural programming that
would leave them transformed from each session. After completing at
least 200 hours of training in Ifetayo’s Rites of Passage Teacher
Training Institute, she understands the importance of developing great
educators through a process that includes reflective learning and how
this method of interaction with teachers correlates to high levels of
engagement of youth in the classroom.
Currently, Renee is the Director of Operations
& Digital Strategies responsible for developing and implementing
systems and technology that allows the organization to be efficient and
remain relevant to the needs of its community. She holds a Master’s of
Science in Non Profit Management from The Robert J. Milano Graduate
School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University and
completed her undergraduate degree at Hunter College of the City
University of New York in Dance Education. She has also received a
certificate from Columbia University Graduate School of Business from
the Middle Management Program. She has presented at New York State
Council on the Arts Summer Seminar, Brooklyn Arts Council Brooklyn
Consortium Events and Ifetayo’s Global Axe Conference in Brazil. As an
artist and educator, she has had the opportunity to travel around the
world which has included visiting Prague, Italy, Guinea, France, Cuba,
and Brazil. As Ifetayo continue to grow, it is her goal to grow with the
organization developing technological systems to document institutional
successes for future generations of Ifetayo community members.
