Nurturing Experimental Spaces for Learning and Making

**NOTE NEW DATE**

Explore approaches for making space, both inside and out of the classroom, that encourage creative exploration and support new and risk-taking practice.

In two related workshops on January 28 and February 3 March 14, we will examine collaborative art making projects that nurture our ability to address critical issues through our creative practice and classroom spaces.

FREE, but space is limited. Please register in advance. Teachers, teaching artists, and other arts education advocates are welcome to attend one or both sessions. CPDUs will be provided.

Questions? Contact Michael Christiano, mchristiano@uchicago.edu, 773.702.2351.

Master Class

Saturday, January 28, 2017, 9:30am–12:30pm
Arts Incubator, 2nd Floor Flex Space, 301 E Garfield Blvd

During our first highly interactive workshop, classroom educator and community arts worker Lavie Raven will share his Boldly Braided curricular pedagogy. Educators will learn how to collaboratively create community project proposals, classroom curricula, and experiential lessons that integrate unconventional arts and social issues.

About the presenter
Lavie Raven is a social studies and language arts instructor at North Lawndale College Preparatory HS (a Chicago high school), and the Prime-Minister of Education for the University of Hip-Hop. Having taught in the Chicago public school system for twenty years and done community arts work since he was a teenager, Raven has created strategies for integrating hip-hop into community service projects and classroom education. He has worked with youth on many community hip-hop arts programs and social justice projects, for groups such as Habitat for Humanity, Pogranicze (Borderlands Project), Alternatives community center, the Southwest Youth Collaborative, the Chicago Park District, the University of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, and numerous other organizations. Raven has also done community mural projects in Sejny, Poland; Liberia, Costa Rica; Oakland, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; Aleut Bay, British Columbia; and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. He is presently completing his doctorate in interdisciplinary studies at Teacher’s College at Columbia University, researching the impacts of hip-hop education and the integration of alternative arts on community development guided by youth centered curricula.

Note new date:

Learn and Share Day

Friday, February 3, 2017, 9:30am–12:30pm
Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 4:30–7:30pm
Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th Street

During our second workshop a small group of educators and teaching artists will discuss projects, strategies, and tactics that have successfully nurtured safe and experimental learning and making spaces in and out the classroom. Presentations will be followed by interactive break-out sessions where participants can collectively explore ways to apply this work in their context.

What to Bring (for both workshops)

In advance of the workshops, we invite participants to reflect on learning spaces in which they have felt especially supported and nurtured. We will dedicate time during each program to share these stories, paying careful attention to what we may learn from them. Please feel free to bring in objects or artifacts that help illustrate your story.

About Amplify

These workshops are organized by Amplify at the University of Chicago. Amplify is a partnership of arts and cultural organizations that offer K–12 arts learning programs, including Arts + Public Life, Court Theatre, Logan Center for the Arts, Oriental Institute, and the Smart Museum of Art. Each Amplify partner offers a range of programs and resources including live theatrical and musical performances, museum field trips, out-of-school time programs, and more.