JBFC Travels to New Orleans

On December 3, JBFC Executive Director Edie Demas, Director of Education Emily Keating, and Senior Faculty Member Aaron Mace traveled to New Orleans for an Image, Sound, and Story professional development workshop with three ReNEW Cultural Arts Academy schools, part of the national Turnaround Arts initiative. All of the schools participating in this workshop are among the many in the city still struggling to rebuild and re-establish themselves after Hurricane Katrina.

The teachers used the JBFC’s education website to experience firsthand the engagement and relevance of viewing short films, creating media projects, and exploring the application of this work to reading and writing. They explored the View Now Do Nows and Visual Glossary, learning new vocabulary, strategies, and skills to take back to their students.

There was also time to apply the language of visual storytelling to their anchor texts and units of study, such as point of view and memoir. All the participating schools are charter schools, with tremendous pressure on benchmark testing scores, so the fact that these teachers could make such clear connections to their academic work was really exciting!

All in all, it was an incredibly fulfilling and positive experience. This visit marks the third Turnaround Arts site to incorporate Image, Sound, and Story into its curriculum, as teachers in Bridgeport, CT and Brooklyn, NY have already adopted the program in their classrooms. With such positive experiences in Brooklyn, Bridgeport, and New Orleans, we are inspired to continue expanding our Image, Sound, and Story curriculum nationally.

Check out some photos from our professional development: