Who We Are

Changing notions of difference and real-world problems by developing unique, democratic learning spaces focused on meaningful relationships and creative, dynamic educational experiences.

The Ed Factory is powered by real, on-the-ground educators, true intellectual workers who have comprehensive knowledge and practical experience in both education and their fields of expertise. This group of specialists is supplemented by the local, national, and global scholars, artists, and cultural workers with whom we work, especially in our Teacher’s Institute.

LISA ARRASTIA, PhD | MED

FOUNDIng Director + LEAD Facilitator

In partnership with artist A|A (Alberto Marriaga), Lisa’s current project is The Study Portfolio, an online transmedia undercommons through which the public can experience critical, creative possibilities that emerge from educators, youth, and the global working class when provided opportunities to build understanding using new ways of reading notions of difference.

Using new genre public aesthetics, Lisa’s projects disrupt notions of difference and transform the educational process. Lisa is the founder of the Educators Undercommons, the Board President of Kite's Nest, a liberatory education center in Hudson, NY; the Co-Chair of the Oral History Association’s Committee on Committees; a steering committee member for Inspiring Girls Expeditions, a global organization empowering young women to lead in science, art, and wilderness exploration; an executive advisory board member of NYU’s Project for the Advancement of our Common Humanity, and a member of the CARE Syllabus Advisory Collective at MASS MoCA among other affiliations.

Lisa is the curator and donor of the Young People’s Archive at East Side Freedom Library and winner of an American Association of University Women’s award, the Coordinating Council for Women in History Fellowship, and year-long educational leadership fellowships with New Leaders and Big Picture Learning. She co-edited Starting Up: Critical Lessons from Ten New Schools (Teachers College Press) with Marv Hoffman and contributed the essay “Love Pedagogy: Teaching to Disrupt” to Niobe Way, Carol Gilligan, Alisha Ali, and Pedro Noguera’s The Crisis of Connection (NYU Press). Her articles, multimedia work, and reviews, among other outlets, are included in MASS MoCA’s CARE Syllabus, Journal for Critical Education Policy, HuffPost, Common Dreams, and Antipode.

Recent writing

• Arrastia, Lisa. Love Pedagogy: An Oral History Remix (forthcoming).

• Arrastia, Lisa. Beyond School: Education Outside the System (Neurodiversity Press: forthcoming).

• Arrastia, Lisa. “Letter to My Student Teachers on a Day of Yet Another School Mass Shooting in America.” Common Dreams. 25 May 2022.

• Arrastia, Lisa. “I Caint.” CARE Syllabus (North Adams: MASS MoCA). March 2022.

• Arrastia, Lisa. “Schools Can No Longer Be Our Social Safety Net.” Common Dreams. 17 August 2020.

• Arrastia, Lisa. “Teaching Under Covid: NY School-Reopening Guidance Highlights the Need for a Radical, Uniform National Response to Covid-19.” Common Dreams. 19 July 2020.

• Arrastia, Lisa. “Love Pedagogy: Disrupting the Contemporary Education Economy.” Overland 231. Winter 2018.

• Arrastia, Lisa “Love Pedagogy: Teaching to Disrupt.” In The Crisis of Connection: Roots, Consequences, and Solutions. Edited by Niobe Way, Alisha Ali, Carol Gilligan, and Pedro Noguera, 231-250. New York: NYU Press, 2018.

• Arrastia, Lisa. “Love Pedagogy.” Huff Post (18 April 2016).

• Arrastia, Lisa. “The Bridge Back: Chris Johnson and the Art of Social Engagement.” Exposure: The Journal of the Society for Photographic Education 47.1 (spring 2014).

• Arrastia, Lisa. Review of A Curriculum of Imagination in an Era of Standardization: An Imaginative Dialogue with Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire, by Robert Lake. Teachers College Record (14 March 2014).

• Arrastia, Lisa and Marvin Hoffman. Starting Up Critical Lessons from 10 New Schools. New York: Teachers College Press, 2012.

Lisa is available to facilitate discussions, seminars, and workshops and provide consultation to teachers, leaders, student groups, and families in schools and organizations in the following areas:

• Audioethnography | A unique, dynamic, and innovative qualitative methodology designed by Lisa to establish genuine and long-lasting understanding across difference as a philosophy of practice in schools and organizations.

• Educational ethnography

• Aesthetics-based educational research

• Experiential leadership

• Professional development design

• School culture

• Organizational development

• Democratic learning communities

• Creative education

• Critical literacy and pedagogy

• Writing and critical inquiry

• Notions of difference (race, gender, social class, and sexuality)

Jamal Ahamad, med

facilitator | Teachers Institute Mentor

Jamal is a licensed English teacher for grades 5-12 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, he holds a BA in English Literature and an MEd from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. While teaching at Taconic High School, Jamal launched the inaugural Black Studies class, a program he continues to direct while teaching full-time at Pittsfield Virtual High School, created in response to the global pandemic. Like all Ed Factory facilitators, Jamal is an aesthetics-based educator, using writing, performative dance, and other art forms to make sense of the world and teaching young people to do the same. He is also a visiting instructor in MCLA’s Department of Education, where he teaches courses in Black Studies and contributes to the Center for Oral History in Education. In addition, Jamal serves as a faculty member at Berkshire Dance Theatre and Olga Dunn Dance Company and is the founding director of Ahamad Multimedia, where he produces films and interviews with people of interest, creates dance montages, and reviews socially relevant YA literature.

With a student-centered pedagogy that intentionally teaches across differences, Jamal facilitates with humor, compassion, critical insight, and a deep love for the life of the child.

Jamal is available to facilitate discussions and workshops as well as provide guidance for teachers and young people in the following areas:

• Writing and critical inquiry

• Project-based learning

• Interdisciplinary and thematic learning

• Multimedia teaching and learning

• YA Literature

• Notions of difference (specifically race, culture, and masculinity)

Alberto Alejandro A|A

pocket film producer | Visual Consultant

Alberto Alejandro’s imagery serve as the inspiration for the Ed Factory’s Pocket Films. Alberto has a BA in Globalization from University at Albany, State University of New York with a minor in Business.

He works in fashion photography and commercial video in Los Angeles, Californaia. Alberto uses his work in popular culture in the U.S., as a platform to open the entertainment industry to issues of equity and access. Currently, Alberto is the Creative Coordinator of DZL Consulting, which is a creative advertising agency that “strives to look at everything through a socially conscious lens and act with integrity, both internally and externally.”

Alberto has been working with the Ed Factory since 2014 and continues in the role of it sole visual, creative medium director.

Andrew Bilezikian

Sound Producer

Andrew Bilezikian has a BA from University at Albany, State University of New York, with a dual concentration in marketing and business information technology management. He has been the Ed Factory’s/Young People’s Archive sound engineer since 2017. He creates soundscapes using deep listening and writes original music for Ed Factory projects. Andrew is also an industrial designer. He writes music for the Ed Factory dedicated to helping the public listen across difference in an effort to create social change.

Michael John Carley

Special Advisor | Neurodiversity

Michael is an author and school consultant. Until 2001, he was the United Nations Representative of Veterans for Peace, Inc. In that time, he was known primarily for his work in Bosnia, and in Iraq as the Project Director of the internationally acclaimed Iraq Water Project. Prior to 2001, he was also a playwright who wrote and directed 15 productions and multiple readings of his work in New York. He serves on several advisory boards and is a special advisor to Drexel University’s Autism Research Initiative and the Spectrum Theatre Ensemble.

With a BA from Hampshire College in theatre and an MFA from Columbia University in playwriting, Michael is the former Founding Director of the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership (GRASP). Featured on NPR News, GRASP is the largest global membership organization comprised of adults on the autism spectrum. Michael has shared his unique perspective and experience with autism and neurodiversity at over 100 conferences, hospitals, universities, and health care organizations. As the Executive Director of the Asperger Syndrome Training + Employment Partnership (ASTEP, now Integrate) from 2011-2014, his work focused on working with organizations and businesses on human resources, equity, and inclusion, and he facilitated numerous trainings and webinars for individual Fortune 1000 companies. Michael has consulted for New York City Public Schools. Now, he provides consulting on disAbilities in school districts nationwide and leads New York University’s Connections ASD Program for NYU students on the autism spectrum across all global sites.

In 2012, Michael was one of two on the spectrum to address the United States Congress in their first-ever hearing on autism. He has addressed the United Nations, taken part in Dr. Amy Laurents’ TEDx talk, and he is often a guest writer and speaker for The New York Times, Washington Post, NY Newsday, the London Times, HuffPost Live, NEWSWEEK OnAir, ABCNews, BBC News, FOX News Network, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Psychology Today, and he has appeared on Terry Gross’ Fresh Air and The Infinite Mind.

Michael has been awarded a FAR Fund fellowship, NYFAC's Ben Kramer Award, the BCID Award for Service), Columbia University's Herbert M. Cohen Lecture, and Eden II's Peter McGowan & John Potterfield Achievement Award. His writing have been published in over a dozen publications like Autism Spectrum News, Autism Spectrum Quarterly, and Autism/Asperger Digest; the websites of the Organization for Autism Research and NEXT for Autism. Michael also had a regular column called Autism Without Fear in the Huff Post in which he published more than 40 articles. He also regularly writes for Exceptional Parent Magazine and the Neurodiversity Press Blog.

Michael was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in November of 2000 after his son, then four, was diagnosed. In 2014, Michael was reevaluated and under the DSM-V, he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Recent Writing

• The Book of Happy, Positive, and Confident Sex for Adults on the Autism Spectrum . . . and Beyond! (Providence: Neurodiversity Press, 2021).

• “The Brat in Your Classroom (and the Power of Narrative)” The Providence Journal (October 2018).

• Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome, New York: Penguin/Perigee, 2008.

• Unemployed on the Autism Spectrum (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016).

Michael John is available to Consult and facilitate discussions and workshops in the following areas:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder.

• Education and disrupting notions of neurodiversity at the classroom, school, and district levels.

• Autism and parenting.

• Sexuality for neurodiverse people.

Morgan Fierst, MED

Facilitator | Teachers Institute Mentor

Morgan is the winner of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, and an alumna of the Ed Factory's Teachers Institute. She was a part of the Teacher’s Institute @Minneapolis inaugural cohort in 2011. Morgan has a BA in Economics from University of Chicago, and an MA in Education from Hamline University.

She currently teaches at South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Morgan is dedicated to building mathematics communities in which students understand the ways in which mathematical ideas, formulas, and relationships can help them to investigate, interpret, and engage in the social, economic, and political conditions of their lives, their communities, the country, and the larger world.

Morgan is an advocate for social change and encourages students to use a critical lens at all times; she continues to be a leader nationally in developing culturally relevant mathematics curriculum. As an active teacher and former Ed Factory Teachers Institute fellow, Morgan comes to the position of mentor with a deep understanding of the difficult daily impact of current education reforms on the lives of teachers and their students. 

Morgan’s recent projects:

• Public Math, Co-Founder

Public Math seeks to support positive math identities through projects that engage children, families, and adults in playful, creative mathematics as they go about their daily lives. Playgrounds, public transportation, waiting rooms, fairs, and neighborhoods are the venues for Public Math’s work.

• Math with Me MN emerged out of Morgan’s frustrations with remote teaching during the COVID-19 global pandemic. She created the Math with Me through which young people of all ages and adults of any profession could learn quickly how to discover mathematical patterns and how to see their worlds mathematical in anything from bottle caps on the street to the pattern of latex gloves laying in a trash bin of a local COVID-19 hopsital ward. Follow @mathwithmemn.

MORGAN IS AN EXPERT in CREATIVE PEDAGOGY and the development of mathematics classroom communities. SHE IS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT and facilitate workshops IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Mathematics and critical pedagogy

• Using the city as classroom

• Public mathematics

• Curriculum and instruction for high school cross-curricular mathematics <–> humanities classrooms

• Relationship vs management in the classroom while navigating state standards.

Read about Morgan's work in the classroom in the Star Tribune's "South High Teachers Illustrate Inequalities Through Math."

Arielle Gingold,MEd

Facilitator

Originally from San Francisco, California, Arielle Gingold currently resides in Bennington, Vermont. Arielle received her BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her MEd from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Arielle’s work centers on engaging and supporting people of all ages using inclusive, inquiry-based practices. She is dedicated to helping people come together and overcome divides to create a more compassionate, collaborative, and sustainable future.

In her various roles, Arielle has worked to foster relationships and sustainability through community engagement, outreach, and education. She spent six years working in development and fundraising at Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an environmental organization based in San Francisco, CA. During this time, she participated in the Institute on Conservation Education & Sustainability (ICES), a 3-month program at the California Academy of Sciences focused on developing and providing accessible, conservation-based programs for diverse groups of children and families in the Bay Area. As a member of the ICES program, Arielle helped create, teach, and evaluate an inquiry-based, hands-on activity investigating the effects of plastic waste on marine life, engaging participants in identifying realistic strategies to protect marine animals and mitigate the impact of waste on the environment.

After moving from California to Northern Vermont, Arielle set out to expand her experience and skills in the field of education. Since then, Arielle has served as an educator in various schools, museums, and afterschool centers, as well as at a sustainable education-based farm, working with youth and families to facilitate learning, engagement, and connection.

In her work as an educator, Arielle has developed, led, and supported educational programs in K-6 classrooms as well as informal education settings, teaching lessons in subjects ranging from language arts and history to math and science. Arielle strives to incorporate creativity, collaboration, and exploration in all aspects of her teaching, with the goal of supporting and engaging all learners.

Arielle’s most recent work includes developing a student-centered framework focused on creating opportunities for students and teachers to listen, reflect, and connect across difference through the practice of sharing stories.

Kevon B. Hanley

Facilitator | Tech Boffin

Kevon B. Hanley is a Kittitian establishing a clinical psychology practice and perspective in his home of St. Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. After receiving his BA in Psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York  in  2018, Kevon returned to St. Kitts and began a mentorship program that aims to provide under-resourced young men, ages  of  16  to 21 with professional skills, college research and application guidance, networking, and establishing their public voice. The mentorship program aims to connect young Kittitian men with  professional  members of the community who serve as mentors and provide opportunities for real-word experience in professional fields and passions.

During Kevon’s undergraduate career, he served as a research assistant in the memory study labs of renown psychologist, Dr. James H. Neely. He also served as the Senior Peer Mentor and a Co-Teacher in Dr. Lisa Arrastia’s courses for the Program Writing and Critical Inquiry at University at Albany, and he assisted the Department in broadening the Peer Mentoring Program, growing the program from seven to over 30 peer mentors by the time of his graduation. Kevon has been the Project Manager, Lead Facilitator in the qualitative methodology developed by the Ed Factory, audioethnography, since 2017, after beginning as an undergraduate internship with the Young People’s Archive in 2015. Kevon worked alongside Dr. Lisa Arrastia to train students at South High in Minnesota to use audioethnographies to disrupt notions of differences of social class and race and to examine these experiences through the writing process. 

In 2010, Kevon, and his sister, Genieve Hanley, founded LEAP (The Learning and Empowerment through the Arts Program) in St. Kitts. At the age of 17, Kevon became Prop Manager and led classes on prop building which was the first class of its kind offered in the twin island federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. In two years, Genieve and Kevon grew LEAP to become the largest performing arts program in St. Kitts and Nevis. Today, Kevon is the Assistant Director at LEAP and is the Head of Acting.

Kevon also advocates for and showcases Caribbean culture. He launched another joint venture with his sister, Genieve, as a blogger for Caribbean Barefoot Journeys (CBJ). CBJ is an online powerhouse for digital media, blogging, public relations, and photography procurement in the Caribbean; it aims to display the “real Caribbean” through the eyes of West Indians, display the islands of the Caribbean, and document experiences in each island from a local “barefoot” perspective.

In 2020, after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the twin island federation of St. Kitts and Nevis was put under lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. Being known for his social media presence and personality, Kevon was requested to be the host for a media series: The Vaccine, commissioned by the Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, the Honorable Dr. Timothy Harris. The series was commissioned to provide free social entertainment and to provide the federation with a credible source for information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, Kevon hosts and co-produces a morning radio show dubbed Island Tea, which provides its listening audience with local, regional, and international news updates, pop-culture, as well as interviews with locals from the federation ranging from small business owners to ministers of government.

 Kevon works remotely through the U.S., Europe, and Caribbean as an assistant to a clinical psychologist at Bespoke Psychology, a consultancy based in the United Kingdom which aims to recognize each individual as unique. It combines empirically based psychological treatments with a strong emphasis on each client's individual circumstances and history. Each client works together with a therapist to develop the goals and outcomes of their therapy; it provides expert psychological services to families experiencing multiple social and economic dynamics within educational, social, and legal services.

TANYA HODGE, MED

Teachers Institute Mentor

A fellow in the Teacher’s Institute @Minneapolis cohort in 2014, Tanya is an alumna of the Ed Factory's Teachers Institute. She has a B.A. in English and an MEd from University of Minnesota. Tanya taught English at South High School in Minneapolis for 22 years. She now teaches English 11 and 12, AP Literature and Composition, AP Language and Composition at MPS Online School in Minneapolis. Tanya is committed to practicing the Ed Factory’s “love pedagogy” no matter where she teaches.

Tanya has taught ninth grade through Advanced Placement English. She coordinated and taught in the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Program at South High. For several years, Tanya co-taught in an integrated Humanities American Studies ELA (English Language Arts) | EL (English Learners) classroom where approximately 50% of her students were multilingual. She participated on an English Panel for the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) focusing on “The English Literacy Required of First Year Community College Students.” Tanya has been an International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP) fellow in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where she taught and facilitated professional development at St. Johns, and she has taught Advanced Placement demonstration lessons and facilitated professional development workshops for the Department of English at the Beijing Royal School in China. 

Tanya’s recent projects

• Distance Learning Artist Residency with Theater Mu

• 2020-2021 cohort member of the Frontlines of Justice Professional Development series 

• Minnesota Writing Project: Minneapolis Public School language arts teachers engage with a variety of leaders across education contexts in interactive, online workshops that provide important considerations for teachers tasked with transforming curricula and pedagogy so that learning experiences for students across the district are affirming and antiracist in both common (cross-district) and unique (context-specific) ways.

Tanya IS AN EXPERT GUIDE FOR ELA TEACHERS SEEKING TO NAVIGATE STATE STATE STANDARDS USING CRITICAL LITERACY AND CRITICAL PEDAGOGY. SHE IS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE MENTORING IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Differentiation in integrated English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms

• Creative, democratic unit and lesson design

• Curriculum and instruction for high school ELA classrooms

• Classrooms as communities of teaching, learning, understanding

• The Ed Factory’s love pedagogy in Professional Learning Communities, grade-level coordination, and curricular teams

Mahnoor Nasir, MPS

Facilitator

After taking a Writing and Critical Inquiry course with Dr. Lisa Arrastia in her first semester of undergraduate education, Mahnoor joined the YPA team as a Classroom Facilitator in 2017. She graduated from the University at Albany in 2020 with a B.S. in Public Health and Human Biology and a minor in English. She is currently a Master of Public Health student at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Mahnoor’s interests lie in the intersections of social justice and maternal and child health, and she hopes to plan and implement public health programs and policies that can begin to close the disparities seen in health outcomes across race and class in the United States and abroad. Mahnoor also enjoys teaching and engaging in provocative discussion with peers and students alike.

Mahnoor IS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE Facilitation of grades 9-12, undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and school leaders IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Maternal and child public health

• Social and public biology

• Notions of difference in public health

• Building a student-relevant science classroom community

• Audiotethnography

• Writing-to-process-thinking

Betye Arrastia-Nowak

Project manager | Facilitator | Audioethnographer

Betye is the Development Manager at Art Omi in the Northern Hudson River Valley of New York, an international arts center renowned for its residency programs and exhibitions that foster artistic and cultural exchange. She holds a Master's in Education and previously graduated from Pratt Institute with a degree in Critical and Visual Studies, along with minors in Psychology and Morphology. Betye is an alumnus of Kite’s Nest, a laboratory education center in Hudson, New York, and Inspiring Girls Expeditions, a program in Alaska empowering young women to lead and succeed through science, art, and outdoor exploration.

Betye's professional experience includes work with the Audre Lorde Project, a center for community organizing for LGBTQ+ people of color, and the Public Works program at the Public Theater for the annual Shakespeare in Central Park production. She has co-facilitated Writing and Critical Inquiry at the University at Albany, SUNY, and her essay, "Learning to Be American," is published in Our Voices Our Stories: Advancing, Celebrating, Embracing, and Empowering Girls and Women of Color. She has performed her poetry about gender politics and racial constructions at venues like the Nuyorican Poets Café and Omega Institute's Seeds of Change conference.

Betye IS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE Facilitation IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Audioethnography (oral history remix)

• Critical Visual Studies and Critical and Visual Studies

• Multimedia editing

• Socially engaged development management

POOJA PATEL

Critical LITERACY facilitator | LEARNING SPECIALIST

Originally from New Jersey, Pooja Patel is a learning specialist who teaches at Dwght Englewood in New Jersey and is a former, longtime English and humanities teacher at United Nations International School in New York City. Pooja earned her MA from Teachers College, Columbia University in the Reading Specialist program, where she is currently an adjunct instructor.  She serves as a middle school English teacher at Dwight-Englewood School in New Jersey.

Pooja has worked in both public and private schools using a variety of systematic and explicit instruction to build literacy and critical thinking skills. She is the author with Leslie Laud of Using Formative Assessment to Differentiate Middle School Literacy Instruction (Corwin, 2012). Pooja has gained national and international recognition for her action research in literacy, flipped classrooms, and formative assessment, and she is the founder and director of Teachers 4 Student Success, a not-for-profit dedicated to improving literacy skills for all people regardless of socio-economic status.

POOJA IS AVAILABLE TO FACILITATE DISCUSSIONS, WORKSHOPS, AND TUTORING SESSIONS FOR TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND SCHOOL LEADERS IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Assessing, evaluating, and working with students with learning differences, either one-to-one or in small groups

• Explicit literacy instruction (decoding, spelling, fluency, comprehension, writing, and organization)

• Self Regulated Strategy Development

REBECCA RINGER, MED

facilitator

Rebecca Ringer has an MEd from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. She is a 2014 graduate of the Ada Comstock Scholars program at Smith College where she earned a BA in American Studies with a focus on access and equity in American institutions, and she has an AA in Liberal Arts for Education from Berkshire Community College. Rebecca currently works as the Advisor for and an instructor at the William Stickney Pittsfield Adult Learning Center.

She is the Educational Advisor for the Berkshire County branch of the Educational Opportunity Center of MassEdCO, one Massachusetts’s largest providers of community-based education, and she is a member of the Berkshire County Youth Council.

Rebecca is a writer whose research and aesthetic practices focus on deconstructing American pedagogies of whiteness and designing sonic methodologies to, as we say at The Ed Factory, disrupt notions of difference particularly related to working-class youth of color and rural white youth. She has been a facilitator with The Ed Factory since 2021.

REBECCA IS AVAILABLE TO FACILITATE DISCUSSIONS AND WORKSHOPS AS WELL AS PROVIDE GUIDANCE FOR TEACHERS AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Aesthetics-based educational research and practice

• Developing healing-centered, trauma-informed classroom communities

• Community-based learning

• Writing and critical inquiry for youth and adults

• Developing real-world, student interest internships for youth

• College counseling for first-generation college applicants

KEVIN TOLEDO

MATH COMMUNITIES facilitator

Originally from the Bronx, New York, Kevin has taught for 13 years in public elementary and middle schools in New york City. He is a graduate of Bank Street College of Education in New York City where he received his M.A. in Mathematics Leadership. He is a retired assistant middle school principal and mathematics and science teacher from United Nations International School in New York City. Currently, Kevin, along with his wife Rose, founded and lead a 100 percent organic plant-based kitchen.

KEVIN IS AVAILABLE TO FACILITATE DISCUSSIONS AND WORKSHOPS FOR TEACHERS, STUDENTS, SCHOOL LEADERS, + NON-PROFIT ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS:

• Designing and developing math communities

• Integrated mathematics

• Content-focused coaching

• Democratic learning communities

• Curriculum and instruction in elementary/middle level mathematics and science

• Organic, plant-based sustainability

Rachel Vatelia, JD

Facilitator

Rachel is a senior at Boston College, studying Philosophy and History with a concentration in global justice, inequality and human rights. Rachel has served as a classroom facilitator for the Ed Factory’s Young People’s Archive after beginning as an undergraduate intern 2018. Rachel serves as a fellow in the Clough Study of Constitutional Democracy and a researcher for We-Empower, an international development firm. Her work supports interventions that strengthen sustainable means of agricultural production. Rachel’s recognizes the complex interactions between people and the environment, and collaborates with global communities towards sustainable development.

In 2016, Rachel co-founded the Vatelia Foundation to partner with legislators, activists, and international humanitarian groups to ensure economic opportunity, social equity, robust education systems and food security to minority communities in the United States. The project has expanded across the Caribbean after she achieved incredible progress from collaborating with KFC to create healthy food initiatives in prisons and homeless shelters.

Rachel is the 2019 recipient of the Amanda V. Houston Fellowship. Her research in Bordeaux, France, Revolution Driven By Race and Sex: Understanding Gendered Xenophobic Violence and the Social Rejection of Black Women in France, is committed to challenging societal bifurcations surrounding race, social class, and gender. After her tenure at Boston College, Rachel will attend law school to pursue a career in civil right law as she radically disrupts antiquated precepts integrated into global culture.

RACHEL is available to facilitate Seminars and workshops in English, French, and Haitian Creole in the following areas: 

• Audioethnography

• Writing-to-process-thinkng

• Global sustainability development

• Gendered xenophobic violence and emotional justice

• Fund-raising and foundation design

GINA VOSKOV

Humanities + Shakespeare facilitator

Originally from rural Vermont, Gina is a middle school English teacher at United Nations International School in New York City. Gina has taught at the high school and middle school levels, in classrooms of both public and private institutions, and in the United States and Brazil. She holds a B.A. in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Rhode Island and a M.A.T. in Secondary English from Brown University, and she serves as the secretary of the board for the not-for-profit Teachers 4 Student Success. 

In 2012, Gina was invited to participate in the Folger Shakespeare Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institute in Washington D.C. in 2014, she was selected to be a founding member of the Folger Library's National Teacher Corps. Her area of interest is performance-based learning using rigorous texts, a pedagogy she presents at national conferences alongside the Folger Library and Brown University. Gina maintains a profound belief that Shakespeare is for everyone, especially young students. 

Gina is available to facilitate discussions, and workshops, and provide curriculum consultation in the following areas: 

• Performance-based learning

• Teaching Shakespeare in elementary, middle, and high school

• Student-centered teaching and learning

• Curriculum and instruction for middle-level English classrooms

• Curriculum and instruction for middle-level cross-curricular humanities classrooms

Read Gina's article in the HuffPost, "Children's Voices Matter."