Dear Camilla Smith,
This email has been on my mind for some time so I hope you'll forgive its belated nature. I wanted to reach out to express my gratitude for the funding and support that you provided in the creation of the Smith Learning Theater. To provide a bit of context, I am the Co-Director of the Teaching Residents at Teachers College program (TR@TC) and have used this learning space for portions of our Global Citizens summer programming. TR@TC as a whole is an 18-month residency-style teacher preparation program designed to support pre-service teachers who are working toward entering careers in secondary-level NYC public schools. A priority of the work of our program has been to continually identify and design meaningful and enriching learning experiences that bring high school students, teachers and our TR@TC pre-service teachers together and that enhance TR@TC community members' visions for what teaching and learning can be. Having access to a space like the Smith Learning Theater has contributed to the development of those visions in ways that have led to exciting new ideas for our community.
For example, in 2019, high school students and teachers, undergraduate interns (who are considering careers as teachers) and TR@TC pre-service teachers came together to be part of one of our Global Citizens programs, TR@TC Citizen Scientist. This is a three week summer course where high school students gather data in the field at different parts of the Harlem and East Rivers and then analyze and synthesize their data to present findings to our local community. |