Resources for Afterschool Professionals

The PASE Explorers program offers activities that allow 4th – 6th grade youth in afterschool programs to experience global learning through local exploration. PASE Explorers provides young people the opportunity to explore the strengths of their own and other neighborhoods through activities such as neighborhood mapping; interviewing; digital photography projects; oral, written and digital presentations; and reflection exercises, among others. Through this experience, youth are able to see the larger context of the world in which they live. At the same time, this approach helps young people build skills essential to be successful global citizens including critical thinking, technology, teamwork, creativity, and communication.

The guide outlines a twelve-week course of study. It is designed for middle school programs that are looking to expand their learning impact in communities using the arts as a tool. The CPY Program is designed to tie three key elements together each day: Artistic Knowledge, Academic Knowledge, and Personal Knowledge.

This guide was created to help community-based organizations (CBOs) and cultural institutions create a quality training program for teaching artists who are placed in afterschool programs. The Guide is designed to be useful to all site directors or other program managers who are responsible for training teaching artists. This Guide provides a framework for developing a Teaching Artist Professional Development Institute that infuses youth development with program practice while supporting the practitioners’ skills, knowledge, and expertise.

The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding has developed for afterschool practitioners a curriculum guide and fact sheets on Park51, the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, and the recent controversy over its proposed location. These free materials can be used to look at that issue specifically or use it as an avenue to discuss conflicts, historical “phobias” in the United States and ways to employ conflict resolution and mediation tools.

This guide lists cultural institutions in all five boroughs of New York City. The guide includes contact information and a description of cultural institutions in Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island, respectively.

The sites listed in this guide expand the idea of traditional cultural institutions and includes other cultural sites or assets. This is not an exhaustive list and programs are encouraged to research other institutions in their borough to visit.

This guide is intended to be used for the PASE Explorers program and is an additional resource to the PASE Explorers Curriculum.