For the past four weeks, in their English class with Ms. Fields, WHSAD seniors collaborated with teaching artists from the CUNY Creative Art team or C.A.T to make art centered around theatre with the theme of immigration. This is all part of “Generation Immigration,” a project funded by NYC’s Cultural immigrant initiative. According to CAT the idea of the program is to “use drama and creative writing to explore the topic of immigration and its relationship to our communities and identities.” The creator of this partnership, Claro De los Reyes, wanted to make a curriculum centered around immigration as it's a topic that often does not get discussed much in schools. Claro, who previously served as an teaching artist for CAT, is now a Project … [Read more...]
About Silas Rodriguez
How BQGreen Seeks to Change Williamsburg
Written by Sheena Luke and Silas Rodriguez Robert Moses, an American public official, was one of the most powerful people in New York during the mid-twentieth century. He is responsible for multiple architectural projects in the city. The legacy his structures left is one that often completely disrupted the surrounding community and people. One of his projects is the Brooklyn-Queen Expressway which was designed to cut a trench between the low-income neighborhood of South Brooklyn. This specific project caused a disconnect in the community and the neighborhood of Williamsburg. The community became territorial as violence and drug use within neighborhoods increased. To counter the effects of the BQE, … [Read more...]
Creative Connections’ Clubs at WHSAD
For the past couple of years WHSAD has partnered with Creative Connections, which is a youth development program founded in 2005 that focuses on helping NYC public school students of all ages prepare for college and career readiness. The Creative Connections educators have been working with grades 9-12, helping them not only to focus on college and careers, but also giving them the tools to pursue these objectives. Since coming to WHSAD, Creative Connections has helped countless seniors secure financial aid and go to the colleges that best suit them. Over the past week, I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the educators in our school to talk about the importance of their work and put a spotlight on some of the other opportunities … [Read more...]
The Keys To Success At WHSAD
This upcoming school year is one that will be filled with uncertainty for many students across the country. Schools will be trying many new methods of teaching which for some students can appear to be pretty stressful. That being the case, it's not impossible to still have a successful year regardless of whether you're a senior or a freshman. In order to help students do well in school during the pandemic, I’ve reached out to several of WHSAD’s most prestigious alumni to get their take on how to succeed here and how to succeed after graduation. The first person I talked to was Nathifa Debellotte, class of 2016. After graduating Nathifa attended Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston and majored in architecture. She graduated this … [Read more...]
My Park Avenue Armory Experience
There is no denying that in the world of art and entertainment there is a glaring lack of diversity. Across all media there seems to be very few artists of color or of other minority groups to garner mainstream attention. Hollywood specifically has been criticized for years about this and still feels far from change. As for the small screen, diversity feels painfully forced sometimes. I personally wish there was more latino representation in Hollywood films and not just foreign pictures. It's part of the reason films like Black Panther have been so successful. It's not that people hate Iron Man, but it’s because they got something that was never before seen, a cool black superhero with their own good movie representing a unique culture. Now … [Read more...]
Interview with WHSAD Valedictorian Tyler Ng
Before the end of the school year, I had the opportunity to sit down with the class of 2019 valedictorian, Tyler Ng. Tyler is a bright young student who says his commitment, perseverance and sense of responsibility helped him achieve the honor. From the beginning of the school year he said, "My main goal at WHSAD is to graduate and eventually achieve the role of senior Valedictorian." As ambitious as it seemed, with hard work Tyler made it possible. However there's a lot more to the Senior than meets the eye. One thing not many know about him is that Tyler doesn't live in the New York. He lives in New Jersey with his parents. He stays with his Grandmother in Brooklyn during school nights and then spends most weekends at his parents' … [Read more...]
WHSAD Students Present Lake Como Revitalization Designs
On Saturday, May 11th a team of students from WHSAD took a trip to the town of Lake Como, New Jersey to present their proposed redesigns for Lake Como to the town's committee. According to Executive Director of the project, Heather Butts, “The project is a collaboration with Lake Como, NJ, Monmouth University, H.E.A.L.T.H for Youths and the Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design. The title of the project is ‘Lake Front Fun and Wildlife Park’ and the collaboration was formed to achieve environmental, health, social and economic improvement in the town of Lake Como, NJ. The school has effectively ‘adopted’ Lake Como with an educational approach that will benefit both the students and the residents of the town.” Back in … [Read more...]
WHSAD Students Celebrate Mother’s Day
Saturday, May 11th, the day before Mother's Day, students from WHSAD's community service club, led by Ms. Spaziani, went down to the Jennings Hall Senior Citizen Housing to spend the evening with some of the residents. Additionally, the students presented flowers made from construction paper and recycled water bottles from the school. Parent Coordinator, Lai Sin Chu, approached the community service club and asked them if they wanted to learn how to make flowers with construction paper with recycled water bottles from the school. Because Mother's Day was only two weeks away, Ms. Spaziani, who directs the WHSAD community service club, suggested it would be a great idea to make and present the crafts to … [Read more...]