Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

Teaching Artist

Seeking artists to facilitate violence intervention prevention storytelling workshops with youth

TRIGGER Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) is a gun violence intervention program based on the First Person Arts 60-minute documentary film TRIGGER. Using select excerpts of the film as a springboard for conversation and creation, the workshop series seeks to mentor students through telling their own stories and articulating their views about gun violence with impact and authenticity. Telling their own stories helps participants process and take back their narrative and opens a path to healing. We see the impact of exploring and sharing personal stories through our long history of success with our partnership with the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Service (DBHIDS) Engaging Males of Color (EMOC) programs.

Each workshop series will end with an opportunity for students to share, as comfortable, their first-person narratives with their peers and community. Each Teaching Artist will be paired with an Assistant Teaching Artist.

Job title: Teaching Artist

Location: Schools throughout Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Salary: $50/hour; Teaching Artists invoice for planning time in addition to time in the classroom.

Employment type: Occasional/part-time contract. Approximately 3 billable hours a week per cohort; number of cohorts based on teaching artist’s availability.

Duration: 9 sessions, beginning September 2024.

Area of focus: Community and Capacity Building through the Arts

Responsibilities:

Lead 1 or more storytelling residencies for a group of up to 12 students per site, often for 2 cohorts of students per site.
Attend a day-long, paid professional development session and orientation, as well as monthly paid TA community meetings.
Collaborate with an Assistant Teaching Artist to outline responsibilities from session to session, assigning duties that support ATAs skills and experience.
Teach the fundamentals of storytelling, using a sample curriculum alongside a slate of resources for customization, as well as selecting tools from your personal arts practice.
Mentor students through the process of articulating their own stories through verbal and written techniques.
Give feedback and provide students with supportive structures to give their peers feedback, on drafts of stories to sharpen students’ ability to articulate and communicate their narrative to an audience.
Provide students opportunities to practice public speaking skills, such as volume, enunciation, pace, and gesture.
Use techniques that break down barriers to create a supportive, affirming space for authentic sharing.
Collaborate with VIP Project Coordinator, Project Director, and fellow Teaching Artists to ensure sessions stay on track to achieve project goals.

Required skills:

A passion for storytelling and using art to articulate one’s narrative, rooted in any form including film, theatre, writing, live events, podcasts, and more.
Ability to connect with young people, creating learning spaces that activate their interests, agency, and needs.
Ability to facilitate group learning, exploration, and conversation through art.
Ability to create a supportive space for young people to share their stories, and to affirm the stories shared by their peers.
Ability to give affirming, constructive mentorship to students.
Ability to be an empathetic, active listener for the lived experiences of others.
Collaborative and dedicated team member.
Must be able to pass FBI and state background checks.

Preferred experience:

Experience working with young people, particularly middle and high school learners in the Philadelphia area (strongly preferred).
Experience with storytelling through the arts (strongly preferred).
Experience tailoring a provided curriculum to serve the needs of participating students.
Experience in trauma-informed arts practice.
Experience using arts education as an opportunity to process personal experiences and explore views and values.
Experience using arts education to create social dialogue and change.

About First Person Arts

First Person Arts is Philly’s original storytelling arts nonprofit. We believe that everyone has a story to tell and that the art of storytelling has the power to change lives.

Since 2001, we have helped ordinary Philadelphians become extraordinary storytelling artists who transform the drama of their real lives into memoir and documentary art.

We offer programming that serves the diverse communities that call the greater Philadelphia area home. Our programming includes monthly StorySlam storytelling competitions, Applied Storytelling educational programs, a podcast drawn from our digital archive of more than 10,000 story files, and TRIGGER, a gun violence intervention program with the City of Philadelphia DBHIDS EMOC program.

Our annual First Person Arts Festival brings together all these audiences and communities by hosting established and emerging artists across many artistic forms and formats.

Commitment to diversity

First Person Arts is an equal opportunity employer. This means we are committed to recruiting, training, compensating, and promoting all of our employees regardless of race, color, religion, sex, disability, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender, or any other protected classes set forth under applicable law. We are dedicated to reflecting the diversity, and multiculturalism, of our viewers, creators, partners, and communities. Inclusion is at the heart of what we do and at the core of our values.

How to apply

Applications are open until the position is filled.

To apply, please provide a thoughtful cover letter and resume to RHall@firstpersonarts.org

First Person Arts is an equal opportunity employer.