Written by Spring 2026 AFA Intern/TAP Extern Jordana Jacobs
The Gift of a Teaching Artist Residency at PS76
To the untrained eye, the fifth and first grade students at PS76 in Long Island City who teaching artist Sam Funk encounters when she enters the classroom couldn’t be more different. Their size, for one. First grade students are tiny, reminiscent of the first sprouts of spring. At the sight of Funk, they fly off their seats for hugs, to show her a dance move, or to announce it’s their birthday (as if the crown didn’t give it away). The fifth graders, on the other hand, whose size would allow them to ride a roller coaster at a theme park, generally approach Funk, who’s been visiting their classroom with theater programming once a week for months, with tight, little smiles and tentative eye contact.
Fifteen minutes into their respective workshops, the fifth and first graders seem to have switched places. Fifth grade students stand at the front of the classroom, portraying the zany characters they developed for their play, Nightmare on Hawkins Street. Cats meow, the chair grabber must be stopped, and Scary Larry terrifies the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the first-grade students sit at their desks, diligently penning original nursery rhymes, checking in with their teacher, Ms. Aiken about their spelling. While the fifth-grade students try on different gestures, poses, and other physical actions to portray their characters, the first-grade students sit at their desks holding pencils, tapping their heads and looking up in an effort to come up with words that rhyme with “cousin” and “moon.”
When a teaching artist crafts a workshop with the unexpected, the engaging, the novel, and the challenge to create something from the wellspring of their own minds, students get to try on different parts of themselves. A visit to an arts and learner-driven classroom demonstrates that, no matter our stage of life, we are manifold. Held by the structure of each workshop–the warm-up chant for artists, the introductory activity that elicits input from all class members on their own terms, the main activity, the closing, etc., the students are safe and encouraged to explore different ways of moving through space, thinking, collaborating, creating, and voicing themselves.
The gift that expands and deepens oneself and one’s relationship to the world is the most valuable of all. When the first and fifth grade students at PS76 enter the classroom and see Sam Funk greeting them, they know that today will be a gift.
