The KC Wordshop Launch
Donation protected
Mission
The KC Wordshop will present annual festivals that gather young people in public spaces to share stories. Louder Than a Bomb KC will see its 3rd annual slam poetry festival in March 2016. We will present a short film festival in July 2016. We will add drama and music festivals to the lineup in years to come. We will also publish student writing.
The KC Wordshop will be open as a comfortable and inspiring community center at 2010 Baltimore in the Crossroads. There, we will facilitate workshops between young people and local artists, educators, and community members. Those workshops will be scheduled regularly with the purpose of working on submissions for the festivals.
The KC Wordshop will be a field trip destination for teachers and their classes where we'll hold engaging language-based activities that culminate in a product or showcase.
The KC Wordshop, in the true sense of a community center, will be available for any idea that bridges community in the sharing of stories.
Phase 1 Needs
Bathroom Remodel
Large Arched Window Replacement
Electrical Work
Web Design & Development
Signage
Furniture
iPads
Operational Expenses (liability insurance, lease, salaries)
Phase 2 Needs
Audio/Visual Equipment (PA system, projector)
Passenger Vans (to assist those without transportion, public or otherwise)
More Furniture
Additional Operational Funding
Your generosity is appreciated. Please consider becoming a community partner to The Wordshop in years to come.
Stay with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Peace,
Paul Richardson
Generator and Co-Founder
The KC Wordshop
Additional Information:
Origins
A few years ago, several English teachers from Washington High in Kansas City, Kansas, saw a set of TED Talks that caused us to view education through different lenses:
"Kids Can Teach Themselves" - Sugata Mitra
"Once Upon a School" - Dave Eggers
"Changing Education Paradigms" - Sir Ken Robinson
Wanting to provide a space where students could take refuge from alarming bells and the rat race of a public school day, we dusted off the industrial arts room over the course of a summer. We had a fundraiser and lightly furnished it. We cleaned out storage rooms and began decking them out as film, music, and graphic art studios. We painted shelves and stocked them with books. We built a stage for performance. One of us was explaining our project to someone from the community and that we'd moved into our school's woodshop. That someone replied, "Oh, so now it's a wordshop." And so it was born.
That school year commenced and we were quickly reminded of the inundation that being a teacher has on one's schedule. At the beginning of the year, if you're not teaching, you're in a meeting; if you're not in a meeting, you're setting up your classroom; if you're not setting up your classroom, you're adjusting your gradebook...again; and whenever there's a spare second at any point in any day, you're planning to deliver lessons to young people. (If it's a first-year teacher, add sleeping in uncomfortable positions and locations like stop lights, in line at the convenience store, etc...to the list of duties.)
So the 2012-13 school year began and we had difficulty staffing and operating the Washington Wordshop the way we had envisioned. We held poetry club there. Several times throughout the year we hosted elementary and middle school students as a field trip destination, conducting writing activities and using some of our students as mentors. Many students read, studied, and relaxed in the Wordshop as the only space of peace and solitude among the clamor of the school.
That autumn, we began organizing Louder Than a Bomb KC, a slam poetry competition founded in Chicago and the subject of a critically acclaimed 2009 documentary. The work of enrolling young people, educators, and community members in this inspirational work is invigorating. Kansas City held its first poetry festival in March 2014 with thirteen metro area teams from Shawnee Mission to Raytown, Olathe to Wyandotte. The audiences were growing with each passing preliminary bout. Young poets were gathering on common stages swapping contact information, hugging, and taking pictures. There was a palpable energy in those spaces, detected by everyone there. If you've been there you know that it could really change things, like really alter the course of humanity if executed well.
After the LTABKC Finals, when the 500-seat Gem Theatre was sold out, we recognized the vitality of this work for community and began designing The KC Wordshop.
Vision
As a vision fulfilled for the world, The KC Wordshop unites a generation of young people in the sharing of stories. Truth nullifies stereotypes.
As a vision fulfilled for individual storytellers, The KC Wordshop facilitates a rite of passage in their being praised and recognized for what they've been through. Individual storytellers are welcomed back into the arms of their community. Malidoma Somé says in his interview "Between Two Worlds" that the psyche knows when a homecoming is genuine.
As a vision fulfilled for community, The KC Wordshop facilitates young people in being bold, compassionate, and mindful of others. The storytellers and their audience members are the folks who will inherit the city. They will be the police officers, waiters, teachers, and bankers in the decades that follow. And they'll know each others' truths. They'll base personal policy, which informs all other policy, on truth rather than stereotype.
The KC Wordshop will present annual festivals that gather young people in public spaces to share stories. Louder Than a Bomb KC will see its 3rd annual slam poetry festival in March 2016. We will present a short film festival in July 2016. We will add drama and music festivals to the lineup in years to come. We will also publish student writing.
The KC Wordshop will be open as a comfortable and inspiring community center at 2010 Baltimore in the Crossroads. There, we will facilitate workshops between young people and local artists, educators, and community members. Those workshops will be scheduled regularly with the purpose of working on submissions for the festivals.
The KC Wordshop will be a field trip destination for teachers and their classes where we'll hold engaging language-based activities that culminate in a product or showcase.
The KC Wordshop, in the true sense of a community center, will be available for any idea that bridges community in the sharing of stories.
Phase 1 Needs
Bathroom Remodel
Large Arched Window Replacement
Electrical Work
Web Design & Development
Signage
Furniture
iPads
Operational Expenses (liability insurance, lease, salaries)
Phase 2 Needs
Audio/Visual Equipment (PA system, projector)
Passenger Vans (to assist those without transportion, public or otherwise)
More Furniture
Additional Operational Funding
Your generosity is appreciated. Please consider becoming a community partner to The Wordshop in years to come.
Stay with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Peace,
Paul Richardson
Generator and Co-Founder
The KC Wordshop
Additional Information:
Origins
A few years ago, several English teachers from Washington High in Kansas City, Kansas, saw a set of TED Talks that caused us to view education through different lenses:
"Kids Can Teach Themselves" - Sugata Mitra
"Once Upon a School" - Dave Eggers
"Changing Education Paradigms" - Sir Ken Robinson
Wanting to provide a space where students could take refuge from alarming bells and the rat race of a public school day, we dusted off the industrial arts room over the course of a summer. We had a fundraiser and lightly furnished it. We cleaned out storage rooms and began decking them out as film, music, and graphic art studios. We painted shelves and stocked them with books. We built a stage for performance. One of us was explaining our project to someone from the community and that we'd moved into our school's woodshop. That someone replied, "Oh, so now it's a wordshop." And so it was born.
That school year commenced and we were quickly reminded of the inundation that being a teacher has on one's schedule. At the beginning of the year, if you're not teaching, you're in a meeting; if you're not in a meeting, you're setting up your classroom; if you're not setting up your classroom, you're adjusting your gradebook...again; and whenever there's a spare second at any point in any day, you're planning to deliver lessons to young people. (If it's a first-year teacher, add sleeping in uncomfortable positions and locations like stop lights, in line at the convenience store, etc...to the list of duties.)
So the 2012-13 school year began and we had difficulty staffing and operating the Washington Wordshop the way we had envisioned. We held poetry club there. Several times throughout the year we hosted elementary and middle school students as a field trip destination, conducting writing activities and using some of our students as mentors. Many students read, studied, and relaxed in the Wordshop as the only space of peace and solitude among the clamor of the school.
That autumn, we began organizing Louder Than a Bomb KC, a slam poetry competition founded in Chicago and the subject of a critically acclaimed 2009 documentary. The work of enrolling young people, educators, and community members in this inspirational work is invigorating. Kansas City held its first poetry festival in March 2014 with thirteen metro area teams from Shawnee Mission to Raytown, Olathe to Wyandotte. The audiences were growing with each passing preliminary bout. Young poets were gathering on common stages swapping contact information, hugging, and taking pictures. There was a palpable energy in those spaces, detected by everyone there. If you've been there you know that it could really change things, like really alter the course of humanity if executed well.
After the LTABKC Finals, when the 500-seat Gem Theatre was sold out, we recognized the vitality of this work for community and began designing The KC Wordshop.
Vision
As a vision fulfilled for the world, The KC Wordshop unites a generation of young people in the sharing of stories. Truth nullifies stereotypes.
As a vision fulfilled for individual storytellers, The KC Wordshop facilitates a rite of passage in their being praised and recognized for what they've been through. Individual storytellers are welcomed back into the arms of their community. Malidoma Somé says in his interview "Between Two Worlds" that the psyche knows when a homecoming is genuine.
As a vision fulfilled for community, The KC Wordshop facilitates young people in being bold, compassionate, and mindful of others. The storytellers and their audience members are the folks who will inherit the city. They will be the police officers, waiters, teachers, and bankers in the decades that follow. And they'll know each others' truths. They'll base personal policy, which informs all other policy, on truth rather than stereotype.
Organizer
Paul Richardson
Organizer
Kansas City, MO
