NAIS - Conference Preview - December 5-7, 2008 - (Page 11)

Mayda del Valle PoCC Featured Speaker Workshop Session B SaTurDay, DeCember 6 SDLC Keynote Speaker SaTurDay, DeCember 6 kira orange Jones PoCC Featured Speaker Workshop Session C SaTurDay, DeCember 6 10:30am – 12:00pm 2:00pm – 3:00pm 3:15pm – 4:45pm Executive Director of Teach For America– Greater New Orleans, Kira Orange Jones knows how to rise to a challenge. Jones won a scholarship to Horace Mann School (NY) before heading to Wesleyan University. Accepting a position with Teach For America after college, Jones found herself instructing struggling students in Baton Rouge, LA. There she founded Right Quick Productions, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to amplifying community voices through documentary filmmaking and media education. Just before starting her Master’s at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Hurricane Katrina struck. Jones agonized over whether to return north, but in the end decided to continue her education. After earning her master’s, Teach For America recruited the hardworking, dedicated, insightful Jones for its leadership ranks. She has helped transform school systems in Louisiana, Houston, and Philadelphia. Mayda Alexandra del Valle is a misplaced, displaced jibara without a homeland. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, she began performing her own writing in high school. Leaving to attend Williams College, she earned a bachelor’s in studio art in 2000. She created a series of five short poetry videos and an hour-long, one-woman show, what i is: self-portrait in words. It covers topics such as relationships, identity, and experiences as a minority student at a small liberal arts college. Next del Valle moved to New York and dropped by the Nuyorican Poets Café Wednesday night open slam. Though she had never performed poetry competitively, just nine months later, she won the National Poetry Slam individual title in Seattle. Del Valle draws inspiration for her writing from all kinds of sources — from growing up in a multicultural neighborhood to being a Puerto Rican woman to hip-hop culture. register online to automatically be entered in a drawing to win a free 2009 pocc/sdlc registration! 11

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NAIS - Conference Preview - December 5-7, 2008

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