Tamika R. Guishard

What do a Park Ranger, dancer, educator and filmmaker have in common? Me! Through my journey as an educator, I segued from teaching middle school Social Studies in my hometown of East New York, Brooklyn to NYU Graduate Film School. My goals were to resurrect the Afterschool Special and mainstream the marginalized voices critical to student empowerment that were missing from classroom textbooks. Since then, I have continued to carve my space at the crossroads of education and storytelling through numerous outlets. My brand of edutainment includes authoring interactive filmmaking curricula where students, particularly those of color, see themselves as change agents; producing innovative video-based, professional learning; amplifying the lost history of Lower Manhattan’s African Burial Ground; and interviewing teachers, too often on the periphery of policy discussions, on how they best receive instructional feedback.

Through a lens of equity, we equip disenfranchised communities with tools to tell their own stories while spotlighting the nuance and greatness already occurring but unseen. We fuse our expertise in storytelling and pedagogy and fill the gap between large filming teams with disruptive equipment and over-tasked classroom instructors recording themselves. We teach educators "how to fish" in filming their spaces, and ideate blended learning experiences to optimize said media as well as our original, Black women-helmed productions. Distilling and activating pedagogy from mass media that helps spark engaged citizens is more vital now than ever, especially given that the lack of interpersonal connection has forced us to lean on video and new media in unprecedented ways.