2019 Winter Institute Theme

The theme of this year’s Institute is “Beyond Borders: Experiential Education Through the Lens of Equity & Justice.” By exploring ideas of both identity and community, we will situate and fortify our work in schools and beyond. Whether we come to this work through outdoor education, service learning, global education, administration, or an intersection of multiple fields/areas, we will investigate our personal interactions with students, colleagues, and communities. 

Guiding us through this theme will be longtime ISEEN supporters:                                                                                        Dwight Vidale and Emily Schorr Lesnick

DWIGHT VIDALE Educator. Thinker. Writer. Dwight Vidale has thirteen years of experience in the classroom as an English teacher, having began his career with Teach For America - Houston. Currently, he teaches at the Riverdale Country School, his alma mater, where he is also the Director of Community Engagement. His office organizes and facilitates workshops centered around equity and inclusion for both the middle and high school. As a senior administrator, he also works closely with the administrative team to implement changes that support and nurture the entire community, specifically around issues of identity. Dwight is also the founder and lead organizer for the Young Men of Color Symposium, a leadership conference for young self-identified men of color in grades six through twelve in the New York City area and beyond. The day features opportunities for participants to explore their multiple identities and learn skills geared towards self-advocacy and community building. He also blogs about his experiences as a single father at livingasdaddy.com.

EMILY SCHORR LESNICK (she/her/hers) is an educator, facilitator, and theatre maker, who splits her time between Harlem and Seattle. She is the new Social Emotional Learning Coordinator at University Prep in Seattle, WA. Before that, Emily worked at Riverdale as Upper School Director of Service Learning and Assistant Director of Community Engagement.  She is the co-creator of How We GLOW, a piece of interview theatre that explores lgbtq+ youth identity, which has been performed at over 30 schools and community spaces, and serves on the Educator Advisory Committee for GLSEN. Her first ISEEN conference was in Honolulu in 2016 and it changed her life. Emily received her MA in Educational Theatre at NYU Steinhardt and her work has been featured in NAIS publications, the New Yorker magazine, NYTimes op-docs, and at the Apollo Theater.