Staff Profiles<\/a><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_accordion_item][\/et_pb_accordion][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.4.8″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2020\/06\/Richard_Diaz_485x240.jpg” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default” alt=”Richard Diaz” title_text=”Richard Diaz” sticky_enabled=”0″ align=”center” border_color_all=”#000000″ hover_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_font=”Open Sans||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Navigating Between Cultures to Empower New Teachers<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nRichard Diaz, the son of Afro-Cuban immigrants, knows what it means to \u201ccode switch\u201d\u2014to communicate effectively to people of many ethnicities by understanding and tapping into their cultural DNA. \u201cI\u2019ve had to do this all my life,\u201d says Diaz, \u201cand so do most young people.\u201d<\/span> Diaz brings his skill in intercultural communication to students from many backgrounds enrolled in the Teacher Opportunity Corps (TOC). This program, which has a strong mentoring component, is intended to diversify the teaching force. \u201cThese students often face economic challenges,\u201d he says. The state-funded TOC gives them a stipend for participating in a 200-hour internship in a high-needs school\u2014typically in South Queens–before they student-teach in that same school. \u201cAt that point, they\u2019ve been groomed and are familiar with the scene,\u201d Diaz says.<\/span><\/p>\nRecently, Diaz has recruited candidates with undergraduate degrees for the Urban Teacher Residency, an initiative launched in summer 2018 that attracts career-changers. An unusual feature is that accepted students earn a salary from the Department of Education while they complete their teaching courses and credentialing. \u201cBecause they don\u2019t have to hold outside jobs, they can focus full time on their education and professional development,\u201d says Diaz. When hired as teachers, they are carefully paired with an experienced colleague. <\/span><\/p>\nA goal of both programs, Diaz points out, is to cultivate teachers from groups underrepresented in teaching who won\u2019t simply go to work and leave the community behind at the end of the day, like tourists leaving a foreign country. \u201cWe want to prepare people to be change agents and empower their students to be masters of their own lives,\u201d he says<\/span> \u201cRichard caught my eye with his problem-solving acumen\u00a0and mediational skills when he was a master\u2019s student here,\u201d says Eleanor Armour-Thomas, chair of Secondary Education and Youth Services. \u201cSince then I have come to know him\u00a0as\u00a0an adjunct faculty member and director of education programs. He is a generous, humane, creative, and enterprising person\u00a0who always goes the extra mile for the team.\u201d<\/span> Diaz\u2019s unusual, varied background makes him uniquely qualified for his work.<\/span><\/p>\nA self-described \u201cpoor kid from the Bronx projects,\u201d he later moved with his sister and mother, a seamstress, to Elmhurst. Although enrolled at Newtown High School, he took all of his classes at The Mount Sinai Hospital with a small cohort of high-achievers selected from across the city. After the school day, he stayed at the hospital for internships. Planning to become a doctor, Diaz majored in biology at City College while earning a minor in the visual arts, a field he has long embraced. \u201cAs an undergrad, I was fortunate that the sculptor Seymour Lipton took me on as his apprentice,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\nBut when Diaz was accepted to medical school, he turned it down. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to go into debt and walk away from helping to support my family,\u201d he recalls. Instead, he embarked on a career in advertising with prominent agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam, developing strategic media investment plans for their clients.<\/span>
Over several years, he worked for agencies that specialized in media planning for the Hispanic market. \u201cI shared my insights about cultural distinctions that go beyond language to help them make meaningful and lasting connections to consumers,\u201d Diaz says. <\/span><\/p>\nThe advertising work was demanding, lucrative and \u201cindividually fruitful,\u201d he says\u2014but promoting consumerism and generating revenue for billion-dollar corporations led to a feeling of dissonance that he couldn\u2019t ignore. \u201cI was aware of the growing education gap and knew I had to do something meaningful,\u201d\u00a0 he says. The new career? Teaching art, which Diaz calls \u201can effective point of entry to help others engage in discovery and make connections to virtually everything. The visual is everyone\u2019s first language.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWhile earning his MS in art education, Diaz took advantage of Study Abroad, traveling to Jingdezhen, known as China\u2019s porcelain capital, and learning some Mandarin. He also taught art at a girls\u2019 vocational school in India founded by a visionary who, after retiring from a successful business career, built the school to empower those who faced great inequities. \u201cFrom these experiences, I learned the Platinum Rule: \u2018Do unto others as they would do unto themselves.\u2019 It\u2019s about understanding others\u2019 cultures and having empathy,\u201d Diaz says. <\/span>
After graduation, he taught art in grades K though 12, mainly at public schools in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Park Slope, and Bushwick. In his role as an adjunct professor at QC, Diaz teaches education methods courses to pre-service and new art teachers.<\/span>
\u201cArt is a catalyst that can bring people together, a means of expression that provides endless ways for individuals to share what matters to them regardless of their technical abilities,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll always be compelled to make art,\u201d adds Diaz, who can draw, sculpt, weld, and create ceramics.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cMaking art is less about the time needed to complete works,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt\u2019s more about having occasions to function holistically as a fully integrated way of being. In some ways, my work at Queens College has become part of my art.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Name: Richard DiazDepartment: Department of Education “I was aware of the growing education gap and knew I had to do something meaningful”- Richard Diaz Student Profiles Alumni Profiles Faculty Profiles Staff ProfilesNavigating Between Cultures to Empower New Teachers Richard Diaz, the son of Afro-Cuban immigrants, knows what it means to \u201ccode switch\u201d\u2014to communicate effectively to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[137],"class_list":["post-1424","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1957,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1424\/revisions\/1957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}