Current Class
Schedule & Registration
Here are the schedule and descriptions of current classes, workshops, and conversations at Let’s Learn! this semester. Each description includes a registration link.
Hope to see you in class!
Class Schedule
Fall 2024
Let’s Be Poetic
Caroline Donnola
Saturday, September 14, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 11:00 am – 12:30 Pacific U.S. Time.
View Recording Here , and type in passcode ‘dTe330=3’
Whether you’ve been writing poetry all your life or have never done so, poetry is a form of expression that anyone can participate in. In this workshop—led by Caroline Donnola, who has taught writing classes for decades in business colleges, high schools, and continuing education programs—we’ll explore some of the elements that can be used to bring poetry to life; play with the sounds and rhythms of poetry; and do some in-class writing. Using writing prompts, each student will create a short poem in class. Together we’ll discover how poetry writing can help us unleash new kinds of thoughts and feelings and free us up from the constraints that can hold us back from creatively expressing and experiencing our lives in new ways.
Why We Are All So Lonely—And What We Can Do About It
Carrie Sackett and Murray Dabby
Wednesday, September 18, 8:00 pm to 9:15 pm, Eastern U.S. Time, 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm, Pacific Time
Register Here
So many people around the world—from the U.S. to Japan, from Mexico to Uganda—are feeling lonely, isolated, and depressed. Why is this emotional crisis spreading and is there any way to engage and overcome it? Social therapeutic coach Carrie Sackett and social therapist Murray Dabby, authors of the recently published book, Social Therapeutic Coaching: A Practical Guide to Group and Couples Work, will explore the causes of loneliness, a social disease, and the failure of traditional psychology, which is based on individualism, to be of much help. They will look at the need for community and dialogue with you about how to build it. There will be time to share your experiences of loneliness and to explore with Sackett and Dabby ways of transforming the pain into growth.
Hibakusha – A Conversation with a Survivor of Hiroshima
Saturday, September 21 at 8:00 pm (Eastern U.S. Time), Sunday 9:00 am Sunday (Japan Time)
Register Here
The "hibakusha" are the survivors of the atomic bombs which dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in August 1945, killing approximately 226,000 people. Many hibakusha have spent their lives working to generate a culture of peace and ensure that what happened to them and their cities never happens again. In this session you meet Hibakusha, a survivor. This special gathering is being organized for Let’s Learn! by Peace Boat, a Japan-based international NGO which promotes peace, human rights, and sustainability. Established in 1983, it holds Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Improv for Everyone
Rick Horner
Sunday, October 6, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 11:00 am – 12:30 pm, Pacific Time
Register Here
Improvisation is not only a creative and fun way to create theatre; it is also a vital life skill. The ability to actively listen, accept “offers” from others, and create something new together can enrich your life as a student, worker, family member and friend. In this workshop you will learn the basics of improv from master improv performer and teacher Rick Horner. Horner, trained by Chicago’s world-famous Second City, is a member of the Applied Improv Network and the Global Play Brigade. He is also a founder of the Incubator, a weekly improv jam/improviser get-together in Philadelphia that has been central to the development of the city's improv scene. Come and have fun. No experience necessary.
Performing Arabic
Zinia Rahman (ziniarahman@nypl.org)
Saturday, October 12, 1:00 pm -2:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm in West Europe and West Africa
Register Here
In this workshop, we will briefly learn about the cultural and linguistic history of the Arabic language and the different dialects across the Middle East and Africa. We will also learn the alphabet and the variations of the letters, and practice writing the alphabet.
Puppetry Beyond the Stage
Laura Giger
Saturday, October 19, 1:30 – 3:00 Eastern U.S. Time/7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Central European Time
Register Here
Did you know that you can use puppetry as a personal practice? Come discover a few of the reasons why puppetry is such a powerful tool for exploration and connection. Construct your very own paper puppet and learn a simple process for it to come alive. Your paper person just might teach you a thing or two. Join Laura Geiger, an applied puppetry teacher and facilitator, for this unique class.
Materials needed: at least six sheets of newspaper and masking tape.
The Magic in the Mundane
Lois Holzman
Sunday, October 13, 1:00 pm – 2:30, Eastern U.S Time; 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Pacific Time; 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, West Africa and West Europe Time.
Register Here
In this playshop, Dr. Lois Holzman, co-founder and director of the East Side Institute, will lead you in moving in, up, around and through the mundane things of everyday life. In our culture we are oriented to see things, to want things, even to think of other people and ourselves as things. But if that’s all we see, if we don’t know how to look at the processes—the flow, the swirl, the change, the transformation—going on all around (and within) us, we miss the magic (and much of the joy) of life. Holzman, whose latest book, A Developmentalist’s Guide to Better Mental Health will be available next year, has spent her life helping people see, and act on, new possibilities.
Let’s Learners: Come Flex Your Curiosity Muscles!
With Carrie Lobman and Janet Wootten
Saturday, October 26, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 11:00 am – 12:30 pm, Pacific
Register Here
How is that image transported from Mars? Can plankton stop climate change? How come she covers her head? Can whales talk? How does Google translate work? What is gender, anyway? Can we be friends?
We humans are a curious bunch and usually find a lot of joy in our curiosity. Sometimes, however, the daily grind of work, school and family can wear us down and weaken our curiosity muscles—and when we stop wondering, we stop growing. East Side Institute guest faculty Dr. Carrie Lobman and Janet Wootten invite you to join them for their popular, improvisational workshop to introduce you to a developmental process that can strengthen your capacity as life-long exploratory team-builders.
Carrie is the Institute’s Leader of Education and Research and Assoc. Professor of Learning and Teaching at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. She lectures worldwide on non-knowing growing pedagogies. Janet Wootten, a communications professional, is Creative Advisor to the Institute’s Director, has her Masters of Philosophy in Developmental Psychology and, like Carrie, delights in teaching others to be curious learners.
Together they will lead you in a process of (re)discovering the joy and value of practicing curiosity everywhere. NOTE: This session is both for people who consider themselves curious—and for those who don’t!
The Practice of Reproductive Justice
Justina Licata and Hannah Dudley-Shotwell
Saturday, November 9, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Pacific Time
Register Here
In this presentation, Drs. Justina Licata and Hannah Dudley-Shotwell will introduce reproductive justice, a movement started by African American women in 1994 that integrates social justice into the reproductive rights movement. Reproductive justice is based on four core principles: the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, the right to raise a child in a safe and healthy environment, and the right to bodily autonomy. To explore how activists and organizers are putting reproductive justice into practice in a post-Roe America, they will examine abortion funds or local nonprofit organizations that provide abortion seekers with monetary support. Using oral history interviews, this presentation will demonstrate how abortion fund staffers and volunteers from across the U.S. are helping patients cross state lines, maneuver severe restrictions, and secure funds to pay for their procedures and supplemental expenses to access healthcare.
Turn Your History into Poetry
Dan Friedman
Saturday, November 16, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Eastern U.S. Time; 11:00 am – 12:30 Pacific Time
Register Here
We all have histories, but we seldom share them. Poetry can be a way of meditating upon and making meaning out of our lives—our pain, our humiliation, our love, our rage, our courage—our histories. And, despite what your high school literature teacher may have told you, everyone can write poetry! In this workshop, Dan Friedman, playwright, poet, and grassroots community organizer, will lead you through a process of creating poems based on your, your family’s, and/or your community’s histories.