Puppetry in Practice is an independent non-profit housed in the School of Education at Brooklyn College, using puppetry and the arts to teach literacy and language in New York City schools since 1980.
This is the entry for teachers
Most of this glossary is about building and performing. PiP is about what puppetry is for outside entertainment — and the answer turns out to be substantial.
What they actually do
Teaching artists go into schools and run residencies built around puppet making, toy theatre and stop-motion animation, tied to the curriculum rather than bolted onto it. The organisation reaches roughly twenty-five schools and fifteen thousand students a year, from pre-kindergarten through high school.
Why puppetry specifically
Their work concentrates on English Language Learners and students in special education, and the reasoning is sound: a child who will not speak in front of a class will often speak through a puppet. The object absorbs the risk. That is a real pedagogical mechanism, not a charming idea.
They train the teachers too
PiP runs professional development for educators, on site or at their Brooklyn College centre, and works with student teachers before they enter classrooms — which is how a technique spreads beyond the few schools an organisation can visit.
The Resource Centre
is open to visitors, and is described by the people who run it as a treasure trove of puppet-making materials and techniques. Walk-ins are encouraged.
If you teach, run a youth group, or work with kids at all,
this is the model worth studying. Puppetry has a documented job in a classroom, and PiP has been doing it for over forty years.