BUILDING CONSTELLATIONS
EDUCATION CONSULTING & MULTICULTURAL TRAINING
Founded by Shanelle Gabriel in 2023, with over 20 years of educational and nonprofit experience, Building Constellations is deeply dedicated to its mission:
To illuminate the brilliance and interconnectedness of our diverse communities, empower individuals to excel in their unique strengths, and cultivate a new generation of visionary leaders poised to inspire and elevate our world.
Building Constellations delivers arts-based professional learning workshops and trainings designed to enhance the capacity of providers to better serve their communities and target populations. Our offerings include Identity & Multicultural
Competency training for schools, nonprofits, and businesses, as well as workshops on social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CRSE) curriculum evaluation and development. We also design custom curricula on a range of themes. Additionally, Building Constellations provides project and program support, offering strategic guidance to strengthen human capacity, drive the success of educational and community initiatives, and support evaluation processes to inform future planning.
Shanelle Gabriel draws on a wealth of experience in education, school and nonprofit leadership, and a Master’s in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work includes spearheading city- and district-wide residency programs impacting over 100 schools annually, facilitating workshops nationwide for learners of all levels and backgrounds, and collaborating with government agencies and international organizations on initiatives focused on education, the arts, literacy, and social-emotional development.
PAST PROJECTS:
Coordinating and facilitating monthly city-wide Professional Learning sessions with the Middle School Quality Initiative of the NYC Department of Education
Program support, curriculum creation, and teaching artist development for the Reimagining Our Lives through Literature multi-school program for the Center for Black Literature
Crafting multidisciplinary arts curriculum for the Federal Hall Conservancy, the Museum of the City of New York, Britannica Learning Center, and more
NYC DOE VENDOR
PAST WORKSHOPS & LECTURES:
New York University- Steinhardt
Georgia State University
Nuasin Charter School System
NYC Department of Education City-Wide Middle School Quality Initiative
Britannica Learning Center
SAMPLE OFFERINGS
Able to tailor each offering to fit your specific needs, themes, and budget.
Student-Facing Workshops & Performances
Spoken Word 101 is a creative writing workshop series for youth (and for adults!) that can be adapted to fit various themes and programmatic goals. (See her facilitate a workshop for the Nelson Mandela Project with actress Marsai Martin in partnership with BET and YouTube here.)
Aim High Keynote is a large group/assembly performance using spoken word poetry to have listeners explore themes around self-esteem, goal-setting, and resilience. This motivational keynote is up to an hour long, can be modified to fit various themes and age-levels, and is fitting for special events such as graduation, orientation, etc.
Finding Your SELF in Your Greek Organization is a collegiate workshop that explores ways for members of Greek organizations to become the leaders in their chapter and to embrace the diversity of their fellow members.
Adult/Educator Trainings
What’s Your Culture is a series of trainings that explore how our social and positional identities can relate and impact others. We will offer opportunities for self-reflection, create safer spaces to learn more about the experiences of others, and open the floor for much needed dialogue on how our positionality can manifest itself in our classrooms, companies, and with our colleagues. By the end of the series, we will establish and co-generate ways to reflect upon our own identity, develop protocols to make our spaces more inclusive, and to be true allies with our students and our work community.
How You Show Up, How I Show Up is a session on navigating trauma and examines some of the various ways our experiences outside can impact reactions within. Through expanding our understanding of the ways the mind and body can react to various traumas and interactions, we can discover ways to recognize triggers and triggered students and colleagues. This session explores ways to create safe(r) spaces where all can practice self-care.
Inserting Art & Heart is a session that supports teachers in creating culturally responsive sustaining and student centered curriculum by repositioning students at the forefront of the class. Where are there spaces to encourage dialogue, narrative, and the contexts of those we serve? This training illustrates ways that poetry, hip-hop, and the arts can support creating spaces for genuine connection and engagement within various classrooms.