Community Spotlight: Jordan Burnham-Bialik
April 1, 2026
Jordan Burnham-Bialik is the Director of Enrichment at the Park School, which is one of our newer Partnership Schools. For the past three terms, we have sent instructors to teach kids from Pre-K through Eighth Grade woodworking, visual arts, and more.
Our School & Community Partnership Program sends teaching artists to schools and community centers throughout Boston, sharing the joy of making things by hand with students of all ages who might not otherwise have access to it.
We sat down with Jordan for this month’s Community Spotlight to discuss the Park School’s experience partnering with the Eliot School, and what their students get out of the artistic education our instructors bring.
Transcript
I'm Jordan Burnham-Bialik. I'm the Director of Enrichment here at the Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts. Part of my job is facilitating partnerships with awesome organizations in the Boston area, and the Eliot School is one of the organizations that we do the most work with.
What is your favorite artistic medium?
I'm a theater artist all the way, so I love anything that involves collaboration, anything that gets people working together with different modalities. That's what I think theater does best; it gets visual artists and performing artists all together.
What is the value of having Eliot School instructors at the Park School?
It's a natural fit. We're within walking distance of each other. Plus, we get to work with some of the most talented artists and teachers in our immediate community, which just makes it a great fit. One of my favorite things about having Eliot instructors here is that we're able to bring in perspectives that our students wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
How have you seen students react to learning an artistic discipline that they've never experienced before?
We're always looking to have our students try new things. For example, right now we're running a class in Pre-K and Kindergarten called Very Beginner Woodworking. What's amazing is watching the kids take nails, take a hammer, and work really, really hard to hit the nail just right, so it goes into the wood. You can tell when a kid accomplishes that kind of thing, they are so proud. It's the simplest thing for an adult, hitting a nail on the head with a hammer. But for a kid, it makes them feel like they can do anything.
What has kept the Park School in this partnership?
As I've gotten to learn some of the strengths of the Eliot School and its teachers, we've been able to think of new ways to engage Eliot artists with our community here. Something we're looking at offering next term is piñata making, and that was an idea proposed by one of the Eliot teachers. So, I think the reason why we keep loving having the Eliot back is because our Eliot partnership is always evolving and changing with the interests and the desires of both the kids and the artists who are working with them.
What are your hopes for the future of the Eliot School and the Park School's future with the Eliot School?
My hope is that we continue offering new and exciting classes for our students that get them interested in being creative in whatever capacity might spark that for them. What I'm always thinking about is how we are competing with the AI algorithms for kids’ attention, and one of the best ways we can win in that fight is by engaging kids in exciting, creative, hands-on learning.