Isaiah Mākar

Isaiah (he/him) is an Oak Park & River Forest High School grad and a University of Illinois at Chicago alum, where he won the “Outstanding Oral Presentation” award at the 2015 Illinois Summer Research Symposium after performing his research in spoken word form, titled, “To Be...Engaged or Not To Be...Engaged? Poetry In The Classroom Answers The Question.” From his research, Isaiah designed the Mākar Method, which focuses on how cross-disciplinary spoken word poetry skills activate six communication styles that are transferable beyond a stage and a page to foster the learning and development of educators and employees. Isaiah demonstrated Mākar Method by teaching a class at Roosevelt University titled, “Teaching is a Performance” for undergrad students who want to blend creative spoken word aesthetics into a teaching style that engages disengaged students. Then, at Grainger Industrial Supply, Isaiah lead a spoken word professional development workshop for employees titled, “Atelophobia: the fear of not being good enough”, focusing on removing the mental bullies that barricade innovative, collaborative teamwork to produce sufficient energy management techniques in the workplace. His most recent demonstration of the Mākar Method came at the Disrupt HR event at the 1871 entrepreneurial space in the Chicago Merchandise Mart. In front of an audience of over 250 human resource representatives from companies such as All-State, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Google, and Amazon, among others. Isaiah, in bold fashion, performed his presentation in spoken word rap form, titled, “The Ten HR Commandments: Don’t Think Small. Think Biggie”, in which for each commandment he rhymed about how communication skills he learned from spoken word poetry can be utilized to hire and train employees. Isaiah is the Oak Park Education Foundation’s Spoken Word Coordinator, Spoken Word Teaching Artist at Percy Julian Middle School and just served as an Arts Education panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts. Isaiah is also the newly founder and owner of ISAIAH MĀKAR LLC, which provides spoken word professional development workshops for employees to learn how to apply creative communication mechanics from poetry to cultivate an engaging workplace environment.