Americans for the Arts has just released a white paper on creativity and aging, "Think and Be Heard: Creativity, Aging and Community Engagement." Steven Dahlberg, head of the Connecticut-based International Centre for Creativity and Imagination, wrote this report as a follow up to the 2007 National Arts Forum Series, which is supported by the MetLife Foundation.
http://www.americansforthearts.org/pdf/information_services/arts_busines...

"Arts and aging is neither just about art, nor just about aging. Rather, it is about creativity and positive engagement -- that is, creativity as both a goal and a process for shaping the self and society," writes Dahlberg. "It is through such creative thinking and self-expression that people connect with others and shape the world. Such a work of art is a lifelong process."

Please distribute and share this white paper -- and share your feedback online about this topic, as well:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7550247282725274778&postID=2556...

Date: April 26, 2008
Time: 10:30 - 12
Raindate: April 27, 2008 Time: 12 - 1:30

To the religious leaders in the Windham area:

Imagine, at one moment, no matter where you are in Windham, you see activities demonstrating town pride. At schools and parks, businesses and churches, clean-up crews are beautifying our town. This is the vision of four local children.

Saturday, April 26, 2008 from 10:30 – 12:00 is our opportunity to show “Town Pride Town Wide.” What is “Town Pride Town Wide?” A child-led initiative to beautify our town. We would like to have a coordinated clean-up on this day, and are hoping for your support. Targeted areas for clean-up on this day are playgrounds and parks. We see this as a family event, an opportunity to inspire the children to demonstrate town pride.

What we are hoping for from the churches is simply participation, a chance to show the unity of our community. Your clean-up may take place solely on your grounds, or you may choose to help support us at one of the playgrounds.

What do you need to do? Let us know if your church is willing to commit to this date, to this event. Our rain date is Sunday, April 27, 2008 from 12:00 – 1:30. Contact us at the phone number or e-mail below, and give us the name of the person who will be the key contact for your site.

Steps to take:
1. Commit to the date
2. Provide a key person who will be the contact for this event and your site (or let us know if you will be supporting us at one of the parks or playgrounds in town)
3. Assist us in making children and families excited and aware of this event

We look forward to working with you and showing our “Town Pride Town-Wide”.

Sincerely,

Erika Haynes
The Windham Parent Network
860-450-1977
mhaynes13@charter.net

==========================================
WindhamARTS Collaborative Launches Monthly
Creativity Networking Series ...
Provides forum for exploring the many facets
of creativity and for discovering other
people interested in creativity
===========================================

The WindhamARTS Collaborative, in partnership with the
International Centre for Creativity and Imagination, will
host a Creativity Networking series from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
on the first Wednesday of each month from March to June.
The series will be held at WindhamARTS, 866 Main Street,
Willimantic, Conn.

Steven Dahlberg of the International Centre for Creativity
and Imagination will lead the first session, "Creativity,
What is It?" on Wednesday, March 5. Participants will explore
what creativity is, who has it, and how one can tap into more
of it.

This series is open to all. A $5 donation and RSVP
(860-450-1794) is requested. Following the session, receive
10 percent off dinner across the street at Willimantic Brewing
Co / Main Street Cafe (967 Main Street, Willimantic)!

"The creative force is present in all humans to some degree.
Pressures to conform within education and society often silence
creative expression for many students and citizens. The
potential for its development remains, however," says author
and educator Berenice Bleedorn. "The right of an individual to
create new ideas and to expect a respectful, supportive climate
for their expression is a human right too often ignored. The
human right to think and be heard at higher, more complex and
mutualistic levels is a necessary added freedom."

Creativity matters in all aspects of society. If you want to reconnect
with your inherent creativity and explore new ways of expressing it,
don't miss this series. It will cover topics about creativity in all
forms (including, but not limited to, arts), creative thinking, creative
communities, creativity and education, creativity in organizations,
creative persons, the creative process, creative aging and more.

ABOUT THE SERIES:
The series includes opportunities to learn with others, to think
in new ways, and to generate new ideas. The format of the monthly
Creativity Networking sessions will be informal and will usually
include about 30 minutes of a presentation or experiential workshop
(from a different facilitator each month), 30 minutes of dialogue
about the topic, and 30 minutes of networking with other participants.
Come and be inspired to apply your imagination and invent new
possibilities for yourself and your community.

In addition, watch for Creativity Networking coming to the
New Britain Museum of American Art on July 31 and August 28!
The Creativity Networking series is part of a larger initiative
to widely promote a more "Creative Connecticut." More details about
this statewide project coming soon!

Creativity Networking is sponsored by the WindhamARTS
Collaborative ... in partnership with the International
Centre for Creativity and Imagination

ABOUT WINDHAM ARTS:
The WindhamARTS Collaborative is comprised of member arts
organizations and individuals who came together in 2001 to foster
and promote the arts and cultural life of the Windham region. Its
goal is to maintain a multicultural, multidisciplinary, and
multifaceted arts center where artists and artisans can interact
with the public by sharing their creative endeavors.
http://www.windhamarts.org

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR:
Steven Dahlberg heads the International Centre for Creativity and
Imagination, which is dedicated to applying creativity to improve the
well-being of individuals, organizations and communities. He manages
creative community projects for various institutions, serves as an
adviser to the Guggenheim Museum’s “The Art of Problem Solving”
research project, and serves as a juror to select public art for a
new science education building. He collaborates with artists,
scientists, business people, educators and others to help people
develop their creativity. He has worked with UNESCO, Americans for
the Arts, Heinz, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism,
General Mills, and Yahoo! Research Berkeley, among other organizations.
He’s led workshops and keynotes on creative engagement and
participation at the international Creativity & Cognition Conference,
the University of Connecticut's Confratute (summer institute on
enrichment learning and teaching) and the State of Connecticut's
Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Schools Summer Institute. Steven has
more than 16 years of experience promoting and teaching creative thinking
in the United States, South Africa, Europe and Asia. He was head an
international creativity foundation, director of an annual creativity
conference, program director of the Institute for Creative Studies in
Minneapolis, and helped two long-time toy inventors launch a creativity
consulting business. He has designed and taught three graduate-level
creativity courses at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, as well as
guest lectured at several universities. Dahlberg authored the foreword
to the book, "Education is Everybody’s Business: A Wake-Up Call to
Advocates of Educational Change," and edits the "Applied Imagination" blog.
http://www.appliedimagination.org

========================

SUMMARY ...

DATES: Come to any or all of the
first-Wednesday-of-the-month
sessions: March 5, April 2,
May 7 & June 4
TIME: 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
PLACE: WindhamARTS Collaborative
866 Main Street
Willimantic, CT 06226
860-450-1794
http://www.windhamarts.org
-- Followed by dinner at Main
Street Cafe, 967 Main Street
REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION:
$5 donation; RSVP requested by phoning 860-
450-1794 or emailing news@appliedimagination.org
FACILITATOR:
Steven Dahlberg
International Centre for Creativity and Imagination
http://www.appliedimagination.org

========================

College Board Awards Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing
02/01/08
NEW YORK— Eight teachers have been awarded the third annual College Board Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing, the College Board announced today. The grants recognize exceptional teachers for using innovative methods to inspire their students to write. The award was created to support teachers and to thank Bob Costas, the Emmy Award-winning broadcaster and author, for his generous public service work on behalf of the National Commission on Writing. Each winner receives a grant of $3,000.

Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, said: “It’s an honor to support these extraordinary teachers who are inspiring their students to write. Their highly effective practices are teaching young people both the joy of using words well and the importance of that skill, which will serve them for the rest of their lives.”

One grant recipient or teaching team was selected from each of the College Board’s six regions:

New England Region: B. Lynn Frazier, a reading and language arts consultant at Windham High School in Willimantic, Conn., began a poetry unit focusing on memoirs a few years ago. Her group of students, the self-named Young Poets, responded with passion and skill, performing their work in a local café and publishing it online. “Writing has helped them stay in school, strive for academic success, heal and even make wiser decisions,” she said. Frazier was chosen as one of 150 Freedom Writer Teachers by Erin Gruwell. Her students now participate in Gruwell’s national program that encourages disadvantaged young people to write about the adversity they face in their lives. With this grant, Frazier plans to publish a second book of her students’ poetry and organize a weeklong celebration called “Think and Be Heard: Celebrating Strengths and Creativity,” which will include a poetry slam and a presentation by one of the original Freedom Writers.

Southwestern Region: Mary Grace Bagaoisan and Roseo T. Caburian Jr. of Lakeview Centennial High School in Garland, Texas, teach English as a second language in an economically and ethnically diverse high school. Eighty-two percent of the students are eligible for Title I services, and there are 17 different first languages spoken within the student body. Bagaoisan and Caburian have succeeded in building writing skills and academic confidence among students whose limited English proficiency threatened to keep them from staying in school or considering college. The grant will support a program for ESL students that offers intensive writing workshops combined with field trips to museums, athletic events, theater performances and other cultural institutions. Students will be given various writing assignments related to the activities, such as news stories, reviews or essays. The project will culminate with the publication of their work in an ESL newsletter and on a related school Web site.

Middle States Region: Beth Breau and Richard Lorenzo of St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, N.J., teach a 10th-grade course called Newark Studies, in which students investigate topics important to their city, including AIDS, race relations, downtown development and Newark’s 1967 civil disorders. During each semester, students conduct interviews and perform extensive research on these issues for Newark InDepth, a student-written magazine. Newark InDepth not only requires students to work in a newsroom-style atmosphere in which they call sources and meet deadlines, but also makes them analyze and discuss actual issues that affect their lives and city. St. Benedict’s Prep is an all-boys school in the city’s Central Ward with the mission of helping their predominantly minority students prepare for college.

Southern Region: Nancy Sladky teachers literature and writing at John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, an inner-city public school in Augusta, Ga., dedicated to the performing arts. Sladky is committed to making writing an integral part the curriculum. She sponsors an active poetry and fiction writing club, publishes a literary journal, holds events to showcase student writing and has collaborated with the library to establish a creative writing blog for students. With this grant, she plans to help her students publish their writing in a historical style — broadsides. These poster-sized papers, used in the 16th century to publish words and art, were also popular with Harlem Renaissance and Beat writers. Sladky will help her students create original broadsides to be displayed at school and in the surrounding neighborhood. These publications will help students connect to the downtown community and share their ideas and art with a larger audience.

Midwestern Region: Katherine Plager of Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Ill., teaches her students how to write formal laboratory reports following the scientific method. Her rubric and step-by-step procedure for constructing laboratory reports has made writing accessible to students previously uncomfortable with writing. “Scientific writing is analytical and naturally provides structure for students to write about ideas using higher-level thinking skills,” Plager said. “It forces students to consider a history of ideas and their time and place in the metamorphosis of those ideas.” With the help of the Costas grant, Plager will create a science writing lab in which students not only will continue to write formal laboratory reports, but also write science articles in the style of the New York Times “Science Times” section. Both types of writing, along with creative and informal science writing, will be included in a science journal the class will publish twice a year.

Western Region: Art Rzasa of Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Mont., founded Classroom Without Walls, where students engage in experiential learning. They embark on educational backpacking trips, then research, write, film and produce short documentaries for classroom use in middle school and high school. Those projects have included learning how a national park operates from officials who run Yellowstone, and performing drills with the Confederate “infantry” at Gettysburg. With this grant, Rzasa plans for his Classroom Without Walls students to produce and present live lessons to young summer school students via a video blog from Wyoming’s Wind River Range. “Writing instruction has never been so easy, so productive or so rewarding,” Rzasa said.

The College Board established the National Commission on Writing in 2002 to create more national support for the teaching of writing. Costas, an eight-time Sportscaster of the Year, has supported the commission’s work by producing a national public service announcement encouraging young people to develop strong writing skills. Teachers of grades 6–12 from any discipline, in both public and nonpublic schools, are eligible for the Bob Costas Grants, as are writing programs that take place within schools or the community. For more details about the annual award program, visit www.collegeboard.com/costasgrants.

CONTACT
Sandra Riley, The College Board, (212) 713-8052 communications@collegeboard.org

For Immediate Release
November 6, 2007
For more information, please contact:
Jean deSmet
at campaign headquarters (860-450-8417)

>>> deSmet Wins Windham First Selectman Race –
Seeks to Engage the Community in 'Weaving a New Windham' <<<

The people of Windham, Conn., elected Green Party candidate Jean deSmet as their new first selectman tonight.

“The ‘bottom line’ is that Windham has risen above partisanship and politics-as-usual,” deSmet said in her acceptance speech. “Tonight from the Thread City, we begin to weave a new Windham together. I want to thank the people of Windham – the voters who elected me. I am grateful for the faith that you have shown in my leadership and my vision.”

She announced that she will immediately be forming an advisory board and transition team. “We will bring together community voices and ideas for collectively weaving Windham’s new future,” deSmet said. She invited people to get involved immediately by sharing their ideas via email (jean@WindhamIdeas.org) for Windham’s future.

deSmet was elected as a candidate on the Bottom Line slate, which is a nonpartisan group of petitioning candidates running for most positions in this Windham election. “I want to thank my fellow candidates on the Bottom Line slate,” deSmet told her colleagues. “Thank you for your wisdom to see a bigger picture, for your courage in putting partisanship aside and for your willingness to work together.”

Picking up on Windham’s history as a thread-mill town, deSmet described the many different “threads” – in society, economics, education, politics, sustainability, and creativity – that she will bring together to “weave a new Windham.”

“This election is about the future of Windham,” deSmet told her supporters tonight. “We are going to listen to what the community wants. We are going to involve those not yet engaged. We are going to build on our community’s strengths and on what’s working. And – you better believe it – this Town is going to be a proactive participant with the community in working together on common goals.”

deSmet’s recent contributions to Windham have been as founder and coordinator of the 3rd Thursday Streetfests, which are held on Willimantic’s Main Street on the third Thursday of each month from May to October. The Streetfests bring together thousands of people from Windham and beyond to engage the full diversity of the community, to share food and music, and to positively change the public perception of Windham.

deSmet described the monthly success of the Streetfests as something she wants to see happening everyday in Windham. “At 3rd Thursday, we see Windham’s best assets, our best diversity, and our best talents shine,” she said. “Each month, 3rd Thursday connects people. It connects neighbors to neighbors; Windham to the broader region; performers to the public; residents to local businesses and nonprofits; and the political right and the political left with the full spectrum of political views. As first selectman, I will connect people and ideas every day so that our community thrives and flourishes."

From her downtown Willimantic headquarters, deSmet congratulated her opponents, incumbent Democrat Michael Paulhus and Republican Harry Carboni, for engaging their time and energy in the democratic process. She also thanked Paulhus for his service to Windham and the contributions that he made to this community. “I look forward to working with him for a smooth transition in the coming days,” she added.

After taking office on November 16 and through the end of the year, deSmet said she will be meeting with Town department heads as part of the transition process. “In the new year, we’ll begin to implement our community agenda for weaving a new Windham,” she said. “I look forward to delivering results, in collaboration with you the community of Windham. Together, let’s imagine what might be.”

# # #
About Jean deSmet: Jean deSmet (pronounced, “des-MAY”) moved to Windham in 1979. She holds a degree in English from the University of Connecticut (1978). She went on to earn her electrician’s license and has worked as a master electrician in the electricians’ union for 28 years, serving two terms as an elected officer in the union. deSmet founded and coordinates the 3rd Thursday Streetfests. The success of 3rd Thursday demonstrates her organizational and leadership skills, hard work, perseverance, vision, and sense of fun – and proves how this community can galvanize its strengths for positive results. deSmet serves on many Windham committees and regional organizations where she puts her beliefs into action. As a member of Neighbor-to-Neighbor, deSmet initiated the “December Artisan’s Store,” which proved that both a local craft store was wanted and needed, and that this community could work cooperatively to make it happen. As a member of the Victorian Neighborhood Association, she organizes and gives wagon tours of Willimantic’s Victorian neighborhoods during the Annual Victorian Home Tour. deSmet helped produce the first annual Riverfest, organized the Chocolate Fest, produced the Save-the-Y Shaboo Fest, and has marched in all 22 Boom Box Parades. deSmet is a community activist who is involved with environmental issues, historic preservation, housing, healthcare, and local politics. She has served on the Affirmative Action Commission, the Open Space and Conservation Commissions, the board of the Willimantic Food Coop, the YMCA, and the Community Land Trust of Windham. deSmet is co-chair of the Connecticut Green Party. As vice president of Thread City Development, Inc, she is working to bring together developers and businesses to invigorate downtown Willimantic.

[1 November 2007 - ScienceDaily] The brain, the human supercomputer, might work more like an assembly line when recognizing objects, with a hierarchy of brain regions separately absorbing and processing information before a person realizes what they are seeing, according to new research conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and published in the Oct. 31 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience. Led by Mark Wheeler, a psychology professor in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, and conducted at Pitt's Learning Research and Development Center, the research is a step toward mapping the human decision-making process. This study used an innovative technique and analysis to show that human decision-making is a collaboration of brain regions performing individual functions. Future work based on these findings could lead to a better understanding of how decisions--good and bad--are made and the considerations people put into them. More