April 2, 2010 You can help New Yorkers play by voting for New York Plays in the web-based grant competition Pepsi Refresh. It's the entry of the East Side Institute, the non-profit I direct. Our idea is To conduct at least 3 community PLAYgrounds throughout NYC To introduce the power of play to...
March 12, 2010 I just returned from a week in China - specifically, Deyang, a city in the Sichuan province very hard hit by the 2008 earthquake (more than 17,000 people died and over 70,000 were injured; the schools in neighboring areas collapsed). I was there to train middle school teachers...
February 23, 2010 [caption id="attachment_403" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Fred Newman and Patch Adams"][/caption] This past Saturday I had the privilege of hosting Patch Adams for the day between two university presentations he was giving that morning and evening. The meeting was a long time coming; Patch ("the clown who is a doctor") and I...
March 18,2010 Here's the link to a video of the scened from the Work/Play described below January, 15, 2010 I was delighted to see The Work/Play - the current production of Youth OnStage! (the youth theatre of the All Stars Project) - featured in a column by Ellen Galinsky in today's Huffington Post....
January 7, 2010 I came across an interview with Ann Weimer Baumgardner – author of Pretend You're Normal: But Only When Absolutely Necessary, and described as a molecular geneticist, creative thinker, author and humorist on the IdeaConnection.com website. I hadn't heard of Baumgardner (have you?) but I liked what I read. Here's...
January 5 2010 That's the question for the sixth Performing the World conference taking place September 30-October 3 in New York City. I'm what you could call the "chief organizer" for Performing the World (PTW) conferences and community. It's a great job because there seems to be no end to the...
October 5, 2009 I just got back from six days in London where the highlight of my trip was leading a two-day training workshop for therapists and counselors at the KCC Foundation in London—entitled: Learning to Play the Philosophy Game: A Workshop on How Social Therapy is Done. KCC is a...
September 16, 2009 Quite a few readers have asked to read the entire chapter I quoted from in my post, Could Developmental After School Eliminate the Need for Remediation? So I've just added it to articles/chapters/talks (above). The title of the chapter is Without Creating ZPDs There is no Creativity...
April 7, 2009 I've been making a series of presentations in recent months around New York City and I've thoroughly enjoyed speaking with diverse audiences of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staffs at universities, conferences and human service organizations. The topics of my talks have varied—"Play is the Thing," "Learning in...
This beautiful poem was written and performed by Elizabeth Alexander at Barack Obama's inauguration today. I was hoping it would appear on the Web and, after a few hours, it did. It is a gift. "Praise Song for the Day" Praise song for the day. Each day we go about our business, walking...
