Education

October 9, 2012 I’m currently leading the second phase of my ongoing series, "The Thought Leadership of Fred Newman," at the East Side Institute. For this coming Monday’s session we’re going to play around with two of Newman’s “Psychology Plays”—written expressly for performance at APA (American Psychological Association) annual conventions during...

October 6, 2011 I was delighted to come across this Amazon reader review of my book Vygotsky at Work and Play. The author is David R. Cross, Ph.D. Thanks, David!  A Transformative Book Reflecting on a Transformative Life, July 2, 2011 Every now and then you get lucky, and find the book that is...

October 4, 2012 In my work as a developmentalist, I am an advocate of, doer of, and studier of play. I grapple with both implementing and understanding what Lev Vygotsky said: “In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though...

October 2, 2011 I'm thrilled to announce the next Performing the World (PTW) conference/festival, "Can Performance Change Save the World?" to take place in New York City October 4-7, 2012. Proposals are due March 1, 2012. The theme of the last PTW, held in 2010 and attended by over 500 people from dozens...

July 20, 2011 I've written before about the All Stars Project's unique and fabulous UX, a free, open-to-all, university-style development center, but it's worth mentioning over and over. This new project creates its curriculum from suggestions for courses from those who want to learn and ideas from those who want to...

June 24, 2011 I had the pleasure of hosting Stephen Cowley, a philosophopically-inclined developmental psychology professor from England, last evening at the East Side Institute. Stephen was in NYC for a conference on “biosemiotics” at Rockefeller University and enthusiastically accepted my offer to visit and have a more informal setting for...

June 11, 2011 At the East Side Institute we’ve conducted online courses for almost ten years now. They’re not conventional, didactic courses but rather exercises in creating conversation and a conversational relationship while simultaneously playing with concepts. Sometimes these courses work beautifully and sometimes they work less well. My colleague Gwen...

  May 31, 2011 May is one of my favorite months of the year, with light lasting into the evening hours, baby green tree buds turning into adult green leaves, and bursts of color (both flowers and people’s clothing) dotting the city streets. But this year I spent the middle of the...