CCT News

24 September 08

See also previous news, alum news and exchanges, items for the upcoming news, and CCT calendar.
Inform cct@umb.edu if you have news OR want to be emailed when there's a new news compilation (no more than once/month) OR want to be removed from such mailings.

Contents: Student matters, CCT community, CCT events, alums, other events, opportunities, resources, food for thought, humor

Student Matters

CCT Network event, Wednesday October 1, 6.30-9:00pm, Wheatley 4-148 (at very end of corridor)
Our Lives and Other Worlds II: Visual Images and Reflections from Graduates of the Critical & Creative Thinking Program
CCT graduates display their visual work and reflect on how this has developed in relation to their CCT experiences.
(open to the CCT community and public)

The CCT Fall 08 course webpage gave the wrong holiday dates (until it was corrected on 6 Sept). The Holidays are 13 Oct, 11 & 27-28 Nov.

CCT Community

CCT professor Carol Smith is now a full professor. Her well-deserved promotion was approved during the summer. Congratulations!

Nina Greenwald is giving a presentation on humor entitled, "Cracking Up is Good for the Gifted" at the 14th Annual New England Conference on Gifted and Talented - see details below under the Events section.

CCT Events

CCT-University of Exeter Open House, Thursday, September 25,7-9 PM, Wheatley 4-148 (at very end of corridor)

Our Lives and Other Worlds II: Visual Images and Reflections from Graduates of the Critical & Creative Thinking Program
Wednesday, October 1, 6:30-9:30pm, Wheatley 4-148 (4th floor lounge)
See details above under "Student Matters"

Alum Notes

CCT alum, Maryann Scheufele has published an illustrated children's book that she worked on while in CCT, Adrian's Mayflower Adventure, http://www.lulu.com/content/942592

Events

New England Poetry Club, Literary Couples Reading Series
Monday, October 6, 2008, 7:00pm, at the Harvard Yenching Library.
Mary Bonina & Mark Pawlak (UMB teacher/staff),
Directions: http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/harvard-yenching/

The 14th Annual New England Conference on Gifted and Talented
October 17-18, 2008, Holiday Inn in Mansfield, MA.
Keynote speakers Dr. Robert Sternberg and Dr. Donna Ford. Information at http://www.necgt.org/
Nina Greenwald is giving a presentation on humor entitled, "Cracking Up is Good for the Gifted".

New England Center for Inclusive Teaching (NECIT) Sixth Annual Conference
Saturday, October 18, 2008 at UMass-Boston.
Sessions held between 9:30-3:00pm (continental breakfast at 8:30 am).
This conference is an outstanding opportunity to reflect on current college teaching practices and explore new ways to enhance student success.
The theme: Realities of Diversity: Integrating the Changing Views of Campus Cultures. A networking lunch provides opportunities to connect informally with faculty members at other institutions across New England. The registration fee is kept low to encourage a broad range of participation.
For more information, contact NECIT at necit@umb.edu.

IDEAS Boston
Thursday, October 30, 2008., at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
IDEAS Boston is a jam-packed one-day event that brings together leading thinkers in a variety of fields to share ideas and promote innovation.
For more information or to register, visit http://ideasboston.com/

Opportunities

Long term substitute teaching position in N. Quincy, grade 8 science
A lesson plan guideline is in place, and the curriculum will match that of the other grade 8 science teacher so that the sub can just follow his lead in conjunction with the materials I leave behind. No heavy lifting!
Interested candidates can contact donna_glynn@comcast.net or principal Maureen MacNeil at Atlantic Middle School, 617 984 8727, 86 Hollis Ave, N. Quincy

Resources

Humor

• Dear American

• I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of Treasury in the Republic of America. My country has had a crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

• I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS the safe Swiss bank, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury next January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

• Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
• Yours Faithfully,
• Minister of Treasury Paulson

Food for Thought

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep". (Scott Adams, cartoonist)

"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity." (Edwin Land)

"There is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly." (Kingman Brewster, former president, Yale University)

Hubble telescope's top ten greatest space photographs
from the Daily Mail, Sept. 24, By Michael Hanlon
After it was launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope, a $1.5 billion orbiting observatory, was found to have a glitch in its giant lens - rendering Earth's first orbital observatory short-sighted.
But after an audacious Shuttle repair mission, when Hubble was fixed with what is effectively a pair of eyeglasses to correct its sight, the telescope has returned some of the most stunning images ever captured by science. Read more and see the photographs...


Myles Horton recounts his response to a priest who, frustrated at his own attempts to implement the Highlander approach in a labor school back in the early CIO days, tried to get at the problem by learning what books that had influenced Horton's life the most.
"I can tell you, but it won' help you because like all people I got my own track of development; my own background is part of it.
I grew up in a religious family. Undoubtedly the first book that influenced my life was the bible. No question about that….
He asked what particularly.
OK. There's the New Testament; there's the Old Testament. In the New Testament you learn about love. You can't be a revolutionary, you can't want to change society unless you love people – there's no point in it. OK, so you love people; that's right out of the Bible.
The other thing is the Old Testament tells us primarily about the creation. God was a creator. If people were born in God's image, you got to be creative; you can't be followers, puppets. You got to be creative."