New book from Tides' VALA Project

"I Dare to Stop the Wind: Challenging children in the public schools through the arts and poetry," points us to the core of arts education where children need and want to be "challenged" to create. Poet and painter, Tina Rotenberg, Ph.D., directs Visual Arts/Language Arts, a program she founded in 1995, to bring this challenge into inner-city elementary schools. In "I Dare to Stop the Wind," she narrates the evolution of VALA and focuses on training a rich array of VALA artists (including dancers, musicians, shadow theater performers, a yoga teacher, Capoeira martial artists, and painters), working in several schools in Richmond, California, to mine the possibilities for teaching poetry through diverse art forms.

Teachers and artists interested in learning the ways to teach the reading and writing of poetry in tandem with the other arts should definitely study this book. Dr. Rotenberg's approach is to expect the most out of English Language Learners and uncover ways to transform non-readers and non-writers into readers and writers by bringing them contemporary poems to study, discuss, and learn from. Educators in general will find this odyssey into the creative possibilities of low income students and public school teachers fascinating and compelling. The book opens avenues to the minds and hearts of children and quietly foments a revolution in our ways of approaching them.

"I Dare to Stop The Wind" has over sixty images of children's art work and poetry in a full color, one hundred and forty-four page, beautiful paper bound book. For a brief example, go to www.valaproject.org/valaBookPress.html.

To order the book, it is $24.95 plus $5 shipping; or if you want to include a donation that is greater than this to go to VALA artists and programs, please send a check payable to "VALA/The Tides Center" and send it to the following address:

VALA Project

1605 Berkeley Way

Berkeley, California 94703

Please contact Tina Rotenberg before ordering to find out the exact amount, and alternatives to shipping, 510.845.9610.

New Online Donation

Tides center has a new way to make your charitable gift to VALA Project easy, simple and with a dedication. PLEASE DONATE TODAY! For more information about VALA (Visual Arts/Language Arts), visit www.valaproject.org. Donations are tax-deductible benefiting VALA (Visual Arts/Language Arts), supporting teaching artists in classrooms in the East Bay. If you are writing a check, please make it out to "VALA / the Tides Center."

Bettina Rotenberg, PhD • Executive Director • VALA Project

1605 Berkeley Way • Berkeley, California 94703 • (510) 845-9610 • tina[at]valaproject.org