Lincoln Center Institute Gives Imagination Award to Satellite Academy

By Alberto Cepeda

When educators and leaders devote their teaching processes and techniques towards educating the minds and souls of their students rather than teaching to an exam, they should be rewarded. The Lincoln Center Institute created the Imagination Award to recognize educators, administrators and students in the New York City public school system, who teach and learn through imagination and creative alternatives.

Education Update recently attended the inaugural Imagination Award ceremony, which took place in the Samuel B. & David Rose Building at Lincoln Center Plaza. The recipient of this year’s award was the Satellite Academy High School on Forsyth Street in Lower Manhattan, a school that is often the last resort for students who have had difficulty in traditional high schools. The teaching staff pride themselves on their ability to reform the lives and minds of their students through an engaging and diverse curriculum and a dynamic counseling program that prepares them to move on to and succeed in college.

Moderator and spokesperson Eric Liu, a former White House policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and professor at the University of Washington, praised Loet A. Velmans, benefactor and Scott Noppe-Brandon, the executive director of the Lincoln Center Institute as the creative forces behind this event.

Joel I. Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, gave kudos to Noppe-Brandon for his commitment  to education and the theatre arts and the Satellite Academy High School for their proficient performance in educating students. Klein underscored the importance of integrating imagination into the teaching process.  “I find it surreal that we have arguments on should we focus on phonics or should we focus on making kids avid readers or should we teach kids the timetable and drill them so they can get that down versus teaching kids how to be creative thinkers. We have these kids for over a decade. Why can’t we do all of these things? That’s what an education is all about,”

John Seeley Brown, Visiting Scholar at the University of Southern California and former Xerox scientist, emphasized how paramount imagination and creativity were in the formation of genius, quoting Albert Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Brown added, “A society that restricts imagination is unlikely to produce any Einsteins.”  It is important for teachers to invigorate their students learning process through imagination. According to Brown,  “The mediocre teacher tells; the good teacher explains; the superior teacher demonstrates. But the great teacher inspires.”

Nationally renowned juggler and television actor Michael Moschen performed an amazing act discussing how significant imagination and creativity were in the development of over forty-five juggling techniques. Moschen and the  panel discussion that followed included Liu, Noppe-Brown as well as Sarah Bloh, Director of the Satellite Academy, Tod Machover, head of the Media Lab’s Hyperinstruments/ Opera of the Future Group and Sade Baderinwa, anchor of ABC’s Eyewitness News. The panelists discussed how imagination and creativity play a key role in the practice of their professions. For Baderinwa, it’s deciding what is news worthy and creating a captivating TV news package. For Machover, it’s creating technological tools to assist people with disabilities such as Alzheimer’s disease and autism. For Bloh it’s running a successful alternative high school that emphasizes the importance of imagination and creative thinking in turning around the lives of students who had previously failed in other schools.

Two finalists, Edward R. Morrow High School and The Manhattan Charter School, received awards in recognition of their commitment to integrating imagination into their teaching. In her culminating remarks, Dr. Maxine Greene described imagination as the “passion for possibility” and praised Bloh and her teaching staff for providing vast possibilities to the young students at the Satellite Academy.

In creating this award, Lincoln Center Institute has been, to paraphrase John Seeley Brown, a great leader that inspires us all.#

Alberto Cepeda is a journalism intern at Education Update from City College.