Tuesday, March 16, 2010

“Govert's change pays off (Post-Tribune)” plus 2 more

“Govert's change pays off (Post-Tribune)” plus 2 more

Govert's change pays off (Post-Tribune)

Posted: 16 Mar 2010 02:03 AM PDT

Merrillville head coach Amy Govert (left) is the Post-Tribune Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.
(Scott M. Bort/Post-Tribune)

Bookmark

Admitting faults from within and changing for the better might be the hardest human trait to perfect.

After last season when Merrillville lost its last five to finish a disappointing 10-11 with more questions than answers, Pirates' coach Amy Govert knew something had to change.

The players had to change.

The atmosphere of the program had to change.

She had to change.

Some coaches wouldn't admit that last change. Stubbornness might set in and they would stick to their guns and fail to look in the mirror.

Not Govert.

She knew there was a perception out there in the region basketball community questioning her coaching ability. But that's not why Govert stepped back and pointed the finger at herself instead of others.

"People are going to say stuff no matter what you do," Govert analyzed. "That first year when we lost in the sectional final, it took me a long time to recover from that, thinking what could I have done differently. Then you hear what people say. Since then I know I prepare the kids and I do the best I can. You can't control what the kids do once they go out there (onto the court). They have to show up and play and we've been blessed with kids who have stepped up and played."

But those players, for whatever reason, hadn't produced a sectional title.

So the main reason Govert changed was that she wanted to take the Merrillville girls basketball program to the heights she knew it could reach from the time she took the job five years ago. If that meant she had to change her philosophy, so be it.

"As a coach, at least I looked at it as you have to look at your strengths, look at your weaknesses and figure out what you need to improve on," Govert said. "I want to keep learning and try to get better as a coach."

Whatever she changed, it worked and the kids bought into it as they not only won the program's first sectional title in 21 years, but they marched all the way to the Class 4A state championship game before losing to one of the greatest girls basketball teams in state history in Ben Davis.

For that ability to show self-awareness and admit to the need to change, Govert earned the 2010 Post-Tribune Coach of the Year honor.

Even on the precipice of the state finals after realizing her changes had worked, Govert still thought back to the previous season, wondering if it could have ended differently.

"Looking back at last year, I didn't think I did a very good job of making the kids believe and that they could do it no matter what happened," she said. "And when we lost our leading scorer and leading rebounder (Tierra Turner), they didn't believe in themselves.

"Maybe if I would have instilled more of that confidence in them last year, would it have mattered? I don't know. Maybe the outcome would have been the same."

Govert's season of change could lead to even better things in the near future for the Pirates after she squelched the wrongful perception of her coaching ability, though she says it never really crossed her mind.

"It really doesn't bother me ... it used to. Maybe it's old age," the 32-year-old Highland High School graduate said.

Maybe it's an old-school coach learning new tricks that worked to near-perfection this season.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Northern philosophy and culture (Grand Rapids Herald-Review)

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 01:20 PM PDT

I remember reading this study once that said during the 1990s, people on the whole were more interested in philosophical problems than they were during the beginning of the 21st century (there are a lot of details about this study that I really don't remember, so I'll try not to reference it any more). There was a lot more concern with what we'd call 'bigger picture' issues. We were, essentially, looking at various ways of defining ourselves as a culture.

So why was that the overall mindset during the '90s and not so much after that? The reason given was that we were living in a time of economic prosperity. As we inched our way into the beginning of the 2000s, we experienced a few recessions, not to mention a few wars. There were tangible things afoot that were huge issues! We started peering in on these things closer then. And of course, if you don't have a job, you just might be more concerned with how you're going to pay your mortgage or put food on the table as opposed to soul searching your true ideologies.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

‘Brainwave’ fuses art, science, philosophy (Gay City News)

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 11:16 AM PDT

One of the more innovative — and certainly the most esoteric — public program series in the city has got to be "Brainwave."

Now in its third year, "Brainwave" (presented by the Rubin Museum of Art) pairs prominent scientists with equally important artists and educators to discuss issues of the human mind and how it perceives the world.

The project is the brainchild, if you will, of Tim McHenry — the Rubin's director of programming since the launch of the museum in 2003. "[The series] comes out of the programmatic content of the museum," explains McHenry (the Rubin specializes in art from the Himalayan region). "We have a lot of Buddhist art. Buddhism is a practice that enables you to reach enlightenment through absolute focus…control of you own mind. When you train your mind, it changes your brain. You can't do it unless you know what that is. For the rest of us, it's helpful to know how that works, which is the premise of the series. And so, for the price of admission everyone ends up enlightened!" he jokes.

McHenry cites the work of researchers like French author/biologist Mattheiu Ricard and neuroscientist Richard Davidson with pioneering the study of meditation's effects on the brain. However, he appropriately credits himself for the idea of pairing such experts with people from other fields.

"Brainwave" launched in 2006, though, according to McHenry, not without some reservations. "Some people had doubts," he recalls. "They wondered, 'what's it got to do with us?' — meaning the [Rubin] museum. But if you can't take risks, you shouldn't be in the business. We were a young institution with nothing to lose; and this museum itself is an experiment. Every institution needs to constantly reinvent itself on some level to stay ahead of the game. This series makes people think, which is what we're here for."

Of course, it doesn't hurt the success of your program if its ideas are being expressed by nationally known writers, artists and entertainers such as Paul Simon, Moby, Lewis Black, Tom Wolfe, Julie Taymor, and R.L. Stine. McHenry, who programmed the "New Yorker" Festival during its first four years, clearly knows the box office value of star power. Still, he insists, it's the opportunity for these people to hash out ideas with important scientific thinkers that attracts these participants.

"The chance to collaborate with people from different disciplines doesn't happen very often [for them], says McHenry. "That's what motivates them. Experimentation is second nature to these people."

This year, the stars will be talking about…stars. In conjunction with the Rubin's exhibition "Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe" (on view through May 10), the museum is supplementing its normal menu of discussions with neuroscientists and artists with visits by physicists and astronomers, to, as McHenry puts it, "wrap our minds around notions of infinity."

The exhibition itself gathers together works of Himalayan art representing its three principal religions (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism) and their various cosmological myths. Alongside these is an exhibition of Western theory on the subject, stretching from Aristotle and Ptolemy to a fascinating new film by the American Museum of Natural History that illustrates the earth's place in the universe as derived from the latest telescopic mapping.

The current "Brainwave" season launched February with a dialogue between choreographer Mark Morris and neuroscientist Bevil R. Conway. There have been programs every weekend since then. I was lucky enough to catch two of the more exciting pairings. Interestingly, in both cases the scientists proved just as lively and amusing as the artists, and the artists just as intellectually inquisitive (if not as good at math) as the scientists.

The first — "What Time Is It?" — matched screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman ("Synecdoche, New York", "Being John Malkovich") with physicist Brian Greene, host of PBS's "The Elegant Universe" and author of the children's book "Icarus at the Edge of Time".

Kaufman has spoken at the Rubin before (on the subject of Jung's "Red Book") — but in this discussion, Green proved the more dominant presenter; not just in the depth and breadth of his ideas, but in the compelling, entertaining manner in which he presented them. Not only is Greene fast on the draw ("Could you repeat the question?" was his quick witted reply to one audience member's interminable query), but he has a knack for helping us digest astoundingly complex notions like string theory, Quantum mechanics and the idea of a "Multiverse."

The principal concept one took away from the talk was the idea that there may be no actual flow or movement to time; that instead, it may be structured much more like a grid of simultaneous, equally valid "nows". It was thoughts such as these that inspired the question "Do you guys smoke a lot of pot?" from an audience member — who turned out to be "New Yorker" writer Susan Orlean, upon whose book ("The Orchid Thief") Kaufman's film "Adaptation" was based.

Equally heady was a colloquy called "How Did the Universe Get Its Spots?" — between Barnard College astrophysicist and author Janna Levin, and performance artist Laurie Anderson (the first — "and the last," she quips — artist-in-residence at NASA). As might be expected, Anderson proved spacey in more ways than one, although with humor and charm to spare. She brought along a dog-eared copy of Levin's most recent book "How the Universe Got Its Spots" — in which the author expresses a new theory (shared by some) that the universe, contrary to widespread belief, may actually be finite; and constructed in a sort of loop. The idea, Levin admits, is one that can be expressed mathematically (but likely could never be empirically proven).

The houses for both programs were packed; not only with ordinary, inquisitive New Yorkers, but also the likes of Lou Reed and his entourage — which took up most of an entire row (Reed himself is a former presenter in the "Brainwave" series).

Presiding over both of these mind-expanding conversations was McHenry himself — a charismatic, witty host who could easily take his entertaining and polished act to television or radio. Interestingly, he proves to have to do very little interceding to keep his discussions flowing. The speakers do just fine on their own. However, McHenry's introductions and closing encapsulations are as thought-provoking as the ideas of his guests.

"Our brains are all we've got," McHenry gushes. "Its capabilities are limitless, so how can there be any limit to the engagement with that? And so we forge ahead."

"BRAINWAVE"

Through April 19th

At the Rubin Museum of Art

150 West 17th Street, at Seventh Avenue

Call 212-620-5000

For a schedule of events, visit www.rmanyc.org


Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)