Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to present Bettina Rotenberg as she discusses and signs I Dare to Stop the Wind: Challenging Children in the Public Schools Through the Arts and Poetry on Thursday, June 10 at 7pm.

Many children—particularly Latino—that populate the inner city schools in the Bay Area are not learning effective techniques to be able to learn to read and write, as the required literacy curriculum poorly addresses their needs. To help combat this situation, and give educators the tools they need to provide a stronger educational foundation for their students, Bettina Rotenberg has written I Dare to Stop the Wind: Challenging Children in the Public Schools Through the Arts and Poetry, a chronicle of her experience of bringing the arts and poetry into inner city schools with the VALA Project. Over the past several years, Rotenberg and her team have made clear that when English Language Learners are presented with sophisticated, contemporary examples of the arts and poetry that relate to their personal lives, students are more than capable of reading and writing passionate and engaging prose. These “underperforming” students transform into children able to discuss and analyze difficult and challenging poems and find inspiration from them to write their own extraordinary poetic responses.

Bettina Rotenberg, founding director of VALA since 1995, received her Ed.M. in Expressive Arts Therapies in 1975 and her PhD in Comparative Literature in 1986. She is a published poet and a visual artist.