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Had a most stimulating visit this afternoon to College Track at  their East Palo Alto site, where I met with their inspired site director, Sharifa Wilson, their ACT trainer, Ed Harris and College Track’s Director of New Initiatives, Geraldine Sonobe.  College Track is a growing program that works with under-resourced high school students to give them the nurturing they need to get into college. After the meeting I was buzzing with possibility.

I got on train to San Francisco where I met a young Israeli, Shai Magzimof,who works in the game development business. We had an animated talk about video games and my developing them as vehicles to train students in stress reduction (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron).  On the train Shai introduced me to a few games. I found them mildly amusing, especially the challenge of keeping myself calm as the game was pushing my nervous system in the direction of getting over-amped. But of course, I had my usual question: what’s really going on here? (usual answer: not much).   Shai was on his way to hear Fred Markus speak at a meeting of game developers at Dolby Studios in San Francisco, and I asked him if I could tag along. Continue reading →