The Power of Wow


About The Producers' Project and The Power of Wow

Since 2002, The Producers' Project (TPP), a not-for-profit education corporation, has helped thousands of K - 12 students and teachers make and share music, film and television that is artistically expressive, emotionally authentic and academically aligned. Now, The Power of Wow -- a cutting-edge science and film program through which students and teachers from Concord High School of Staten Island investigate and experience the processes, plasticity and power of their own minds -- allows us to take our work to the next level. Set in school and in the field, The Power of Wow employs before-and-after assessments, breakthrough primary research, filmmaking, animation and web tools to explore how mind training and meditation can instill greater awareness, relaxation, concentration, emotion regulation and performance.


Results Made Reel

The Power of Wow builds on TPP's eight years of media-making programs in NYC public schools and on the results we have achieved: Time and again -- in settings as diverse as Island Academy on Rikers Island, Crotona Academy in the Bronx, Concord High School of Staten Island and City Hall Academy in NYC DOE headquarters -- truancy is down, test scores are up, and TPP programs are credited with being key tools in school transformation. The results can be seen and heard in a dazzling array of academically aligned music videos, documentaries, animated shorts and Public Service Announcements -- all of which enjoy celebratory screenings for schools and the public, some of which debut at such venues as the Tribeca Film Festival and the Urban Visionaries Film Festival, many of which stream at www.tpp.org, and most of which air on TPP-TV's award-winning television series on MNN's Youth Channel. For seven years, The Producers' Project has partnered with Concord High School of Staten Island -- a transfer school for students that are traditionally over-aged and under-credited for their grades -- to weave TPP's unique brand of applied learning into every aspect of the school day. Students use math, science, social studies, literature, the arts, club events, field trips and interactions with peers, teachers, parents, scientists, journalists and politicians as material for their media. Producing films about themselves, their studies and their school gives students an opportunity to act on what they learn and to serve as mentors to those who, like themselves, may have been failing or getting into trouble at other schools.


A New Lens on Learning

During the Spring 2010 semester, Concord High School students turn their lenses on science in ways more personal and far-reaching than ever. Twenty-eight students and their science teacher are collaborating with neuroscientists, psychiatrists and psychologists from Hunter College, Harvard Medical School, Portland State University and the Mind and Life Institute. In addition to learning about neuroplasticity and the science of mind training, emotion and anxiety, they are overseeing and filming a cutting-edge research program. This research will assess beneficial changes in teenagers who practice concentration meditation for 3 to 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week over an 8 to 10-week period. A total of 78 students will be practicing concentration meditation, while 31 students act as a control group and an additional 30 students maintain silence, acting as the placebo group. The science research students' findings are slated to be presented to parents, teachers, scientists and peers at Concord in May, and to premiere this June as a 25-minute The Power of Wow documentary and an interactive web presence that builds out from there. The undertaking is great. The early results are remarkable. And the program promises to build a replicable model that integrates video production, cutting edge science, and mind training benefits into the school curriculum on a daily basis.


Seeking Funding and Distribution Partners

But, The Power of Wow takes root in an era of unprecedented school cutbacks that put at risk all the progress made in places like Concord and by programs like TPP.

Your participation has never been more important and appreciated!


The Producers' Project is currently seeking funding for our in-school programs; in-kind contributions of time, talent and equipment; broadcast and distribution partners; and finishing funds for The Power of Wow.

Your gift in any amount -- from $50 to $500,000 -- is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and will be prominently acknowledged.

For every good reason, we hope you will join us!

Warmly and looking forward,
Wendy Dubit, Susan Finley, Peter Barton, Alla Sobel and Team TPP



Pictured on the previous page: far left and right: Students from Rikers Island's Island Academy and their artworks. Middle, from left to right: TPP students with Steve Martin at the National Book Awards. A TPP participant being interviewed for Media and the Truth. TPP filming at Island Academy for The Alternative Superintendency: 20 Years of Pioneering and for the orientation video that all incoming young adults see when arriving at Rikers Island, advising them of their right to an education while there.