Education Minister Dame Jennifer Smith yesterday addressed the Artful Thinking Conference, praising the participants for their participation.The conference, organised by the Bermuda Education Network, a local non-profit group, featured special guests Dr Shari Tishman and Ms Katie Davis from the Harvard School of Education.Developed by the Harvard Project Zero with the Traverse City, Michigan Area Public Schools, the Artful Thinking Programme is intended to help teachers make meaningful connections between art and curricular topics.Describing herself as a fervent advocate of the arts, Dame Jennifer praised the importance of the arts in education.“Arts teachers are challenged to discover the artist in every student, not just those who are artistically talented, but everyone so that they will become appreciative audiences and patrons of the arts, or aim for careers as curators, directors, managers or any of the myriad of arts supporting roles,” she said.“A world without art would be a world without soul, for Art not only allows us to communicate on broader levels; it also allows us to express feelings of anger and frustration in a socially-acceptable manner”