We Science Geeks Will Rule the World!

In this season of thanks, the Stern Center wants to express our appreciation for our students, families, donors and all educators for your hard work and generosity of time, knowledge and funds over this past year. We could not do what we do without your sharing and support. We have a lot to be grateful for here.

Here’s one story of thanks that is sure to bring a smile to your face. Told by a parent of a student in our Communication Services program, this is a shining example of how your help and participation has paved the way for great success in 2014!

My husband and I, and Ryan’s teachers are just so impressed with him. He has made such a huge leap lately. He is calm, flexible, transitioning smoothly, taking accountability, and just so relaxed. He is so proud of himself. I think back to where we were in the fall and it seems like a lifetime ago. He is just so different, back to the old self I used to see, but improved and in more control. What is so nice is that he is able to poke fun of himself. We have NEVER seen that. He will say, “We science geeks will rule the world” or “I am a Star Wars freak because I just love it.”

Thursday Thoughts: Cool Links and Interesting News

BRAIN TEASER

In honor of the World Cup taking place this week here is a logic puzzle for you: How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't bounce off anything? There is nothing attached to it, and no one else catches or throws it back to you. (Answer at the end of the blog.)

COOL LINKS AND INTERESTING NEWS

Why Free Play is the Best Summer School, The Atlantic, June 20, 2014. The more time children spend in structured, parent-guided activities, the worse their ability to work productively towards self-directed goals. Children who engage in more free play have more highly developed self-directed executive function. 

VPR's five-part series on early education in Vermont, Ready or Not, is airing this week and looking at early education on many levels from childcare to kindergarten all the way up to teaching the teacher.

In the Spotlight: Stern Center Alums Run in Mad Marathon

by Laurie Caswell-Burke

   From left to right: Alums Stephanie Hackett and Doug Rumsey pose with
   Board member Will Billings and Stern Center instructor Pam Billings at the 
   2013 Mad Marathon finish line.

In less than three weeks two Stern Center Alums will be among 1000 runners and walkers persevering up and down the magnificent hills and valleys of the Mad River Valley. Stephanie Hackett and Doug Rumsey are eager for other alums to join them on Sunday, July 6th for what is known as the “World’s Most Beautiful Marathon.” At least 30 additional runners and walkers are “running/walking for a cause” to support the Stern Center scholarship program. Every year the Stern Center offers over $130,000 in scholarship dollars to students who need services. 

Doug Rumsey returns for a second year traveling from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where he works in advertising. He is excited to run in Vermont, his birthplace, where he grew up in the Burlington area. Training an average of 35 minutes a day, running on roads and on the beautiful Florida beaches, often with his dog Jake, he is ready for the Mad Marathon relay team. 

“The Stern Center has been my rock for over 35 years- it’s a place I call home. Running in this marathon is a small token of my way of giving back to an organization that has been my rock, a place that is always there for me,” he said. 

He is busy fundraising with an ambitious goal of raising $2,000. 

You Have Beautiful Lipstick

by Julie Erdelyi 

What do greetings really do for us? They are a social convention we expect, but one that has become so routine—a head nod, a single word—that I wonder why we keep using them. Of course greetings are a social courtesy we extend to others, but they have the potential to be so much more.

I teach children who have autism. The experiences with my students have shown me how important a greeting can be when it rises above the ordinary. It’s then that the greetings become an acknowledgement that we are thought about and cared about by others. Let me tell you what I mean.

First there was Jackie, a teenage girl with Retts Syndrome, who would rock and smile and yell enthusiastically when I said hello to her. Here she was, unable to walk, unable to speak and she was so happy to see me. I thought, “I have got to lighten up! There is not a single challenge I face that comes anywhere close to what Jackie copes with every day and she is smiling at me.”

So, what does that mean?

by Danielle Kent

I'll never forget the wide, frightened eyes of the child’s parents as they darted back and forth among my colleagues, my supervisor and me after we completed a complex diagnostic evaluation for the child. I was in graduate school and my team had just provided this family with a diagnosis, which explained the serious communication troubles they had been experiencing with their child for the past few months. Weeks of heartache and frustration had ended; at least, that's what I believed then. 

President's Message: Learning Disabilities Month: A Time to Celebrate

by Dr. Blanche Podhajski

October is Learning Disabilities Month. For me, it is a time to celebrate all we have learned from brain
science over almost half a century.  It is also a time to honor all of the successes of students with learning disabilities and their teachers.

 

What is a learning disability? 

A learning disability is a brain based difference in learning that makes some academic skills harder to acquire than others. A recent report, Don’t “Dys” Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency, commissioned by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, indicates that about 2.4 million children and youth in this country have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. Most people are familiar with the term dyslexia, a neurobiological condition that is not the result of poverty, culture or developmental delays (Fiester, 2012).   Other learning disabilities are dysgraphia, difficulty writing and expressing ideas through written language, and dyscalculia, difficulty with math.