I have been enormously blessed with a wonderful husband, four adult children, one grandchild (so far) and a bevy of nieces and nephews. My husband and I, along with our brothers and sisters, are great supporters and champions of one another’s children.
This week I am preparing for a visit to Milwaukee. I’ve been invited to share some thoughts on Being Visual and educational strategies at the Menomonee Fall’s Optimist Club. I always enjoy the opportunity to meet people, share ideas and learn from those interactions. I must say this group especially intrigues me. There are a number of organizations with professionals from all walks of life who work together to impact their community. However, the Optimist Club is focused entirely on work that directly benefits children.
Recently, I met with a group of parents to share information about learning styles and ways to help our visual children do better in the classroom. We had a great discussion afterwards with several parents sharing their observations and asking questions. I sincerely enjoy these talks and being able to share the important role that learning styles play in a child’s academic and overall development and success.
A mother seated in the front row raised her hand. She asked a question about her 9 year old daughter that touched upon the emotional side of learning that so many young visually oriented children experience.
I’m back from vacation and getting ready to travel again. This time I am en route to Cleveland to promote the Being-Visual philosophy on Art Education in a live taping of a segment at Fox 8 Cleveland and to present a speech on “What Every Parent Should Know About their Child’s Education” at the Agnon School.
First stop Fox News. I have been invited to appear on WJW-TV – Fox News in the Morning on Wednesday, October 3. During our session I’ll talk about what it means to be a visual learner, ways your child may be struggling in school and how you can help. I’ll share some ideas for making learning more visual and tactile.
Don’t miss my segment on WGN! I will be featured on the WGN Midday News Tuesday, October 2nd. WGN will highlight my new book, Being Visual, which talks about the importance of art education for all ages.
A few years ago I met Barb, a high school special education teacher. Barb had heard about Young Rembrandts and wondered how her special needs students would respond to our step-by-step method of teaching art. After some conversation about her students’ needs and our philosophy, we agreed to teach a series of four weekly classes. The classes surpassed all of our expectations. The students were fully engaged, successfully completed every drawing and were pleased to have been participants in art class. In Chapter Five of Being Visual, I share details about the initial fears of the teaching assistants, the experiences in the classrooms, our observations and our teaching method.
We had some fun when we headed to the WGN-TV news studios in downtown Chicago. After reviewing my newly launched book, Being-Visual, I was thrilled that WGN invited me to appear on a “Focus on the Family” spot, to share tips on helping visual kids do better in the classroom. Originally, the segment was scheduled to be taped live and I must admit, knowing the large audience that WGN reaches, a bit of nervousness settled upon me. However, news about the Chicago teachers strike forced the station to make some changes to their schedule, so we taped our session to be aired at a later date this month on September 25.
Visual-spatial teaching techniques have shown promise for helping autistic students, as well as others with special needs. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of my new book, Being Visual:
As a parent, it is heartbreaking to see your children struggle. We want the best for our kids and often turn ourselves inside out to give them every opportunity to succeed. But what about a child that can’t read? How does a child with dyslexia feel when they’re labeled—stupid, lazy, or mentally slow? And yet you know that’s not who they are. You see how bright they are and how hard they work.
After a long summer filled with a variety of activities, it’s time for kids to head back to the classroom. Unfortunately, for many kids this means a lot of time sitting in chairs and listening. If your child has trouble paying attention, gets fidgety, displays disruptive behavior, makes careless mistakes, has difficulty organizing and completing assignments—they may be recommended for an ADD evaluation. It extremely important to find out what’s distracting them, but rest assured, it may have nothing to do with ADD.
