The Learning Curve – Roger Boswarva and Virginia K

In January 2012 till August 2012 Philadelphia engaged in a widespread reform of its educational system. Dr. Leroy D. Nunery II was a major driver for that project. Leroy is a former Acting Superintendent and CEO and Deputy Superintendant/Deputy CEO of the Philadelphia School District, so he had inside real-life experience of what had to be addressed . . . and he was able to earlier do so as an outside consultant. Today, Leroy is the Founder and Principal of PlusUltre LLC and is an Educational Advisor to the Gilfus Education Group. In today’s Learning Curve with Roger and Virginia you’ll hear what situations had to be addressed, what changes had to be implemented and how they affected the renaissance of the school system. The Philadelphia School System had many “challenges” among which were: Low graduation rates Aging buildings Many changes to its curriculum The Philadelphia Renaissance Schools initiative, under then Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, aims (and definition) for the turn-around were: Ensure every child had equitable access to resources Close facilities that were to old and too expensive to maintain Reorder the staffing in schools Many options were explored including external management through Charter School enterprises. Hear how Leroy navigated and handled the political delicacy of all this. Much was learned including the point that no one single solution would work in every school district across the US. Hear how Leroy combined and blended several other cities programs for use in Philadelphia. Hear how parental engagement was crucial to the turn-around. Learn why schools need to have a “customer service attitude” towards their “clients”; the parents and children. And parents need to become informed “consumers” of the services on offer to them and their children and not accept anything less than the best. In this broadcast of the Learning Curve you’ll hear about the changes that were introduced to upgrade and affect the renaissance of the system in Philadelphia. One of our favorite implementations was that of “Hybrid Learning technology.” The benefit of this system is that each child can learn at their own individual rate on a curriculum tailored to the needs of the child. The other is the recognition that access to information is crucial for students and particularly for parents if the system is to work to the benefit of the “consumer.” Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

Today’s Learning Curve with Roger & Virginia explores the many aspects of the ways in which children can be gifted and how you can benefit your child by knowing this: and what to do about it. Our expert guest and friend today is Francie Alexander, the Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Scholastic Education. This is a return appearance for Francie; her last show with us addressed how to prevent your child from losing recently learned material in what is referred to as the “summer slide.” Francie reveals there are many different areas in which a child can be gifted. A parent needs to appreciate this and the various many ways in which the child can express it. Parents can too often be concerned that their child “is not academically gifted” and fail to see what particular gifts the child has and work to facilitate and strengthen those gifts. Is your child gifted academically, socially, physically, artistically? If academically, what particular part or subjects? Learn how parents should focus on their child’s strengths and enhance them; not overly fret over apparent “below expectation” levels of skill or ability. Validating what the child does well actually lifts all other aspects of the child’s endeavors. But stressing and fretting over the child’s apparent lesser abilities only drags down the child’s confidence and self esteem and damages their overall achievement. Learn why and how parents should keep their gifted children engaged and moving forward. Learn about the extensive resources available at Scholastic, Inc., for parents to use with their variously gifted children. Be alert to the possibility that your gifted child may have difficulty collaborating with other children; and that fact that gifted children need to be taught just as much as “regular” children. But most important: let your gifted child follow the line of interest it has its attention on. Learn the traits of gifted children: Language development Questioning and probing Integrating advance words into their conversation Focus on the pursuit of a purpose They love to learn Physically, they have good eye-hand coordination Love to play and excel at a sport Able to take any object (crayon, pencil, clay, cloth, etc.,) and create something from it Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

Wonderful results have been achieved by implementing the simple idea that if teachers visited parents in their homes, both could work together more productively to benefit the child student. Carie Rose is the Director of The Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project This simple, wonderful idea is now a nationwide activity achieving great results. Since 1998, the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project non-profitmembers have created stronger home/school partnerships that support students and transform schools. Home visits lead to increased parent involvement, reduced disciplinary problems, improved attendance, and increased student achievement. Home visits also lead to trusting, respectful relationships between parents and teachers, creating the foundation for understanding and cooperation between home and school that is critical to every student’ssuccess. Families report greater understanding of graduation requirements, student status and available site based resources — if needed. Educators report greater understanding and connection totheir entire school community and each student’s individual learning needs. Studies of successful home visit pilots have documented the many benefits of home visits, including: Home Visits Create Partnerships: Increasing parental involvement Developing trust and understanding among parents and teachers Identifying common goals for students Helping parents learn how to better help their children Home Visits Improve School Climate: Reduced absenteeism Fewer suspensions and expulsions Improved communication between home and school Shared accountability Home Visits Increase Student Achievement: Improved test scores Higher school-wide API scores Improved accountability for students, parents, and teachers Home visits work with schools and districts in eleven states having adopted our model. Home visits work for parents. They work for educators. And, most importantly, they work for students. For more information about Home Visits contact: Carrie Rose, Director, TheParent-Teacher Home Visit Project Or email: home-visits@sbcglobal.net Phone: 916/448-5290 Roger & Virginia at The Learning Curve

That’s what Virginia and I were left wondering after this interview with Dr. William Schmidt, the author of the exciting new book: INEQUALITY FOR ALL: The Challenge of Unequal Opportunity in American Schools. No, it’s not about rich versus poor or disadvantaged versus privilege. It’s a revelation of the fact that our schools, even within the same districts, cities and States do not have comparable curriculum content and standards on the same critical science and math subjects. And the greatest variations are in middle-income school districts; and it happens even within the same school. In other words there is no equivalence between classes of the same Grade on the same subjects. And this results in many kids being short-changed or otherwise graduating with different knowledge than other kids who’ve done the “same” subject Grade classes elsewhere in the system. Dr. Schmidt reveals that some teachers are not properly equipped or competent to deliver the math and science curriculum—and that is part of the problem. Compared to this, the nations that are bettering us overseas have national standards of common core material that all kids are exposed to. By “common core standard” is meant what is to be taught: not how it is to be taught. Parents will ask: what to do? The answer is go to the Common Core Standards website http://www.corestandards.org/ and see what their child should be learning at each grade, and take the action needed to have the material delivered to your child. This is important because math is the language of technology and the information driven society we now live in. Click here for more information on INEQUALITY FOR ALL: The Challenge of Unequal Opportunity in American Schools. If that link doesn’t work go to http://promse.msu.edu/ and look in the “what’s New” section. William H. Schmidt is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and co-director of the Education Policy Center. Roger & Virginia at The Learning Curve.

Nowhere is the adage: “If you don’t use it, you lose it” more accurate than in the case of young minds and the reason behind the “summer slide.” In today’s Learning Curve Francie Alexander explains how you can protect your child’s learning and advancement. Learn how you can easily prevent the “summer slide.” Francie Alexander is Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Scholastic Education. Francie has taught at all levels, was a district reading consultant for Pre-K through high school, and has authored professional articles for educators as well as 25 “Books Kids Can Read” for children. In today’s Learning Curve we reveal: What the “Summer Slide” is. The fact that teachers typically need 4 to 6 weeks in the fall to re-teach material students have forgotten! The importance of “summer reading in beating the summer slide.” The wonderful treasure trove of tools and resources available at the scholastic.com website. Learn of the many initiatives and tools Scholastic has made available to you so you can beat the “summer learning loss” and also help your child in everyday learning. Scholastic Summer Challenge a program where students can win prizes by logging their reading minutes online or using a new mobile app. called The Scholastic Reading Timer. Scholastic Reading Timer kids can set personal reading goals, using the built-in stopwatch to reach their target number of reading minutes. Storia® is a free eReading app specifically designed to support kids’ reading Sushi Monster, Scholastic‘s newest free math fact fluency game available on the iPad. Summer book packs for all age groups. Get tips for parents from Francie on how to keep kids learning over the summer For teachers, the Scholastic website is an equally wonderful resource. Their website has been set up to serve as the content and e-Commerce hub for everything a teacher needs most for use in the classroom. Each week, more than 1.6 million visitors to Scholastic.com access over 100,000 pages of free content and teaching resources. This show is one of the most enjoyable Roger & Virginia has done on the Learning Curve. And the material it makes available to parents, teachers and students is truly valuable and quite amazing. Scholastic, Inc., is a publishing and educational industry service company whose mission is stated as: “The corporate mission of Scholastic is to encourage the intellectual and personal growth of all children, beginning with literacy, the cornerstone of all learning. With more than 90 years of experience supporting the learning lives of children, today Scholastic remains committed to providing quality, engaging educational content in digital and print formats for the next generation of learners, and the families and educators who guide them.” But the big surprise to Roger is that Scholastic are also the people behind bringing the Harry Potter series to America! So it’s not all serious academics at Scholastic. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve.

Today’s guest is Jen Lilienstein, the founder of kidzmet.com. Jen did her undergraduate senior thesis in 1994 on Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence and its effect on self-esteem, attendance rates and love of learning. Post graduation, she kept returning to her passion for non-traditional education. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of the National Afterschool Association, the Publications and Platform Committees of the NAA, the Quality Committee of the CA Afterschool Network, and advocates for Afterschool for All with the Afterschool Alliance. She is also a member of BOOST and ASCD. Jen has a wonderful headline on her website: Learning was meant to be FUN! We concur, of course. And her mission at Kidzmet is: To help parents, teachers, tutors and coaches understand how to make learning FUN for each unique child. This is a fun and enlightening interview where you’ll hear a real expert reveal: The limits of conventional IQ Tests. What the eight intelligences are that each child is gifted with. The myriad ways kids learn because of their innate multiple intelligences. Why we need to acknowledge these intelligences and realize they are elastic and change. The damaging affects of our schools’ standardized testing regimen on your child’s multiple intelligences—and what you can do to remedy it. Jen reveals how failure to recognize and facilitate a child’s multiple intelligences sabotages their career and later life opportunities. Kidzmet has an on-line inventory test you can use to find where your child’s attention, key intelligences and true interests lay. And this can be used to facilitate and optimize your child’s learning and potential. Learn why summer time activities (at school breaks) are so important . . . and much, much more. Roger & Virginia at the Learning Curve

Mathematics is the bane of too many students; and it need not be. Mathematics is too often a difficult subject for parents asked to help with homework: it should not be. Today you will learn how to conquer that fear. Today’s guest with Roger& Virginia is Marilyn Burns, the founder of Math Solutions, an organization that has been dedicated for almost 30 years to improving K–8 mathematics teaching through providing professional development and resources. A former classroom teacher, Marilyn has written more than twenty books for teachers, including: About Teaching Mathematics and Math and Literature; and more than ten children’s books, including her first: The I Hate Mathematics! Book, and The Greedy Triangle. Her most recent project has been to develop Math Reasoning Inventory (MRI), a free online assessment to help teachers find out what their students really know about mathematics. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Information about MRI, including more than 80 video clips of actual interviews with students, is available on the MRI website. Marilyn continues to teach elementary students on a part-time basis, relying on her classroom experiences to inform her writing and speaking. In 1991, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Bank Street College of Education in New York. In 1996, she received the Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award, given by the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics to one mathematics educator each year. In 1997, she received the Louise Hay Award for Contributions to Mathematics Education by the Association for Women in Mathematics. Hear Marilyn explain how easy math is to understand along with why so many have had difficulty in “getting it.” Hear Marilyn in what is Virginia’s favorite part of the interview: the story of The Greedy Triangle that thought it didn’t have enough sides! It’s the plot of a kid’s book Marilyn wrote which explains that as the triangle acquired more sides, it eventually became so round, it rolled own the hill! What a great way to excite kids about math and give them needed insights! Math must be presented to kids in a manner that makes sense to them. A question parents must learn to use is: “How did you get that answer?” Start your kids early with math. Hear Marilyn explain how a parent can teach math to a child by having them help lay a dinner table. You’ll get the answer to what the difference is between mathematics and arithmetic. And much, much more.

Lisa Niver Rajna is an honest-to-goodness science teacher working in the trenches at K-6. Lisa’s success is evident in the following: One of her students WON an international award with OXFAM Canada in its contest on making toys out of recycled materials. Her team was the FIRST USA team in the contest in 20 years Further she has been invited to be Geographic Awareness Editor on the site: Wandering Educators.com; and most recently has been nominated for a Presidential Award as a Science Teacher. Hear Roger & Virginia talk with Lisa about the Global Achievement Gap as revealed by Tony Wagner. We explore with her such issues as: Is there a conflict between preparing students for the world of work and teaching them about their roles as citizens? What does it mean in today’s world to be an active and informed citizen, and how does a democratic society best educate for citizenship? What would be involved in created the ‘challenging and rigorous curriculum’ for all students that many are now demanding? What is even meant by ‘rigor’ today and how do we get more of it in our students’ classes? Are students learning how to think critically, solve problems, work collaboratively, take initiative, communicate effectively, access and analyze information, be curious and imaginative? Learn how the kinds of questions students are asked and the extent to which a teacher (or parent) challenges students to explain their thinking or expand on their answers are reliable indicators of the level of intellectual rigor in a class. What about our kids’ future roles as world citizens? Are we educating them for it? Given that, as a society, we become good at what we measure: are we measuring the optimum things in our students? Learn how Lisa excites her students and interests them in science.

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Jennifer is lucky to be able to benefit from A Cyber Charter School with on-line curriculum along with on-line teacher back-up and testing. The benefit of all this to Jennifer’s two children is that, while they have to meet the state testing standards, she can allow the kids to progress through each item on the curriculum at the pace that best suits the child and also ensure mastery on all subject matter. Hear how Jennifer practices Student Led Learning. Hear how she works the interests and needs of each child into the lesson plans and material. She is also able to allow each of her children to learn in the style best suited to the child—indeed she pays special attention to facilitating her children’s two different learning styles. And this further enhanced by her practice of Student Led Learning. Jennifer says this method of educating her children has developed in them a wondrous love of learning, and the ability to discover and master anything they will ever have to deal with in later life. And the big bonus Jennifer has found is that Home Schooling allows families to be flexible in meeting all of the needs of each member of the family. Hear Jennifer answer these questions: What is student-led learning? How do home school parents incorporate their children’s interests during instructed learning time? How do our children meet state and federal school requirements by following the student led philosophy? Can traditional school settings incorporate a student-led philosophy? Roger & Virginia at The Learning Curve

The big question parents should be asking is: when it works, why is it working; and if it doesn’t work, why not? Our guest today with Roger and Virginia on The Learning Curve is Laurie Gray, the founder of Socratic Parenting. Laurie’s experience includes having been a high school teacher, a civil and criminal trial attorney and author of young adult literature. Currently she writes, speaks and consults through Socratic Parenting LLC as well as working as a child forensic interviewer and as a College Professor. What would happen of you used “open inquiry” questions with your child instead of telling and indoctrinating? Would it lead to greater self discovery and appreciation of truth? Socrates is said to have stated: I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. Only the practice of “open inquiry” opens the mind for thinking. Many wise educators have deplored the current educational system’s practice of treating kids as sponges to be filled with the attempt to wring them dry at exam time. It is an unwise parenting practice also. As Laurie explains, there is nothing more useless than a mind filled with others’ thoughts. Hear Laurie explain the principles of Socratic Parenting — principles such as: Be aware versus beware. Don’t cause a child’s life to be ruled by fear. Have the child being present with interested. Acknowledgement and appreciation is a very important first step. Accept who your child is. Appreciate the positives. And much more.

Today’s guests are Beth Black and Denise Savage of Cherokee Creek Boys School. Beth is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Cherokee Creek Boys School, which is a therapeutic boarding school for middle school boys, ages 11-15, in Westminster, SC. The school is dedicated to “challenging boys and their families to discover what is real and true about themselves and the world around them.” The program seeks to build character by offering a path of self-discovery that addresses the emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual needs of adolescent boys. Among her many accomplishments, Bet was an Adjunct Professor for Florida State University while teaching “Communicating Disney Style” and “Marketing the Good News About Schools,” as well as a facilitator for the popular program “Disney Approach to People Management”, designed to share Disney’s internal marketing and quality service strategies with business professionals. Denise is Academic Dean, having been a teacher since 1992, she brings extensive classroom experience with her to Cherokee Creek Boys School. Denise has an exciting mix of strong language instruction skills, as well as extensive knowledge of Individual Education Plans, testing and interpretation, and experience evaluating and developing diverse curriculum models. At Cherokee Creek, Denise works to foster, in her own words, “enthusiastic and dynamic teaching as a means of creating and nurturing a lifelong love of knowledge.” She does this through Curriculum Development and academic oversight of a staff of teachers, by teaching a themed English and Social Studies class, and by preparing the boys for the moment when they actually leave the school. In a therapeutic environment, she feels her job is to get boys to reclaim their love of learning and back on an academic track so they are better able to perform as independent learners once they leave the therapeutic environment. Learn why it is often better to have boys and girls separated in school . . . it’s to do with their learning styles tending to conflict with each other. The public school system currently forces boys to learn in the style best suited for girls! Did you know there is an association of Independent Educational Consultants who can help parents find the best learning environment/school for your child? Cherokee Creek Boys School Roger and Virginia at How to Learn Easily

Did you know many families go to camp as a family rather then sending the kids off alone? Today’s guest is Peg L. Smith, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Camp Association, where she has been for over a decade. She has had a wonderful career and extensive experience in childhood, adolescent and young adult work. With her BS in early childhood and family studies, she began her career in 1974 as a Head Start Teacher. Later, in 1977 she created a career program that was implemented in five counties in Indiana for young people, following which she made Director of the Head Start Program for Child and Adult Resource Services. Eventually in 1991, due to her performance in a number of other positions, Peg was appointed to the staff of the Governor of Indiana as Director of the Governor’s Step Ahead Initiative, and while there she also created the first Bureau of Child Development for the State and in 1995 became the director of the Indiana Youth Initiative. Peg has vast experience in the service of and helping youngsters, so she is well qualified to give us some points of wisdom on how best to serve our children. Hear Peg explain how best to select a camp for your child. Should you make a whole family holiday out of it? What special camp experiences are available? How can you plan it so your child’s regular school grades benefit? What other benefits can you anticipate from a properly planned camp for your child? What funding and financial arrangements you can benefit from? Peg is a font of wonderful information in this show with reference to the above and many other topics you’ll want to know about. Contact the American Camp Association Roger and Virginia at the Learning Curve

Today’s educational system is a labyrinth of bureaucratic pitfalls. Even going outside the school system for private tutoring services has its short-comings. Today’s guest is Elaine Sigal who has had near 40 years of experience in education at all levels from grades 8-12 and teaching at university. At one point in her career in education she founded and ran a classroom based ‘brick and mortar’ educational company (from 1995 – 2009) Based on this experience, Elaine founded STIZZiL.com. STIZZiL is quite unique in that it is an online supplemental education company that offers tutoring, enrichment and support for students, parents and professionals of all ages. STIZZiL brings together the best US licensed, credentialed, and experienced educators from all over the United States and matches them to students, parents and professionals in need of help. Elaine’s experience has shown that “not just anyone can teach.” So she created a service that enables students, from the privacy and safety of their own home, to work with STIZZiL’s vetted educators, who teach in a synchronous manner using the best and latest in modern technology: audio, video, chat, whiteboard, and archiving capabilities. Hear Elaine answer our question of how can a parent best raise concerns within the educational system regarding concerns they have about the learning environment of their child. Who can or should you report to and how best to do it? What are the best avenues to take action on? How should you prepare? What are the pit-falls in “No Child Left Behind”? How can you “work” this part of the system? In actuality, No Child Left Behind has drastically altered educational practices . . . teachers have been driven away from educating with the end result of the children actually learning things of value: instead teachers are forced to “teach to the test.” This results in approximately half of teaching time being spent on practicing to pass mandated tests versus actually learning something. It’s true . . . boys and girls behave and learn differently! Learn how best to work with the difference. Learn how you can help your child get better grades by providing a better learning environment at home. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

This works for children and adults! Just as exercise promotes physical fitness, exercising our brain improves brain fitness in four critical areas. Memory Attention Processing Sequencing Today’s guest is Dr. Martha S. Burns who has been a practicing speech language pathologist for 45 years. Dr. Burns is on the Faculty of Northwestern University, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders and who also works with Scientific Learning Corp. Hear Dr. Burns discuss how one of Scientific Learning’s programs, Fast Forward®, helps learners achieve up to a two year reading gain in as little as three months. Hear Dr. Burns discuss (in layman’s terms) the architecture of the brain, its “plasticity,” and how it can be knowingly addressed and developed. In this show we’ll be discussing the types of fun games and exercises you can use with your child (or use yourself) to build and strengthen brain fitness and learning capacity and speed. These are the types of exercises that can be done anywhere: at home, in the car, on walks, at school; anywhere you or your child can interact with the environment or another person. We’ll also discuss the distinction between video games that only entertain versus those that both entertain and develop brain “muscle.” Dr. Burns has a wonderful blog listeners should also go to. And go to Scientific Learning’s website for further information. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

Today’s guest is Anne Maxwell, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and founder of The Child and Family Therapy Play Center. She also founded the childfamilyplaytherapy.com website. Anne has had extensive experienced dealing with “troubled,” “disabled” or “disadvantaged” children in her clinical career — but something was discovered by her: many of these disturbed or troubled children were, in actuality, highly gifted children who’d been misdiagnosed with one of the many fashionable designations used nowadays to try and fit the too sharp kids into the very dull system that is the US educational assembly-line. Many of these kids, mislabeled with any one of the acronyms ending with “D” for disorder, were actually very bright youngsters driven into displaying symptoms of boredom, rebellion, disinterest or distraction due to them not fitting into a system that isn’t geared to deal with exceptional talent and doesn’t know how to correctly cater to them. These gifted kids get stressed-out because they end up feeling they are not being heard or understood . . . but who doesn’t suffer when that occurs to them! Out of this experience Anne has developed a system of tools and game playing routines that enable all children: gifted, normal or “different” to have the best brought out in them. This is the second half of our interview with Anne, and in this show Anne discusses how you can “get it right” with your child. The things you can do, the tools you can use, to help your child develop its full potential and reap the rewards in life it is due. Learn the characteristics of a gifted child. Learn the Three Stages and Types of Childhood Development. Learn how to find out what is “in your child’s universe/mind” . . . this instead of blaming or incorrectly assuming what’s going on. Hear Anne address The 10 Keys to Joyful Parenting. Anne gives you an exercise of how to help your child realize its infinite possibilities. Did you know children are often so perceptively sensitive they take on others’ emotions? Learn how to honor your child’s uniqueness and not mold it into society’s expectations. Did you know that “behavior” is often a form of communication. Get Anne’s list of tools for happy parenting that will benefit your child. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

Today’s guest is Anne Maxwell, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and founder of The Child and Family Therapy Play Center. She also founded the childfamilyplaytherapy.com website. Anne has had extensive experienced dealing with “troubled,” “disabled” or “disadvantaged” children in her clinical career — but something was discovered by her: many of these disturbed or troubled children were, in actuality, highly gifted children who’d been misdiagnosed with one of the many fashionable designations used nowadays to try and fit the too sharp kids into the very dull system that is the US educational assembly-line. Many of these kids mislabeled with any one of the acronyms ending with “D” for disorder were actually very bright youngsters driven into displaying symptoms of boredom, rebellion, disinterest or distraction due them not fitting into a system that isn’t geared to deal with exceptional talent and doesn’t know how to correctly cater to them. These gifted kids get stressed-out because they end up feeling they are not being heard or understood . . . but who doesn’t suffer when that occurs to them! Out of this experience Anne has developed a system of tools and game playing routines that enable all children: gifted, normal or “different” to have the best brought out in them. In this show Anne discusses how you can “get it right” with your child. The things you can do, the tools you can use, to help your child develop its full potential and reap the rewards in life it is due. Learn the characteristics of a gifted child. Learn the Three Stages of Student Decline that affect all kids, but particularly affect the gifted child in the current system. The Federal Education Act requires that every child’s needs are to be met. Much has been done to concentrate of the “disabled” . . . it’s time to demand the needs of the gifted child be met. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

The issue of the effects of bullying at school has recently received nationwide prominence and it is a serious problem. Bullying and being bullied not only interferes with a child’s success at school, academically, socially and health wise, but it can have life-long lasting ill affects on a person. Today’s guest on The Learning Curve with Roger & Virginia is Vicki Abadesco, the director of Soul Shoppe, an organization devoted to helping students, teachers and parents eliminate bullying in our schools by giving students, teachers and parents the communication tools and techniques proven to be successful in handling bullies, student conflicts and the effects of being bullied. Soul Shoppe last year alone served 75,000 elementary students nationwide through its school-wide workshops and assemblies. Vicki Abadesco has some wonderful resources at her website www.soulshoppe.com Hear Vicki explain how Soul Shoppe’s program achieves: Optimal Learning Environments based on a Foundation of Respect Personal Empowerment based on awareness of choices we make Skill Building to navigate life powerfully Community Enhancement promoting empathy and a high level of functioning for all Joyful Living—encouraging a sense of freedom on all we do We see this as an important program for, as we state in the Professional Edition of our book, How to Learn-How to Teach: Overcoming the Seven Barriers to Comprehension, an “Area of Fear” is one of the vital fundamentals that must be handled if a student (or adult) is going to be able to actually correctly apply their attention to studying and learning anything. See: www.howtolearneasily.com Vicki points out that in the presence of fear a person’s brain and ability to learn actually shuts down. Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve — www.howtolearneasily.com

Today, with Roger & Virginia on The Learning Curve, we have the return of Jeffrey Pflaum, the author of Motivating Teen and Preteen Readers: How Teachers and Parents and Teachers Can Lead the Way. Jeffrey is a 34 year veteran of teaching in the New York City School System where he achieved spectacular results in the classroom. He and his work have been widely cited in publications dealing with education and is featured on the Education Resource Information Center at Teachers’ College, Columbia University and Indiana University. Also at the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, Illinois University. Jeffrey is also a BAM! Street Journal Blogger at the BAM Radio Network serving the education community. Jeffrey reveals the simple exercises and drills he used in his classroom to help kids become better readers. Hear how Jeffrey taught his students that words can excite and incite young readers to create three-dimensional concepts and images; and that reading is like a 3D virtual reality created by the reader. Jeffrey’s book is available at your local bookstore, Amazon.com and B&N. Jeffrey can be contacted at jeffreyppflaum@gmail.com Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve

Today’s guest with Roger & Virginia on The Learning Curve is Jeffrey Pflaum, the author of Motivating Teen and Preteen Readers: How Teachers and Parents and Teachers Can Lead the Way. Jeffrey is a 34 year veteran of teaching in the New York City School System where he achieved spectacular results in the classroom. He and his work have been widely cited in publications dealing with education and is featured on the Education Resource Information Center at Teachers’ College, Columbia University and at the Collaborative for the Advancement of Social and Emotional Learning, Illinois University. Hear Jeffrey revel how reading is all about “an internal life” and that there is a “reading process” that you can help your children learn. Hear how Jeffrey taught his students that words can excite and incite young readers to create three-dimensional concepts and images; and that reading is like a 3D virtual reality created by the reader. Jeffrey’s book is available at your local bookstore, Amazon.com and B&N. Jeffrey can be contacted at JPP707@aol.com Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve Roger and Virginia at The Learning Curve links to http://www.howtolearneasily.com