Alone At School... And Far From Home

I was invited to dinner with the Appalachian Trail Team 1 the other night. It was a unique opportunity for me to see them outside of the school setting.. with their hair down, so to speak. It was really a lot of fun. I learned a great deal from my dinner date with your kids. First, we need to add a cooking class... no I'm just kidding, the kids did a bang up job preparing the meal. Second, I realized just how hard it must be to be a kid, going to school and living far away from the ones they love.

Now, I don't want to be a downer, but at the time I joined the kids for dinner I was feeling low myself. For those of you who don't know, I live in the area, and work for The Academy at SOAR, and my wife and kids live in Charlotte, 2 1/2 hours away. I know what you're saying, " Mike, that;s a heck of a commute!" and I supposed it would be, if I made the daily commute. Fortunately, and unfortunately, and realistically I don't. I only see my family on weekends during the school year. It's a tough economy, and we just can't afford to make the move yet, with a house to sell, kids in school, and the wife at work, there's a lot more to consider than simply picking up and hitting the road.

Reasons aside, I was feeling a little depressed the other night when I joined the kids for dinner. As I walked in to Founders Hall, the kids were busy into their evening routines. Chef was preparing the meal, with the assistance of the instructors, and the other students were taking a little break, just chatting, reading a good book, or listening to their IPODS. Everyone seemed quite content, yet, a little feeling of sadness overcame me. Here, were all these great kids... alone at school... without their families... and far from home. I suppose my own mood didn't help the reaction I had at the sight of seeing your kids out of the setting in which I ordinarily seem them, school. In the absence of the schoolhouse, they weren't just my students, they were kids, they were somebody's son, daughter, sister or brother. For a moment, everything just seemed a little out of place.

I joined the kids and their instructors for a great meal and conversation. It wasn't until later that night that I processed the feelings I was having. I was really feeling sorry for ALL of us, the kids and I. In processing through what I was feeling, I was able to put things back into perspective.

I, found my way to SOAR, because it was where I was meant to be. Far from the ideal situation all around, being away from home, I had found a great job, a place and people who needed me and what I had to offer. I also found a place where my strengths and talents, could be exhibited, benefit derived from, and a place where I felt I had a special contribution that was making a difference in a program, and in the lives of students, families, and colleagues each day. Yes, I was away from home, but it was, and is, where I needed to be.

Reflecting upon how SOAR was just right for me, and I for it, helped me to see how my students, each in their own individual way, also needed SOAR, and SOAR benefited from their presence. Each of my students, your children, has found a place here at SOAR where "their" unique strengths and talents could be put in the spotlight, where in the past perhaps, light was only shone on their shortcomings. or how they didn't fit the traditional mold.

Your kids, like myself, have found a great place, and a great school, are forming friendships and connections with peers and staff  who benefit from what they have to offer.

At a recent educational conference I attended, I listened to a keynote speaker, a very successful educator who stated that "Schools of the future that will survive will be the ones that continually strive to meet the needs of their students." – SOAR does this, and kids benefit.

He also stated that:

The trend of successful schools is:

Customization over standardization

Personalization versus collectivism

Non- traditional delivery versus traditional

SOAR is on this track.

This gentlemen also stated that, " We need to engage in 'purposeful abandonment' of things that no longer work." SOAR SOAR SOAR

The last profound statement that caught my ear was. "Successful education has time as the variable, and learning as the constant. Every child learns, just in a different time and a different way." SOAR SOAR SOAR SOAR SOAR!

While it may seem initially that I digress, all of these things that the educational expert stated successful schools that will last DO and ARE, SOAR already is, and is getting better at it every day.

It sort of connected the dots for me. For if it were my OWN child that needed help and support, I would do everything in my power, even if it meant them leaving home for a time, in order to work with professionals who "engage in 'purposeful abandonment' of things that no longer work.", to get an experience and an education that values customization over standardization, and personalization versus collectivism.  I would, if I were in your shoes as a parent, do whatever it takes to find a place that truly believes that "Every child learns, just in a different time and a different way, " and that "Successful education has time as the variable, and learning as the constant."

So while your kids and I may be, for the moment in time, far from home, we are never alone, and we each are here at SOAR for very specific and individualized purposes.  Once I pondered  why it is each of us is here at SOAR, and what we each give and receive from SOAR,  I realized that I will look back on my SOAR experiences years from now with amazement at what we all accomplished together and how it changed us. I honestly don't believe there is any way your child won't have similar feelings at the end of their SOAR experience, and years down the road.

A Word on Student Writing from The Academic Director

I just wanted to take a moment to address some concerns that has come up a few times with regard to student writing.

Many of our students, your kids, when they get to SOAR, are reluctant writers and some just plain hate to write, either because it is difficult for them physically, difficult due to a processing problem, or difficult just due to the fact that they have not had any positive experiences with writing in school to date.

We're hoping to change all that.

Part of the way we do this is by reinforcing successive approximations at whatever our goal(s) are for your child's writing. We praise them for what they are doing well, while at the same time, making suggestions, for things that they should look at changing, editing, or revising, to make their writing better, with regard to length, content, and conventions. It's the glass half full philosophy.

The result of this may be, that the letters you receive at home, or the blogs you see posted online, may not be perfect. This is not because we are not checking, correcting or instructing, it is just that, as educators, we are making a choice, with regard to where to focus and where to place emphasis at any given moment.

For example, if a student, who has never written a paragraph before is excited about something they have written or word processed, we are going to look at the content, and point out the attention to detail in their thoughts and ideas before mentioning the several spelling or punctuation errors.

Think of it this way. If all you ever got from the boss at work was criticism for the things you weren't doing, or the expectations you weren't meeting, wouldn't your desire to deliver for them begin to diminish?

Our goal, in general, is to turn your kids " on" to school, reading, writing, math, history and science. We are, after all Success Oriented, Achievement Realized. The definition of success isn't perfection, and one doesn't need to demonstrate flawlessness in order that we say they have achieved.

My students are also always asking me with regard to their writings, " Mike, is this long enough? "
"Mike, does this sound good enough?"  While I will tell them what I think and I will give them my opinion and my guidance when needed, my answer is often, " You are the author. Do you feel it is long enough to express what you wanted to say?"

The result here will often be, that students will write what they want.  Often without external requirements being placed upon them, they will surprise.

I also don't censor with regard to content. The result being, that you may see your kids writing things, that "they wouldn't write in school." We talk about freedom of speech as well as things that are and aren't appropriate in a general sense. We talk about speech that can be harmful or hurtful towards others. Beyond that, I really don't place restrictions on our students. If I did, we might not ever see what they were truly capable of. We could be snuffing out the flame before it ever had a chance to blaze.

So, to conclude, if you see letters coming home that aren't perfect, or if you see a posted blog, where your child has written something that makes you a little uneasy, because it is not what you would typically expect from school, remember that we are not a typical school, and your children are extraordinary. We recognize that what comes home is all you see, and it is all you have to judge, That is why I felt the need to share these thoughts. If your child posts a blog, and it is not grammatically correct or totally correct with regard to use of conventions, it isn't for lack of modelling, and instructing. At the end of the " writing process" your children will  know what the things are that they need to correct, to make their writings have the best presentation possible. Once it is turned over to them a final time, it is their work, and it is their responsibility.

At the end of the day, we can model, and we can influence, but like you or I, we really can't make our students, our children do anything that they, themselves don't want to do. So they key is to turn them on to writing, to school in general, so that they develop that intrinsic motivation to, say, write, for the purpose of expressing ones thoughts, feelings and emotions, rather than writing, because it is a school assignment.

Think what motivates you to do something... anything. Where does that motivation generally come from? Generally it is from within. That is what we are trying to instill in your children.

Everyone Has Their Challenges (Your Kids Are Not alone) International Stuttering Awareness Day (October 22)

My Article from The 2012 International Stuttering Awareness Day Conference (October 22)

Dedicated to all my students past and present - That my story should be inspiration to you that there is no challenge to great to keep you from realizing your goals and dreams.

Breaking the Chains of Silence

by Michael Lefko
from North Carolina, USA

Breaking the Chains of Silence I have aspired to many things in my life, one to be a writer, and another to be a songwriter. I write about things of which I am passionate. To date I have written a pretty good song entitled "Breaking the Chains of Silence", expressing the pain that only one who stutters would know. I have yet to write the book but certainly haven't crossed it off my list, at least until I actually do it. This short autobiography will have to suffice for now.
Living as a person who stutters hasn't really squelched any of my hopes and dreams though at times it has made attaining them a bit more challenging. As a kid, my elementary school years consisted of being teased about my stuttering, getting frustrated, punching the offending party in the stomach and earning a chair with my name on it in the principal's office. I was eventually able to find a more suitable space among a group of friends who accepted me for who I was, stutter or not. From 5th grade on, I had friends.

Throughout junior high and high school, I had friends, girlfriends, was involved in sports, music and theatre. I was ok with my stuttering, because then people who cared about me were ok with it.

When it came time to think about college, there wasn't much question that I wanted to pursue teaching, not because I loved school, or had an special fondness for academia, my reason was much more cliche', I loved working with kids. Additionally, I had a few special teachers who inspired me to do for others as they had done for me. I was met with a degree of skepticism from my grandfather. For a Jew, he certainly used Jesus's name an awful lot.

"Jesus Christ, Michael, be sensible! How do you expect to teach when you can't even talk?" Use of anyone's Lord's name in vain aside, you must know my grandfather said what he said out of love. This was his sensitive side coming through. I realize now, that he was trying to spare me from what he perceived would be a lifetime of pain and frustration. "Why don't you get a nice desk job, something in computers perhaps, that doesn't rely so much on verbal communication?"

Despite my grandfather's career counseling, I pursued a degree in special education and taught successfully for 12 years in the first phase of my career. Did I stutter? You bet I did, and there were times during those 12 years that were so painful, I believe only someone who stutters could understand. I did pretty well talking to and teaching the kids. Talking to my colleagues, supervisors, and student's parents was another story altogether. There were moments that seemed like hours facilitating parent- teacher conferences where I struggled to get every word out. During this phase of my life, starting at around year 3 of my teaching career, I lived what I referred to as a self- fulfilling prophecy. I thought I would fail therefore I did . . . just about every time. So I would be pushing the words out, substituting all over the place, rushing to get my thoughts out before the next block, sweating profusely, sensing others extreme discomfort, wishing the nightmare would end or that I could just run out of the room and not come back. You can't run away from your life when you are a grown up. I certainly didn't feel like a grown up. I was 23.

During those years, I feared the phone. I feared answering the phone. I feared ordering a pizza, and I feared the drive-through. I feared meeting new people who would ask me my name, or God forbid ask me what I did for a living. During these years, I was often paralyzed by fear and anxiety about failing. It was so much easier not to even try. Fortunately, I had a loving wife, who in retrospect, may have enabled me, but helped me to survive what were some of the toughest years in the history of my speech. Things I aspired to during these years that I achieved: Becoming a husband, and a father of two beautiful girls, and maintaining a career requiring quite a bit of verbal communication, in spite of my stuttering.

Around the mid to late 90's, after a short stint at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro speech clinic, I aspired to become a speech-language pathologist. During my time working at that clinic with the clinicians, and participating in a few studies, we touched upon the subject of my returning to graduate school to become a speech therapist. One of the therapists commented to me that she didn't know how parents would respond to a therapist who stuttered working with their children. Though that didn't completely crush my dreams of working in a field I was passionate about, the rejection letter from the university did. Apparently my GRE scores weren't high enough. One aspiration postponed perhaps if not crushed. I rule nothing out.

I was referred to a therapist in Durham, North Carolina who was convinced that I had been looking at my stuttering all wrong. His approach, his theory was that traditional speech therapy focused too much on the avoidance of stuttering, rather than learning how to speak well. His contention was that because of my stuttering, I had never learned how to speak properly. Stuttering rather severely at the time, I was hard-pressed to argue with that point. Through relaxation and hypnosis, combined with what he coined "performance speaking" and using natural gestures to "drive" my speech mechanism, I was able to achieve fluency and some measure of comfort and success. The problem was, like all the other therapies I had experienced in my life, there was little successful transfer outside of the therapy session.
Still battling with stuttering both personally, and professionally, I continued to pursue new challenges career-wise and was successful in my endeavors, in the face of my stuttering. My career moves and decisions soon let me to the pursuit of a graduate degree in school leadership as a North Carolina Principal Fellow. School leadership, or leadership of any kind was never anything I had remotely considered previously. For years, my grandmother would say to me in her New York accent,

"Michael deeya. It's wondaful that you want to teach, but if you're going to make any money in education, you've got to pursue administration."

For years, I had no interest. For one, I didn't see the power of what a great and effective leader could do, having worked with so few great and effective leaders. Second, I simply had no desire to lead. To pursue leadership as a person who stuttered was putting yourself out there for the whole world to see. It was not first on my list of aspirations. My career eventually evolved to the point where I did become a school leader, a support and advocate for teachers, in their endeavors to reach and teach children.

Fast forward about 9 years. I completed my Master's degree, and had worked as a successful school leader for about 5 years. Even though I've had some twists and turns in my career path, I'd never lost sight of my goals and what I wanted to accomplish, and not once did my stuttering get in the way of my career aspirations.

By the summer of 2011, my career was going great, and my life was pretty good, but my speech was in the toilet. The stresses of everyday life, combined with a long-standing diagnosis of generalized anxiety, which I believe is directly correlated with my stuttering had left me again speechless. There were moments that summer that I struggled to get a word out. I knew it was time for a speech tune-up.

I did my research. Having tried a very early version of the SpeechEasy years ago, that was the first thing I turned to. Delayed Auditory Feedback had been around in the speech pathology circles since the beginnings of those circles. I figured perhaps they had perfected it, and it was what I was looking for. I never got to that point. Once I got over the sticker shock of the cost of the device, and the fact that most insurances won't even look at it, I did some research, that was less than inspiring. I decided the Speecheasy wasn't for me, though it was the closest thing to a "magic pill" that I had ever seen, if it worked long term.

So I started searching on the internet. Working in the mountains of North Carolina, I found the name of a professor and therapist at one of the local universities. Aside from his credentials, this guy was a stutterer himself, something I had never experienced in a speech therapist. What most impressed me about this therapist initially, the perception that we shared a life's experience, while significant, in the end, was one of the least important things about working with him.

I would be leaving this tale as a cliff-hanger if I didn't at least try to describe to you some of the things that have worked for me in my work with this speech pathologist. We are trying to identify, together, what specifically it is about his therapy that has made it so effective, both in the therapy session and outside in the real world, when others have failed to do so.
This therapist wasn't interested in what type of insurance I had, and he wasn't anxious to sign me up to work with one or more of his graduate students. This therapist and professor was legitimately interested in me, getting to know me, and learning what he could do for me.
He asked me what my goals were, and what my definition of success was as a person who stuttered. He made no assumptions that he understood what it was I hoped to accomplish in therapy. Nor did he try to push any ideas or methodologies on me. Though we didn't know each other, I felt as though I was sitting down with an old friend, as opposed to being sized up or evaluated.

He told me that if I decided to work with him, that it would be hard work, and that I would have to be committed to doing what it takes to speak well, but that I already had a lot of the right stuff. He saw that in me. He told me to do some research, and read up on him, and decide if he was the right guy for me. He said, "Don't take my word on anything."

As we began working together, I felt more and more that this man was interested not in simply "treating" me, but invested in knowing me, and I him. As we conversed, he would suggest that I try speaking a certain way, and introduced me to what he referred to as "controls". He would help me to develop imagery or metaphors to visualize fluent speech, but it was never simply about fixing the stuttering. He was dedicated to knowing me. The therapy and conversation was so integrated into our evolving relationship that it didn't really feel like therapy at all. The best part about it was I didn't feel as though I was "on the clock". I never felt that at the end of my session I was shoved out of the door of a contrived atmosphere of fluency and success, only to be left on my own back in the real world. Because we were forming a relationship, I felt that my therapist was with me all the way.

In my life, I have aspired to, and aspire to be and accomplish many things, but none comes close to the desire I have, working with this therapist, to one day be a person who "once stuttered". I feel I have never been more close to that goal than I am today.

It was not merely in a day that I went from acceptance of stuttering, to a determination that while it has been a part of me, it doesn't have to be a part of my everyday existence anymore. It was actually about 6 or 7 months, plus or minus the 42 years prior to meeting this therapist that prepared me for this experience.

We're still working together to both improve my speaking, and collectively figure out what it is about his therapy that has not only worked, but has allowed me to transfer my "in therapy" successes to the real world. Finally, I am in control of my speech rather than it controlling me. Freedom, liberation and empowerment are just a few words that come to mind.

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You can post Questions/comments about the above paper to the author before October 22, 2012.

What To Expect When You're Expecting (Results) From The Academy at SOAR and Your Child: Expecations Part II

Inspiration is... where you find it...

Learning How to Learn: I learned consciously, anyway late in life, that learning is an ongoing process. It is infinite, with no set starting point, and no fixed ending point. Learning is growth. Learning is life. Most of us, in fact, need to learn how to learn, in order that our journey is a successful one.

"That's all well and good, Mike," you might say, " but my child came to SOAR because we were in crisis of sorts. We really don't have any time to waste. As a matter of fact, as entertaining as you are Mike, I really don't have time to be reading this, and... and... don't you have some preparations to make for my child?"

We are a world that feeds on results. In schools we feed on grades, and evaluations, and progress shown. Outside of school, as Americans, as humans we have become accustomed to instant gratification, and getting what we want ( or what we think we want it), when we want it, or sooner.

When you are away from your kids for an extended period of time, you need to know now, and rightfully so, how your child is doing, and what progress your child is making. You want news, and you want it now. You want it to be great news. Hey, I am a parent too, as are the other teachers. We want the best for our kids as well, and nothing less will do.

"But Mike," you say, " We're paying bucks to send our child to SOAR. The results should be different than the traditional school that didn't 'cut the mustard' for my kid."

Sometimes I sit back at the end of a long day where I and the other teachers have finished pouring our heart and souls into your kids, and I want to say, to anyone who would question or criticize our process or results,  "Whaddya want from me?" though I know the answer.

So I felt it was time I laid it on the line, and was frank with you. But you can still call me Mike. :)

We're good but we ain't miracle workers... or are we? (I've actually seen Gene and Aaron perform some magic in the classroom with your kids. )  So, I guess it just depends on your definition of a miracle, and your definition of learning for that matter.

What You Can Expect When You're Expecting (results) from The Academy at SOAR

1) No one child is defined by a fixed set of standards. We differentiate instruction for your child, so you can expect the strategies may look different for each child in the program, as might the results.

2) Initially, you may not see polished product like you might expect at a traditional school. Polished work products, along with test scores, are often the measures of success in a traditional school. We are not traditional. There are days, when "total success" for your child might simply be persevering through a task that they ordinarily wouldn't have. We realize that all you know is what you see and hear. So we'll continue to strive to let you see and allow you to hear all that is possible from across the miles. You can expect that if what you see " isn't polished" that we know that it isn't polished, and we are working at successive approximations toward a finished product. You can expect that the finished product might actually be within your child and may not be evident in a traditional school sense.

3) You can expect that no one can "make" your child do anything. As Joe Geier says, " We can guide and we can influence," but ultimately you can expect that your child will still make their own choices. You can expect that whatever they are, they are informed decisions, if not always the best decisions.

4) You can expect that staff and instructors at The Academy at SOAR are trained, experienced professionals with the ability, the desire, and the passion to make certain that we are working in your best interests, for your child.

5) You can expect, as I have learned to expect, that, as mentioned in #2 success, learning, and growth initially, may not be measurable and observable in traditional ways, such as work products and grades. Sometimes the true measure of success is internal for your child, in how they are beginning to feel about school, and about themselves, that they have never felt before.

sidebar:  I overheard feedback from the latest round of parent phone calls. The overwhelming theme was that students loved school, and enjoyed their teachers. That is something that perhaps your child has never experienced before. It's not measurable but it is significant. Something as simple as this could be the difference between a graduate and a drop-out.

(disclaimer: He is an actor, not an Actual SOAR Student)

6) You can expect that we, as an academic staff, are open to your communication always, as well as your thoughts, feelings and opinions. If there is an instance in which we disagree as to the best course of action for a given academic situation you can expect we will discuss it, and we can either come to a compromise, or we can agree to disagree. You can expect though, that we, as instructors who have many years of experience working with children, with students, as well as advanced training and education, will always do our very best to make the decision(s) that are in the best interest of your child, our student.

7) You can expect that your child will gain at SOAR & the Academy at SOAR skills and tools that they may not necessarily gain elsewhere, because our focus is, as well as academics,  teaching the life skills necessary to become and to be life- long successful learners.

8) That being said, you can expect that we will take nothing for granted. If "focusing" on the teacher requires practice, we will practice that. If discussing the processes required for the successful completion of homework is the issue, we will practice that, until it becomes habit. Successful adults have formed successful consistent habits and life skills.

9) You can expect that we understand that the reason students come to SOAR is that for one reason or an other, they have been unsuccessful in the traditional academic environment.

10) You can expect that if we, as educators, do anything less than preparing students with the skills and tools they need to be successful once they leave SOAR and go elsewhere, we feel we have failed.

11) You can expect that "WE" will not fail.

"Wait just a minute, Mike. That's a pretty bold statement, "   you say. "You will not fail. Does that come with a money back guarantee?" 

Unfortunately the powers vested in me do not include issuing refunds. That being said, we will pursue success for your child, "by any means necessary," and for as long as it takes. We will persevere.

All that said, you can expect that your child will experience both successes and failures while at SOAR. As Joe tells the kids, " We expect you to make mistakes, just not the SAME mistakes." Finally, each student will get to where they need to be in their own time, as is true for every one of us.

So you can expect that the staff at SOAR and the Academy at SOAR will guide you along the way when we feel your child would benefit from more time at SOAR in order to get to where they need to be, or whether it is time, and they are ready to move on to the next step in their journeys.