Learning to Learn : Challenged Students Get Special Help

They come here as toddlers, teenagers and even middle-age adults because they or their parents have decided they need help making sense of a world that is just moving too fast.

The youngest are products of substance-abusing parents or the arbitrary roulette of nature that leaves them coming up short on the learning curve. The older ones, on the way to college age, have a range of emotional, physical or social obstacles to learning. And then there are the adults. Their hurdles run the gamut from mental illness to Down syndrome.

The Institute for the Redesign of Learning has one of those New Age names that imply its curriculum might be devoid of structure, its campus remote and decorated with crystals and wind chimes.

Instead, the institute is located on a onetime grammar school site in South Pasadena and has a very precise mission and traditional atmosphere.

This year, more than 1,000 adults and children will take part in educational and vocational programs offered by the nonprofit institute and its staff of more than 125 educators, psychologists, social workers and job training specialists. Nearly a third of the students will attend daytime classes at the Almansor Center, the five-acre school site that is the cornerstone of the institute. The remaining 700 youths and adults will take part in an array of off-campus workshops and individual training programs that, like the school, follow the institute’s guiding principles of personal attention and individual responsibility.

“Our mission is to teach and provide an environment where individuals can learn to take personal responsibility for their own learning and become competent, caring and contributing members of society,” said the institute’s president, Nancy Lavelle.

The Three Cs, she calls them.

The difference between this school and most others is simple: At the institute, the emphasis is on individualized instruction and personal responsibility of students. So not only are the classes smaller, but students have a say in their curriculum. Students may stay as briefly as a few months or as long as several years.

The Almansor Center, originally located on a street by that name in Alhambra, began 23 years ago when Lavelle started a specialized educational program for children with social or emotional problems.

“My brother had problems [learning] when we were growing up and we were never clear exactly what the problems were,” Lavelle said. “[He] was a very bright kid but I remember his struggle trying to learn the weekly spelling lists.”

Then an undergraduate at UCLA, Lavelle took a class in developmental psychology and began studying learning disabilities. “I learned it was not about being stupid or lazy or not trying. If you have a learning disability, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, education will be a struggle.”

That realization not only helped Lavelle’s brother but convinced her to forego a career as a social worker or psychologist and instead become a teacher.

Two years later, Lavelle opened the Almansor Center at an Alhambra church. Her first class had four students.

Today, the learning program has expanded beyond even Lavelle’s expectations. With a $4-million annual budget, it contracts with 35 government agencies in 25 cities to provide educational programs to help young and old.

There is no cost to families to attend the program because enrollment is determined by a variety of referral agencies and the cost is covered by government funds and other grants.

Students as young as 14 months and as old as 47 years are referred to the institute by school districts, probation authorities and various state and county departments overseeing mental health programs, social services agencies and rehabilitation services.

Two years ago, Connie, 14, arrived at the center as a struggling seventh-grader. “It was hard for me to concentrate,” she said.

With more personal attention and a hand at setting goals that are realistic, Connie is not only learning but is ready to return to her old school this fall.

“At any other school, they would explain real quick what they wanted me to do and I wouldn’t understand a word they said,” said Gabriel, a 12-year-old from Boyle Heights who has been at the center for three years. “Here . . . they will sit with me and help me.”

Nearby, Kyle, 11, Margaret, 13 and Nathan, 14, pore over their reading or writing assignments with a confidence missing not long ago.

“I would be . . . in fights all the time. Kids at the other school would think I was dumb and try to beat me up,” said Nathan, who has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Being bigger and stronger than most other children, Nathan said, allowed him to hold his own on the playground. But not in the classroom. “My mom’s been fighting to get me into a special class because I’ve been like this [with attention deficit] all my life. My whole life,” he said.

A year and a half ago, Nathan came to the center where, he said, the smaller classes, personal attention and chance to develop at his own pace have made a big change.

“When he came here, all we could see was his hostility and his anger and his defeat. He was a kid who didn’t want to try anymore,” Lavelle said. “Now we see a kid who is eager and friendly and willing to risk again. To learn.”