Tailor Teaching to the Child
Providing public education is among the most important duties of government. However, as demands on public schools increase and public budgets ebb and flow, private-sector help is all the more valued.
A promising new program at Cal State Northridge, funded by $7 million from the family foundation of Michael Eisner, will train teachers to work with children who have different learning styles. The aim is to teach them how to unlock students’ ability to learn rather than write off some children as learning-disabled or disciplinary problems.
The Northridge program will focus on research by Dr. Mel Levine, a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School who has analyzed how the brain works and used the information to help children sometimes improperly classified as having learning or behavioral problems.
In his book “A Mind at a Time,” the doctor asserts that children can learn even if they can’t sit still in a classroom, can’t memorize quickly or can’t follow directions that require the completion of tasks in sequential order. He challenges the frequent diagnoses of attention deficit disorder--which can stick children with an onerous label--and prescribes multiple approaches.
Dyslexic children, particularly boys, were once humiliated by teachers who considered them “reading retarded”; in many cases, IQ tests later indicated a high aptitude out of sync with a poor performance. Many developed outstanding memories to compensate for their inability to read.
Consider a dyslexic L.A. businessman, Roger Cormi, who made his fortune leasing and maintaining greenery in commercial buildings but did not learn to read until he was in his 60s. In his late 70s, Cormi was back in school, in the learning disabilities program at Santa Ana College. Upon his death last year, Cormi left nearly $500,000 to the program.
Dyslexic children are more readily diagnosed today if classroom teachers refer them for a battery of tests, which should lead to an individual education program. Yet many poor readers are not assessed early or competently. Their reading difficulties worsen, and they may be erroneously placed in special education. Children should not be diverted into costly special-ed classes if they don’t belong there. That’s even more important when school budgets shrink.
Programs that help teachers tailor their approaches may not only turn potential problem children into eager students but also help public education through fiscal tough times.
