Archive for August, 2011
“How do you learn best?” ~ Pat Wyman, HowToLearn.com
August 30th, 2011 | 
Author: Tuesday, August 30, 2011. Once again and always, I am grateful for Pat Wyman, of HowToLearn.com, who helps kids learn in so many great ways! ~ Doc Meek
This is your HowToLearn.com Newsletter.
Today’s News: What Kind of Learner Are You? Check out the cool New App
Check out the new app on HowToLearn.com, take the learning styles quiz and share your results with your friends, family, teachers and co-workers on Facebook, Twitter, or by email.
Why? There are lots of benefits to knowing how you learn best- read on for more…
Dear Doc,
Do you know how you learn best? If you know for example
that you learn best by listening, you can record lectures
and other things, then play it back to learn and remember it
faster.
What if you’re a a more visual learner? Then you think in
pictures and recall them quickly.
How about a kinesthetic, tactile learner? Then you learn best
by doing.
There’s a new app on HowToLearn.com with a learning styles
quiz and you can share your learning styles results on facebook
with your friends.
Learning Styles Quiz App is Here
Benefits:
Friendships:
When people know how they learn best, they communicate better.
You can appreciate that your friend is a visual learner, all
neat and organized, and that you are a kinesthetic learner,
who learns more by doing and not necessarily being organized
in the same way as your visual friend.
In school:
Use your preferred learning style to recall
lectures in pictures, what you heard or how you feel about
the information.
Then on written tests, make pictures of what you read and the
pictures will help you recall the information faster.
Share your results with your teachers too – then they can
help you learn faster by using your preferred learning style.
At work:
Want to communicate bettter -use the new app and take the
learning styles quiz, then have your office share their results
around.
You’ll all appreciate each other’s learning style more and
understand better ways to communicate.
Check out the new app here and share your results on Facebook,
Twitter, or by email.
Enjoy and have fun with the new app.
Warmly,
Pat Wyman
Founder, HowToLearn.com
The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, Inc., 4535 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89102
Thank you Pat Wyman! You’re a true friend to students and their parents!
Doc Meek, Tues, Aug 30, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
“Music empowers people with LD.” ~ Pang Hin Yue
Friday, August 26, 2011. Today I am so grateful for those who are inspired to teach those who don’t learn as easily as others. Brian John Lim is such a teacher. ~ Doc Meek
Music to empower people with learning
disabilities [Learning Differences]
By PANG HIN YUE, published in The Star Online, Wed, Aug 24, 2011
Former child prodigy Brian John Yim reaches out to the learning disabled and helps autistic teenager Umar Hasfizal realise his potential as a singer with his debut album.
WHEN he was four years old, Brian John Yim’s father left him and his younger brother with their mother and took everything away except an organ. The very object of his sadness became his source of comfort and inspiration. “The organ was the only connection I had with my dad,” says Yim. With no money for piano lessons but an ear for music, he would listen and play the organ as his mother and grandmother sang along.
By the time he turned eight, his mother, Gan Lee Yong, an insurance agent then, had saved enough money for him to take up piano. He was so good that he leapfrogged to fifth grade. Within two years, he completed the final eighth grade. But the child prodigy wanted more – to pursue a course on Electone (electronic organs produced by Yamaha).
But staying in Mentakab, a small town in Pahang, did not help. “There was no organ teacher in Mentakab,” recalls the 28-year-old. Undeterred, he decided to learn it at a Yamaha school in Kuala Lumpur. So for one year, every Sunday, he would faithfully take a two-hour bus ride on his own to KL to attend a 45-minute lesson and then hop on the next available bus to go back home.
By 12, he passed his Electone exam, an achievement few can boast of.
To make sure he did not lose out academically, Yim poured his heart into his studies – just as he did with music – scoring straight-As. When he wasn’t studying, the brilliant boy could be found performing at social functions in his hometown.
Image and text above from: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2011/8/24/lifefocus/9325519&sec=lifefocus
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Thank you, Brian John Yim, for inspiring us to help those who need help to be successful learning in their own right! Active teaching and active learning are a winning combination!
Doc Meek, Fri, Aug 26, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
Posted in learning, learning differences, Learning Difficulties, learning solutions, overcoming learning problems | 
Tags: active learning, active teaching, Brian John Yim, disability, docmeek, grateful, inspired to teach, learning disabilities, music empowers learning, Pang Hin Yue, successful learning | 
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“Skills learned early stay with you.” ~ Doc Meek
Saturday, August 20, 2011. Today I am grateful that my Mom could go on a horseback ride on her 93rd birthday! ~ Doc Meek
Image from: http://www.stillmeadowsranch.ca/services.html (Mom not shown)
Before the Trail Ride
I found the nearby Still Meadows Ranch, which offers trail rides, so Helen, my outdoors-minded sister-in-law gathered extended family members and they all went trail riding with my Mom.
Mom is 93 years old and rode horses in her youth in rural southern Alberta. She has not been on a horse for 50 years or more, and was afraid she might fall off.
I said, “Mom, a horsewoman never loses the riding skills she learned in her younger years.”
After the Trail Ride
I asked Mom, “How did you enjoy the ride?”
“It was supposed to be an hour’s ride. Seemed like ten minutes.
“I felt so sorry for the horses; they were so bored; been plodding the same trail for years.”
Only a horsewoman would feel sorry for the horses.
Thank you, Helen, for loving enough and caring enough to gather the extended family for a group trail ride with 93-year-old Mom!”
Doc Meek, Sat, Aug 20, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
“Many paths to learning success.” ~ Doc Meek
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 . Today I am grateful for all the educators who strive to reach youth wherever they are, with active learning approaches. ~ Doc Meek
GRACE Nasha Thomas-Schmitt, right, national director of AileyCamp, in Newark.
Alvin Ailey’s Mission Inspires Dance
Camp
By TAMMY LA GORCE, THE NEW YORK TIMES; Published: August 5, 2011
NEWARK
Since then, she has been spending weekdays teaching creative communication to 11- to 14-year-olds as part of AileyCamp, a full-day summer program offered by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and financed, in Newark, entirely by the Prudential Foundation.
Two weeks into the camp, Ms. Amenii, 31, recalled, “I used humor” to counteract uncooperative attitudes. “Then all that hardness starts to fall off,” she said, and the camp’s mission, which is not just to teach dance but also to help campers navigate adolescence, can take center stage.
(Read more about AileyCamp in the P.S. to this post, below.)
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
A student reads her poem in creative communications class. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Thank you, Nehprii Amenii and Alvin Ailey, and hundreds of others who bring to youth healing and hope!
Doc Meek, Wed, Aug 10, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
P.S. AileyCamp (continued)
The camp is free to its 96 participants, who were selected after personal interviews this spring from a pool of 250 candidates in Newark public schools. It will end Aug. 12 after a performance on Aug. 10 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, intended mainly for campers’ friends and families.
AileyCamp is new to Newark and to New Jersey. The program was introduced in 1989 in Kansas City, Mo., by the dance company in partnership with the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. By 1999, when Nasha Thomas-Schmitt of Maplewood became director of Ailey’s Arts in Education program as well as national director of AileyCamp, it had spread to Manhattan, Chicago and Bridgeport, Conn. During Ms. Thomas-Schmitt’s tenure, camps have been added in Atlanta; Kansas City, Kan.; Berkeley, Calif.; Boston; Chicago; Miami; and now Newark.
“This program is my baby,” Ms. Thomas-Schmitt, 48, a former Alvin Ailey dancer, said during a news media tour of the camp in mid-July. “When we open a camp, we’re looking for a partner that can sustain us. Hopefully this is staying in Newark for a long time.”
Stops along the way in the bustling high school, which was hosting two other summer programs for children at the time, included classes in ballet, jazz, modern dance, West African dance, percussion and personal development.
Seven instructors — all but one have experience teaching other Ailey Arts in Education programs — lead the classes. In West African dance, children traversed the dance floor flailing their arms and stamping their feet to live accompaniment on a djembe drum; in ballet, a pianist played through a series of ports de bras and leaps.
Not only did AileyCamp Newark get financial support from the Prudential Foundation, but it also received help from the high school, which donated its dance-ready spaces and classrooms, and from the performing arts center, which is providing its 514-seat Victoria Theater for the performance.
Despite the absence of professional dancers, that performance is likely to have plenty of Ailey flavor.
“One of the first things we did here is show the kids Ailey history,” said Felicia Swoope, 42, of Brooklyn, the director of the Newark camp. “We showed them videos of Ailey performing and explained the reason why he created the company.”
Alvin Ailey, who died in 1989, founded his troupe in 1958 to promote African-American cultural expression and American modern dance. AileyCamp welcomes children of all races.
Though dance experience is not a prerequisite for campers, several children applied to the program because of their interest in becoming professional dancers. By the end of camp, as many as a dozen may receive scholarships to dance with Ailey’s Junior Division at the Ailey School this fall.
As for the camp, Ms. Swoope said there were no “real criteria for getting in.”
“What we want them to understand most is that Ailey was a remarkable person, but he was also a person just like them,” she said. “He created work from his own experience, and we encourage them to do that also.”
That may be more of a challenge in Newark than at the other AileyCamp sites, Ms. Thomas-Schmitt said. Though it is the camp closest to her home in Maplewood, and the easiest for her to visit, “I was a little nervous when we started here,” she said.
As Ailey’s Arts in Education director, she has led several residencies in Newark’s public schools. “I knew about the negative hardships a lot of these young people are dealing with on a daily basis,” she said. “We don’t have as many daunting situations in other camps.” Those include incarcerated parents and drug-addicted ones, as well as unsafe neighborhoods, she said.
“When we did our interviews for this camp,” Ms. Thomas-Schmitt said, “one of our questions was, ‘If you could change something in your life, what would it be?’ Ninety percent said, ‘Where I live.’ ”
By the end of camp, they may feel differently about that. As part of Ms. Amenii’s creative communication class, campers are taking pictures of their neighborhoods and writing poems about them; the poems will accompany a show of the photographs as part of the performance.
“When I think about them getting up on that stage, how important it makes them feel, it makes me teary-eyed,” Ms. Amenii said. “It will be one of the biggest moments of their lives.”
By mid-July, some campers were already showing signs that the camp had been an enriching experience. “What they want us to remember is that all kids can dance, and no one is special or more important than anyone else,” said Briana Thomas, an 11-year-old from Newark who will enter Newark Early College High School as a sixth-grader in the fall. “I used to catch an attitude, but not so much anymore. It takes two to argue, and I have to think about being responsible for myself.
“I learned that from AileyCamp,” she said.
“Learn non-obvious health dangers.” ~ Doc Meek
Sunday, August 7, 2011. Today I am so grateful for those who ask us to learn about enculturated health dangers to which we are generally oblivious. ~ Doc Meek
(Click on photo to enlarge) The K-25 gaseous diffusion plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where uranium hexafluoride was used during the Manhattan [Atomic Bomb] Project
Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorine
The Invisible IQ Lowering Drug
Most Americans Consume Daily
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
It’s Fluoride Awareness Week! Join me as we help promote awareness of the dangers of fluoridation. In partnership with Fluoride Action Network, I am happy to announce August 7-13 as being Fluoride Awareness Week. During this week, we will focus on the dangers of fluoridation and how your efforts can make a difference on this important issue affecting us all.
Did you know there’s an “invisible” drug that a majority of Americans consume on a daily basis—a drug so harmful it’s been proven to cause serious health issues, including damage to your bones and teeth, as well as your kidneys, thyroid, pineal gland, and even your brain. This drug is so pervasive that over 40 percent of all American teens between the ages of 12 and 15 show visible signs of having been overexposed to it, and, shockingly, recent international studies indicate that even small doses of this drug can lower the IQ in children.
What is this drug?
Fluoride.
Dr. Mercola’s complete article posted on: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/07/professional-perspectives-documentary.aspx?e_cid=20110807_SNL_Art_1
Video: Professional Perspectives DVD from Dr. Mercola.
Important! The producers of this powerful film are allowing a full and FREE preview through August 13th in celebration of Fluoride Awareness Week (Aug 7 – 13)!
You can support Fluoride Action Network by purchasing the Professional Perspectives DVD at a special low price during Fluoride Awareness Week. Save $9.95.
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As a neurological learning specialist, helping children and adults to overcome learning difficulties, I have been acutely aware for decades of the mind-numbing effects of various neurotoxins, including the ubiquitous and pernicious fluoridated drinking water and, equally surprisingly, fluoridated toothpaste and vegetables.
Thank you, Dr Paul Connett <paul@fluoridealert.org> and FAN (Fluoride Action Network) and Dr Joseph Mercola, for your leadership in helping to eradicate this neurotoxic waste product from our drinking water!
Doc Meek, Sun, Aug 7, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
“Gut and Psychology Syndrome” by Dr Campbell-McBride
Wednesday, August 3, 2011. I am so happy and grateful that there are parents of children with autism who reject the genetic-cause explanation. Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride is such a one. ~ Doc Meek [Dr Natasha’s website is: http://www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com/]
The book contains a lot of research and good information, and it seems very credible. The information is presented in a way that makes sense to non-scientists.
If you’re new to this, there is a series of YouTube videos with the author, and that is worth watching. (There are also many before & after videos of people who have done this program.) There is also a really interesting set of videos and an interview on the CHEESESLAVE blog; you can Google that.
I had waited to buy the book, because it is fairly expensive, but I am really glad that I bought it. After I started actually reading the book, I ordered a second copy to give to a friend of mine who has an Autistic child. I hope she will read it.
This book doesn’t suggest anything magical; it does take time and work to prepare food that is good for us, BUT I think these principles are correct, and I think this will be worthwhile.
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Thank you, Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, for your integrity in solving your child’s autism by connecting gut flora with brain health!
Doc Meek, Wed, Aug 3, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
