Posts Tagged ‘Learning Difficulties’

“Innovative Perlmutter Health Center.” – Doc Meek

Wednesday, November 24, 2010. Today I am grateful for David Perlmutter, M.D., a Board-Certified Neurologist with a worldwide practice centered in Naples, on the west coast of Florida.

Images and text below from Dr. Perlmutter’s website: http://www.perlhealth.com

“Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten”

Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten
by David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM Learn More »

“The Better Brain Book”
 

by David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM Learn More »

Dr. Perlmutter works innovatively with a wide variety of neurological and nutritional issues and preventive medicine, including helping adults and children overcome learning problems.

This  makes him a hero in my eyes, as I have been helping adults and children triumph over learning difficulties for more than 30 years now.

Thank you, Dr. Perlmutter, for inspiring hope for children and parents and others!

Doc Meek, Wednesday, November 24, 2010, at the Super 8 Motel in Dania Beach, Florida (on the east coast of Florida, opposite Dr. Perlmutter’s office on the west coast at Naples).

J. Collins Meek, Ph.D. (Doc Meek)
“What if you are smarter than you think?”
Learning Specialist https://docmeek.com

For brain health, ensure heart health (short video):
http://www.amiraclemolecule.com/themeekteam
More on heart health http://www.themeekteam.info
Ph (801) 971-1812 (Jeannette); Fax [801] 282-6026

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC.
CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1
TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 60, Nuku’alofa
USA: 3688 W 9800 S, #138, South Jordan, UT 84095

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“Cry, eat, crawl, walk, run, fly.” – Doc Meek

Monday, September 27, 2010. I am grateful for people who remind us that learning new skills needs to be done in order, generally speaking.

Image from:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1-Fo7uQlrY&feature=related

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); scholar, writer, philosopher; quote from: http://www.Values.com

Thank you, Friedrich!

Doc Meek,  Monday, September 27, 2010, at Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA

J. Collins Meek, Ph.D. (Doc Meek)
“What if you are smarter than you think?”
Learning Specialist https://docmeek.com

For brain health, ensure heart health (short video):
http://www.amiraclemolecule.com/themeekteam
More on heart health http://www.themeekteam.info
Ph (801) 971-1812 (Jeannette); Fax [801] 282-6026

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC.
CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1
TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 60, Nuku’alofa
USA: 3688 W 9800 S, #138, South Jordan, UT 84095

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“Why China is passing us.” – Winnipeg Free Press (2nd of 2 parts)

Hunan is highlighted on this map

Lanshan Middle School No. 2 is in an agricultural area in the southern part of Hunan province, China; Hunan province is highlighted in red on the map of China above; image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunan ………………………………………………………………………………………

I am grateful for today’s guest article from the Winnipeg Free Press in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/fyi/why-chinas-passing-us-84291977.html

Winnipeg Free Press – PRINT EDITION

Why China’s passing us [2nd of 2 parts]

At Lanshan Middle School No. 2, no free rides

By: Carol Sanders, February 13, 2010

Reporter Carol Sanders went to rural China for a holiday and stayed at a high school campus. She learned a thing or two about an education system with great expectations and global ambitions.

About one-third of the students live in dorms on campus. Many of their parents work in factories in another province or their farms are too far from town to commute to school every day.

The high school students do their own laundry near a cold-water tap beside one of the dorms, using a basin and wringing their clothes by hand before hanging them up to dry.

On Saturday mornings, when classes start later and the school day is shorter, a student clean-up crew armed with straw brooms and garbage bags, pails of cold water and rags cleans the school.

Once a month, students have to take their turn, working in groups of three. They sweep the grounds and wash the windows.

They do it freely, while they talk and joke around.

“It’s our duty,” said Gina, a girl in Grade 10 who wants to join the military. When they had a freak snow storm in Lanshan two years ago, it was the military that rescued people in buses in the ditch and the military that went to help earthquake victims in Sichuan.

She wants to be a soldier so she can travel around China and help people. She’s never seen the military in the bad light of Tiananmen Square or Tibet.

The upbeat optimism of Gina and her schoolmates overshadows a lot of darkness — like when the power goes out. Or the garbage dumpster is filled to overflowing by week’s end.

Or when students fall asleep in class because they’ve stayed up all night studying.

The new boys’ dorm looks like a palace for little princes compared to the grungy, gray girls’ dorm.

In class, there’s a lot of rote learning and memorization, as opposed to creative writing and critical thinking.

And if you’re not up to speed, you get left behind.

Middle School No. 2 is for the smartest and hardest working kids in the region. The less-skilled teachers and students are at Middle School No. 1. There appears to be no place for students with disabilities or behaviour problems.

Self-discipline, hard work and proper deportment are the norm.

Teachers say it only takes one meeting with parents to correct a student’s misbehaviour.

When a Grade 10 girl got caught putting a note on a boy’s back that said “sex monster” she panicked and pleaded with her Canadian English teacher not to tell the principal.

The school doesn’t practice corporal punishment — but parents might. Getting called down to the principal’s office because your kid was acting up is a major disgrace in a culture that intensely values education.

In the last 60 years, China’s illiteracy rate has dropped to 9.1 percent from 80 per cent in 1949, according to the World Bank. The enrollment rate for primary-school children rose to 99.3 per cent from 20 per cent, and high schools and universities are booming.

We can shame China for its human rights record and feel superior, but that’s not going to stop its 1.3 billion people from getting ahead of us, educationally and economically.

The number of Canadians who earn bachelor’s degrees is below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average and well behind many other nations, the OECD 2009 report Education at a Glance said. Even the number of PhDs has fallen.

The Chinese have a saying “fu bu guo san dai” which means “wealth does not pass three generations.” The first generation works extremely hard, the second generation reaps the benefits. The third generation arrives — and squanders the wealth.

The forces of globalization aren’t going to give our kids a break. If we don’t equip them to compete with the hundreds of millions of kids schools like Lanshan are turning out, there may not be any wealth to squander when we’re gone.

[This is the 2nd of 2 parts; the 1st part was published in the previous post, dated Tuesday, July 27, 2010]

– Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 13, 2010 H1

Doc Meek posted a comment at the Winnipeg Free Press about this article:

February 19, 2010 at 7:19 PM

I am writing a book that will encourage Chinese teachers and students to involve themselves more in active learning, so that the school work they do will be more meaningful to each of them personally. I would like them to learn to love active learning, not just rote learning, so that they can enjoy life-long learning, not just factual memorizing. However, it is clear that they will teaching me about active learning too, from their example of self-discipline and hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. – Doc Meek, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA, and South Jordan, Utah, USA  …………………………………………………………………………………………

Doc Meek, Wednesday, July 28, 2010, at South Jordan, Utah, USA

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J. Collins Meek, Ph.D. (Doc Meek)
“What if you are smarter than you think?”
Learning Specialist https://docmeek.com

For brain health, ensure heart health (short video):
http://www.amiraclemolecule.com/themeekteam
More on heart health http://www.themeekteam.info
Ph (801) 971-1812 (Jeannette); Fax [801] 282-6026

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC.
CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1
TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 60, Nuku’alofa
USA: 3688 W 9800 S, #138, South Jordan, UT 84095

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Autism: “A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world” (Part III of III)

Bud’s Grade 5 class, in disguise; photo from: http://momnos.blogspot.com/ …………………………………………………………………………………………….
I am grateful for this guest article I am borrowing again today, Friday, July 23, 2010. This is Part III of a 3-Part series about Bud, a 10-year-old with learning differences.
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If you missed Part I or Part II of Bud’s Mom’s poignant story, you can click on the titles below to read them now:
Autism: “A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world” (Part I of III)
Autism: “A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world” (Part II of III)
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Bud, who has been labeled autistic, has been placed in a regular Grade 5 classroom. His Mom’s brilliant interactive discussion with the kids in his class (with Bud absent of course) is detailed here.

This is the best description of autism I have read anywhere
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Thanks Mom! We are grateful for your creativity, your courage, and your willingness to share!
Excerpt from: http://momnos.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-being-hair-dryer-kid-in-toaster.html
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What is autism? (Part III of III)

{If you missed Part I or Part II of this Mom’s poignant story, you can click on the titles below to read them now}
Autism: “A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world” (Part I of III)
Autism: “A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world” (Part II of III)
Bud’s Mom is interacting with Bud’s classmates at school:
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“But, remember how there were some things that the hair-dryer brains could do better than the toaster brains? There are ALSO things that Bud’s brain is really GOOD at doing. There are things that HIS brain can do better than a lot of our brains can do.
“I bet you can guess what some of those things are. Can you?”

Hands flew up all over the room, and without my prompting, they recreated the list I had written in the notes in front of me.

“He’s really great on the computer. He’s better at it than LOTS of people.”

“He has great hearing.”

“He can remember lots of lots of things.”

“He can remember all the words to TV shows.”

“And he can remember the words to songs.”

“He is very musical.”

“He’s a great speller, too,” I added. “Once he learns a word, he usually remembers how to spell it.”

“If I had a brain like that,” said Nathan. “I’d read the whole dictionary and learn all the words.”

“That would be a great thing to do,” I said. “And it reminds me that Bud is also a really good reader.”

Molly raised her hand. “And he has a great sense of humor, too.”

“He does have a great sense of humor,” I said. “And that’s one of the ways that his brain is a lot like other people’s. What are some of the other ways that Bud is just like everyone else?”

Again, the hands flew up.

“He can see just like everyone else.”

“He looks just like everyone else.”

“He’s human.”

“Yes! He’s human – which means that he has all the same feelings that everyone else does. And he loves the people in his life. And he likes to play and have fun. He likes to laugh, he likes to swim, he likes to eat pizza. In lots of ways, Bud is just a regular kid.”

I looked around the room at the smiling faces of Bud’s classmates – his friends, with their toaster-brains firing.

Photos By Bud

Photos by Bud, from:  http://momnos.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-being-hair-dryer-kid-in-toaster.html

I posted a comment on this Mom’s blogsite:

Doc Meek said…
Does anybody know the tune for “A hairdryer kid in a toaster-brained world?” I predict that, like “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” this Mom’s “Hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world,” will go down in history. I’ve been helping kids mitigate learning and attentional problems for over thirty years now, and it is an axiom with me that “Mother knows best.” This Mom makes that point sharper than a surgical needle, right? – Doc Meek, Learning Consultant, May 7, 2010, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA
May 07, 2010 11:38 AM
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Doc Meek, Friday, July 23, 2010, at South Jordan, Utah, USA ————————————————
J. Collins Meek, Ph.D. (Doc Meek)
“What if you are smarter than you think?”
Learning Specialist https://docmeek.com
.
For brain health, ensure heart health (short video):
http://www.amiraclemolecule.com/themeekteam
More on heart health http://www.themeekteam.info
Ph (801) 971-1812 (Jeannette); Fax [801] 282-6026
.
THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC.
1. P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1, CANADA
2. Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 60, Nuku’alofa, TONGA
3. 3688 W 9800 S, #138, South Jordan, UT 84095, USA

The trades & trade schools are honorable & worthy

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”Trade School Shortfall: As baby boomers retire, up to a million jobs in trades are set to open up [in Canada], but there may not be enough spaces in school.” The Vancouver Sun, June 19, 2010. [In the US, millions more jobs in trades will become available to young people. All of this assumes the economy will hold up at some reasonable level of course.]
Troy Mushynsky of J R's Welding works on a stainless steel railing   to be used at the Old Superstore building on Albert St. Friday January   8, 2010 in Regina.

Troy Mushynsky of JR’s Welding works on a stainless steel railing to be used at the old Superstore Building . . . in Regina, Saskatchewan, CANADA. Photograph by: Bryan Schlosser, Regina Leader-Post

Photo above from The Vancouver Sun, June 19, 2010. To see the video, click on the following link, or copy and paste the link into your computer’s website address browser: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Video+Trade+school+shortfall/3177267/story.html?tab=VID ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The trades are honorable and worthy

For years I have been speaking and teaching about the value of professional trades people in our society. The least easy ones to convince are people with an academic orientation. They seem to feel that everyone should pursue an academic career. Even though I myself am a highly-credentialed academic, this narrow approach is not a good concept in my view.

The trades are honorable and worthy and should be encouraged by adults, and sought after by students who want to travel that road. It is a good road and the pay is good, frequently better than the majority of academic jobs.

I have attended meetings of professionals designing curricula for public schools, and the main focus is almost always on academic courses. Where are the electricians, the welders, the computer technicians, the native North American craftsmen, the plumbers, the graphic artists, the carpenters, the farmers, the entrepreneurs, the housewives, at these meetings?

The bias in decision-making is obvious, isn’t it?

Trades people would be excellent curriculum designers

My Dad was a Journeyman Electrician and he would have made a great curriculum designer.

Why would my Dad have made a great curriculum designer? He was a good committee man, gentle and patient. He was intelligent, innovative and wise. He had a good grip on the practical world and common sense. He was very aware of the real needs of the business and industrial world we live in, and the kinds of education and training needed to get good  jobs in both the academic and non-academic domains. In short, he had all of the extensive qualifications needed to sit on such a committee in the real world, and be very effective.

“Even Jesus was a carpenter.” – Missionary Friend

Sometimes in meetings, as my fellow academics and I would ponder academics, I felt compelled to draw our attention upwards for a moment. I would point up to the ceiling and say, “Without the professional electrician who installed those lights, one by one, we could not do our work here today.” Then I would go on to point downward to the floor, over to the walls, through the windows, etc. The group was usually dumbfounded. Such groups tend to take it all for granted.

Sometimes I would add: “Without the maintenance staff in this building, this place would look like a landfill site, and the toilets wouldn’t flush.” 😮

I am not against academics

I want to be clearly understood. I am not against academics–I am one! 😮 I am delighted to be an academic, glad to associate with fellow scholars and live in an exquisitely-conceptualized mental world with them. And we do practical work. We are professors at universities, academic teachers at thousands of schools the world over, and planners and researchers, etc.

I have worked hard all my life in the academic schoolwork domain to help children and adults overcome learning difficulties.Surely this was/is a very worthwhile academic career? Of course. Still, that doesn’t stop it from being a relatively narrow, circumscribed space, right?

I have also helped my Dad wire houses, helped friends build their homes, and so on. My Dad taught me that manual labor and skilled trades are honorable and “worthy of all acceptation.”

Evening and night staff are some of the greatest people I have known

Wherever I have worked, I have made it a point to get to know the maintenance and custodial staff. As a “night owl” I always enjoyed the support of the people who make the building work for me, and all the day denizens as well. Yes! 😮

I have great gratitude for, and high respect for, all those who labor that I might be able to do my work. This includes my Mom’s labor as well of course. No pun intended. 😮

It is a mistake in my view to attempt to diminish the value of manual labor or technical skills (or stay-at-home motherhood for that matter). Without these honorable and worthy enterprises, our society could not function properly, or at all.

To a sense of equality for all careers!

Doc Meek, Tuesday, June 22, 2010 (1st posting, very early in the morning) [About 1:00 am, as I recall] 😮

P.S. Some resources (copy and paste the URLs below into your computer’s web browser):

Canadian Schools Directory: http://www.trade-schools.ca/

American Trade Schools: http://www.itrade-schools.com/

Learning is not easy for some of us

Hi Everybody, Doc Meek here.

Learning is not easy for some of us.

I have been helping children overcome learning challenges for many years now.

I was reminded of Mrs. Elmer (not her real name) the other day. This great Mom came to see me at THE LEARNING CLINIC more than thirty years ago now. She brought her son Bob (not his real name) with her and said gently: “He’s in grade four, doesn’t read well, hates school, and fights on the playground all the time.” Bob nodded in somber agreement.

It was not easy for the three of us to get to the top of the mountain together. I’ll tell you how we got there in a future post.

– Doc Meek