"I give you three months." These were words I heard from the middle school principal, as I sat at the large conference room table of a student’s IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting. I had been given three months to prove my approach would work in a school setting. The student was a sixth grader who had been in Special Day Class since first grade. His learning curve in this environment had been minimal. His diagnosis was a left hemiectomy. The left hemisphere of his brain had been removed at the age of two, due to a severe seizure disorder. I had been working with this child for the past two years and I knew he could learn at a much faster and productive rate than he was currently able to demonstrate in his Special Day Class environment. Together, the student and I succeeded to surpass all the goals that had been initially set.
This wasn’t the first time I had been given a challenge such as this. My first educational challenge had come about five years prior. It was with a little boy named Weston. The paradigm shift that occurred while working with Weston, resulted in a perspective that led to a whole new educational model. He gave me the philosophy and approach I use today for treatment of children across all spectrums, from children in private schools, functioning in a regular education curriculum, to children labeled by the school district as unable to be educated. Weston gave me the realization of what can happen when we move outside the realm of traditional education which identifies and labels our short comings.