Celebrating the Styles of Learning

This week at Cooldige, we had the pleasure of welcoming Gianna Hitsos, a senior at Dunstable-Groton High School who happens to be autistic.  Gianna has grown to understand her disability, her learning style, and has learned, celebrated, and built upon her strengths.  Next year, she will be a freshman at Gordon College, where she will study music and performing arts, and will be able to continue to develop her singing talent!

While I don't have all of Gianna's presentation on video, I do have two clips to share:

In any classroom on any typical day at Coolidge, there are students of many different strengths.  Teachers keep this in mind as they develop their lessons, activities, and assessments, and as they engage with students on a daily basis.  It is our hope that every student feels that their strengths are recognized and celebrated, and that they are allowed to share their knowledge in a manner that works with their learning style.  As every student is different, so the profile of every class is different every year, then this is a new challenge for teachers to learn about their population and to meet their needs.  This is an ongoing area of development for all of our teachers and staff, given its importance in our school and society.

While I can speak of my own perspectives on learning styles, I want to take this opportunity to share with you a TED talk by Temple Grandin.  Temple is autistic and is a famous face and voice for the autistic community.  Beyond speaking of autism, this TED talk speaks about the diversity of learners in our communities, and how we need all of these learners in order to make the world a better place today and in the future.  I invite you to watch her talk, along with six others on the topic of autism, by clicking here.  

These assemblies, these videos, and our intellectually diverse mix of students are themselves a good reminder to celebrate each other in all of our forms, as our differences make our school, and our community, a richer place!