Learning Differently, Learning the Same

My oldest child struggled to learn to read. By the end of pre-school, teachers (Montessori no less) noted that he did not have an affinity for pre-reading activities. His kindergarten teacher worried that he was last in his class to write his name and accurately remember his home address. By first grade his teacher cautioned that he was behind his classmates in decoding, fluency, and pre-writing skills. All along teachers also reassured that rates of literacy development vary widely — and boys often lag. But by second grade, his teacher shared at the first-quarter conference that she "knew boys like Adam, and they often never learn to read for pleasure; it’s just too hard."

A special education evaluation followed — taking the rest of the school year. The verdict: Adam's ability was above average, but his performance not quite discrepant enough to qualify for special education. He would be fine with two pull-out sessions with a resource teacher weekly. In third grade it was painfully obvious that that remedy was not going to work. Adam fell further behind in his regular classroom, and literally wiped his eyes and fidgeted in physical discomfort when he tried to read. Adam needed some other form of help. I reached out to a number of independent schools, each of which told me, sympathetically, that Adam was "too far behind" as measured by admissions tests for the school to be able to help.

Finally, through a private education psychologist and a reading specialist trained to address the symptoms Adam presented, he began to learn to read and to manage the emotions prompted by his academic struggles.

All of this happened in Montgomery County, Maryland, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Schools renowned for excellence, both public and private, somehow failed to provide a solution.

Today, I would like to think that the young Adams in this country would fare differently. For starters, we more widely recognize symptoms of dyslexia, and have developed better tutoring strategies and emotional supports. Public education spends a fortune on special education, and 7 percent of all public school students are now identified with learning disabilities that qualify for I.E.P.s. (Another 4 percent have low-incidence physical, emotional, or intellectual differences — Down's, cerebral palsy, etc.) Having personally worked nearly 17 years with public and charter school systems, and following the research, I believe progress has been too slow. Special education remains a frustration for parents of children with learning differences.

I also believe this is an area of enormous potential for independent schools. Last week, I visited the Summit School in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Nestled on a hillside adjacent to Wake Forest University, I had noticed the modest campus on regular visits to Wake, where our youngest child is a junior. I had no idea how distinctive are the school's offerings. Summit was founded by students of John Dewey in the 1930s and hews to progressive traditions — but with decidedly modern elements.

Pedagogy at Summit is respected as something of a science. The school places a premium on high-quality instruction and has clear ideas about how Summit teachers should provide it. The school has a Center devoted to professional development. Teachers are guided to develop specific practices in literacy instruction, for example, that the school embraces. Harvard University's Project Zero provides another set of markers. As one of Summit's division heads explained, "It is fine for teachers, generally, to choose how they want to teach, but if they want to teach here, they must adopt certain agreed common practices."

These practices are especially important at Summit because three years ago the school integrated into its PK-9 program the Triad School — for students with language-based learning differences. Triad was looking for an educational partner that could help provide students with rich and academically challenging experiences beyond their specialized instruction. Summit believed that its program of explicit instruction combined with hands-on experiences could provide a strong fit. The merger had more than its fair share of doubters, pointing to the risk that each school faced losing its distinctive mission.

Several years in, the two schools feel very much like one — students with different needs learning sometimes differently and sometimes the same, through experiences that complement and reinforce. The classrooms of the Arts and Technology Center exemplify this, providing hands-on creative opportunities from cutting-edge robotics, photography, and broadcasting and video to more familiar visual and performing arts. Students are hardly the only beneficiaries. Teachers responsible for students with different needs are also learning from one another.

Nearly two years ago, shortly after being named NAIS president, I began a tour of independent schools that has now taken me to more than 100 in all. Many schools I have chosen to visit specialize in serving students with learning differences. The second school on my tour, the Lawrence School in Cleveland, Ohio, impressed me with its academic rigor and its mainstream social environment — a place where students who learn differently could prepare to flourish in a world where such differences are seldom accommodated.

Later that year, I spent the day at the AIM Academy outside of Philadelphia, serving students much like those at Triad, all the way through high school graduation. As I toured Summit, I was reminded of many of the same practices — proven, structured pedagogy blended with multisensory applications — that I saw a year earlier at AIM. Families are hungry for schools that can help their children fulfill their potential and feel good about themselves, however those children may learn most successfully. AIM has grown vigorously since its founding less than a decade ago, serving 240 students — from an opening enrollment only one-tenth of that number. Triad has waiting lists at every grade level. Summit weathered the brutal local recession and, with its new partner, is thriving.

Last fall, I visited the Janus School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is likewise doing well by doing good. In a small town and a sluggish economy, demand for its learning difference programs are solid. Ditto down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in suburban Philadelphia. I lunched with the head of Janus and two Main Line schools for children with different needs, Stratford Friends and Hill Top. They reaffirmed the frustrations I had long observed in families seeking solutions through conventional special education programs. Many of their students are referred by public school districts.

Independent schools, including AIM, its Pennsylvania brethren, and many, many more across the nation, do great work for students they serve. It is a core competency within our community. The number of families with children who do not fit the traditional academic mold is huge. Some will present differences that qualify as "learning disabilities." Many will not. Children do not fit neatly into two categories — learning the same and learning different! Schools that recognize this place a premium on instruction that reaches students in different ways, offering specific scaffolding to support student discovery and creativity.

Adam was eventually accepted into a nonspecialized independent school that did just that. He repeated fifth grade, in a classroom that taught him explicitly how to learn. His subsequent progress was pretty remarkable. He was eventually promoted to his age appropriate grade. Learning was never a piece of cake, but he learned how to compensate and succeed, which he does today in his professional and personal life. At Summit, I saw a school that worked for all kinds of students, partly because of its unique merger with Triad, but mostly because of its commitment to high-quality teaching whatever the student need. Therein lies great opportunity for all independent schools.