Several years ago, I wrote a book for elementary and middle school students entitled You’re Smarter Than You Think: A Kid’s Guide to Multiple Intelligences(published by Free Spirit Publishing).  Since it came out, I have received letters from young readers responding to their experience of reading the book.  Just this month, I received a packet...Read More

It is part of federal law that students with special needs should have their strengths identified and described in their IEPs (IDEA 2004 Section 1414(d)(3)(A)).   And yet, when I search the special education literature online, I find virtually nothing dedicated to identifying strengths in these students. If a student is having difficulty in school,...Read More

Recently I was doing a workshop on multiple intelligences for a group of teachers, and I started talking excitedly about the educator John Holt, who leaped to fame in the 1960’s with the publication of his best-selling book How Children Fail, and who later became one of the founders of the homeschooling movement in the...Read More

On May 19, 2013 I attended graduation ceremonies at Berkshire Hills Music Academy (BHMA) in South Hadley, Massachusetts.  BHMA provides post-secondary education to young adults with developmental disabilities who have special interests and abilities in music. This year there were eight graduates of BHMA’s  two-year certificate program (they also have summer programs, and an extended learning community program).  Students take...Read More

A New York Times article that appeared April 12, 2013 reported that a high school teacher in Albany, New York recently gave an assignment to students asking them, presumably as a lesson on the Holocaust, to write a persuasive essay arguing from the Nazi point of view that Jews were the source of their problems.  The assignment...Read More