Author: Don Adams

Being a parent, there are some things you never forget. For example, we remember every success our child has in school, which is usually an easy thing to do because kids are the best communicators of their own efforts. When our children figure out how their efforts translate into success in and at school, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.

But there are kids who rarely get to experience those victories in school, so they and their parents watch from the sideline. They feel less connected, more alienated with every missed opportunity.

There is no time during which this is more pronounced than at the end of an academic year. For some students the final report can be a litany of failure. It memorializes nine months of disconnections, of missed opportunities. The end result is lack of hope and nothing less than dread for the cycle to soon be repeated next school year.

This is time of year that our school inquiries begin to peak. It’s a testament to the strength of character of families who refuse to continue to be reactive in an education system that simply isn’t properly equipped serve their child.

The YMCA Academy has a proven history of success working with students with learning disabilities and learning style differences. New families see and describe a change in their child that is truly transformational. That’s what happens when you invert your child’s education experience, transplanting them from a system where they are an uncomfortable exception to one in which they are an equally important piece of a puzzle of school success.

You can do us a favor today as we all, quicker than we can possible imagine, move together towards the opening of the next school year. You can pass along our school’s website information at here and encourage your friends and family to watch our school video, located on our main page, and to, in turn, pass it on. Our school exists to help families turn around a child’s education history. So please help us, today, to do that with more families who find themselves in need of our school.

Summer is on the horizon. Soon, kids will be singing the words of Alice Cooper: “school’s out for summer.” But in some fundamental ways it’s not.

Play is one important way that kids learn and summer is about play. I would argue that kids learn more actively than ever now. Playing video games, engaging with a computer is active. In some fundamental ways, it’s far more active than engaging with a book, though many educators and parents are hesitant to admit this. Children with psychomotor development issues have been greatly aided by engaging with these technologies and the summer is a time for kids to take self-appointed deep-dives into learning new things with computers and tablets.

To me, learning is learning. Recently, I’ve been doing my own deep-dive into the excellent GarageBand, composing my first few songs as I learn to play guitar. If you’re inclined and not a professional music critic, you can find one of my songs here: http://snd.sc/JaC3j8

When I think about playing with and on GarageBand, I compare it with reading about playing guitar. This is much more active learning for me. It’s experimentation, it’s failure and success in real time, and it’s a lot of fun. Over the summer, with the help of teachers available at www.musicmattersacademy.com, I’m going to get deeper into music composition and learn to play some guitar riffs that I would have earlier believed to be beyond my abilities.

Summer is a great time to push the envelope of one’s ability, to learn new things under the guise of playing, and to find new things to love.

Don Adams – Head of School

When I was in elementary school, I thought my teachers were amazing. Not only did they help me and all of my classmates every day, they did so selflessly. When I was able to catch a glimpse into their personal lives, they seemed to be exactly the same. I grew up seeing teachers as genuinely good people who put others before themselves. I appreciated my teachers every day.

I see teachers the same way today, which is probably a very good thing since I’m the Head of a school.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, which confuses me a bit, very much like this weekend’s Mother’s Day does. While some would argue that setting aside a week or a day for recognition is actually an honor to those being recognized, I think that genuine appreciation should be a continuous and daily thing.

In looking at social and other media this week, it seems as if people are saying the right things about Teacher Appreciation Week. But these are some of the same people who will then look at teachers through a darker lens next week, which is really a shame.

From me and all of our superb teachers here at The Academy, we wish all teachers not only a fantastic week this week but every week.

Don Adams – Head of School

According to a significant recent study, only 44% of US teachers say they’re satisfied with their job. That’s an 18 percent drop in 3 years.  This raises a question that is very interesting to me as a school principal — what IS job satisfaction for a teacher?

Well, I think I know something about that.  The first thing is respect. Teachers want to work in a caring environment. That seems overly simple but it’s true. They want to be in an environment where everyone in the school cares about the students and the community cares about their teachers.

Teachers also want to be able to express their creativity. While every school has Ministry of Education guidelines to follow and their own internal goals, teaching is truly an art form in the hands of an accomplished teacher.

I have long believed that the most important thing a school head can do is to honor the voice of their teachers, individually and collectively. A school leader’s door should be an open one. Work between the administration and teachers should be truly collaborative.

One of the most effective changes I have instituted at the YMCA Academy is what I call “Google” time — an hour or so every week during which teachers can get together to collaborate.  They are free to create whatever they wish, and I have no other expectation than that they meet to work together.  It has indeed been from this “Google” time that many of the most fertile and original ideas for our school have originated.  Just scroll down on this page to see the results of enabling the leadership and creativity of some amazing teachers!

Schools have responsibilities in developing the next generation of leaders. Part of that is creating a fertile dynamic within your faculty.

Don Adams – Head of School