Success Stories

 

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Becky Schumacher, Montessori Kindergarten Teacher, Ben Franklin Elementary, Winona II Learning Community completed the "Rediscover the Joy of Learning" Certification Training in the summer of 1999. The following is an article she wrote about her application of some of the Joy training... Read Full Article

Abel's Story: University student-Reading Comprehension problems and A.D.D.
Abel reported that he had done well in public school--mostly A’s and B’s on his report cards. He had been able to go to good schools with high academic standards. His mother was a school counselor. His father was a successful businessman.

When he started going to Purdue University he almost immediately started getting behind. The professors assigned a large amount of outside reading which the students were responsible for on the tests. Abel found that he was unable to keep up the reading regime and could not pass the tests. He had no prior problems in high school like this... Read Full Story

Chad's Story: Anger & temper tantrums
When Chad’s mother brought him to see me she was concerned that the school was not making Chad do his school lessons. She thought that he would have trouble in later grades if he was not required to do them. It seems that Chad would throw a violent temper tantrum and totally disrupt the class when asked to do an assignment... Read Full Story

Al's Story: 40 yr. old with poor spelling & reading skills 
Another typical story involves a 40 year old man who was in charge of the meeting room I was teaching in. I noticed he would hang around in the back of the room listening very intently to the learning strategies I was teaching.

At a break, he came up to me and said "What you are doing is very important. If I could just spell and read better, I could manage this motel instead of delivering coffee and cleaning up the room. But I can’t spell so I can’t write memos or letters--I get embarrassed because so many words are mis-spelled... Read Full Story 

Jason's Story: 12 yr. old with ADHD & limiting beliefs about capabilities
Sometimes I have to go for a limiting belief change before anything else will work. An example of this happened just recently. This young man, Jason, was brought to me from out of state by his family. The family had scheduled several days in Oklahoma City and I had cleared my calendar for them. The young man was 12 years old. According to his mother "He was hyperactive and impulsive as a child. At age 6, we had him tested at Children's Hospital for 3 days. They found him to be ADHD with all the symptoms. They medicated him with Ritalin and a wide range of other drugs through age 12. All were unsuccessful or caused severe side effects such as insomnia, anxiety, emotional problems, confusion, tics, etc.
In the sixth grade he fell apart. He began showing signs of depression. He talked of death, was angry, frustrated, confused, and had low self-esteem. I had talked to the mother before we started about the possibility of working on Jason's limiting beliefs... Read Full Story

Zac's Story: 8 yr. old with ADD - 6 sessions to improved concentration & behavior 
I was introduced to Zac who is 8 years old and in grade 3. He was diagnosed ADD and had started Ritalin just the week before I met him. He took his medication twice a day and his teacher told me that she could really tell when it was starting to wear off. I had the chance to observe him in the classroom without him knowing and he all but hung from the rafters. He was disruptive to everybody around him, talked as he wrote and also when he didn’t, he copied work and fidgeted with everything he could get his hands on. In the schoolyard he fought with other kids constantly and if trouble was around, there was Zac... Read Full Story

Donny's Story: 7 yr. old with ADHD - Anger and Rage
...I worked with Donny primarily on his anger and the trauma he had experienced while being abused on numerous occasions as a small boy. I primarily use the ADD Dance and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and some logical level integration. After several weeks back home, I received the following e-mail from the mother... Read Full Story

62 yr. old with reading problems
Some time ago, a 62 year old friend of mine mentioned to me that he had always had trouble reading. He commented that he would not understand what he read and that he would read it over and over in an attempt to understand. He considered himself to be non-intelligent. He said it had really limited him because he would not take on new challenges—particularly those that involved reading. This had been going on all his life... Read Full Story