Harry Houdini was amost fabulous and entertaining guests.  I would love to see him again and again!!!  Where do you find these people, Frances?  I can't wait to use you as a resource when I have my very own classroom. 

 

Vicki Bruno was such a insightful guest. 

 

 I took ASL as my foriegn language and was really passionate about it at that time. Unfortunatly, after all my other classes and a busy schedule, I am not as fluent.  I have had hopes of taking all three classes and becoming really invloved in the hard of hearing community. 

 

 I thank Vicky Bruno for reminding me that these people have feelings and they don't consider themselves handicap.  We force them to look at themselves in a lesser way.  They communicate very well and we can too, if we use our resources and become proactve.

 

I learned alot about ranges of hearing impairments and how children are tested.  This was very interesting to me.

 

Laura McClenny was a delight.  I have always been an advocate for "Prevention not Intervention" and I believe very strongly that the approaching children about drugs and alcohol hoping to SCARE them, does not work.  Kids today are desinsitized to so many things, including drugs and alcohol.  Not to mention, adolescents are indestructible!  By approaching them with positive statistics and messages, they will feel less like an outsider and more like a positive person, themselves.  By giving kids the tools to confidently say NO, allows them peer freedom. 

 

My mom works for the Students Assistant Services at FHS.  they, too are trying new and more positive approaches to drug and alcohol use.  I passed on this information because I beleive it can be very valuable to our community.  I can't wait to see some progress. 

 

I will also use this approach in my own classroom.  Positive modeling is so much more effective than fear and punishments approaches.