LDE 69: Embracing Differences and Building Social Emotional Health - Suzanne McClure

"I don’t want kids to have to spend their life compensating for their learning challenges and so we don’t teach them to manage or to cope. We really identify and develop the underlying skills that are actually at the root of the problem in order to remove the roadblocks to reading and to learning."

-Jill Stowell

 

Jill Stowell and Suzanne McClure - Head of School at MUSE Global Schools in Calabasas - discuss ways to help our kids embrace and value their own differences:

✅ How to invite kids' passions into the classroom to help them feel more engaged

✅ When kids are part of the process, they build executive function skills

✅ How neurodivergent kids can make and keep friends

 

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➡️ MUSE highly values passion and the idea of allowing students to merge their interests, curiosities, and passions with their academic life.

➡️ As parents and educators, whenever we can help kids see that what they're learning in school actually relates to their real life, especially something they're really good at or passionate about, the learning becomes so much more meaningful.

➡️ When parents and teachers engage with students around their interests and passions, students develop a sense of confidence and autonomy and ownership.

➡️ When students and teachers work together, the students are able to build executive function skills around self-management and self-control.

➡️ Encouraging your child's passion may also lead to him finding and keeping friends who have similar interests.

➡️ Jill and Suzanne also dig into why the nontraditional approaches to education that both MUSE and Stowell Learning Center take are a key component to the future success of our neurodivergent kids. Teaching kids how to "cope" with their learning challenges will not open the door to possibility the way that getting to the root of the problem will.

 

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SHOW NOTES:

➡️ Episode Resources and Transcript: https://stowellcenter.com/2023/09/01/episode-69-embracing-differences-and-building-social-emotional-health-suzanne-mcclure/

➡️ Speak to a Learning Specialist for Free: https://stowellcenter.com/contact 

 

Suzanne McClure & MUSE Global School

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