are areas of opportunity for growth? What places
him/her in the magical comfort zone where learning is active?
Who is Eli?
Let's use the example of one of my students to illustrate my point. Eli is a 4th grade student whose personhood is based in humor, imagination, and joy of storytelling. (Of course there
are a million other things I could list here, but I will
simplify.)
Between his 1st and 2nd grade years, Eli developed symptoms which yielded a diagnosis of a
rare, progressive neurological disease, which affects vision, hearing, processing, and balance/
motor skills. He has very limited, fluctuating residual vision. Before losing his vision, Eli was an
advanced reader for a 1st grader, excelling and
embracing his love for reading chapter books. Eli
defaults to humor as a defense mechanism when
he does not understand something or is not motivated/interested.
What can I do with what I know about Eli
to engage him and build trust to an active
learning status?
"We must speak their language and dance
their dance."
With Eli I use a very easy, comfortable,
humor-based communication style peppered with
references to stories, specific memories, songs,
jokes, and names of important people in his life.
It has become clear that music and humor have
proven exceptionally effective in making concepts
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