IDEAs for Change
The Success Zone: A Partnership for Learning in the 21st Century
The Gateway School of Environmental Research and Technology
Bronx, New York
United States of America
Our vision is simple yet monumental at the same time. We dream of creating a safe place and a program that will break down the barriers that normally separate and isolate our students, from each other while at the same time preparing them for the rigors and challenges that they would face in the 21st Century. We realize that traditional methods of teaching and counseling are not accomplishing this mission and that we need to find another way to make things work.
We have studied the latest theories and innovations in education, counseling, and youth development; then we argued and came up with not just one idea, but many. After many late-night brainstorming sessions, we were able to lay the foundation for the Success Zone and its initiatives: Early Morning Advisory, Leadership Advisory Council, Transition Cohort, Teaching Assistantships, Food for Students Program, Community of Scholars. We then infused these programs into our regular teaching and counseling programs.
These IDEAs for Change, based on the 1974 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, have inspired our classroom design—The Success Zone, a safe space where all students can learn. With the Architecture for Humanity grant we will create a classroom that works for all our students on a variety of levels. As teacher, social worker, transition services coordinator, college and career counselor, we collaborate to teach and counsel both large and small groups and work with individual students simultaneously all in the same room. We work with severely learning challenged students who are unable to learn in a traditional classroom setting. Our students are gifted, autistic, and emotionally disabled. They have sensory processing disorders and Asperger’s. They suffer from seizures. They have a myriad of learning disabilities: dyslexia, dyspraxia, and dysgraphia. They have visual tracking disorders and memory issues. Some read at the college level while others struggle to recognize a single letter. Although they all learn differently, they all have a right to learn. This is why we have designed a “guided environment” for our students. It is a space that is structured yet at the same time flexible enough to meet our students’ needs. Every object, color, design material, and possible set-up takes these needs in account. With this grant The Success Zone will become a safe place where large and small group instruction, independent study, and individual or small group counseling will be able to occur simultaneously empowering all of our students to achieve.
Imagine hearing everything: every student’s pencil writing on a sheet of paper, every light humming, the clock ticking, every other student moving around in the room when they do something so small as move in their chair or turn a page in a book. Imagine a whisper echoing through the room, setting you on edge. Imagine being distracted by every sound you hear. This is the lives of our students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, and Sensory Processing Disorder. The goal is to make the room more accommodating to these students, so that they will be able to learn without feeling so overwhelmed and overloaded.
