Where Kids Love To Learn
ASSETS Schools is celebrating its 50th anniversary of success in teaching kids whom conventional schools could not
By Alice Keesing
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.us
Lou Salza helps fifth-grader Padgett Skardon with
her American history study
One look at the playground at ASSETS and you just know this is a cool school. While most schools make do with a small, plastic, cookie-cutter playground, ASSETS has a soaring wooden castle and dragon. The turrets and ladders and bridges must have sparked the imaginations of countless students, just as the school aims to reignite their love for learning.
For half a century, ASSETS has been coming to the rescue of students who fall by the wayside in the traditional classroom. Just last month the small private school blew out the candles on a huge, creamy white 50th birthday cake.
It was a grand celebration, yet every day is something of a celebration for the nearly 400 gifted and dyslexic children who attend the K-12 school. After all, this may be the first place they’ve had the heady taste of academic success.
A lot of that celebratory spirit also comes from school head Lou Salza, who has to be one of the biggest kids on campus. Full of life and enthusiasm, Salza spreads his infectious good humor around liberally.
Hannah Noshioka, third grade, and Fin
Merrill, second grade, work on art
projects
“Mr. Lou!” “Hi, Mr. Lou!” “It’s Mr. Lou!” the kids call as he’s out and about on campus.
When the kindergarten class visited Salza’s office last week, he challenged them to find all the turtles in the room - there are hundreds, he says - and he seemed to enjoy the search as much as the kids.
“Where is the biggest, largest, most gigundous turtle?” he asks, arms spread and eyes wide. Then he dives down on the floor with the giggling 5-year-olds to search for the smallest turtle.
The honu is an important symbol at ASSETS. Just as Hawaii’s turtles struggle on the sand to reach the ocean where they can swim with grace and power, ASSETS students can struggle on the sand of traditional education. The school’s job is to help them reach the water.
ASSETS, the Armed Services Special Education and Training Society, opened in 1955 to provide special education for the children of military families. Over the decades it has refined its mission to serve gifted and/or dyslexic children, it has opened its doors to civilians and expanded to include a high school.
At the core of the ASSETS philosophy is the recognition that not everyone learns the same way. Gifted kids are easily bored by memorization and regurgitation. Dyslexic kids, whose brains are wired differently when it comes to language, fall behind in garden-variety reading programs. Both kids disengage quickly from their education, and then there can be a lot of collateral damage.
“They end up believing the messages they’re getting: You’re stupid, you’re not intelligent, you’re not smart, you can’t do it, you can’t, you won’t, you can’t - that’s a very powerful message to give a kid,” Salza says.
Page 1 of 2 pages for this story 1 2 >
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (1) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
For all comments click here.
My daughter is currently in her first year attending ASSETS. I cannot begin to tell you what a complete turn around it has been for her.
She is actually enjoying school & her self-esteem has improved dramatically.
Thank you for writing such a great article about such a wonderful place.
Posted by swill34124 on 03/11 at 08:01 PM