Learning: Innovation
'Do you want to move?'

An educator who won't give up finds new ways to help disabled children.

Linda Bidabe began by following advice teachers usually give to others: "Never be afraid to ask a silly question."

In the 1980s, the special education teacher and NEA member started asking severely physically disabled children, "Would you like to be able to stand?"

Today she heads a worldwide, nonprofit network of educators, caregivers, and clients--children and adults--who have found hope in a curriculum called MOVE (Mobility Opportunities Via Education).

Bidabe brings a whole array of beliefs, equipment and activities to bear on problems she says others assumed were intractable.

Practitioners--thousands have been trained, Bidabe says--ask patients: "What do you most want to be able to do?" For Bidabe, answers from two disabled individuals quickly come to mind. A policeman who'd been shot in the head wanted most to be able to take himself to the bathroom. A little girl longed to get a beer from the refrigerator for her father. Both succeeded.

MOVE "encourages people to take steps that seem outlandish, but are really part of your heart," says the longtime, Bakersfield, California resident, with a twang that betrays her Kansas farm childhood.

Bidabe's ideas challenged traditional thinking, but they worked. Not only did the children she worked with begin to gain independence, they grew communicative and suffered fewer life-threatening illnesses, Bidabe says.

Of the increased communication, she adds, "I still don't know how that works. Get them up and get them moving, and communication improves."

Today, MOVE programs are operating across the United States and in 26 countries. Bidabe's curriculum is published in 12 languages.

The "mobile stander" machines she first built for disabled children, using duct tape, broom handles, walkers and cloth, have been updated by a New Jersey manufacturer. The "gait trainers" are "sleek and pretty now."

Bidabe occasionally encounters resistance. Some physical therapists feel she's intruding. Soon, though, "they understand we're helping."

Some have criticized her method as too labor-intensive. "Well," she replies, "it is a lot of work.

For More:
Call 800/397-MOVE (6683), or visit www.move-international.org. Read her memoir, No Ordinary Move, $24 from Plough Publishing at www.lindabidabe.com or 800/521-8011.

Closing the Achievement Gap

Study after study shows that minority students lag behind their white peers in mathematics. Lee Stiff, head of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, is working to close the gap.

Why has the gap closed between girls and boys but not between minority and white students?
When teachers are given a chance to see how they interact in the classroom, they see that they have treated girls differently from boys. They are willing to change. Disparities along racial or ethnic lines are more sensitive. There is a tendency to say those don't exist.

It's not that the teacher intends to harm the students, but we need to be willing to see the differences when it comes to race.

Society values these children less. They are more likely to get teachers who are less prepared to teach them.

How can we eliminate the gap?
Recognize that there is one--and that it may be caused by something we are doing.

Don't blame the students. Put qualified teachers in front of these kids.

What can individual educa-tors do?
They need to make sure they are attending to the needs of their students.

You don't find teachers who don't want kids to do well. The problem is the system wants those kids to be successful effortlessly.

We have a cultural attitude that some kids can't do math. A lot of kids can understand the fundamentals. They may not become mathematicians, but they can have great success in math.

For More:
Visit www.nctm.org.

Getting Guys To Read

For a guy who prides himself on being silly, Jon Scieszka--creator of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairy Stupid Tales, Math Curse and the Time Warp Trio series to name a few--is quite serious about encouraging boys to read.

"I write my books to reach the boys in the back of the classroom, the ones who aren't too fired up on reading," says the former New York elementary school teacher.

If there is a lesson he's learned from his success, it's that boys need special attention when it comes to reading.

Literacy statistics, too, show "that we are not giving boys what they need to be successful readers," he says.

That's why Scieszka recently started Guys Read, a literacy program focused on the needs of boys, offering parents, educators, and librarians concrete ways to engage boys in reading.

"I think anyone who teaches boys or has a son can attest to the fact that reading is often difficult for boys to master," he says.

One suggestion for turning this trend around: Encourage boys to read the books they want to read rather than the ones we want them to read.

"When my own son was younger, I watched him struggle through reading Little House on the Prairie for school," says Scieszka, who grew up with five brothers. "He and his friends just hated it.

"That's not because it's a bad book, it's because girls are much quicker to develop an emotional connection to fiction."

"Boys," he adds, "tend to like books that have humor, short chapters, cliffhanger endings and some funny or slightly gross things that make them feel what they're reading is a bit subversive. Once they are hooked that way, it's easy moving them into more sophisticated stories."

Guys Read also calls for more men to stand up as role models.

"When I was a teacher, I was pretty much the only guy teaching in the lower elementary grades," he says. "Most teachers and librarians who promote reading are women, which gives boys the idea that reading is not masculine."

Providing a list of guy-approved books for boys and their parents and teachers is just one of the many aspects of Guys Read. Through its Web site, people can share ideas, review books, and subscribe to a monthly update newsletter.

"Guys Read is one more source of information to reach struggling readers," he says. "I hope it will help guys see the joys in reading."

For More:
Visit www.guysread.com.

Teaching Kids By Day, Parents By Night

Everyone knows it's good to involve parents in education. Usually, that means getting parents to help their children. But NEA member Virginia Collins is putting a new twist on parent involvement. She and colleague Terry Soto teach the same computer skills to parents and children--kids by day and parents at night--at the Sierra Middle School in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

"The kids can see how hard their parents are working, and it makes them work harder. They refuse to be left behind," says Collins.

The project is supported by a grant from the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE). The students use computers to enhance portfolios presented at the end of eighth grade to an audience of parents, administrators, and peers. Traditionally, these portfolios have consisted of notebooks and posters. But now, students are eager to use computers to create more impressive presentations.

Collins says the computer skills will help both students and parents compete in the world of work.

For More:
E-Mail Collins at vcollins@lcps.k12.nm.us. For information about NFIE grants, visit www.nfie.org or call 202/822-7840.

The Five-Minute Lobbyist

Say you're a regular education teacher struggling to help your special education students, and you need more help. But there's no money to hire special education experts, because Congress has never lived up to its commitment to pay the extra costs of the IDEA law. You'd like to give your representatives in Congress a piece of your mind, but who has time?

Thanks to NEA's cyber-lobbying operation, run by Web wizards Stephanie Baccala and Phyzell Roland, you can do it in five minutes or less. Here's how:

Go to www.nea.org/lac (the Legislative Action Center of the NEA Web site). Select "E-Mail Congress" on the left of the screen. You'll be guided to type in your zip code and find your member of Congress or senator, and you can write him or her a letter.

If you pick one of the current topics, you'll see background information and even draft paragraphs that you can use or change in any way you want.

Be sure to put in your name and address where they are called for because many Congressional offices automatically delete messages that aren't from constituents.

You can also join NEA's cyber-lobbyist team--90,000 strong and growing every day--to receive weekly updates on current education issues before Congress and push for action that will help educators and their students.

NEA also coordinates its work with many state affiliates that have their own cyber-lobbying efforts.

Cyber-lobbyists do a lot more than blow off steam. "NEA members sent tens of thousands of messages to Congress during the fight over the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As a result, the final version is enormously better than it started out," says Diane Shust, NEA director of Government Relations.

For More:
Visit www.nea.org/lac.