Rodin's "The Thinker" taken at the Rodin museum in Paris. Copyright © 2007-2008 James H. Linder The concrete thinker in every human wants to quantify things. How many? How much? What's the difference between them? And it's that last question that tends to get us into a pickle. We want to assign a number to demonstrate […]
Don't worry. I'm not going to make you lie on the couch of psychoanalysis for this blog posting. But I do want you to reflect for a moment. Depending on how old you are, I'm going to require you blow some dust off the box of memories in your brain and open up to the […]
From Dictionary.com in·spire 1. to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence: His courage inspired his followers. 2. to produce or arouse (a feeling, thought, etc.): to inspire confidence in others. 3. to fill or affect with a specified feeling, thought, etc.: to inspire a person with distrust. 4. to influence or impel: Competition inspired her to greater efforts. 5. to animate, as an influence, feeling, thought, or the like, does: They were inspired by a belief in a better future. What inspires you? You might answer my question with the question, "To do what?" To get out of bed! To go to work! To do your best at school! To make a new friend! Inspiration goes beyond motivation. We might be […]
We are tickled by the overwhelmingly positive response to the Autism Society of Ohio, Greater Akron office campaign to bring our autism peer education DVDs to schools. (Here's the Facebook thread.) Select Autism Society chapters across the country received an email earlier this month with a special offer for our 2-disc DVD set, which includes […]
Do you tweet? Perhaps I should frame that question in a more developed context. In this world of social media, we all make choices about what we are/not interested in knowing and/or sharing about our own lives and the world's happenings. There's Facebook for the more personal socializing, and LinkedIn for the professional networking. Then […]
There are so many things I love about Good Friend, Inc., but our annual Hawaiian-themed bowling event is my favorite. It's so much more than a fundraiser: It's a time for families and friends to enjoy one another while supporting a good cause. A time for colleagues to see each others' silly sides. An opportunity […]
Indeed, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as William Shakespeare's love-struck Juliet surmised. But have you ever tried to cultivate roses? They're a fussy flower (at least in Wisconsin's corner of the gardening universe). So if Juliet had cared for her rose bushes in the same manner as her hardy mums, […]
I adore Paula Kluth. Before this starts to sound like a weird stalker post, let me give you some Kluth-isms to provide an evidence basis for my declaration so you can join the club: - "Inclusion isn't a place. It's the work that we do." - "Dwell in possibility." (borrowed from Emily Dickinson, but applied […]
As we were doing the research for our middle school film, Choosing To Be a GFF, we noticed a heart-breaking trend. Typically-developing students who were friends with a child with special needs in elementary school treated their differently-abled peer as if he or she were invisible in the great chaos of blending friends in middle […]