Oct 21, 2018, Newnan (GA) Times-Herald: Open house showcases Ruth Hill’s Launch Pad Library http://times-herald.com/news/2018/10/open-house-showcases-ruth-hills-launch-pad-library Elementary students sewed, played instruments, recorded podcasts, filmed in a green room and operated a 3D printer at Ruth Hill’s new Launch Pad Library open house. Local business and community leaders followed student tour guides through learning portals, where other students demonstrated how they use the resources and activities that are part of each. The process of reimagining the library to best serve Ruth Hill students is just beginning, according to Anne Graner, the school’s media specialist. … Students fill out applications to do specific work in the portals that interest them, and their project proposals must benefit others. For instance, some fifth-graders are using the sewing machine in the Discover A Solution portal to make lap pads to help autism students remain calm, while others are creating Magformers objects to help students who have trouble focusing in class. Students as young as third grade are learning to use the school’s 3D printer, and their plan is to design items to print and sell to raise money for a local charity. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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