The Mel Levine Dilemma

What to do about Mel Levine.

What do we do when one of our professional heroes, the one whose website is entitled All Kinds of Minds (because he cares about all kinds of minds), is accused of doing harm to those he was entrusted to help?

What do we do when someone who has impacted us greatly as educators, a well-respected and admired developmental pediatrician, falls off the pedestal? When disturbing information is revealed about their past?

I have been struggling with these questions since the allegations were revealed last spring.

Mel Levine has profoundly influenced my practice as a special educator for at least 15 years. I used his assessments, read many of his books, recommended them to parents and other educators, attended conferences where he was the main speaker, required my graduate students to explore the simulation site he created with Pbs.org to help them understand learning differences in a unique way and have personally benefited from his resources while parenting my own children.

Mel Levine brought incredible wisdom and experience to understanding the challenges of struggling learners. His approach was a humane approach that viewed learning disabilities, not as disabilities, but as learning style differences. He identified neurodevelopmental constructs that led to better understanding of diverse learning styles and highlighted strategies that promoted successes. He always asked, "where is the breakdown?" when students struggled with the components of learning. He detailed the numerous skills necessary to write a paragraph, to comprehend a chapter, to attend, to remember, and to organize, among other skills. His task analysis for each skill provided valuable information to determine where the breakdown in compentency occurred to then remediate or compensate for the skill deficit.

Above all else, he emphasized and worked with student's strengths and fervently believed in the capacity of every child to want to succeed and to want to learn. He was the person that taught me that struggling students use a great deal of energy, daily, to avoid humiliation at all costs. He was the one who taught me that nothing a child does requires more energy than sitting still in school.

I find it impossible to overlook his valuable contributions and often bring him up in professional conversations, albeit with reservations, considering the accusations against him. In America, people are innocent about proven guilty.

So, what to do about Mel Levine.

Is anyone else struggling with this?

Demystifying Dyslexia - Free Video Resource

Mel Levine speaks about the importance of demystifying learning differences with our students. Without a better understanding of their learning style, many students see themselves as "dumb" or "stupid" when they face repeated disappointment in their own school performance. Demystification is a process that takes the mystery out of deficient mastery at school.

Here is an online video from Brain Pop that may help your students with "dyslexia" better understand their learning disability. It's a tool to add to our "Demystification Toolbox."

(I put dyslexia in quotes because it means different things to different people. It's important for kids to understand that all people learn differently and have different strengths and abilities.)

Quote for the Day

"From the moment a child gets out of bed in the morning until she is safely tucked in at night, there's one central mission: the avoidance of humiliation at all costs. We have to be so careful not to subject them to public humiliation." — Dr. Mel Levine

Does your classroom environment promote dignity, respect and self-confidence (the opposite of public humiliation)?

The end of the school year is upon us. Much time has passed to understand the children in your classroom. Have you identified strengths in each of your students and capitalized upon those strengths for success during the school year? Have you recognized the uniqueness of each student in your classroom? Do you realize that every child wants to be seen as successful and competent?

Put yourself in the shoes of the student who struggles with ......organization.... or attention.....or writing...... or reading......or math.....or social skills......

Have you embedded supports that will prevent public humiliation and compensate for learning diversities? It's not to late to impact a child, to build upon the inherent motivation within each of the students in your class.

Look for some blog posts in the next few days, about free technology supports that address each of the areas of struggle above.

What Is It Like to have a Learning Disability?

Have you ever wondered what it's like to have a learning disability? Maybe you've seen Rick Lavoie's "How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T.City Video." You've watched others struggle with the activities in the video but never experienced the struggle yourself.

A few years ago, PBS televised a special entitled, "Misunderstood Minds" based upon the work of Mel Levine. They created a complementary website which included activities which simulated attention, reading, writing and math disabilities. This is an excellent website for educators and parents to explore. Click on the links on the left side and then the interactive links that will help you experience firsthand the learning struggles that some of our students face every day.

This site will open your eyes to understanding the differences in learning. Understanding can lead to empathy, compassion and sensitivity to the needs of our students. And you may reevaluate your instructional methods.

Our kids deserve that.