Just Published: Follow the Journey of One Young Woman Who Overcame Learning Disabilities Through Science and Choice in new book,
A Kite in a Hurricane No More
In A Kite in a Hurricane No More, a new book just published by the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, read about the challenges and ultimate triumph of Mia Giordano, a young woman with serious learning disabilities that conventional schools could not help.
“In the few years of her life, Mia Giordano has lived through an incredible rollercoaster of emotions from sadness and joy, failure and accomplishment, and hopelessness and optimism,” writes co-author Lance Izumi, director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Education. “She has gone from being trapped in a cocoon of limitations to being poised for greatness. She is truly an inspiration.”
Early on, it appeared that Mia’s learning disabilities would sentence her to a life of futility, disappointment, and sadness. Even though she attended highly-regarded public and private schools on the San Francisco peninsula, these conventional schools could not address her problems effectively.
It was the ability of Mia’s parents to choose a nonconventional education option that resulted in a life-changing metamorphosis. Mia benefitted from a program called the Arrowsmith Program, which incorporates the latest brain research into their educational practices. It identifies several specific learning dysfunctions and targets these cognitive weaknesses with an intervention plan featuring different exercises focusing on a process or a combination.
“After four years of the Arrowsmith program, I felt that my brain was like a big sponge that could soak up all this knowledge,” Giordano writes. “I had reached a new phase in my life. Before, my brain and my future were clouded. Now everything seemed possible.”
Thanks to school choice, Mia was able to enroll in a small school/learning center in the Bay Area that offered the Arrowsmith program. Now she is thriving as a student at Design Tech charter high school, which is located on the business campus of the Oracle corporation in Redwood City.
Millions of children are sadly left behind because their parents do not have the financial means to access these educational options that would work best for them or live in states where school choice tools are inadequate.
As Mia concludes, “my journey is not only about my personal struggles and ultimate triumph, but it is also about the much bigger issue of giving all children the same choices that I had. I was able to succeed because my family had choices in education. Only when all families have the same ability to make choices will all children have the chance to succeed that I had.”
A Kite in a Hurricane No More is available for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers.
