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November 25, 2008
To Whom It May Concern,

I was not able to see the documentary as we are out of the country. However, I am a mother of a twenty nine year old son and a sixteen year old daughter, both whom attended EAS [Eaton Arrowsmith School in Vancouver, BC]. Our daughter had been at a private school in West Vancouver and struggled. After school we would often stop off for a treat and I would give her change for the purchase. She was frustrated by the small coins and would opt to not have the snack in I did not give her a looney, tooney or a bill.

As any parent who has children with a learning problem knows, it is a journey to find the solution. After one month at EAS, I tried again with the change and our daughter easily was able to count it out. She graduated after two years. She still has two areas to work on but she is at a fabulous school on Vancouver Island and is two points off the honor roll. She's successful and thrilled with her changes.

After seeing her changes, we had our, now twenty nine year old son tested and he is about to finish at EAS too. It has made a difference for him too.

The EAS program offers concrete solutions to learning challenges.

Sincerely, SJ

November 25, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
Your program helped develop a totally new standard for the learning deficiencies of my grandson in Vancouver. It far exceeds any expectations and hopefully will continue to do so. More importantly, we receive regular updates on his progress from his teachers which gives us a more comfortable feeling assuring us there is a personal interest taken in his progress.

An Interested Grandfather
MJB Toronto, Canada

November 25, 2008
As a parent of 2 boys diagnosed with dyslexia and who has witnessed her children's self esteem be completely eroded by our public school system I feel that I am more than qualified to comment on the Arrowsmith program.

My oldest son has attended Fraser Academy, a private school specializing in dyslexia, for the last 3 years and they have done a wonderful job of rebuilding his self-esteem. I have seen great improvements in both his academics and his attitude towards learning. However even after attending 3 years of basically one on one tutoring we have really only accomplished coping skills with his learning challenge and have reached a plateau.

This past year it became abundantly clear my youngest son was traveling down a similar path of his older brother. The public school system once again failed a child who at one point loved learning. After doing a great deal of research I learned of the Arrowsmith program. I registered my youngest son in their program this past September and already I have seen remarkable progress in only 2 months. His self-esteem, his positive attitude and desire to go to school have returned.

Why is it when we are faced with something that breaks the mould or appears different we discount it as fraudulent. I thought that it was common knowledge that we have really only ever understood how a very small part of our brain actually works. Even I, a rather pragmatic, black and white, factual laymen with no background or formal education in teaching, who has done her own research on alternatives to learning, discovered the science of neuroplasticity and that it in fact has been a documented successful area of science for more than one hundred years.

Obviously a lot of parents have become disillusioned with the public school system by the decrease in enrolment and have found that the traditional mode of education is not meeting the needs of our children's evolving brains. The true test is the success of our children who have been given the opportunity to experience the Arrowsmith program and criticize as you will, all I know is that my children were rapidly becoming a negative "statistic" had it not been for alternative forms of teaching such as those offered by the Arrowsmith Program.

Sincerely YH Vancouver, BC

November 25, 2008
I submitted the following comment to the Comments page on the CBC website:
After having seen the CBC documentary, “Fixing My Brain” about the Arrowsmith program, we just knew we had to write to tell you about our family’s experience with the program. In order to understand why we are strong advocates of Arrowsmith, you have to know a bit about our son’s schooling history (I know this is lengthy, but please bear with us as there is a point to all of this):

• Kindergarten & Grade 1: Our son attended the local public school where he had trouble keeping up academically (alphabet, reading, etc.), no troubles socially.

• Grade 2: Tried home schooling, but we had difficulty teaching him academic subjects (probably due to a combination of our lack of teaching skills and his learning disabilities)

• Grade 3 & 4: Fraser Academy (school for children with learning disabilities providing smaller class sizes, one-on-one tutoring, wonderful teachers, regular curriculum (but we would say at a less challenging level), comparable tuition cost to Eaton Arrowsmith School) where our son did well (mostly A’s), and so we thought he would be ready to re-enter public school.

• Grade 5: Back in the local public school (Kumon as well), but he did not pass many of the academic subjects, and was crying every night while doing homework, highly frustrated

• Grade 6: Back to Fraser Academy where he did quite well again. At that point we heard about Eaton Arrowsmith School (EAS), and rather than face a lifetime of school program modifications and support, we thought that we should give EAS a try, though we were skeptical about it at the time.

• Grade 7 & 8: Eaton Arrowsmith School, where at the end he graduated from the full-time program

• Grade 9: Back to public school (with a math and English tutor) and part-time at EAS. At the end of Grade 9, our son was on the honour roll at his local high school.

• Now in Grade 10: Public school full-time, achieving a B average on his own with no extra help from tutors or parents.

As you can see, academic success in the public system was elusive for our son after several years at Fraser Academy, but was attainable after having attended the Arrowsmith program. We do believe that the Arrowsmith program worked for our son – the combination of the strategies used and the wonderful support from the teachers enabled our son to succeed on his own in the regular system. We really do not believe that he would have achieved the same level of success with any other education system currently available. Would we do it again? You bet.

We would be happy to talk to anyone who would like more information about our experience).

Regards,
K and PS
November 24, 2008