Welcome to The Friends Who Help

Welcome to The Friends Who Help. My name is Lionel, and today, I wanted to introduce you to the most influential person in my life—the woman who inspired me to start the Friends Who Help Support Group for the Special Needs Community.

Her name was Malca Naomi Poizner, my mother.

She was a devoted teacher who dedicated herself to her high school students, a caring caregiver to her family, an active and dedicated member of her community, and an inspiring soul to her children.

At the age of 50, she left the teaching field, having decided that our schools had lost their way, and it was time for a change.

Around the age of 70, she began exhibiting signs of dementia and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a year or two later. After a heroic 10-year battle with this disease, she passed away in December 2016, but her love remains in the hearts of her children now and forevermore.

It is now 2024, and many years have passed since my mom was teaching. Unfortunately, I believe our educational system has deteriorated further since then and is failing to adequately teach several essential subjects and skills crucial for success in the 21st century:

1. Coding/Computer Science: With technology rapidly advancing and software impacting every industry, coding and computer science skills are becoming indispensable. However, most schools do not offer comprehensive coding courses.
2. Digital Literacy: The ability to find, evaluate, and effectively use online information is a critical skill in today’s digital age, yet schools rarely teach students how to properly search the internet and discern credible sources.
3. Practical Life Skills: Many students graduate without basic knowledge of personal finance, taxes, budgeting, or other practical life skills essential for independent living.
4. Communication and Public Speaking: Clear communication and presentation abilities are highly valued in the professional world, but most curricula do not provide dedicated training in these areas.
5. Collaboration and Teamwork: While group projects are common, explicit instruction on effective teamwork, conflict resolution, and collaborative problem-solving is often lacking.
6. Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving: Traditional education tends to emphasize rote memorization over developing analytical and problem-solving abilities that are crucial in the real world.
7. Career Exploration and Skill Development: Schools typically focus on academic subjects rather than exposing students to diverse career paths or helping them cultivate relevant skills for future employment.
8. Interdisciplinary Learning: Most curricula compartmentalize subjects, failing to highlight the connections and overlaps between different disciplines that are necessary for innovation and holistic understanding.

In summary, while academic knowledge is important, the current education system neglects to equip students with many of the practical, technical, and cross-disciplinary skills essential for thriving in the modern world.

Furthermore, our educational system has significant shortfalls in accommodating students with special needs:

1. Inadequate Funding: Funding for special education is often insufficient, leading to delayed or diminished services for students with disabilities. Decisions are frequently driven by budgetary constraints rather than the actual needs of students.
2. Lack of Resources and Support: There is a serious lack of resources like educational assistants, psychologists, and specialized staff to support students with special needs. Teachers struggle to implement individualized education plans (IEPs) and meet the needs of all students due to large class sizes and lack of time/training.
3. Delays and Backlogs: Long waiting lists for professional assessments to identify student needs are a problem, and there are delays at various stages of the process to provide funding and special services.
4. Physical Barriers: Many schools lack ramps, elevators, accessible washrooms, and other facilities to accommodate students with physical disabilities. There is also a lack of accessible transportation and housing options, especially at the post-secondary level.
5. Lack of Individualization: There is a reliance on blanket approaches rather than assessing and accommodating each student’s unique needs. Current funding models use rigid categories/labels rather than focusing on student strengths. Disciplinary policies for the suspension/expulsion of students fail to properly accommodate disabilities.
6. Confidentiality Concerns: At the post-secondary level, students’ rights to confidentiality regarding their disability are often not respected.
7. Social Exclusion: Concerns exist that special education settings can stigmatize students and limit social integration with their peers without disabilities, and there is a potential loss of a “neighborhood school atmosphere” when attending specialized programs.

The Friends Who Help (FWH) support group is considering establishing its own privately funded grade school. It would use a tuition model that hopefully would be subsidized by our FWH sponsors and supporters.

The school’s curriculum would be designed to address the massive shortfalls in our educational system. This curriculum would be created by subject matter experts in their respective fields, not by a designated school board that lacks expertise.

The school would be supervised by two independent groups: one composed of parents with children attending the school, and another comprising subject matter experts. The group of parents would have the majority responsibility for ensuring the integrity of the system.

I would name this school after my mother, honoring her and continuing her legacy, as the “MNP Institute of Higher Learning.”

Establishing such an endeavor would undoubtedly be a massive undertaking. Before proceeding, I would like to know your thoughts as an FWH community member:

1. Do you think this would be a good idea?
2. Is this something you might consider assisting with?
3. Do you have any thoughts on how we could further improve this concept?

We look forward to your valuable insights and suggestions.