Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Spark: a mother's story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett



Wow! I was totally blown away by this book!
Jacob Barnett is 13 years old, autistic, and has an IQ that is off the charts and higher than Einstein's. He is working on his own theory of relativity, and his PHD and is writing a book to teach kids not to be afraid of math. When he was three years old though, he was non-verbal and a special ed teacher told his mother that he would never learn to read. Against the advice of the "experts", Kristine pulled Jacob out of the special ed program and began teaching him in her own way, emphasizing his strengths, rather than his weaknesses and helping him to explore things that he was interested in. She also began a night class for other children with autism to help them, along with her son Jacob to be ready for kindergarten. She helped many children with autism to learn and grow and opened a recreation center for children with autism and their families. I am impressed with Jacob's story because he is amazing and I am sure that we will be hearing a lot from him over the years. I am also impressed with Kristine's story and her methods of teaching autistic children. I hope that parents and educators of autistic children will read this book and change their methods of teaching autistic children.

No comments:

Post a Comment