Today we head to SuperD!Ville where children who learn differently (and their peers) find out about how their brains work and social emotional learning. We talk with Peggy Stern, Founder and CEO, and Diana Correa-Cintron, COO, about how SuperD!Ville came to be and how it is helping children everywhere!
SuperD!Ville is a forward thinking and unique multimedia resource that combines videos with real kids and lessons plans for a broad range of social and emotional issues.
Created by Academy Award winner Peggy Stern, SuperD!Ville empowers the 1 in 5 children who learn differently.
Research shows that it helps all students:
- Develop SEL skills (self-esteem, resilience, empathy, etc.)
- Identify their strengths and challenges as learners
- Acquire useful self-advocacy tools for school and beyond
In addition, all of the kids who act in the videos have learning differences like dyslexia and ADHD!
Peggy Stern, Founder and CEO
Peggy Stern is an Academy Award-winning film Producer/Director with more than 30 years experience. Her dyslexia led her to filmmaking and animation at a young age, and in March 2006 Stern won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Stern has produced for PBS, HBO, Teachers College at Columbia University, The National PTA, and National YWCA among others. She received her BA from Harvard University and her senior thesis film STEPHANIE, was turned into a PBS documentary special and broadcasted nationally. SuperDville is a family affair, as her dyslexic daughter Emma has been a key advisor!
Diana Correa-Cintron, Chief Operating Officer
Diana is an attorney by training, educator and Latino rights activist. She has worked as a public interest lawyer, policy analyst, development officer and consultant for a range of non-profit and educational institutions such as FIU, Columbia University School of Law, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Bronx Children’s Museum and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was also awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. As the COO for SuperDville, Diana works in partnership with Peggy Stern on strategic planning, outreach and cultural competency. She is the proud mother of two sons with dyslexia.
You can reach both Peggy and Diana through the SuperD!ville website: https://superdville.com/contact/
Peggy and Diana also discussed SuperD!friends in this episode, which can be found here: https://superdvillefriends.as.me/schedule.php
TRANSCRIPT (not proofread)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dyslexia, kids, teachers, child, peggy, super, pandemic, learning, deanna, parents, people, dyslexic, episodes, social emotional learning, classroom, curriculum, school, read, talking, conversations
SPEAKERS
Peggy Stern, Dana Jonson, Diana Correa-Cintron
Dana Jonson 00:02
Hello, and welcome to need to know with Dana Jonson. I’m your host, Dana Jonson. And I’m here to give you the information you need to know to best advocate for your child. And a special education attorney in private practice. A former special education teacher and administrator, a current mom to four children with IPS and I myself have ADHD and dyslexia. So I’ve approached the world of disability and special education from many angles. And I’ll provide straightforward information about your rights and your schools obligations, information from other professionals on many topics, as well as tips and tricks for working with your school district. My goal is to empower you through your journey. So please subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And I want to know what you want to know. So like follow and drop me a note on my need to know with Dana Jonson Facebook page. Okay, let’s get started. Thank you for joining me today. I am so excited today I have with me, Peggy stern and Deanna Korea Cintron. And they are partners and creators in Super detail, which is a fabulous online platform. Well, I’m gonna let you guys explain it because I won’t do it justice. So super de Ville is meant for kids and families of children with disabilities, specifically dyslexia. So Peggy Indiana, could you maybe give me a little background on how you guys came to the place where you thought super detail needs to happen?
Peggy Stern 01:28
Well, I’ll start just because I was the the original one who dragged Deanna then.
Dana Jonson 01:36
I doubt her I,
Peggy Stern 01:38
I got her onto this boat with me.
Dana Jonson 01:41
ringleader
Peggy Stern 01:41
Yes, I was the ringleader. So yeah, and honestly, I started this a decade ago. I’m a documentary filmmaker, I’m dyslexic. My daughter is dyslexic. And I’ve been making documentaries for 30 years, and I had stayed far away from the topic of dyslexia and learning differences. Because I had gone to a conference when I graduated from college, thinking I would do something on the topic, having been pretty traumatized by going to college as a dyslexic, and the conference, so alienated me it was all these experts and scientists and researchers. And it didn’t seem like anybody there actually lived having dyslexia and I, and they were arguing over what it should be called. And was it this and I just was like, I’m not a good enough filmmaker to tackle this yet. You know, I don’t even know how to approach these people. So I did a lot of different things around education. And then I was lucky enough about 10 years ago to work on a short animated documentary, that one and Academy Award and it allowed me to then say to my company and the name of that document. It’s called the moon in the sun and imagine conversation. And I produced and co wrote it with an incredible animator named john Kay maker, who is head of animation at NYU. So I mean, with his encouragement, really, because the moon in the sun is a very personal film about his story. He really said, okay, Peggy, you know, it’s time you need to look at this issue, and figure out how to do something about it. And I thought, well, I’ll do a documentary. And as I was researching the documentary and began filming, I started realizing that all the people of my generation had the same story, whatever background we came from, whether we had gotten help when we were young, or we had not gotten identified and not found out until we were, you know, someone was an adult, everyone had a lot of baggage and had a lot of feeling of shame, and a lot of feeling of no one understands, and I’m alone, and what’s wrong with me, and I’m stupid. And all of that really led me to feel well, I’m not going to just go make a documentary where everybody’s saying the same thing. I mean, that’s not going to educate anyone, and it’s not going to help the stigma. And I was talking How
Dana Jonson 03:59
boring
Peggy Stern 04:00
Yeah, besides that not having entertainment is seriously boring film. So I was talking with another parent of a dyslexic child who his child was in suddenly in second grade, and he the dad was dyslexic. And he was in media. And he was saying to me that his child who went to a specialized school for kids with learning differences would come home in the afternoon, and would feel sometimes very demoralized. And here he was getting really wonderful help and had a dad who understood it. And the dad just wish there was something where they could sit down together and they could talk and they could, you know, talk about some of the emotional stuff, not the actual Oh, I’m learning how to read. And it’s takes a long time. And I really swear a light bulb went off and I realized, this is the moment there’s the internet, I don’t need to go to television, I can come up with an idea that we can try to get out there on our own. And we can do something directly for this generation of children. So they do not grow up with the baggage that all of these adults including me, you know, still have.
Dana Jonson 05:07
Yeah. And that’s part of the attitude, right? That’s part of the problem. Because as somebody who grew up with dyslexia as well never identified until I failed out of college, that was the first shocker that everybody discovered, like, Oh, wait, you can’t read? Who knew? Nothing? Yeah, good as you do that, in our generation. But what that didn’t solve the problem, right, I figured out that I didn’t know how to read because I didn’t read the way everybody else did. So I focus so hard on that component, there was no discussion about the emotional toll it takes, and the emotional component of feeling like you’re smart, like you do know what the people next to know, but you can’t convey it the same way they can. And it really does something to you internally and emotionally, that I think we don’t talk about enough.
Peggy Stern 05:58
Well, so fast forward, I got deeper into learning what people in the field were doing. There were some people researching social emotional learning, specifically for kids with learning differences. I mean, it was a topic that was out there around bullying and developing empathy. And that was more for all kids. But I started to get to really collaborate with some, you know, the top researchers who were, you know, really brilliant in the field like Maryanne Wolf and Melissa Orkin, who were at Tufts, and, and I realized I wanted to make short videos, that would be narratives, so kids would enjoy watching them, they could be funny and whimsical, and, and they could just be entertaining, and that I would use real kids who had dyslexia or ADHD, because we’re not just focused on dyslexia, we’re about all learning differences. And so we cast real children. And that’s how I met Deanna, at what her son came to the casting call, I had thought there would be very few kids who would come. But luckily, times have changed. They’re very active parents now and parents who heard about it and thought this could be great for my child. And the one of the criteria was that they the child had to be open and honest, you know, to the public about having LD, because this was going to go on, you know, wherever it was going to go, it would be public. So Deanna came with her son. And let me turn it over to you, Deanna, because really, maybe you can explain why, you know, you were drawn to it. And, and then I will just say that Andreas, who stood out as an obvious candidate to cast, we cast 15 kids, and he is now going to college next year, which, you know, makes me feel like, wow, this has taken a long time to get out. I mean, basically, he could start producing it himself, and I could just retire. So it’s very exciting, though. And the kids who got involved, I don’t think they had any idea how long it would take, but they stayed committed. And I think part of that, I mean, Deana maybe you can speak to that is that they lived it. So they knew that it wasn’t only about the academic intervention. I mean, all the scripts were things that were true to their lives. I mean, we would sort of workshop them. And, you know, whether it was about stress about being overwhelmed with too much work or about feeling alone, and that you didn’t, you know, know how to make friends, because you were worried you’d be you know, embarrass yourself for not getting down to it, which because plenty of the kids have ADHD dysgraphia. I mean, we really, and we originally were called dyslexia Ville, and we switched the name, because one we had teachers tell us that if we had a project called dyslexia Ville, and tried to, they tried to use it in their public school, their principal would tell them not to, because they didn’t want the word dyslexia being used that much, because it would force to have to maybe identify more children. So but the other reason was that we wanted to say D for diverse learners, that we’re really talking about people who, you know, young people and grownups because it goes on for the rest of your life, who learned differently, and really, it’s as simple as that and, and learn different. I mean, really, if the education system was completely based on the idea that there was no normal, and we only had neuro diverse learners, probably our project wouldn’t, you know, have to it would exist, but it wouldn’t be so complicated. It would be like yeah, everybody needs support and help because, you know, people have strengths and weaknesses. So Deana, let me turn it over to you. And you know, you speak from the you know, from a different vantage point in some way. Yeah, different vantage point. So,
Dana Jonson 09:46
tell us the backstory of your ring leader.
Diana Correa-Cintron 09:48
Now. Some things are just serendipitous and just are meant to be and I think, you know, Peggy, and I relationship was certainly one of them. We have a mutual friend, which we didn’t know, you know, at the time, it was a mutual friend who had suggested she knew my kid was in into acting. And she suggested that I go on this audition because it was for kids who were also dyslexic. And we said, What the heck. So we went, and you know, lo and behold, it just, you know, was a perfect fit for him. And I and I have to tell you, you know, there’s many reasons why he is now in a place where he’s, you know, applied and gotten to a bunch of colleges now is in kind of decision making mode. And I have to tell you, one of them is super detail. And I say that because the support that he got during the process of acting in the different episodes, and being out as a kid with dyslexia, provides a kid with a hell of a lot of confidence, something that so many kids just don’t have the opportunity to have and to gain over their lifetime. And being on film telling everybody I can’t read or I have trouble reading or, you know, I’m dyslexia and even in the most entertaining way, is empowering, I think for not only him, but every other kid in the cast. So while he worked hard in school, and he got the support he needed. And all of that is true, I do have to say that I think his involvement in Super D certainly has given him that extra thing that he needed in order to get where he is right now, I do have to tell you that the the other thing that was surprising to me is that not only were there 100 kids that showed up with you at that initial audition, but they were very few kids of color, which to interject was not surprising to me, because I had worked really hard to do outreach to more communities, then the ones that I knew would be the more white middle class. And it had been incredibly hard. Yeah, I started. I mean, I knew that we were we had a problem and that this first audition was the first audition and that we were going to have to do some serious, focused outreach so that this cast represented the full range of children who have learning differences, which is a full range, obviously.
Dana Jonson 12:20
Well, I mean, you really just hit on something that is so poignant right now, particularly, but, you know, in the advocacy world, one of the things over the last year, I’ve had a lot of time to sit around, think in the pandemic is, you know, how many advocates Do we have of color? How many attorneys do we have of color and, and looking at marginalized communities that we haven’t accessed properly, and, and realizing that we have to learn how to access them, because it’s not intuitive. And you’re right, I mean, there needs to be a real representation. But when you look around, it isn’t always a real representation. And that’s a really critical piece, I think, to making a difference in our schools. And with this younger generation. So I do love that that component was critical for you guys in developing this project as well.
Diana Correa-Cintron 13:14
Right? I mean, a lot of our focus right now is really getting it into the schools with the highest need. For example, we’re running a pilot project right now in Chinatown, and it’s public school in Chinatown, and we’re really excited about it. And it’s actually going really well, we have an upcoming conversation with the superintendent of the schools for the East Harlem School District. So that’s really, you know, part and parcel of getting this out to, you know, when you talked earlier about, you know, some of the goals that we have, you know, one of the goals is to get super detail in every school in the country, and, you know, around the world, if possible, but clearly, some communities really made it more than others. I mean, everybody needs it without a doubt. But they’re in communities of color, I can tell you now, diagnosis of kids is really low. When and if they are diagnosed, they’re often treated more harshly than other kids. They’re put in kind of special classes and and our, you know, don’t get the attention and the support that they need. It is a, unfortunately, a student to prison pipeline for many kids. I have, you know, my my husband is a physician at a correctional he’s a medical director at a correctional facility. And there’s a lot of data out there about and they were, you know, from 60% of the inmate population have learning disabilities or learning differences of some sort. So, you know, what, we’re hopeful we are not the complete answer, and we understand that but we know that we are a piece of the answer and a piece of The answer is obviously not only getting kids academic support, but that academic support only works, if they get social emotional support as well. They work hand in hand, these are not two activities that work parallel to each other, they have to be working together, for there to be really any significant change for any kids. I mean, I can give you an example, the thing that the example that stands out in my mind when I realized how this was going to be so critical for both of my kids, was how my eldest was, I don’t know, his second grade, and they had a publishing party. And, you know, parents go in, and they read all the different kids stories. And my kids, you know, had two sentences and every word misspelled. And there were other kids in the classroom with that two pages, you know, single spaced soliloquy, soliloquies, and, quite frankly, I said, Oh, so you know, my first reaction is, Oh, my God, I have to get him support. My second reaction is, he’s this pretty smart kid, he’s going to realize there’s a big difference from what he just read, you know, wrote, and what everybody else in the class had written. So I think that’s really, really critical for people to understand that it’s not an either or, that this is something that has to be done together. And that we need to especially focus on communities of color, that are getting very few resources at the outset. And that this is an important way of really supporting their, their own self confidence and their all resilience to move forward.
Peggy Stern 16:36
We should maybe define it for a second what social emotional learning is, or because it comes becomes a catch phrase. Yeah.
Dana Jonson 16:42
Actually, that would be great. I’d love to know what you think. Because when we spoke before this, and I’ve made the comment that I found that when children are not properly programmed for that, by the time they become teenagers with learning disabilities, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, it becomes an emotional issue. And that that happens primarily for girls. But you both pointed out to me that no, that’s not just for girls. And you’re right. And it’s not just for children who aren’t properly serviced, it’s, it’s a component that comes with the learning disability that has to be addressed at the same time,
Peggy Stern 17:20
Oh, and there’s high rates of depression, and even suicide among elementary and middle school kids who are identified who are going through remediation, and who start to really struggle with feeling, you know, so different and ashamed. And so there are a lot of practitioners, neuropsychs, you know, people like that, who have kept data on some of this, you know, that, which is part of what has helped spur, you know, wow, more needs to be done. And, and I think that, you know, the topics that we focus on, which came out of the research, that are things like, obviously, building confidence, I mean, number one, if you’re talking about elementary school kids, which is where we knew we needed to start, in second grade, you know, they’re not going to necessarily even been told what’s going on. So they’ll go through the exact same perience, that Deanna described for Andreas, which is, he will be sitting there noticing it by himself. But you know, not necessarily telling anyone not knowing what to say. So, you know, making sure that kids understand it’s fine. If you’re writing only two sentences, and other you know, because what are your other strengths, you’ll learn this at a different time. So it’s just sort of helping kids understand how their brain works, and not leading to them having more confidence about themselves. And then another one, you know, is self advocacy, being willing to ask for help being willing to say, what they feel they’re not getting? Or if the teacher is talking or teaching to them, or in a way that’s not working for them? The honor, maybe what are some others?
Diana Correa-Cintron 18:56
I think that what super de Ville is focusing on is, is opening and starting the conversations. I mean, that’s really what it’s about. These are conversations that sometimes, you know, don’t come to a teacher’s mind. And, you know, some fabulous teachers out there who don’t think that you know, these are conversations are to be had. And then we our experience has been that teachers who have used a guidance counselor who have used it said, Oh, my God, this was amazing. I was, you know, I was the first time I could really talk about bullying in a group of within a group of kids and talk about it in a way where they share their own experiences. I mean, I think the other thing that’s really powerful about super detail, is that it’s really peer to peer conversations. What happens often is that it’s a top down kind of experience for kids. You know, the teacher, the guidance counselor, you know, having a conversation about whatever the subject Matter is, well, when you look at the episodes, it’s really peer to peer, it’s my kid talking to another kid. It’s all the other members of the cast talking to the kids in the classrooms directly. And it’s not. And sure teachers and guidance counselors are there to guide the conversations to be a resource for the kids, which is really important. But what’s you know, really most powerful, is they’re hearing other kids struggle with what they’re struggling with. And that is, there’s nothing more powerful than that. That is the thing that really creates, you know, conversation and change. And having kids not feel alone and what they’re feeling they realize that there are other kids going through what they’re going through. And I think in many ways, when Peggy created this, this was really one of the most powerful things you know about the episodes.
Peggy Stern 20:50
And just to add that we really have designed it with the hope that it will, you know, be used widely in public schools, because we feel teachers need this and need the support, because it’s not an easy thing for them to add something on to the core curriculum in their day. I mean, this is not because teachers are failing to help kids, a lot of them are dying to figure out ways to help these kids if they don’t totally know what the resources are. But the other thing that was sort of a silver lining of the pandemic, which was not a real silver lining for anyone in the sense that we launched when the pandemic started. So that changed our whole way of having go about things. And we just decided to give Super gvl away for free for the first year to just get feedback. And we want to get it used as much as possible, we shorted up so that it could be completely used on on zoom and virtual, which meant that, you know, it’s set up where there’s a video, that’s five minutes on the theme, and then there for hands on activities. And those were designed to be done in a classroom. But we fixed it so that a teacher could send those home as homework and their hands on fun activities. I mean, they’re not, but they’re part of deepening the discussion and the experience. And so we turned the written curriculum, which can be it’s a PDF that can be downloaded or read on the computer, or sent home in a, you know, Xerox into 10 languages. So that parents who might not be comfortable with English as their first language, would be able to access reading this, because it’s so important for parents to have these conversations with their children. So in a way, it’s quite beautiful that guidance counselors and teachers came up with this idea of Look, it’s pretty hard for us to do these activities on zoom, you know, because we’re not with the kids, and we can’t go help them with their scissors or we can’t, you know, do some of the arts and crafts part. So why don’t we have parents, you know, get involved in that way. And really, it is a triangle, right? We all know that we’ve all had I mean, I’m I’m dyslexic, but I am the mom of the dyslexic and, and it’s that triangle of getting the school and the teachers to understand, but also having the conversations with their children, and then having the child feel Oh, I could go talk to either one about my needs. And so I’m really excited that that came out of the people who were using it. I mean, other things did, too, we got a lot of great feedback that we’ve incorporated. And I think what is looking like my cabin, is it super debo might actually get used in general education.
Dana Jonson 23:22
I mean, I was going to ask you was because is it just for children with disabilities? Or are is your hope that that is being used for everyone in the classroom, because, as you said, You both pointed out, is it’s that understanding that when students understand what’s going on in their brain, and how they learn, they can start becoming more comfortable with it, and they can start asking for better support, like self advocating when they don’t think it’s weird, right? So it’s, my, my daughter is confident, she walks into a room and she says, No, I have dyslexia, I need blah, blah, blah. And when she was yelling and first diagnosed, she did that with no problem. But then I noticed people coming to me and saying, are we talking about this now? Does she need to announce it when she walks in a room? You have to meet my daughter to understand that Yes, she does have to announce it when she walks in the room. But you know, other people are saying that and have that image she starts to become self conscious. Maybe I shouldn’t mention it, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, and then not know how to self advocate and so you know, when I’m when I say
Peggy Stern 24:28
age appropriate just to interrupt for a second that we started with elementary school, but we know that we were getting requests all the time and we hope that we will soon, you know go towards making episodes and, and curriculum specifically for middle school and for high school, because you could be very free and open about it in elementary school because you get a lot of support, and maybe you watch super detail. But then you get to middle school and all of a sudden that self consciousness and some of those other things come in for everyone and So we need to address that too. And, and that is why we are lucky to have found a really good response among a lot of gen ed teachers, that they feel like using this in general ed is a powerful tool, because since the kids acting in it have LD, that breaks down stigma right away, and they can talk about that. And there are two episodes that are specifically about dyslexia. So that helps educate the general population of the classroom to understand dyslexia more. And then the rest of them affect the themes are just so universal. There, they’re very genuine.
Dana Jonson 25:38
And the way the kids relay them, even a student without a disability might be like, Oh, yeah, I struggle with that sometimes, for sure. Now, it’s totally like, here’s this normal thing that I struggle with, I just struggle with it more than you because of, and I can put a label on it. And that’s what I mean by I think it would be great in general, Ed, because if other kids understood why something was challenging to somebody else, they might approach the situation differently. And and that’s really all we want, right? Is everybody to understand,
Diana Correa-Cintron 26:09
and they relate to it as well. Because even if they themselves are not dyslexic, or have ADHD, every kid has something, you know, hey, let’s face it, you know, there’s, there’s no perfect people in this world, every kid is, you know, I mean, it’s the beauty and the imperfection in us, right? They have something so they say, all right, I mean, I have dyslexia. But I’m shy as heck, and I can’t speak up in class, and I can’t, I struggled so much to have a presence in my class. So it really at the end of the day, every kid gets something out of it. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about because this is we’re really excited about it, because this is hot off the press and new. Along with all of the languages in which the curriculum has been translated into the written curriculum, we written curriculum, we recently just dubbed all of the episodes into Spanish. So Brown, there’s super developed in espanol, you can just click on our website, and you can see all of the episodes in Spanish. And the accompanying curriculum also is in Spanish. And we’re really excited about that, because it’s another way that we’ve made a commitment to try to build family into this, because it gives an opportunities for you know, either kids who are ESL kids, or kids who are going home and their parents, you know, our Spanish dominant can then do the episodes with them and the hands on activities and, you know, have a curriculum from which to work from. So we’re really, really excited about it that was in a perfect world, we can translate it into the all the eight languages, we haven’t. But we wanted to pick up obviously a language that is so pervasive in the US and reaches, you know, to a really under resourced community.
Dana Jonson 28:05
I think that’s a really good point that just dyslexia doesn’t just happen in school. Right, there are impacts of it outside of school, and having the family understand and familiar with it is critical to and as an attorney, one of the things we sometimes ask for is parent training. And that is a completely reasonable request, if you are not capable of accommodating your child at home, where you don’t understand their disability and how to work with them. Parent Training is absolutely something that can be a part of the IEP. But in your case, if you had a child whose parent is non English speaking, for them, to be able to watch the episodes, and follow along with their child is tremendous, because we have that huge gap. And that gap gets wider if we’re not communicating with the parents.
Peggy Stern 28:55
And I love to know that they are they cut you up that there is that ability to say there should be parent training. And we’ve actually also are talking to people who deal a lot with foster care, and are interested in seeing how the episodes and curriculum could be used in that environment. Because there can be kids of different ages, who are in a home environment. And the various adults who are involved really might not know that much. And it’s a chance for everyone to learn and have fun and not have it be too didactic. Have it be very kind of human, I think and honestly it’s it’s hard. I mean, I just want everyone who’s listening to know that you can just go to Super de Ville calm and subscribe for free until the end of the summer. Because I know that when people hear about this sometimes at the end of the whole thing they can be like but what is it exactly? actually did they make like what, what do people actually do and what’s big It doesn’t really it, you know, I’ve kind of honestly brought together in my own dyslexic brain, which thinks, I think a little bit back to front, I brought together the things that I wished I’d had, you know, which was, I learned best through media and video and visuals. So give me a story and give me something like that. And I’ll be hooked, you know. And so, we started with that, but then there is always built in to have a discussion. So the adults are in the setting a teacher, parent, whoever has discussion points and guidelines to help them because we’re not assuming that they’re experts, they themselves, you know, or maybe just beginning to think about this. And they can lead whomever, it’s one child or a group of kids through the discussion. And then there are these hands on activities. And they range from being very art based, and can be done by a child or alone, or they can be group activities, which they were really designed for classrooms, but it can work either way. And, and the activities are really important. And I always one of the first things we asked in the surveys that we sent out to teachers was, are you only watching the videos? Or are you also doing the activities because, you know, they have autonomy, I mean, they can not, it’s not like, you know, they can do what they want. Because for me, we know that kids can watch a video over and over, but they’re not necessarily going to take in, they’re not gonna want them to, if they don’t have to process it in a bunch of different ways. And that’s why making sure that there was both the verbal discussion, and then the kind of hands on kinesthetic experience of making it their own. And I mean, I won’t go through what the activities are. But I mean, one is making a picture frame, which has your strengths and then hanging down, it’s the things you need to work on. So they’re very concrete, they’re things that kids can hang in their locker, or put in their room to remind them of what these themes are about about, you know, so it’s with them. And it’s as you said, it’s, this doesn’t just happen at school, it’s part of their lives.
Dana Jonson 32:03
But I think what I also really love about that is asking, Are you just watching the videos, because I think in this COVID world that we have been launched into, and you guys actually launched during it, you know, so it changed everything. And I mean, for example, my podcast was all in person interviews, right? That changed and, and it’s completely broadened my audience and my, the people I can speak to, and it’s wonderful. But there’s also pieces that are difficult and challenging. And I find particularly with education, one of the things we’re falling into, is just go watch that video, just go watch that video, everything is on video, everything’s on the internet, everything is on YouTube. And if you are relying just on those components, which can be wonderful teaching aids, but if you are relying on just that video, you’re not getting anywhere. Kids are used to watching videos, they watch them all the time, and they’re not digesting or processing, if there’s no discussion and there’s no activity and there’s no nothing tangible, you’re not getting the same effect. And that’s why I love that the super detail isn’t just the videos, and that the hands on pieces are designed to complement that and to create and develop more discussion that then makes it more typical
Diana Correa-Cintron 33:23
Philly this scaffolding approach, really, you know what you think, to build on each other. And you want to give? You know, one of the things I always say is that if every kid in the country learned the way that my kids learn in a specialized school, we’d have better education across the board, because one thing about them being an independent school that focuses on learning for kids with learning differences is that they attack a problem six different ways. You know, and that’s a really holistic way of teaching kids because even Gen Ed kids learn differently. They don’t all learn the same just because you don’t have dyslexia doesn’t mean classroom. So I think that it’s really important at you’re absolutely right, it’s not just video, and obviously after the video, they talk and express their feelings. But drawing a picture, reading a book, all of the other pieces that go along with you know, the super De Vil program is different ways of allowing kids to express themselves and that’s really critical in learning.
Dana Jonson 34:34
Definitely. And I love the different modalities. I love that you’re bringing everybody into the conversation. I know this is designed for classrooms because of our circumstance and the pandemic. I’m sure it has been used significantly by families. How have you changed that trajectory? Are you still focused on just getting into the classroom and if parents use it, that’s a bonus. Or are you trying to hit both angles?
Peggy Stern 34:59
Can you move on? been hitting both angles. So we’ve been always, I mean, we don’t have a marketing budget, we’re a scrappy little startup on a very small that I dragged, Deanna, on to. And, and so, you know, basically we’ve used social media, we hire wonderful interns, I don’t have anybody who works on social media who’s over the age of 24. And I just like them, I let them loose. And, and so, you know, we’ve used that we’ve done as much as you know, we’re always grateful when someone invites us to do a podcast or a webinar or anything, because we’re just trying to get the word out. And and so on social media, I would say we pretty much I mean, our users, we have 2500. And now it’s probably up from that, because we haven’t gotten the numbers this month. adults who are subscribing to Super detail, half of them are teachers, and half of them are parents by Oh, wow. Yeah, so we’ve hit a lot of parents. And that’s so exciting. Some of them are homeschooling, or just looking all the time for something to augment what’s going on, and they respond to it. And we have subscribers in every state, every state now, that might be one or two in certain Montana’s exciting. Yeah, it’s also been very bizarre that in the very beginning, when we were launching, I was approached by someone who was going to be doing a big dyslexia website with resources in India. And he knew about super detail, he’d been one of my early advisors. And he’s like, Peggy, I want to put super detail on the India website, I think we should be distributing it to India, because they are quite committed as a country that is so focused on literacy, to helping all kinds of learners. And in some ways, they’re farther along than we are in their understanding. And I was like, go for it. I mean, I was excited. So while we are struggling to just get ourselves into the public schools in America, I have someone approaching me to take on the entire heavy lifting, of doing this distribution to India. And then someone approached us from Myanmar. And then Tim, I mean, it was really like this is going to get out in the world in Myanmar before it’s in America. Well, I mean, now it’s taken off more here. And you know, I’m joking, but I just think that it’s fascinating, because in some of these countries, they, they don’t have anything, so they don’t have bad attitudes. Do you know what I mean? Like, right, and are they overcoming some of the misinformation and the feeling that dyslexia is not real, are all these things that still exist in spite of all the science and all, and in some of these countries, they’re just beginning to teach reading. So it’s much easier for them
Dana Jonson 37:52
well, and I can tell you why that is, because I can tell you exactly why that is. Because if we identify dyslexia, and we all acknowledge that it requires scientific intervention, and that it’s not just about reading, it’s about social emotional learning. Once we start incorporating all of those, our schools are obligated to provide those services. And in the United States, we have set it up so that we get mad at families who need services that cost money, right, that’s just how we set it up. And in other countries where either the education is just taken care of in some way, or they do it differently. It’s not as big of a fight. What we’re fighting against are not parents of children with dyslexia, not children with dyslexia, we are fighting over the larger institutions, that is our education in this country. We are fighting an institution that says I am obligated to educate your children, and I don’t want to hear about dyslexia. Right. Right. That’s the fight. And, you know, for ages here, at least in Connecticut, we couldn’t even say dyslexia in an IEP meeting without people without their heads popping off. So I think there’s that other barrier we have to get past and normalizing It is one of the first steps and I think it’s great that the pandemic did happen, because now people are forced online, and you probably have gotten more of that forced attention, which will be great, because people are online looking for what’s online.
Peggy Stern 39:24
Yeah, honestly, though, I would say that even before the pandemic, when I was putting the word out about having a casting call in the New York tri state area, the group decoding dyslexia, which is absolutely phenomenal. You know, they basically got the word out through the internet through all their things, and that’s why so many, you know, kids showed up and, and I do think there’s been a huge grassroots groundswell among parents who have gone and actually pushed to change laws, you know, in states and now obviously, we’re at the Next juncture, okay, so a law changes, but then how do you enforce it? How do you make sure teachers are trained, because as much as I’m a huge advocate about social emotional learning, I am a huge advocate of getting, you know, elementary school teachers trained in how to teach reading in the scientifically based way, that’s multi sensory. And, you know, I think they’re not learning it. And so there aren’t a nice teachers. So even if you start getting people more willing to say, Okay, this needs to happen, and we really need to identify more kids, and we need to give them what they need, then we need to have, you know, teachers who can actually carry that out and do something about it
Dana Jonson 40:40
back to the funding, right. So I go to IP meetings, and the teacher says, Yes, I’m qualified, I did the three day workshop,
Peggy Stern 40:47
right. And that’s the problem. And, and I will actually make a pitch right now there’s something that I’m on the board of called Boone, and it’s b o n. And its whole goal is that it’s raised money for scholarships for teachers who want to go get the actual training, not the three days. And they, it works with four of the organizations around the country that do training. So Wilson was one of the big ones in Orton Gillingham. And so it allows teachers to apply to get these scholarships, and then we have to do the training. And it’s time consuming. But more than that, it’s very expensive. So if school districts aren’t going to pay for it, there are teachers who are, you know, saving up and doing it in their summer vacations, which is crazy. And so boon is trying to fill that gap and come in and say, okay, no, we get that the school system is not going to change fast enough. It’s just, you know, we don’t want another generation of kids to not have gotten what they needed. And so we’re going to offer this so that these teachers can find ways to get the training they need. So if there’s a teacher listening, this is a great resource and something to look into, you know, because I think that training is a big piece of the puzzle, right?
Diana Correa-Cintron 42:02
The other silver lining in this room, pretty awful year of the pandemic, has been the fact that social emotional learning, while it had been gaining a lot of momentum prior to the pandemic, it has gained even more momentum as a result of the pandemic, for sure, because the pandemic has certainly highlighted the fact that kids have really suffered this year emotionally, and academically. So they’re realizing that they’re now better understanding the connection between the academic and the social emotional learning and how key they are. Because this year has been traumatic for kids. So in some ways, it’s been a perfect time for us in that way, despite the really awful year that so many families have had, and so many kids who have literally, I am not joking in New York City, I can tell you the stories have been the kids have not attended school for a year. That is they haven’t had the technology or the way Yeah, when they were physically not forced to have to, to go to a building every day. And they didn’t have access to the internet or computers. And you had kids that last six months, entire year of school. So clearly, I think that that’s the timing. All of this has been really good for us in that I think people educators are recognizing the importance of STL and especially SEO for kids who have learning differences, because they have suffered probably the most in this pandemic, because it’s bad enough that they weren’t going to school or everything was online, I can tell you from personal experience, I have, you know, a ninth grader who’s smart as a web and being on remotely he has he’s not only dyslexic, but ADHD has been a nightmare has been an absolute, like I had, you know, last year a B plus student this year, pretty much a C student because he just bouncing off the walls can’t focus the Romo thing just doesn’t work for him. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I think we’re at the precipice, hopefully of something moving in the right direction.
Peggy Stern 44:14
And it’s great. I think that you as a lawyer who’s you know, going to IEP meetings, are talking to people like us, and we’re all talking to each other and that working together, to me is key to the solution.
Dana Jonson 44:29
Well, and that’s critical to me, because I see my role as an attorney is I have to learn about these things. You know, I tell parents all the time, you are now the advocate for your child, you cannot expect anybody else to figure out what your child needs. And yes, there are other people in their roles who will do that and we’ll help you, but you can’t just sit back and hope that they do. So for me as an attorney. If I want to advocate for a child with dyslexia, it’s not productive if I walk in and say oh, You’re not educating this child, I want you to educate them, and I have no ideas on how you’re going to do it, you know, that just doesn’t help. So to have things like this out there that I can access and say, Hey, have you as a school system heard of super de Ville, and how it’s used and, and this is a curriculum that could be used in any format that could help the classroom, you know, like, I would even look at super detail as something as a training for classmates to that’s how I would look at it, do we need to change the environment in the classroom? Well, maybe we need super detail for everybody, so that everyone can get used to it. And everybody sees how it’s normal and typical, and just different. That’s all it is, is different. So I see so many benefits to Super detail, I see it helping the students, the teachers, the environments, and the families. So I think you’re covering a little bit of everything. And it gives me something that I can suggest to both sides of the table, which I think is just tremendous. So I can’t thank you guys enough. I think this is a wonderful endeavor that you’ve done. And, and you’ve done it beautifully. I love the format, I think it’s very easy to access, I will have all of the information and links to everything we discussed in my show notes. For anybody listening to this on the go, if you didn’t catch something, you can go back to your show notes. And I’ll have it all there. And Peggy and Deanna, is there anything else that I haven’t covered, I think that we haven’t discussed that you think is critical to get out there or a last plug for Super detail.
Peggy Stern 46:36
Go for a Peggy did we covered a lot I’ll just make another little plug for it was actually my daughter who thought of this because she is taking a year off and is starting medical school in the fall. So she’s been working and helping. And she started noticing on on social media, how parents were saying how isolated their LD kids felt, because of the way you were describing Deanna, so many of them were struggling with zoom learning. And they felt like it just felt worse than ever, you know. And so she started something called Super D friends. And if you have a parent who has a seven to 12 year old, who you are noticing feels particularly isolated, still doing virtual school, or even if they’ve started to go back to school, it really doesn’t matter. Because what we’ve seen is that it’s basically zoom groups that meet actually, there’s one five days a week with different mentors who are in their 20s, who lead the groups. And then there’s actually a group on Saturday, and I think even Sunday, and they’re kids from all over the country. And we have kids from Australia, Ireland. And so they’re about 10 or 12 kids. And in the course of the 45 minutes, they watch your video, but they also share about their pets, or they talk about what’s been hard that day or just, it’s very, very about building safety and allowing them to not feel alone. And so after starting it, just as a trial, it she ended up getting families that wanted to sign up for a series of four, because then the kids got to sort of be with the same group. And the cool thing is that at the end of the session, they don’t have to go to school the next day and see these kids. And so they’re almost I think, more open in a certain way. And it’s not therapy. I mean, these are mentors, they’re the the response from the adults are, oh, I went through that, you know, or Yeah, have you ever thought so it’s a complete sort of peer mentoring setup. But I just thought of when we were talking that that is something that also came out of the pandemic. And what we’ll see if it you know, as kids get more active, and they’re running around, and they maybe don’t want to do it. But what we’ve found is that it’s it’s filling a certain place for these kids that seems to really help, especially the kids who are feeling, you know, alone and isolated. So you just when you go to Super g Ville calm, there’s a tab for a bonus content, and you can find it there sign up. It’s basically donation based so that if someone can’t pay, it’s free. We want any child to be able to participate.
Dana Jonson 49:12
That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. I love that super difference. And super deep bill. So thank you so much, Peggy and Deanna for joining me. Again, I will have Peggy Indiana’s contact information and all the links to everything we discussed in my show notes. So if you’re sitting here listening and you’re saying only Peggy and Deanna know my truth, and I have to reach them, that find them, you’ll go to Super de Ville calm or go to my show notes to get all of their contact information. And my apologies now for all my dogs that are going ballistic in the background. Thank you for having us.
49:47
Having us dinner.
Dana Jonson 49:48
Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And if there’s anything you want to hear a comment on, go to our Facebook page and drop me an out there. I’ll see you next time here on need to know with Dana Jonson have a fabulous day.
