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(Music) Narrator: Pen is part of a learning revolution that is opening pathways to students’ academic success. (Music)
Dewey: I’m Dewey Rosetti, founder of Parents Education Network.
I have two girls, who have learning disabilities.
I found some other parents who felt the same way I did and they were about at the same place.
They had gotten their kids to a successful point and we all could take a breath and say how could we help other parents.
And we built a team of our own. We sat down and said to these educators, you work with us and tell us
A. If there is a place in San Francisco and a need for this kind of support for families and for teachers?
B. If you can help us do it?
We took a lot of time getting our core values down. And we really understood what our message was going to be before we went out with it.
And now what we’d like to do is spread the message to other groups and save them all of that time
In terms of figuring out how to help the community and how to help other families with kids with learning disabilities.
Narrator: PEN was created so parents of students with learning and attention differences could support their children’s academic growth through parent education and collaboration with educators.
As PEN developed it became clear that parents, students and teachers each had a unique voice to contribute to the conversation.
Out of this recognition, SAFE And TEN grew.
SAFE is a community of students who openly share their experiences and strategies for self-advocacy.
TEN is a group of educators working to provide strategies to create a supportive classroom environment based on the learning sciences.
These three groups collaborate to create a community that empowers students to recognize their strengths and achieve their educational goals.
The seven year old who struggled to write this…
Drew this in an hour on the same day.
Student: I first became involved in SAFE my freshman year, about 4 years ago.
My mom dragged me to a meeting, she had heard about it and thought it was a good idea.
After my first meeting I was hooked. I loved it, I loved the people, I loved what we were doing.
I began speaking on panels.
We would go to elementary, middle and high schools and talk to parents and teachers about learning disabilities.
We’d really just tell our stories and give advice about self-advocacy and accommodations and little things that we’d discovered.
It turned out that we’d been empowering a lot of people and creating a community and it’s been amazing.
Mom: We started out in PEN not really even knowing what a learning difference was.
We had a report. We had no idea what all those pages meant.
We had a daughter, two daughters, who were struggling were very smart and not understanding why they were having struggles. We were not understanding why they were having struggles.
PEN helped us understand that.
When my daughter was first diagnosed with a learning difference it was like being out in a No Man’s Land.
PEN offered us the opportunity to learn more to become more empowered.
Narrator: PEN has created a tool kit called PEN Out of the Box.
Designed to make it easy to start your own Chapter of PEN where you live. PEN out of the Box will provide you with:
BRIAN: One of the most important things that I see about kids, like, Ben, is that they can advocate for themselves.
They know exactly what they want and they know exactly what they need.
BEN: First I had to learn what to ask for.
You can’t just go out and ask, you have to know and know yourself that brings confidence.
Once you know, it’s easy to go up to that teacher and ask for what you need. And you have to practice at that and it takes repetition.
Once you can advocate and know yourself, I think the skies the limit.
BRIAN: That’s one of the great things about the Parent Education Network and SAFE in particular.
You now have a group of kids and they are all different, maybe with different diagnoses’ and different differences
it teaches them in a group how to talk to teachers how to talk to each other about support.
NARRATOR: Are you a committed and passionate group of parents and educators?
Are you ready to spark change for students in your community?
(Music) Here are the steps to start a PEN Chapter in your area:
1. Contact PEN by phone or email we can help you organize your group.
2. Set up a meeting with us, either in person or via a conference call
3. Review the Chapter agreement
4. Send in Chapter fees
We will offer support each step of the way.
In return, you’ll receive PEN Out of the Box Everything you need to get your PEN Chapter off the ground.
DEWEY: We have a very simple approach:
Work with the teachers
Collaborate Educate yourself about how your kids learn
Their success really depends on understanding themselves and explaining themselves.
Narrator: Starting a PEN Chapter will soon impact the learning culture in your community.
Contact PEN now, Bring the learning revolution home.