Well it’s been forever and I apologize.

So lets back up to December, when all the staff of the Institutes had two weeks off to celebrate the Christmas/New Year’s season, and to prepare for their upcoming trip to Italy and Japan/China. This was an exciting time of year, it was nice to have a break and I had forgotten how much I missed Christmas carols, until I remembered how repetitive they are (you can only sing “We wish you a Merry Christmas!” so many times before it becomes insincere). For presents, I received an excellent set of winter apparel, namely gloves, a sweater, a toque (a winter hat for all you Americans) and my favourite, a pair of giant wollen socks. I really didn’t do much in my spare time, mostly I watch a list of movies (the Grinch, the Bourne series, Star Trek, more) , devoted an entire weekend just to watch every season of The Office, and played video games. I was in an apartment (instead of the usual dorm room) for a period of time with a nice kitchen and all. This wasn’t exactly what you’d call year of service… in fact it was more like a lazy Sunday back home…

In January the clinic staff headed out to Italy and Japan and I was here to serve in a number of capacities. Most of my time was spent preparing for the upcoming semester in which I would begin teaching the Junior class (5-8 year olds) a class called Natural History. To sum it all up, basically the goal is for the kids in the class to be able to identify 100 different plants, flowers, insects, primates, birds, etc. by the end of the semester. This is largely accomplished by over-sized flash cards and nature trips. The prep went great and I should be teaching classes within the month. There is the Philadelphia Flower Show coming up, which all the kids are excited about.

The Philadelphia Bahai Youth Workshop had its first performance! It was for a Martin Luther King Jr. day celebration on the 17th of January. They performed the Children’s dance (the Racism dance for all you OWYDT folk) and did it excellently. To be honest I didn’t think they had it in them. Everyone at the event loved it and it was a great first performance (hopefully to precede many more!)

After I got home from the performance, that same night I went to see Avatar in 2D. In my opinion it lived up the hype. Loved Zoe Saladana’s character. Fantastic imagery. However I went last weekend to see it again in 3D and disliked it. Maybe it was that the 3D didn’t live up to the hype, that it didn’t add much and actually took away from some scenes, or that the story was worn out the second time around. I dunno. It deserved a paragraph on my blog.

A week after the performance I went to New York for the first time. The city is stunning, I would certainly add pictures directly here but the blog won’t let me (Galen help!). So here’s a link to my facebook page with the photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=375228&id=517920025&l=8048a3dbbe. I was  able walk around and scope out the city a little bit, take the subway and go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which was excellent. I even had the chance to go to a sketch comedy act, which was hilarious.

Now I write about another trip I’ve taken recently. This one to Stamford, Connecticut for the annual North Eastern Baha’i Youth Conference. There had to be at least 400 people there, mostly from the North Eastern United States, but a few from as far as Florida, Victoria B.C. and Tanzania. There was a number of stellar musicians, including Robert Gillies and Badi. I even ran into a few old Maxwellians, including Louisa Hawkins and I made a ton of friends. We we able to take a number of workshops, not one of which was bad, and had the chance to meet as a cluster and discuss youth activities for which we made some basic plans. Anyway it was totally awesome and if you ever in the Northeast in February, I would certainly recommend going. For NEBY pics go here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=387391&id=517920025&l=ab815f06e5

So all after all that fun, it might seem like I’m not doing any service! Well I have been enjoying myself and even more so perhaps when I get to spent time with the Junior class 4 days a week, for which we are back to our regularly scheduled program. This kids are amazing and I can’t say it enough. I am certainly blessed to be here with them and to have the chance to learn with them. New this semester is computer class, which I’ll be helping with (as well as with the Intermediates and Seniors). I took their entire computer programming course in January, so now I just need to back off and let the kids figure it out socratically.

Now a little look into the future. I am super stoked for the upcoming fast. I don’t quite have it all planned out how I am going to do it but it’ll work itself out. Our cluster has a reflection gathering and our first intensive period of growth coming up. It’s going to be great!

All is well here in Philadelphia! It’s been a busy month filled with plenty of great memories. I’ve been continuing to do work in the school and in the clinic. I am happy to announce that after their first semester the Aspirants (the youngest students in the school) will sign the book tomorrow which will make them Juniors! Signing the book basically means that you have followed the policies of the school and will agree to continue following them. The Aspirants will finally become official students of the international school when they sign the book.

The Philadelphia Dance Workshop is coming along, we will be performing a dance for the Martin Luther King day in Philadelphia on the 17th. Most of you will know it as the Racism dance, but it’s called “The Children’s Dance” here.

While spending a night on the internet, I came across this video and thought I’d share it with you all.

Kyle On The Road To Recovery

I met Kyle a few weeks ago when he came to the Institutes with his family and had the privilege of getting to watch him for a while. I am happy to announce that he is now walking and is beginning to talk. Oh and in case you didn’t get it from the video, he is no longer blind either.

Halloween weekend was last weekend and on the Friday beforehand (the 30th) the Evan Thomas Institute’s junior class participated in what’s called the Social Excellence Tour, which is a fantastic twist on Halloween. Instead of coming to school dressed in a traditional ghost, vampire, Darth Vader or Harry Potter costume, the kids dressed up as something pertaining to a particular theme. This year’s theme was Nature which resulted in a host of different costumes, a variety of Insects: a housefly, a bumblebee, a Royal Blue butterfly and two different species of ladybird beetles (convergent and 10 spotted, I think), a cat-eyed snake, a Red-eyed tree frog, a Wooly Mammoth and Jacques Cousteau. Each child with the help of their parents, gave a presentation on what they decided to dress up as. Three siblings together did a presentation of a food chain (housefly < Red-eyed tree frog < cat-eyed snake).

The simple way the school has altered things to make things which are traditionally just fun and make them educational fascinate me. What further fascinates me is how elevated the level of education is. For example: for Halloween kids would usually dress up as a butterfly or a bee or a ladybug, but these kids decided to dress up as a Royal Blue butterfly, a bumblebee and a Convergent Ladybird beetle. And Jacques Cousteau, that was a riot! The kids costume were spectacular and they toured around the campus all morning giving presentations to the staff, the parents, the other students and the brain-injured children.

Anyway, I spent much of this week listening in on the constant rants regarding the Philadelphia Phillies against the New York Yankees in the World Series. They seem to be long time rivals and no body could stop talking about it. It was every meals’ topic of conversation. It resulted in a really bad Halloween night because no body could be bothered to get up from watching the game to feed a couple of candy hungry 10 year olds at their door. Anyway, the Yankees won but that’s old news. Now if only the Eagles would play a little harder…

Much like the “What To Do About Your Brain Injured Child” course, this past week, 50 parents, grandparents and prospective parents came from around the world to the Valentine auditorium at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential to spend a week in lectures learning about human brain growth and how it applies to their children. Unusually, these parents likely do not have a  brain-injured child, they are parents who want to learn how to multiply their child’s intelligence.

The week was spent largely in lectures learning about the Institutes 50 plus year journey in the subject of early childhood brain development. The course is really about the fact the children, even tiny ones, can learn absolutely anything and that parents are the best educators of their children (mostly mother). Everything the Institutes knows about well children, they learned from brain-injured children and  the parallels are astonishing.

Parents learned how to teach their babies to read, have encyclopedic knowledge, be mathematically superior, be physically superb, be musically inclined and know another language even if the parents do not know another language. The children from ETI demonstrated that children can learn to do all of this and more with a little effort from their parents. More than that, they demonstrated that learning is fun.

Especially fascinating was watching 2 month old Mylen crawl down an inclined track. The gymnastics routine, which all 16 kids in the school participated  in, was absolutely stunning. You’d be much more impressed by these kids than the One World Youth Dance Theatre back home (no hard feelings). Afterwards I walked away, scratching my head trying to decided when they must have learned the routine, because I definitely didn’t know about it and there really isn’t a lot of time in the school to learn a 6 or 7 minute routine, especially considering how complicated it was and how young the ETI performers are. I later found out they had learned in a 2 and a half hour period and had ran through the entire thing just once. Truly impressive.

The kids violin playing was just as impressive as it was moving. The kids all learn to playing from violin teachers trained in the Suzuki method. Their concert consisted of Beethoven, Schuman, Bach and many other famous composers. That the children in ETI were able to master such a complex instrument and play such pieces is a marvel to the rest of the world, but it is really just because someone is putting in effort to teach the kids.

In fact, the kids wowed us in everything they did. The way they were carefully able to determine who said a  specific Shakespeare line by process of emlimination, or the way able to decode complex computer programs, or by their simple humble manner. These are some of the happiest around and have great joy in learning with their parents. The week was  truly incredible.

The Institutes is looking forward to a day, no, they are helping move us to a day where we can further the ability of the human race, because our potential is truly limitless.

The week was great, but now I am enjoying a day indoors sitting at the computer because of the storm outside. I don’t think I’m in BC anymore. They definitely don’t have storms like this back home, it’s really wild. However I am getting my exercise because the electrical/fire alarm goes off every 10 minutes and I must get up, walk 5 steps outside my room and reset the alarm. Luckily I scored a different room tonight, so I’ll be alright. I sure hope Dr. Morales learned how to reset the alarm…

Hey everyone it’s  been awhile. Unfortunately, I haven’t pulled out my camera this week so I don’t have ANY pictures but I know people that have pictures of many of these things and I’ll be sure to update this page with a couple of photos to make sure it’s more lively. Last week was spent divided between being a teacher’s assistant in the Evan Thomas Institute, measuring brain-injured children and doing filing various paperwork for the Institutes.

On Friday night I went to a fireside that was put on by one of the local Philadelphian Baha’is. The idea was to mix the spiritual beliefs of the Baha’i Faith with the beats and rhythms of  hip-hop. There was a  showcase of young Baha’i talent who played live music while everyone read devotions and sang songs. I was lucky to share few songs on my guitiar with everyone, which they seemed to enjoy. It was nice to meet new Baha’is and seekers in Philadelphia who share a common interest in music and art.

Every year in October, the kids at the Evan Thomas Institute run a triathlon. This year 9 kids aged 8-12 ran the entire triathlon (some of the younger kids ran biathlons) which they have been training for since July. Believe me, it’s not a kiddie triathlon.  Thats 500 metres of swimming, 10 kilometres of biking and 5 kilometres of running. All the kids did spectacularly, beating their own personal records on many fronts. I really don’t know how the kids did it. I tried to do just the running and only made it through 6/11 laps before I was falling to the ground panting. The environment was really supportive and many of the tired triathletes ran supportively with their friends as encouragement to continue on. Everyone enjoyed a nice lunch put on by one of the families after the event, which was truly enjoyable.

This week I’m helping to design a new website for the Institutes. As you may have noticed, the iahp.org one is very confusing. So I’ll try to keep you better posted, get some pictures up on this rig and perhaps in a month you might see a new website.

Best wishes all y’all from Philly.

Teague

Myself with the founder and his wife along with his children, the director and vice-director of the Institutes.

This week, 65 parents from around the United States and the globe gathered in the Valentine Auditorium at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential to learn what they can do to bring their brain-injured  child to wellness. The parents who came this week had an incredible devotion to their children. Many of them  had been told by doctors  that their child had autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, etc. and that these things were incurable so the parents should just give up hope. These parents refused to believe the ‘experts’ and tried every type of therapy possible to get their child to be well. Until they find the Institutes and come to the What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child course. Parents first learn that all these terms: austim, CP, down syndrome, cortical blindness; are all symptoms of brain-injury and are not actual diseases. The course, which I was lucky to attend, gave parents ways to treat immobile children, blind and/or deaf children, insensing  children, kids with learning disabilities and more. This made me realize that the Institutes is kind of like a center for kids who can’t read good and who wanna learn  to do other good things too; seeing, hearing, moving (sorry I couldn’t avoid a Zoolander reference). The course was amazing and very parent empowering, it essential runs on two ideas: 1. The brain can change. and 2. Kids can learn anything. Next month I’ll be participating in another course call How to Multiply your Baby’s Intelligence. I highly recommend the What To Do course for anybody, especially parents of brain-injured children. Other than that, Philadelphia’s great and I have many wonderful stories to tell. I’m learning so much here and having a great time,  made easier by the fact that I only have to wash my own dishes.

Please check out the institutes website: IAHP

On Saturday the found of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Glenn Doman, celebrated  his 90th birthday. The event took a  good portion of the previous week in preparation and all the Institutes staff hastily prepared for the exciting event. I generally helped with some basic setup, such as cramming 200 chairs into an auditorium that’s supposed to fit 70. The event hosted over 200 of Glenn’s guests from around the world (Mexico, Japan, China, the United States, etc.) and had great food, a great environment and great people. Once everyone crammed into the auditorium everyone was told the story of Glenn’s life. Noah Doman, Glenn’s 12 year old grandson gave an amazing speech about his ‘greatest hero’ – his grandfather and his experience in World War II.

This week, the Evan Thomas Institute began classes. ETI is basically a school that uses a superior method of teaching when compared to a traditional public school classroom. The school is small, there are 3 intermediates, 6 seniors who both come 5 days a week, and 7 aspirants (5-7 year olds) who come 3 days a week. All groups of kids are incredibly intelligent and eager to learn. In the class “How to be a Historian” the students are taught how they can properly find their own information on  history subjects  that they are interested in. The 8-10 year old kids I was with swiftly chose Princess Diana, the American Civil War and Greek Mythology. Math class consists of algebra and trigonometry that I never learned until Grade 11. I continue, day by day to be amazed by these children. For example, in Japanese class, the 7

aspirants were  shown 8 Japanese flash cards with a matching picture. After presenting the cards twice to all  the students, most of  them were able to identify and match  the Japanese word with the picture.

For a  final note, I wanted everyone to check out this news article about a boy a met a few weeks ago. His devotion and courage truly amazed me and I thought that his story should be shared with you:
Caelum Miller

I’ve been spending my weekends gardening voluntarily, as apparently this place doesn’t look good enough now (shock!). My tasks, if your really that interested, are mainly composed of weeding, trimming, planting and watering various beds and pots all over the grounds. It’s not backbreaking, but it takes a good chunk of time, about 4 hours every day of the weekend. It’s what little service I’ve actually been doing so far, right now I’m basically being trained to do the various types of work they do here. Of course, this being Labor day weekend, I only got on Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway, I enjoyed a good salmon barbecue last night (I wonder how far that salmon has to come to get to Philly?) and made some brownies, which are sadly… all gone. Oh well, you do have to suffer a little on your year of service right? As for Labor day (Labour day? these Americans have me mixed up) I spent that doing absolutely nothing. I was planning on going to feast, but it looks like I’ve switched the dates on my calendar, feast is on tomorrow. Basically I used it to read all the emails I’ve been ignoring, *sigh* maybe next weekend I reply to some of them.

This week will be a week of staff meetings, to plan out the year that is ahead. I’m

looking forward to it, but I won’t have anything interesting to blog about, so maybe I’ll give all you eager readers a history lesson.

Oh and by the way, I make a damned good stir fry…

America's Most Wanted

Most people do their year of service in the depths of the Amazon Jungle or a rural village in central Africa. Being a sort of abnormal guy, maybe I wanted it to be easy, to have all my meals cooked for me, maybe I wanted unlimited internet access and cable TV in a comfortable dormitory with my own room that’s twice the size of mine at home (and all to myself!). That’s all a bonus, but what I really wanted was to do some meaningful service that would be useful to me. Somehow, I found this in one of Philadelphia’s most affluent communities.

The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (www.iahp.org) is a non-profit organization that educates parents in the field of early childhood physical, intellectual and social development. The majority of their program is focused on what they call brain-injured children. The children to who come to the Institutes with their parents have any combination of problems such as physical immobility, blindness, deafness, tactility issues, health trouble or intellectual problems. The children I have met during this first weeks usually started out with all of these problems. However, by a child and his parents’ persistent effort, they return to the Institutes, cured of two or three of the child’s ails.

Institutes for the Acheivement of Human Potential

How does this work? How does a 5 year old child, who was immobile, cortically blind and had constant seizures only 18 months previously return to the Institutes crawling all over the place, reading 8th grade material and has only had 2 seizures in the last month? How am I involved in all this?

In this blog, I’ll be answering all these questions as I learned about the life of a brain-injured child, and how to improve it. I will make sure I post stories and pictures. I’ll also keep you updated with my involvement in the Philadelphia Baha’i community. Take note that everything is this blog deals with neurological development, a you may feel you need a neurology degree to understand all the terminology that’s behind the philosophy. Please just write me (tlander121@hotmail.com).

I’ll try to keep a good balance between science and religion. And I’ll keep you posted.