Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

It is so important to have strong, male role-models in our families and community. Women alone cannot save the world. We need both parents, and the community to raise our children. It is an all-in effort. That said, the deterioration of fatherhood in many parts of our land is directly hacking away at the foundation of what keeps America moving forward. The importance of having upright fathers who are a positive and nurturing presence in the lives of their children cannot be underrated but must be trumped out in front and protected, if our communities are to have any hope of raising strong, healthy children to lead us forward into each new age.  I think of my own father and his manhood…. My late-Dad could have been Clint Eastwood’s brother. Their is an uncanny physical and personality resemblance. Dad was a rolling stone who was working on fishing schooners traveling from the Southern California coast to Hawai’i by the age of eighteen. He was a sea-cowboy in that face...

I use to know a certain guy.. or I thought I knew him, at least.  We started working at a certain school almost a decade ago as teacher aides. Within two weeks of me taking this aide position I was promoted to head Special Education teacher in charge of seven teacher aides. He remained a teacher aide. He was approachable and clumsy, but did his work. I did my own work as best I could given all the hoops I had to jump through daily as a head Special Educator and manager of the aides.  This man is now in prison. He did something very, very wrong. He behaved inappropriately with a child. Very inappropriately. I went to court and sat with his parents and listened to the child’s family recount the pain and horrible experience the child went through. I sat there looking at the back of my friend as the judge had little mercy on him and swiftly had the court officer arrest him and lead him out a side door. To this day, he still does not repent. It was saddening to me to h...

The idea of creating your own home storytelling theater can serve as a way for young children, especially those with special needs to appreciate different points of view and to even act out those differing outlooks in a safe setting. This metacognitive activity helps one rethink how they approach their thought and the world. Each character acted out has the potential to have a storyline that the puppeteer assumes during the story time. Repetition of an activity like this stays within certain established parameters, yet retains a novelty each time a story is performed in the theater.   My first storytelling theater was fashioned out of plywood. I had painted it over to look like a castle and added a knight to stand guard by the castle draw bridge. Ivy crawled up the castle walls. In my second theater, I may end up doing it out of tempered hardboard and using cloth string as ‘latches,’ to tie the different hardboard sections of the mini theater together. This makes it ...

(photo by Banksy) I take God at his Word and I am a King James Bible-reading and doing Christian.  I coach a child on the autism spectrum who is a part of a Muslim family. #theGentleman and his brothers have been with me and I with them for five years. I love this family. It is an honor for me to be retained for so long by them. It is humbling and I work hard to keep myself indispensable. To say that I am emotionally-invested in the success of #theGentleman and his brothers is an understatement. My success is tied to his success. It pains me to read of Muslim kids across the country feeling scrutiny or judging eyes on them. Enacting actions of hate leading to murder has nothing to do with the core principles of the major faiths of the world though these faiths are hijacked over and over again by people wanting to make a statement. Real strong people don't pick up guns to spray people away with bullets of rage and then say it was in the name of God. God is love. God is lovi...

How do we pay as individuals and as a community when we tune out?   How can the tides be reversed?  What can one person do? Does the social fabric of society begin to unravel when we just look out for ourselves and only our own? The issues before our community appear gargantuan in scope.  Caught up in the daily grind of making ends meet it may seem like a luxury to stop and afford our own time to positively impact another life. What shall we do?How do we do that? No one requires us to care. At some point down the line though, not exercising empathy for others takes a toll on each of us. Not caring closes up your heart and changes your mind. Children ‘grow up’ and take matters into their own hands…sometimes with guns. Soon enough,  low-income neighborhoods begin to look like the wild west. Adolescent boys and young men band together for security and second-rate love within gangs. Their mindset is not one of how to make their community...

What is this television thing? What visions does it tell? Are they not like food for our mind? Is there not nutritious food AND junk food? How much food is enough? Do we eat all day long non-stop? What happens when we eat late at night? Is it smart to eat junk? What do we feed our children? What kind of diet do we sustain them by? How can we empower our children? How educational is Dora and Barney actually? I saw a boy yesterday playing on some sand dunes talking up a one hour story all to himself.. completely entertained. A bright boy, big smile coming out of his big cheeks, a happy boy.. loves his tech time, but he seems to equally love his non-tech time. He sings his heart out through a microphone, seeks me for our made up 'Adventure Minecraft' time where we basically become artists. We dance a special tai chi.. all free styling, with Coach Bill throwing him into the air, around his back, 180 flips and all the time talking the story. Everything else stops in those mo...

For a few years I have been working on integrating the showmanship and basketball skills of the Harlem Globetrotters into my 1:1 coaching work with kids and adults on autism spectrum, those with ADHD/ADD and/ or those with executive function skill deficits. I see the ball-handling skills exhibited by professional basketball players and such show acts as the Globetrotters in-line with the holistic executive function skill use I teach and model. I also see the body positions that are required to surf and skate well pop up as we move to rhythm and beat, beat to rhythm. I love it. As I dance before dawn early in the morning or late at night I get ideas on how to stay crisp, fresh, keep the fun present, sustain and quickly implement ‘real-time’ coach-student feedback, harness my energy, manage my students energy, and the observable positive results I am able to help trigger.  I’d be remiss to say that my basketball moves don’t flesh into my dancing. They mesh with the...

Image: Neural Synaptic Connection Kids and adults with strong right hemispheric strengths but weaker effective application of left hemispheric traits and characteristics are commonly known as having attentional deficits.   This mental balance impacts critical thinking and normal decision making. By bringing in natural activities tailored to the individual we can create the conditions for 'synaptic neural connections' or bridges between the right and the left hemisphere. By doing so consistently... you develop these hemispheric and executive function skills bridges. This can mean faster processing speed for you or your child, if you are a parent. Caveat: Rewiring your brain takes time. Be patient and focus on enjoying the experience, not some end result. The development of executive function skills needs for an adult individual or a child in a family needs to fun and practical to be effective over the long haul.  This is why I promote the natural development of our executive fu...

Parents with children with severe special needs commonly mirror the emotional turmoil of soldiers with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a term used to replace battle-hardened, 'shell-shocked' men coming from war. Just yesterday I was in a particular office with four mothers, and it being Puerto Rico, the conversation was loud and inclusive. By no means would I attempt to enter a conversation as a stranger on the U.S. mainland, but the culture is different here. People are warm, gregarious and a bit nosy... kind of like one big family...kind of.. So these Moms are talking about their children with autism, and one has tears welling-up in her eyes, the other is 'unloading' her thoughts and feelings after so many years of battling and advocating for her child, and another Mom (not all at the same time) is telling me and everyone in earshot how frustrating it is that just about every year her child has to get re-acquainted with a new set of Special Educators, a new s...

updated 2/7/16 An important metric parents and educators should experiment with integrating as part of a daily routine can singlehandedly address such issues as being a bully-target, being able to regulate and regain behavioral composure, realign and elongate your spine, change your mood, and tone a host of other executive function skills also. It is almost a silly metric that is hidden as an activity itself.  It is not a big deal, it costs nothing on a reaccuring basis, is easily practiced, and most certainly greatly underestimated.  This tool is daily posture exercise.  Directions: 1.  First roll your shouders up and back in a circle three to five x's. 2.  Second, jut your chest out and arch your back into a tense muscular hold with your shoulders outstretched back and away from your body. 3. Third, extend straight arms backward and away from your body.  4.  In this position, which is certainly a tough and tiring positio...

On first glance, one may infer three friends going fishing, but looking closer, it is evident that their are various observations one can deduct if they were to study the painting/ drawing a bit closer.  In this post, I will unrelentlessly expose fishing itself as a major executive function skills development activity that should be part of every kid's life. With my professional experience spilled out onto a keyboard, it is possible to pinpoint and describe if, how, and to what degree each of the 30-35 or so known executive function skills are coming alive in a natural environment activity like fishing. Integrating this activity as part of a life-long routine directly and indirectly tones the:  executive function skills,   sensory skills,   social/ emotional skills,   para verbal skills,   and I guess we can't forget to mention, the concept of emotional intelligence. This is an especially pertinent message to mothers and fathers with chi...

Guarding your children's hearts and minds in an age of rampant liberalism requires a parent's complete set of executive function skills. The molding and compacting of daily images, sounds, and metacognitive impressions far surpass that which they receive from their parents.. or single-parents. Almost every single, if not all executive function skills can be modeled by a parent just being a parent. The ability to self-regulate, self-monitor, modulate behavior, inhibit response, focus, sustain attention, exercise mental flexibility, and have goal-directed persistence are like fields of corn that are are either harvested by parents, or left 'fallow' (uncultivated). Left to the mercy of modern western culture, children's ability to control impulses, control their emotion, or plan ahead for the short and long term are left to such well-known 'combine harvesters,' as, television and movies, sexualized billboards on the roads and highways, and a great deal of unfil...

updated 2/7/16 I  consider how incredibly fortunate I am to have had the opportunities that I have been given. I stand on the shoulders of others.  My own family life was not perfect, but I had both parents home, and the strong support of extended family. This post is about what 'mother' means to me, and it is also a social commentary in how I see the role of the 'mother' under constant bombardment in America today.  My mother has been a selfless, sacrificing woman who has gone beyond the point of exhaustion, wit, and strength to see that my three sisters and I succeed. Everyone who knows my mother know about  her connection to her children. We constantly seek to talk with her on an almost daily basis and she counsels us. She does not call us with counsel to give, but we seek her out. ..It is also because her internet phone system automatically answers her  calls putting the caller on loud speaker by error.   Her children seek her out because of...