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

Not all of us have the same opportunities for educational growth. Not all schools are made the same, and not all home lives have the same developmental supports. This greatly affects how we see ourselves and our place in the community. A child or adolescent hailing from a home life where the father does not raise and instruct risks becoming a child being prepared for failure. We may not all have the same educational backgrounds and receive the same kind of quality education, yet the familial support systems we have have the power to ‘upright’ our vessels. Unfortunately though, parents whom do not care enough exist. I have seen it. Children are left to raise themselves up. Unless they are given another model to learn from, children living in homes where indifference is prevalent are at risk of repeating the same mindset and action patterns as their parents. These situations tend to formulate more in families with limited educational attainment and sparse extended-family support...

I want to honor my Dad who I last saw last on December 6, 2014. He passed at midnight in the Veterans Hospital of San Juan, Puerto Rico on December 31/ January 1, of 2014/5 at the age of eighty-four. One of the best things I learned from my late-father was the over-arching value of cultivating a champion mindset. It is what we call the ‘growth mindset’ today. Every day was important and he approached it with all the readiness and enthusiasm of every day before. He also valued preparedness. Being prepared. The grandfather to my three children was a veteran of the ‘Screaming Eagles’ Airborne Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army. Dad also served in the U.S. Marines and was part of an elite expeditionary force in Korea ahead of the official start of the war. My Dad was an  ‘All-Army’ football player and also padded up for the Rose Bowl. He was there for virtually all my own football games, straight on through high school. He was unstoppable in his ...

Bethany Hamilton When one surfs, they are no longer in the realm of normality. Their is wild life out there that will not be tamed. In the summer of 2005 I was living in the Hawaiian Island of O’ahu and had visited Kaua’i to unwind. The island is mystifying. It appears like a giant volcano jutting out from the water. Upon airplane approach the viewer sees an island surrounded by endless blue infinite ocean. From the cliffs of Waimea Canyon one has to ask themselves if they are not in the Grand Canyon.  The breadth and scope of Waimea Canyon, a wonder of the world, is simply another cosm in this varied ecosystem island that is Kaua’i. Daily, the surfing community enters the water to surf and catch waves. Invariably, because we are entering into the habitat of marine life and because the Hawaiian islands are the most remote group of islands on Earth, it is a major hub for whatever sea life is in the Pacific ocean, this includes… sharks. Those infamous moving monster...

I n a game of chess, civility between players is an expected part of the game. For #theGentleman, a student I work with is on the autism spectrum, chess has been a game we have employed over the six plus years I have been allowed to coach him.  A main skill we work on is being a gentleman wether we win or lose. That is a big deal. A game like chess can serve as a microcosm of life in general that allows the players to practice winning and losing well. For example, I played against my grandfather for three years before ever winning a match. Did I lose out each time, or was I winning experience that eventually allowed me to be the winner? Being a gracious loser is more valuable than being an obnoxious winner then. #theGentleman use to have great difficulty in accepting defeat. Through all the chess games we have played, his trajectory on how he handles the circumstance of winning and losing has shifted in large part, due to the growth mindset conversations we have. I exp...

As we grow up and push towards our goals, whatever they may be, it is easy to get hyper-focused on attaining them. In a family home, bills have to be paid, children's expenses have to be accounted for, and cars need to be maintained.  All this takes energy and consistent effort. For most of us, this entails working hard week in and week out. Everything costs money, except unconditional love these days. In pushing harder to keep ourselves afloat it is not hard for important priorities to take a back seat. The father that has to travel far for work loses out on family time. Children grow day by day and begin to form there understanding of what it is to live a life and how to go about doing so. The parents, for better or for worse, are the models on how to do this. The kids take example and follow suit. Generation after generation patterns are established and entrenched. The legacy of parents comes alive in the youth to a great extent and life repeats itself. However, pattern...

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The goal with the dance videos is to bring awareness to action by parents and Special Educators on the value and benefit of dancing as an efficient and effective strategy to rapidly develop gross motor skills, executive function skills, cross-hemispheric cranial connectivity and all in all increasing cognitive processing speed. This is of great importance to families with children who have special needs, such as autism. Infants, children and adults like to listen to appealing music and swaying our bodies to it comes naturally. This is not always so with children on the autism spectrum. The antidote is to get them moving and playing, roughhousing (safely), dancing and being adventurous. Do schools support these values? How so? The ease a parent or Educator has in playing a song and dancing with their child or students in a classroom to strengthen their cognitive-physical syncronicity makes the activity practical and easily to replicate. In addition, dancing  has a tend...

By replicating a similar model to the servant leadership, holocratic engine that is in operation with the Scalzi Originals Skateboarding Co., members of local skateboarding communities can easily create a teacher group that is grounded around the activity of skateboarding coaches kids, including those with special needs. There are many children who would love to know how to skateboard. Parents who have children with special needs, like being on the autism spectrum can help develop gross motor skills, executive function (prefrontal lobe) and increase the speed and amplitude of their children's brain development overall by consistently having them go train at a skatepark. Having a teacher helps big. No Teacher System A central problem holding back the growth  of community skateboarding at a skatepark like Scalzi Park in Stamford, Connecticut is that there is no organized teacher system. I took an example from a surfing organization of surf teachers and volunteers that come...

Driving a race car takes more than stepping on a gas pedal and turning a wheel. It takes epic executive function skill usage. A NASCAR driver must know how to gauge, pace and focus on an ever-changing battle field where the other racers jockey for position in order to win. Like a game of chess, race car drivers must use their foresight (anticipate, predict) and keen sense of timing to know when to make a move, pull ahead, hold tight or come in for a pit stop. The pit crew must also have tip-top  executive function skills as they recalibrate, change up and get the super-charger roadster back on the road in two shakes of a lamb's tale. The road crew of individuals each have their key duties which they must focus on as they work together in harmony to bring up to speed and release the speedster back into the race. Of course, from the stands, it may look as if they cars are just going around in round, yet the relationships that bring each racing team to the track form the foundati...

What happens when we come together under a common goal of social responsibility for each other? Where does apathy run off to? How can an organization of leaders be led successfully? How does the growth mindset play into best business practices and is it possible to run an organization where no one gets paid at first? It started with naturally developing the executive function skills of the students I work with. Movement therapy is part of my instructional tool and strategy kit and is a tremendous approach to achieving increasing degrees of independence. For a child on the autism spectrum, one with down syndrome, or simply one with mild attentional deficits, context activities for movement therapy that I use are dancing and skateboarding. With the passage of time, these two core activities used in many (not all) of my sessions also provide a backdrop for some real-world skills which need constant toning. These are the ‘soft skills’ that are seldom understood or acknowle...

The beginning of success starts in the heart. It slowly move its way to the mind and once there, momentarily pauses. It is calculating perceived total effort and drive required to manifest itself.  My students rarely think of ‘success.’ We focus wholeheartedly on process instead. Time goes by and I look back at their progress. The success happens daily in short increments that appear to accumulate over time and consistency. Success is in the details. Establish new ‘forward-operating beachheads’ in the quest for particular excellence is foremost on my coaching mind. That means that I constantly gauge and assess the effort level, motivation and clarity of purpose with my students.  Shedding light on the value behind a purpose becomes an initial priority. I understand that if I want my soldiers to go #allout,  they must be on-board with ‘why’ we work on what we work on. The value in a purpose helps set up a vision of things to come and provides a process fram...

"In any given moment we have two options: to move forward into growth or to step back into safety." -Abraham Maslow To the unexperienced mind, it may seem impossible to sustain the will and conviction to make a positive life change. I find that by getting technical about my thinking,  I (we) can do something everyday to realize the goals that are in our mind and heart, and thus, live life on a whole new level. For example,  because I am sticking to my goals, I am no longer the same person I was two years ago. Transforming oneself does not require we change our values, if those values are worthwhile and healthy. Hold onto solid values and principles that support the genuine well-being of others and you'll find that your non-tangible values sustain your attitude and drive. My exterior, what others see, is in transition as it gallops to catch-up and mirror how I feel and am on the interior.   Being clear on why I pursue my goals retrofits my mind to think and act acc...

Storydancing allows a person to begin to process feelings, ideas, emotions and whatever else is in there by holding those things somewhat in focus as they dance according to metrics, such as: pace focus sustained attention behavior modulation goal-directed persistence self-control self-monitoring short-term working memory mental flexibility (transitions/ shifting) beat rhythm how they feel story line story development story goal Storydancing is not about filling the air with movement and perfect pitch, but about processing and creating new ways of thinking, feeling and being just by dancing one’s way into a new life. It is a concerted effort to bring the movements of the future into the present as much as it is a catch drain that sweeps our heart and mind The actual #storydance itself becomes an analogic (analogy) poem in literal motion that amazingly rewrites how you feel about things, and how you see things. Yes, this is movement therapy. Yes it is...

‘Teaching is personal,’ sais my colleague from England, Alastair Arnott. Yes, and it is an art form also. What do we do with the limited time and space given us? Batman is actually a make-believe character and is NoT coming to rescue the public educational system…  Why not increase the amount of professional license We give ourselves to create, be entrepreneurially-minded,’ and focus on rapid growth?  In order to do that, many of us Educators have already taken an incredibly powerful step in reaching out to each other by the use of social media tools, like Twitter. We are learning from each other and the potential for our pedagogy is getting better and better as more of us find that the world is not flat, nor round, but an elevator, and we are all in it. Heck, I tweet the President all the time.. any day now he will give me a favorite to one of my tweets mentioning him or my abstract blog post on the executive function skill rigors found in being the President...