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

It is few and far in between that two activities, such as skateboarding and surfing, can be found to so completely deliver a strengthening of so many life skills, as well as provide therapeutic benefits all at once. Both individual sports require the dynamic interplay of executive function and cross-hemispheric neural connectivity at heightened levels, placing them in their own pantheon of 'go-to' therapeutic intervention activities to use. In addition, the proprioceptive component that comes on-line and gets toned is of particular benefit to youth and adults with neurological and/ or gross motor skill deficits, such as commonly found with those on the autism spectrum, downs syndrome or varied 'special needs.' Proprioceptivity is our ability to know where our body is and how fast it is moving through space. A surfer's proprioceptive response makes them self-aware of the positioning of their limbs and stance on the board, as well as how fast they are moving...

Lesson Number 1 The beginning of the successful instructional approach begins by putting aside formalities and being human. The teacher humbly understands that teaching and learning is a journey where both teach and both learn from the process. Instruction is given while the ability to listen to the student’s verbal and non-verbal communication is taught by the learner to the teacher. It is then a matter of perspective, a metacognitive outlook (thinking about out thinking and how we approach the world with our thought process) that outlines the further success and progression of the teaching and learning experience. Clear understanding of this principle is paramount to facilitate surpassing potential for instructor and instructed. Again, the beginning of the successful instructional approach begins by dropping pretenses and simply being genuine. This is the secret to my success and the success of my students. The awareness of the impact of verbal and non-verbal commu...

Tio Enrique, went back almost two decades ago and brought back pictures... Mami, as her grandchildren call our graceful, humble and classy artist grandmother said,  "Ay! Los mumbles son los mismos mio. No los han cambiado!" My cousin, my sister & a stowaway (lols)  Two families had been living in our family home. She left  Miramar, Cuba in the heart of La Habana in 1959 never to return. My cousin, Enrique Alfredo and my youngest sister, Giselle,  went back about a year and half ago and walked into my families former home cataloging it and bringing back a treasure trove of nostalgia for the rest of the family to see. The families living in the home were gracious enough to allow this. Everything is run down in an elegant way. The people living there there have done what they can with the means they have had.  People do what they can to get by. Enrique told me of the warped political science perspective of the taxi drivers which like the Chevro...

The beginning of us starts inside, deep inside. The resolve to 'go forth' must be stronger than the tendency to leave it all to rot. My father was by no means a perfect man.. who is? Yet from an early age, he taught my sisters and I the value of resolve. He would say over and over again to us, "you were born to lead, you were born to lead." This, of course, ruined us. It made us tougher than tough in all the right places, as if we were invincible to failing because no matter what, we were primed to just keep getting back up. That is the growth mindset as it is called these days. Back then, Dad called it perseverance, toughness and 'firing out.' When I played football, Dad was on the lines always giving me his eye which I would catch for extra resolve. As I got older and moved through the divisions I got tougher and tougher until I thought of myself as 'all steel.' When I was at the line of scrimmage, my father told me to act meaner than a junkyar...

Running a country parallels raising a family in some aspects. They both require commitment and passion day in and day out. Commitment is a mindful decision that plays out in consistent action whereas passion is having a clear vision, having 'fire in the belly' and knowing how to be motivated towards a worthwhile goal. Without these two, one will be hard-pressed to get much of anything done, or get anyone to also invest in the common goals. Just like families have to work together for the benefit of the children (the future), managing a country, such as the United States of America requires a clear understanding of what it is all for. On a local level, such as a family home relationships matter. Taking care of and fostering rapport between the parents AND the  parent and child is pivotal in setting up future interaction and harmony within the family unit. This involves putting the needs of others before our own and that action speaks louder than words directly to the ...

updated 2/11/16 Metacognition, in layman’ s terms signifies how we approach the world through our thinking, to think about our thinking in order to review and edit our thought process so that we can gauge, change, maintain or seek to improve our course of action. Many of the students I work with do not place great value on social norms. Invariably, some of their traits and characteristics get ‘taken on by me.’ This is what happens when you are with someone for so long. Do we take on a bit of each other due to empathy? Are we like open books that we can write or code on each other a bit here and a bit there?  Processing (digesting code).  #theFieldGeneral, who is on the #autism spectrum is processing digested code on a a constant basis. We do it similarly, but ‘faster’  using a completely different cranial physical makeup. That is to say,  our brain is physically made slightly different because of the way we use it to think. The train tra...

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...

As a performance-based Special Educator and Executive Function Skills Coach it is imperative to have a healthy understanding of the best instructional practices, methods and strategies in relation to the students one coaches. Consequently, identifying and implementing practical, novel approaches that can be easily incorporated by students and their support system is a must. Not only that, being able to convey these in an understandable effective and efficient manner so that they are carried out successfully in the coaches absence is a priority. In light of these points of frame, the search, experimentation, practice and polishing off of contextual activities buttressing the development of cranial connectivity between right and left hemispheres and the prefrontal cortex where our executive function skill abilities fire off is paramount to my work. To this end, the use of the below activities create a ‘back-door approach’ to distill the strenuous development of our cognitive sk...

I s it possible to connect one's work with what one loves? What fruit comes when you bring work and play together? How does passion play into the equation if it is mixed with our work? In the heat of the moment, a Father wrestled with how to embark on how to best empower his son. The boy was diagnosed with autism, a condition created almost completely by damaging preservatives found in vaccines that severely damages brain tissue. These preservatives are heavy metals like aluminum and are listed on the CDC's website. There is also strong scientific evidence pointing to other factors that exacerbate the severity of autism in a child, such as bisphenol A, and exposure to modern day environmental pollutants which can be found in the food, water and air. This post is  about what one parent did in response for his son. Its about being positively   and lovingly proactive and not sitting back with his main priority of taking care of his family. This post is about how I...