Tutorwiz Education Centre

Every since little Cristina was born with Down Syndrome, her parents have been adamant not to define or limit her - and now her mother Mary Iusso has opened a little cupcake shop in Brampton, north of Toronto - where the cupcakes are flying off the shelves! Why? In addition to the fact that the gourmet cupcakes are delicious (we hear), and that her shop, Cristina's Tortina Shop Inc. is named after her beloved daughter - all the staff have Down Syndrome (except for the chef). So when you enter the store you will be greeted by the attendants with Down Syndrome, and the chef's assistants also have .

“I’m doing something that I admire," says Mary, "and by that I mean I admire anyone who looks at somebody as an individual as opposed to a diagnosis. And that’s how I see my daughter. And that’s how I see everyone here."

"I wouldn't change you for the world little C, but I promise to change the world for you, one cupcake at a time," says a big sign as you enter the store - written as a loving, affirmative note to Cristina by her Mom.

The month-old store has been profiled by local television news, and been heralded for its inspiring story.

Join Cristina, Mary and our growing community who believe that Everyone Matters!

Click here so you can receive our NEWSLETTER: http://goo.gl/fMgVyQ

Here's one of the newscasts: http://goo.gl/4y4sei

And their FB link is above, and here: http://goo.gl/Ijwl0k

Thanks to Jessica S. Walsh for suggesting.

Embracing ADHD

Many people consider ADHD to be a lifelong curse. However, the fact is that many highly successful people have or had ADHD.

Thomas Edison was a poster boy for ADHD. He left school at an early age because his teachers deemed him to be “too dumb to learn anything”. In spite of this, he became one of the most prolific inventors of all time, patenting 1093 inventions, including: the light bulb, motion pictures, the phonograph and the electric generator.

Leonardo Da Vinci is noted for only completing a small percentage of the things he started. Through his sketches and illustrations we know that he envisioned hundreds of things quite literally hundreds of years before his time.

Albert Einstein, whose very name is synonymous with genius, suffered with ADHD. He was very forgetful and often oblivious to everything around him. There is a story that one day he left home and headed down the street having forgotten to put on his trousers.
Sir Richard Branson has ADHD and dyslexia. He left school at 15 years of age as he was not gaining anything from it. Today he is self-made billionaire. He is the owner of the Virgin Group which includes amongst other things an airline and Virgin Galactic a company which plans to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists.

All these people have incredible imaginations with thousands of ideas bouncing around in their heads. Most importantly they have the ability to hyper focus. When people with ADHD are passionate about something they can dedicate themselves to it and work and concentrate harder on it than the average person can even imagine. Because their ADHD minds thirst for stimulation they strive in situations in which the average person falls apart. In a crisis, there is no one better to handle the situation than a person with ADHD.

How do I know this? I suffer from ADHD. I was the daydreamer in school. I use to sit at my desk and wander off into Lala land on a daily basis. When I wasn’t daydreaming I was fidgeting in my seat wanting to run around the room. However, I was very fortunate in the fact that I was passionate about learning. When something new was introduced in class I became totally focused.

My lack of interest at university resulted in me dropping out after only a few months. I wandered from job to job. I became fascinated with computers. I returned to university to get my degree in computer science. At this point my ADHD served me well. I could not afford to quit working. Hence I worked full time while attending classes. My passion for computers enabled me to use my ability to shut everything else out. Upon graduation, I worked for IBM Canada. My ADHD helped me skyrocket up the ladder. In one of my positions I was responsible for supporting an online banking system used by many trust companies. If the offline processing did not complete the trust companies could not open for business. Anytime the offline failed I would hop out of bed and head into the office. While everyone was running around in panic mode, I sat at my desk whistling a tune looking for and then fixing the problem. The trust companies always opened on time!

I have two university degrees. I have run a successful company for the past seven years. I am a specialist in special education and I have hosted my own television program for the past three years. I also thoroughly enjoy public speaking especially on the topics of special education and education in general. ADHD has not prevented me from being successful.
Is ADHD a curse? In many ways it is. However, if you embrace it instead of trying to hide or deny it and take advantage of its positive effects which includes the fact that five tornadoes are constantly twirling in your head, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.

Over the next few weeks I plan on writing articles on techniques for dealing with ADHD and harnessing its potential. I will also discuss how to help children who struggle in school due to ADHD.

Kids have a great time programming their own computer games! All camps to date have sold out! Next camp December 14th in Aurora. Sign Up Now!

The fact is EVERY PERSON IS UNIQUE - children with special needs are no different. The fact is we all learn differently. The education system is content teaching in a manner in which a minority of students actually does well. If there actually is a disability it is most certainly a TEACHING DISABILITY!!!!! These "identified students" are only identified because they do not fit in the extremely limited scope of the current teaching methods. Special learning needs do not in any way reflect intelligence! Therefore, why are we using techniques which are in many cases almost totally ineffective in helping these intelligent children gain knowledge and understanding?

The fact is EVERY PERSON IS UNIQUE - children with special needs are no different. The fact is we all learn differently. The education system is content teaching in a manner in which a minority of students actually does well. If there actually is a disability it is most certainly a TEACHING DISABILITY!!!!! These "identified students" are only identified because they do not fit in the extremely limited scope of the current teaching methods. Special learning needs do not in any way reflect intelligence! Therefore, why are we using techniques which are in many cases almost totally ineffective in helping these intelligent children gain knowledge and understanding?

Special Learning Needs do not affect intelligence. You can do great things!

Special Learning Needs do not affect intelligence. You can do great things!

What Tutorwiz IS about

Tutorwiz Education Centre is proud to announce that it will opening in Aurora on Saturday November 23rd. Tutorwiz is a professional service of certified special education teachers helping ALL students, especially those with special needs, reach their full potential in school.