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Ian Spence, Ph.D., M.S.W., Headmaster,
Ben Bronz Academy, Webmaster. In High School, I dreamed about
being an Engineer. Upon my graduation, I had the luck that my father was
appointed as a Consultant with the World Health Organization (Agricultural
Ecomomics) in Iran, so for the next year I became a student at the University
of Teheran - and my travels in the middle east caused my interests to change
to Social Work. My MSW work was at McGill (1959-61), after which I worked
at Girls Cottage School, St. Bruno, P.Q., (1961-63) William Roper Hull
Home, Calgary, Alberta, (1963-67) and Hawthorne Cedar Knolls School , N.Y.
(1967-69). I lucked into a wonderful program in Special Education at Yeshiva
University - (behavioral!) (1969-71), learned about Precision Teaching,
and met my wife and partner, Aileen.. Then I joined an equally wonderful
group called Educational Solutions, built around the brilliant innovator
Caleb Gattegno. In 1974 I moved to Spaulding Youth Center in Tilton/Northfield
N.H. with Wells Hively and Ann Dell Duncan Hively, - back to working with
emotionally disturbed children.
After a few years, Aileen and I realized that our greatest
success was in work with Learning Disabled children, so when we moved to
Connecticut, we started The Learning Incentive, and later Ben Bronz Academy.
Along the way, I learned how to program, and began developing the Fluency
programs that are now used at the Academy and in CyberSlate. My rule of
thumb is "If it is a task that wears down a teacher, computerize it!" |
