MMFS teachers were out in force at the recent NYSAIS Student Support Conference. Four of our brilliant faculty members were invited to give presentations to the sold-out gathering at the beautiful Mohonk Mountain House resort. Our teachers shared their wisdom and experience to answer the essential questions on the conference agenda:
Divya Seshadri and Carly Guiterman (LS and MS CSE Coordinators) teamed up to present “Student Feedback, Support, and Outcomes,” exploring how to effectively support students, especially those with learning disabilities or neurodivergences, through collaborative, actionable practices. Their workshop emphasized the importance of clear, bias-aware communication about student needs and progress with teachers, support and service providers, administrators, parents, and CSE teams. (Special thanks to Jessica Simpson-Somerville, US CSE Coordinator, currently on leave, who helped develop this work.)
Cara Shaw (Upper School Head English Teacher) presented “Outliers, Outlaws, Outcasts: Storytelling Beyond the Hero’s Journey.” The objective of the workshop was to perceive messages threaded around us through the combined lens of “Outliers,” “Outlaws,” and “Outcasts”—where the stories we hear (and the ones we tell ourselves) have aspects of leadership, defiance, and failure instead of demarcations of winning and losing by heroes and villains.
Leah Wasserman (Middle School Speech-Language Pathologist) offered a workshop titled “Reading Disabilities: Getting on the Same Page” that explored questions like What is reading? How does reading connect to oral language? and What is going on when students struggle with reading and/or oral language? Leah clearly defined for her audience “reading” and “language” from neurobiological and functional perspectives, and shared instructional approaches that help all students develop strong reading and speaking skills.
