The Power of the Arts: Creative Strategies for Teaching Exceptional Learners

Provides an alternative method for teaching academic subjects to students with disabilities, focusing on the arts. Through interviews with teacher-artists, readers will get step-by-step instructions for projects that enable students to see science in woodwork, find geometry in sculpture, learn vocabulary through theater, and study math through music. Of interest to educators, art teachers and therapists, learning disability specialists, and parents. Smith is founder and director of The Lab School of Washington, and director of the Master's Degree Program in Special Education and Learning Disabilities at American University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Sally L. Smith is the Founder/Director of The Lab School of Washington, a school she founded and designed in 1967 for intelligent children and adults with learning disabilities. Since 1976, she has been a professor in the School of Education at The American University in charge of the Master's Degree Program in Special Education: Learning Disabilities.

Professor Smith is a national leader in the field of learning disabilities. In May, 1999, she was recognized by Birmingham-Southern College as a "Woman of Distinction." In October, 1997, she was the first recipient of the Celebrating Abilities Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Learning Disabilities presented by the Learning Disabilities Association of Georgia. In May, 1995, Professor Smith was honored with the 1995 American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Other Professional Contributions. In February, 1993, she received the LDA Award from the Learning Disabilities Association of America, the highest honor given in her field, in recognition and appreciation of outstanding leadership in the field of learning disabilities.

She is one of the elected specialists on the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning Disabilities Association of America and was an elected member of the Professional Advisory Board of the National Center of Learning Disabilities for 6 years. The 1985 Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annual included a section on learning disabilities authored by Sally Smith. Since 1988, she has been a consultant on learning disabilities to the State Department Family Liaison Office and since 1990, a member of the Advisory Board of the I Have A Dream Foundation in Washington, D.C. Professor Smith served on the U.S. Task Force on the Definition of Developmental Disabilities in 1976/1977 and has been a consultant to numerous organizations and state bodies. She has testified as an expert witness before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. She was a member of the Advisory Council on the Arts in Education for the National Endowment for the Arts. She has run workshops all over the United States and Canada well as in Greece and in Switzerland for the European Council of International Schools.

It is Professor Smith's belief that everyone can learn, and she has designed teaching approaches involving all the art forms and experiential education to teach academic skills to children and adults. In 1967, she originated the Academic Club Method, which has been overwhelmingly successful with Lab School students.

As the author of eight books and a number of articles in professional magazines, Professor Smith has mastered the art of translating difficult clinical issues into popular language. Her best known books are No Easy Answers: The Learning Disabled Child At Home and At School (Bantam, 1995) and Succeeding Against the Odds: Helping the Learning Disabled Realize Their Promise (Tarcher/Perigee, 1993). Succeeding Against the Odds was the recipient of the New York Orton Dyslexia Society's 1995 Margot Marek Book Award. Sin Respuestas Simples: El Nino con Problemas de Aprendizaje En El Hogar Y en La Escuela (Editorial Plaza Mayor, Inc.), the Spanish translation of No Easy Answers, is expected in the fall of 1999. Different Is Not Bad: Different Is The World (Sopris West, 1994), a book on disabilities for young children is being used widely in inclusive classrooms. In 1996, both No Easy Answers and Different is Not Bad: Different is the World were selected to receive the prestigious 1996 Parents' Choice Award.