[Reader-list] A fellowship for teaching children with special needs

[Chintan Girish Modi]

>From http://dekeyserandfriends.org/projects/teaching-project/overview

Come and teach with Green Chimneys!

Have you ever dreamed of making a difference in a child’s life? Live for
three months on the Green Chimneys campus in Brewster, New York and
experience hands-on the unique Green Chimneys approach to teaching children
with special needs with the help of animals! Together with your project
Friend Dr. Ross, the founder of Green Chimneys, you will not only learn
about their work but share your experiences and help others understand this
special way of helping children in need.



Starting end of August 2011 you will spend three months learning about
animal assisted therapy for children using a variety of pets and farm
animals. Green Chimneys offers a multitude of programs ranging from a day
school to residential treatment facilities. In all learning programs the
students are engaged with animals, for example by helping to release injured
animals back into the wild, horse grooming and riding, training assistance
dogs for people with physical challenges and many other activities.

During the first weeks of the project you will get introduced to these
different activities, experience the unique Green Chimneys approach by
shadowing the teachers and therapists and eventually get involved in lesson
planning and taking on responsibility for activities yourself. During your
time at Green Chimneys you will work with students with very different
backgrounds and learning challenges.

As you go through the process of learning how the members of Green Chimneys
work with their students and animals, you will document your own learning
progress and experiences. The challenge of this Dekeyser&Friends project
will be to help Green Chimneys make their approach more widely known and
allow others to benefit from their experience. To complete this challenge
you will spend the last month of the project compiling your experiences as a
group and find a creative way to make them available to people world-wide as
a how-to guide, so that more and more children and adolescents will be able
to benefit from the Green Chimneys approach.

As a Dekeyser&Friends Fellow in this project you will not only benefit from
the fantastic experience with your Friend Dr. Ross and gain exciting
hands-on knowledge about animal assisted therapy. You will also participate
in two unique Dekeyser&Friends program components: the D&F World and the
DreamLab. The D&F World is a series of media workshops and tasks that will
help you express yourself confidently using modern media, and inspire a
worldwide audience by sharing your personal experiences during the project.
The DreamLab is a series of workshops and skill sessions designed to inspire
you to create your DreamPlan – an action plan to implement a dream you have
– and to give you the skills to implement this plan when you return home
after the project.

The combination of benefitting from the exchange with your Friend, getting
hands-on knowledge on the Green Chimneys approach, learning to implement a
challenging project, combined with the skills and confidence you gain in the
work for the D&F World and the DreamLab will allow you to transfer what you
learn in the project and get inspired to use it to realize your own dreams
in the future!

To apply, check out http://dekeyserandfriends.org/fellows/apply