Ellen Fisher Turk
I have worked since 1975 with special needs children as well as self-sufficient preschool children and kindergartners. During the 40 plus years I’ve worked as a Special Educator I’ve observed how children learn, how they use play and pretend to master their world, how they copy their peers, how to reassure them they’re safe and how to gain their trust.
As I play with children they're redirected toward productive behaviors and learning. They share, master their toys, play with other children, enliven their curiosity and language.
Just like adults they need to feel respected, feel safe and listened to by the people who are caring for them. When they see they're safe, they’ll trust their significant adult and lend their listening to her.
Why would educated parents not insist on having their caregivers or nannies be educated in the most effective educational methods?
The Make Smart Kids workshops do just that.
I have a masters degree with a specialization in learning disabilities from Manhattanville College, post-graduate clinical training as a play therapist from The Jewish Board's ECGT program (Early Childhood Group Training), course work in effective behavioral methods working with spectrum children from University Settlement and YAI as well as post-graduate study of modern psychoanalytic theories.
Early on in my career, teaching at Grafflin School in Chappaqua (1974-6), I administered kindergarten inventories to assess children’s readiness for Kindergarten. Later, I developed programs to reduce individual children’s learning delays. As a learning specialist working with preschool special education children I’ve worked with 3-5 year olds in their day care centers, Head Starts, Universal Pre K’s, private schools and homes. Children naturally join my play because it's inclusive and fun.
As an SI educator of children, age 0-3 and SEIT, Special Education Itinerant Teacher, with children ages 3-5 in Manhattan, I’ve worked with Hydrocephalic, Autism Spectrum, Down Syndrome, Expressive Language Delayed children, little ones with Auditory Processing Delays, Learning Disabilities, children who are unable to use their limbs and children diagnosed with ADHD.
I've collaborated with teachers and kept parents abreast on how their beloved child was doing and what they could do at home. I freely share my methods and insights with teachers and parents. They're always play based and work with all children because children's play is their work. Children master their world, skills and insight through their play. Make play inviting and they come right over.
The children I’ve been fortunate to contribute to are a cross section of the demographics of New York City. They’ve been middle class as well as impoverished. Some parents are college educated and others were not. Their ethnicities have spanned the world and ranged from children who are born here to children who were not, children who had caregivers and children who lived with their parent in a shelter, little ones who were placed in Foster Care and children who were cared for by a Nanny who herself hailed from an impoverished country and left her children behind while she cared for a professional’s family.
My Nanny Coach's Q & A and Make Smart Kids workshops will sharpen the insight of parents and caregivers because they focus on maximizing children’s potential and happiness. Through the Q & A and workshops I'm passing on my knowledge.
Both will reassure parents that they and their caregivers are being given tools to maximize their child's happiness, curiosity and language. The workshops are experiential and sensory based, appropriate for their child’s needs, age and temperament.
Children often spend more time with a caregiver than with their parent. I'm out to train these adults how to use that time maximally, so that the children who I believe matter most, benefit.
