Save the Date –

Dedication Ceremony
School of Education Complex
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2007
Details to come.

 

 

 

TCU's Starpoint School celebrates its 40th anniversary

Starpoint School, TCU's laboratory school for children with learning differences, is celebrating its 40th anniversary, acknowledging the tremendous impact the school has had on more than a thousand children. Part of the celebration will include a banquet, featuring alumni from Starpoint School, Saturday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the Kelly Center. There will also be an open house from 1-5 p.m.  Friday, March 2 at the school, located at 2805 Stadium Drive.

"It has been quite exciting and a great honor to serve and help children over the last 40 years," said Marilyn Tolbert, director and Jean W. Roach Chair of Laboratory Schools. "Starpoint School continues to be an outstanding academic environment for children. As [former director] Mrs. Laura Lee Crane said so many years ago, 'the term Starpoint carries its own meaning. A star is self-luminous; a point gives luminosity a place. Starpoint School is self-luminous, a shining place.' Truer words were never spoken. Starpoint continues to shine and shine brightly into the future."

During the past 40 years, Starpoint School has worked with over 1,600 children. Many of the students who have graduated from Starpoint School have excelled academically in middle and high school. Some have even returned to TCU and others are teaching special education. One student, after graduating from Starpoint School, progressed through high school and then went on to earn a degree at Yale and advanced degrees at Cambridge University. Another student, who couldn't read or write when she arrived at Starpoint School, advanced her academic skills all the way through college to achieve a degree in communications. One student went on to become a dentist; one became a systems analyst with a high-tech firm and another graduated from culinary school in New York.

Starpoint School was established on TCU's campus as a result of M.J. and Alice S. Neeley's dream to develop a school where children with learning differences could learn and university students could learn to teach them. The Neeleys, whose grandson struggled academically in school, felt that teachers should be trained to help children with special needs. In 1966, they founded Starpoint School with a goal to provide individualized academic programs for children ages 6-12 years old with learning difference and/or attention deficits that interfere with academic progress.      

In keeping with Neeley's original intent, Starpoint School is an active educational laboratory where TCU faculty, staff and students are afforded the opportunity to observe, study, research and participate in a quality education program for young children with academic difficulties. TCU students from across all academic units have benefited from their interaction with Starpoint students.

For more information, call 817-257-7141.

Author, teacher offered insight on education

An educator and author of 15 books lectured to an audience of local school administrators and teachers about her ideas on improving education. Nel Noddings, this year's school of education Green Honors Chair, is Professor of Education, Emerita at Stanford University.

During her visit, Noddings gave a lecture on her book, "Happiness and Education." The lecture focused on great thinkers of the past and their ideas on happiness and she discussed the difference between public and private happiness.

"My hope is that the lectures will result in follow-up discussions in classrooms," Noddings said.

TCU has been hosting the Cecil H. and Ida Green Honors chair since 1962. The program provides opportunities for departments to host distinguished scholars, scientists, writers and other career persons.

Noddings said she is very pleased to be chosen as the Green Honors Chair because the Greens were major contributors to Stanford, she said.

Shirley Williams, assistant to the dean of education, said the response from the Fort Worth and other Independent School Districts was very positive because many elementary, middle and high school educators and administrators attended, Williams said.

During her visit, Noddings also presented other lectures for nursing, social work and theology students on campus.

"Dr. Noddings' ideas extend across many typical academic disciplines," said Sam Deitz, dean of the College of Education. "We could profit from specific ideas for ways to improve our programs and general ideas of ways to improve conceptions of how we do what we do."

Noddings has authored approximately 200 articles on various topics, such as the ethics of care and mathematical reasoning.

(source: TCU Daily Skiff)