One To One, Eye To Eye

Shane Grimes making lemonade with students from Lafayette Junior High School.

It's not easy when you find out that your child has a learning disability. It's not easy when you're the one that has the learning disability. You have probably struggled through a school system that didn't understand the challenges, although there are more public schools now that get it.

There's an organization out there, EYE TO EYE, that pairs an older student, knowledgeable about the struggles, with a younger person still making his/her way through school. There are chapters everywhere in the US, and more being established. If you are the parent of a young student with a learning disability, your child can receive support from someone who has been there.

Purdue University, in its DISABILITY RESOURCE CENTER, has a branch of Eye To Eye's mentoring program. It's a program that helps mentors strengthen their self-awareness, self esteem, and self-determination.



Shane Grimes is a Purdue University student who has been there. He didn't learn to read until he was in the fourth grade, and he couldn't pass a standardized test until he was a junior in high school. Yet, fresh from having completed his bachelor's degree at Purdue's College of Agriculture, he shares his story with students in middle school and high school.

According to Mr. Grimes, "There was a time when I was unsure whether I'd graduate from high school, let alone go to college. Fortunately, I've learned not to dwell on my weaknesses. The main thing is to figure out how to highlight your strengths."

The mentors in Purdue's Eye To Eye program utilize an arts-based curriculum to help mentees understand their own way of thinking, by developing better self esteem and by becoming their own advocates. This program at Purdue has worked with West Lafayette School Corporation for the past four years. College students with learning disabilities are paired with younger students. They meet together for an hour each week, working on art projects to explore their own future aspirations.

As their art project this year, the young charges were tasked with creating a comic book-style career booklet with potential careers they wanted to have later on in their lives.Also, this year Shane served as one of the student coordinators. He discussed his experience, "One of my students was really struggling in science and math, and he wasn't getting his homework done. When I saw in his book that he wanted to be an EMT, I started asking him why the profession appealed to him, and what he'd have to do to make it happen."

Mr. Grimes had conversations with this student in which the student came to realize how important math and science were in his career choice. He also noticed that the younger students were very much helped by seeing these older versions of themselves in college, handling the difficulties and overcoming them.

Susie Swenson is an accommodation specialist at Purdue and the official advisor for Eye To Eye. She reported, "One of the best parts about this program is being able to see the student mentors and mentees just click. In addition to developing these students' confidence and self-advocacy skills, the program lets mentees know that someone is taking time to give them attention, show that they care. and build a connection."

On the other side of the equation is Lori Eubank, a special education teacher at West Lafayette Junior High School. She reported that her students look forward to activities with Eye To Eye. She added, "One of the greatest outcomes from Eye To Eye, from my perspective, is the increased awareness of how advocating and utilizing accommodations can help. Some of the students who participate don't even know what an IEP is before attending Eye To Eye."

Mentees in the Bishop O'Dowd High School program graduate from Eye To Eye.

At the end of the semester-length program, the younger students presented their art projects in a show at West Lafayette High School, along with a ceremony marking their graduation from the program. After Shane marked his own graduation from the University, he said, "When I think about this experience, I realize that that I've learned more from these kids than they learned from me....It makes me even more grateful to be able to give back in such a meaningful way."

Mentor Gerald Porter, University of Wisconsin, and Brianna Malin, University of Illinois.

Thanks for information from this article by Andrea Thomas on Purdue University Disability Resource Center: http://www.purdue.edu/studentsuccess/specialized/drc/about/EyetoEye.html; along with the above links.

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