The Learning Clinic - P.O. Box 324, Brooklyn, CT 06234-0324 - Tel 860 774 5619
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OUR MISSION -
OUR HISTORY -
COMMUNITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS
THE DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
The message of 2005 is a reminder of how far we've come.
The Learning Clinic's 25th Anniversary (Founded 1980)
Our twenty-five year anniversary naturally marks a time to reflect on how far we have come and our goal for the future. Such reflection is threatened by the bias of selective remembering and forgetting. Our experiences with staff and students create both desires: To remember and forget. Clearly, the fun, innovation and positive experiences far exceed those incidents best forgotten.
Any journey over a span of time and events is difficult to define. My experience at TLC has often felt as if I were living four separate lives: Before TLC; early programs; middle years of growth; and now, our emerging future. Throughout all the stages, we have had one overarching goal. And throughout all the stages, our greatest concern has been, and continues to be the assessment of results.
The time “before TLC” was characterized by our family life, raising two children and educating ourselves. The early years of TLC were exciting times—full of imagination, speculation, trial and error applications of ideas, large personal risk, and near financial disaster. The middle years were full of support from many communities and individuals and acceptance of our use of technology and new software. Our years of growth brought us many new families and students. In 1986 we began our residential program. Our stamina and resources met a challenge when we began offering services day and night, all year long.
This year we are consolidating our experiences and researches. We have published one book and plan a new book for 2006 that will focus on our students in transition to independence. We are adding buildings for education and residential programs.
Over the years our staff has grown in experience, skills, dedication, resolve, and numbers. We began with three staff and now have seventy talented and dedicated people. We continue to add specialists. Our structure and infrastructure are growing in complexity and efficiency with a focus on the overarching goal of TLC.
From the beginning, we have fulfilled many purposes, but our overarching goal is the student’s success. This goal has five characteristics. It reflects our core purpose. It is feasible. It poses challenges. It has larger significance than any individual goal. And it sums up everyone’s endeavors at TLC. We define student success in terms of academics, self-reliance, and contribution to others.
In 1980 the feasibility of a school—let alone a different type of school using new technology—seemed improbable to my colleagues at Brown University and The University of Connecticut. Northeast Connecticut was remote. Technology—computers and software—and technical knowledge were esoteric and in early stages of development. One friend told me that no one would come to be educated in such a new school that used computers to assist instruction. Some educators characterized TLC as an unfeasible idea, and I was advised to count my blessings and continue to teach.
TLC took form slowly. First we were a computer center that offered tutorials and psychological assessments. Then on weekends, school holidays, and summers, we took educational “safaris” on sailboats and other vessels. We learned navigation, marine biology; we watched whales. We wrote our own software, enlisted graduate students in technology and engineering and taught students to write their own programs. We employed the efforts of our entire family and friends.
The evidence of students’ successes came almost immediately. Word spread by parents that a new place offered opportunities to children that produced results and increased their motivation to succeed. The larger significance of the TLC experiment in a rural northeast Connecticut community emerged with recognition by the Wall Street Journal, from Virginia Satir, a world-renowned therapist, and with the United Nations’ use of our educational software, Words and Numbers. But most important, the lives of our students changed for the better.
Our wonderful staff has developed skills and has stayed to contribute their talents as our common purpose has integrated our individual specialties and endeavors. Our first school building has spawned many settings for learning and living. Our acres have grown and allow us to wander and explore on campus and in Maine. Our researches and dialogues with other professionals, our publications and new experiences continue to help us increase our knowledge and skills. The contributions made by our families, both of our staff and our students, keep us alive, changing, and in touch with our overarching goal to create an environment to nurture each student’s success. Our twenty-five years have passed with the result that we have built a strong foundation upon which to continue our pursuit of our goal.
Strong, talented people make all things possible. We have a strong, talented staff, student body, and alliance of families. All have met the challenges and have made TLC more than feasible as we face new challenges together. We thank all those who help so freely and remember those no longer with us whose contributions are so important in bringing us to today.
Raymond W. DuCharme, Ph.D.
Executive Director
It is the mission of The Learning Clinic Country Day School
and The Rolling Ridge Residential Program to provide a complete
range of services in education and treatment for students
and their families.
Our aim is to assist students in meeting their academic
goals and preparing for future experiences in educational,
vocational, and community settings. Our programs prepare
students to live and work as full participants within their
communities.
Most important, we aim to help students maintain and improve
their relationships with their families, with parents and
siblings, and their social interactions and relationships
within the larger community.
Raymond W. DuCharme, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Raymond W. DuCharme, Ph.D. established the Learning Clinic in 1980.
Based on his extensive experience in education psychology, research, and diagnosis of adolescent behavioral disorders,
Dr. DuCharme envisioned the need for a program that would offer research-based therapeutic education to improve mood,
attention, learning - and increase a child’s self-confidence in academic and interpersonal pursuits.
Through his vision, The Learning Clinic was established to provide a fidelity of treatment for young people who are
frustrated by not being able to do their best. This curriculum addresses each person’s individual learning style and ability,
no matter what the academic, social or emotional issue.
The Learning Clinic was founded from the strong belief that each child must form strong ties with his or her family, school,
and community. The school is small, selective and personal, and has evolved into a unique educational community in an intimate environment.
Through it’s Day, Extended Day, Residential, and Assisted Living programs, TLC offers every child guidance and nurturance.
Under Dr. DuCharme’s direction the school has achieved the following milestones during the process of becoming the successful program it is today:
- First computer curriculum for LD “gifted” students in the United States.
- Day and Extend Day Programs first established 1980 - 1985.
- Residential Program established 1986.
- Transitional Living Program established 1990.
- Community Based Living Program established 1994.
As originally established, all TLC programs today are tailored to improve academic and personal success because: Every child can succeed!
Raymond W. DuCharme, Ph.D.
Executive Director
OUR COMMUNITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Home)
TLC is governed by the following boards: Community Board
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