GEDS Program - 3rd Week

Dear all,

Here we are, beginning our third week of the GEDS Program.

The huge change in our daily lives brought by this exciting experience has demanded an adaptation process to reorganize our routines.

From this standpoint, our second newsletter is mainly about “getting engaged” with the planned experiences, the people and the social and cultural life of Chapel Hill.

Our day begins with a 15 minutes’ walk to Chapel Hill University, mainly to two distinct destinations: the Peabody Hall and the Family Support Network. Even though the cold is hard, the landscape is beautiful: large roads surrounded by quiet spaces of houses and trees.

The two distinct locations of our work, the Peabody Hall and the Family Support Network , although different, have been conducting us to convergent action lines.

Peabody Hall is usually the starting point. There we attend the interesting course of Child Development and Disability – which emphasizes typical and atypical manifestations of cognitive, social/emotional and communicative development in children. Very close to Peabody Hall – in Greenlaw building - we have been engaged on the course Communicating in the American Classroom, where themes as learning styles, typical expressions and non-verbal communication in an American classroom, have been addressed.

A beautiful office was kindly provided to us at Peabody Hall. It has been the reference point to develop our individual study and to face other interesting research challenges regarding ICF domains and the available measurement tools. A little bit far away - in Seawell School Road – we have been discovering a brand new knowledge about appropriate learning environments and curriculum strategies for young children with and without disabilities at Early Childhood Intervention and Family Support Course.

The “American experience” is being really interesting, particularly the opportunity to attend courses at the Chapel Hill University, as well as to have the opportunity of learning from different perspectives which are being very important steps for our learning process.

Regarding the other preferential destination - Family Support Network - we have been deeply engaged on the core literature reading and on the interaction with the whole excellent team, achieving a brand new learning on Parent-to-Parent Programs and Family-Centered Practices. Today the FSN-NC is a statewide affiliation of community-based family support programs that also promotes the involvement of family members in the development and implementation of family-centered practices in North Carolina.

For last but not less important, we are finding on Chapel Hill a great center of cultural activities that promotes every weekends at Memorial Hall a different show – from artistic dance to beautiful Jazz concerts. Also, there are emotive sports activities related to the North Carolina Basketball Team.

We are engaging on Chapel Hill life and the knowledge and personal growing has been amazing – so much experiences we are collecting.

Soon we will tell you more.