I want to wish the mothers in our lives a happy Mother’s Day, and dedicate this post to all the influential women that strengthen our Assets community. Of course, fathers are important too but on this day, we are reminded of John Steinbeck’s description of Ma, the matriarch of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath. Ma was, “the citadel of the family…..and seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.”  Have there ever been truer words written about the power of mothers? When mom sways, we all shake!

Mother’s Day is a particularly notable holiday at schools like Assets because so many of our industry’s schools have been founded and sustained by mothers. Why? Because as the esteemed neuroscientist, reading researcher and mother of a dyslexic son herself, Dr. Maryanne Wolf tells us,

“No one can ever prepare a parent for two things: the immeasurable love that comes with having a child; and the sorrow and confusion that comes when your child appears to learn in a different way from other children.”

This combination of unconditional love and anguish cause mothers to go on an unrelenting quest to find the most appropriate educational setting for their child. Historically and across the country, when mothers of children who learn differently have surveyed the landscape and haven’t found a school that understood their child’s needs, they often created one themselves that would.

At Assets, we wanted to do something special for Mother’s Day so teacher Jessica Griffin and our student council helped organize an arts and craft activity where students could decorate and give an award to an important woman in their life.

I invite you to take some time and check out the photo essay below of select students sharing their ribbons. While I wasn’t able to include all the students who posed for photos, these students stand for the rest of the school community in our appreciation to all mothers and special women in our lives.

As the ribbon reads, YOU’RE THE BEST BECAUSE……

Happy Mother’s Day!

With aloha and gratitude,

Ryan