Grace and Confidence - Beautifully Displayed

"Education Reclaimed ... Confidence is restored. Frustration is lessened. Barriers are overcome. Learning takes place. Success is possible at Dallas Academy. "

These are the first words I saw at the Dallas Academy web site.

Thirty years ago, I was lucky enough to work as Business Manager at DA for three school years. They were busy, never dull years surrounded by approximately 50 secondary school students, mostly male, who needed different approaches to learning but were in every other way typical high school kids. Oh, lord were they . . .

Wednesday night's Dallas Morning News feed caught my attention, quickly. Academy Basketball Coach Sees A Win in 100-0 Loss Something in the feed must have mentioned Dallas Academy because I followed the link. I was expecting a "pity party."

In addition to the news story, what I found was a video of the coach and the Dallas Academy Ladies Basketball Team talking about the experience and their hope to get better at the game. While they didn't win, they knew that they played to the best of their abilities.

With only 20 girls in the upper school, it is a "thin" team of 8 for the Academy. Of the 6 interviewed by the DMN, 3 were freshmen.

The story was followed quickly by another. XXXX School Seeks to Forfeit 100-0 win A week after the loss and the day the story was published in the print copy - although it was on the net the night before, XXXX School officials contacted and visited Dallas Academy to apologize for the "victory without honor."

Dallas Academy continued to not feel victimized. Athletic Director Civello said, "the girls' team, which hasn't won a game in his four years there, doesn't want to be credited with a victory it didn't earn on the court."

Public reactions that I heard and read, mostly read, convince me that the general public still does not know that folks with learning differences are not physically or mentally handicapped. They just LEARN DIFFERENTLY.

There is sooooo much I want to say about this event (particularly after reading the Associated Press account of the game) but neither the students, the parents nor staff of Dallas Academy are publicly going down that path so neither will I.

"Even if you are losing, you might as well keep playing," said Shelby Hyatt, a freshman on the team. "Keep trying, and it's going to be OK."

Works for me!

Edited to add:

Of course I no sooner hit the "post" button than Jacquielyn Floyd's DMN Saturday Column appeared in my feed. So well said. It's why I don't quit my day job.

Do I Have A Taker

We needed some stamps the other day. I usually pick them up at the machine in the lobby when I'm doing my mailing but the counters were empty so I popped in to wish the clerks a Happy New Year.

Pulled the stamps out of my bag today and stopped dead when I saw the $8.40 stamp. What the heck . . .

I realized that, of course, is the price of the folder but I can't help but wonder how far a package would get with that $8.40 stamp on it.

Any takers?

Color The New Year

The first color or two for your website are easy but what should you use for that third, fourth or fifth color?

Pogo's Place and Pogo's Place Books were easy when I started. Turtles are green and Pogo needed to be a dark green. The pale yellow background followed easily but how to find complimentary colors.

The folks over at CrystalXP.net have highlighted 5 free tools to help you pick the perfect colors for your website as well as a handful of other free tools to fuel your imagination.

Get going and spruce up that site.