The school's methodology, known as the Arrowsmith Program, was founded by Arrowsmith Young in 1978 from exercises that she had begun devising for herself in 1977 and which she has stated enabled her to overcome her own severe learning difficulties. Her struggle with a learning disability and the rationale for her program are described in her 2012 book The Woman Who Changed Her Brain. According to Arrowsmith Young, her methodology is based on research into the principle of neuroplasticity, which suggests that the brain is dynamic and constantly rewiring itself.[2] The program has been incorporated into other public and private schools and learning centres in multiple countries.[3]
History
Barbara Arrowsmith Young and her then-husband, Joshua Cohen founded the original Toronto school in 1980 to teach learning disabled children using the program and exercises that Arrowsmith Young had begun devising for herself in 1978 and which she claimed enabled her to overcome her own severe learning difficulties.[4] The original school was housed in a rented building on Yorkville Ave. According to Arrowsmith Young's autobiographical account in her 2012 book, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, she used her middle name for the school in honor of her paternal grandmother (born Louie May Arrowsmith in 1883), who as a young girl had been one of the pioneer settlers of Creston, British Columbia. The Toronto school gradually expanded, and in 1991 she and Cohen decided to open a second school in Brooklyn, New York and wind down the Toronto school. However, by 1994 the New York school had folded, and the marriage of Arrowsmith Young and Cohen had ended. She returned to Toronto and re-opened the school there, this time in a rented building on Yonge St.[2]
The school eventually moved to its present location, a converted house on St. Clair Avenue W in the Forest Hill neighborhood of Toronto.[5] Barbara Arrowsmith Young remains its director and owner as she does of a second, smaller branch in Peterborough, Ontario which opened in 2005.[6] Both branches saw increasing numbers of students from outside Canada following Arrowsmith Young's 2012 speaking tour to New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom to promote her book The Woman Who Changed Her Brain. In October 2012, international students made up about a third of the student population of the Peterborough branch (seven from Australia, one student from the United Arab Emirates, and one from the United States).[7]
In 2005 Howard Eaton opened the Eaton Arrowsmith School in Vancouver which is modelled on the Arrowsmith School in Toronto. The Eaton Arrowsmith School subsequently established further branches in British Columbia at Victoria in 2009 and White Rock in 2012.[8] Eaton then established a branch in the United States at Redmond, Washington, the Eaton Arrowsmith Academy, which opened in September 2014.[9] Eaton is the owner and Director of all four Eaton Arrowsmith schools.
Curriculum and tuition fees
Full-time day students, who form the core of the Toronto school's student body, follow a curriculum which devotes two periods of the school day to mathematics and English, the only two academic subjects taught at the school. The remainder of their time (six periods per day) is taken up with carrying out the cognitive remediation exercises known as the Arrowsmith Program.[10][11]
It also runs part-time programs for both children and adults. The school's annual tuition fees for full-time day students are $30,000.[12]
Arrowsmith Program
The main section of the Arrowsmith School in Toronto.
The Arrowsmith Program (a registered trademark) refers to the Arrowsmith School's methodology which is also available under license to students in some public and private schools in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.[13] Collectively more than 65 schools in these four countries use the program.[14] According to the Arrowsmith School's official website, the program can be used by children and adults with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia who have at least average intelligence, but it is not suitable for people who have an autism spectrum disorder or an acquired brain injury.[15]
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