Educational Evaluations: Why The B.I.K.E. Method Can Lift Your Child's Peak Academic Performance

“I see dead people…they don’t know that they are dead”. This line comes from the 1999 movie, The Sixth Sense, and is often how I feel when I meet the student and families for the first time.”

I like to meet face to face with anyone who is interested in working with me or my coaches. I do this intentionally for several reasons.

There is something that happens in a relationship when eye contact and the first exchange is made. For me, it is a conscious effort that is necessary to establish trust.

My intention is for us to share in that vulnerable moment of uncertainty. It is during those first few seconds that one makes the choice to move forward towards hope, or continue to protect themselves by standing in fear, armored in defensiveness.

I created a protocol in my company and a specific way of stopping the struggle for the smart child and their families. I named this protocol The Best Investigative Tool For Knowing Everything (The B. I. K. E. )

Through the years I have read thousands of reports that included standardized data, cookie-cutter accommodations/modifications, and diagnosis’s that I have agreed and disagreed with.

I have sat across the table from parents asking me to explain the reports, received emails from teachers asking how the reports effects them, and accompanied clients to doctors visits to collaborate on medical management.

In the end, there is one question that trumps all: “What do we do to fix the problem”.

So the number one question that I pose to whomever I am working with, is, “What do you want to come from this meeting?”

On the last page of typical reports you can expect to find jargon diagnosis, labels, modifications, accommodations,and rating scales.

If you stop to ask yourself the” who” (meaning, who does this information serve)? You will quickly draw the same conclusion as me.

The who is directed toward the systems, not the individual. The largest system is the legal system. The driver behind the formalities and loss of individualism.

In order to qualify for specific accommodations from the school system, national boards of testing, insurance coverage,and disability funding, the system requires a diagnosis or a label. The second system is the health care one.

This system is vital at understanding the who, especially for medical management.

Now let’s return to the question at hand? What is the purpose of this evaluation? If the answer remains the same, “To fix the issue at hand “ then we begin the process of a strategic plan and move forward with The B. I. K. E.

The B. I. K. E. includes the following:

The initial intake, history in the following areas:

• Medical
• Family
• Education
• Behavior
• Nutrition
• Sleep
• Primitive
• Reflexes
• Schedules
• Routines
• Snapshot of life as it is today
• In addition, it includes standardized testing which is deemed necessary following the initial intake, cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and learning styles.

What sets the B. I. K. E. apart from other evaluation tools is the last page.

Remember, this is where people flip to find the label that they can pin on the student.

Once the label is given the expectation is attached and level of potential is formed.

The B. I. K. E. challenges this process and provides the reader with optimization, peak educational performance, and greater opportunities.

On the last page of the B. I. K. E. you will find the only label that I believe is necessary and that is the students first and last name.

The intention is for the reader to be reminded of the person for whom they are looking eye to eye this.

The one who is loving, funny, talented, uniquely observant, sensitive, and the one in five who is capable of changing the world.

One could say that I created the B. I. K. E. to awaken the dead…