Grown Man Now: Memoir of a Special Educator
Now we can all be in her class!
Grown Man Now grants a rare and welcome perspective from a respected writer who is a professional educator, an author of groundbreaking textbooks (see About the Author), and a mother of four adults, one of whom has Down syndrome and is the book s Grown Man Now.
Many books offer insight into the life and development of infants, children and teens with Down syndrome. Grown Man Now lays its foundation here, but the difference between this book and others about people with special needs is its message that life doesn’t end when school is over. In fact, for most individuals the most challenging years involve adult concerns: housing and home life, work, health, spirituality and community.
Billy’s early years coincide with momentous American social movements: departure from institutionalizing children with disabilities, development of integration and civil rights movements, and federal legislation requirements for the education of children with disabilities through mainstreaming to inclusion. Grown Man Now reminds us of how far we have come in our understanding of people with special needs. It paints an intimate portrait of such an individual as well as a broader panorama of social change surrounding his development. People who are now enjoying the expression and reward of self-advocacy, independent and interdependent individuals who enjoy their lives, and communities that embrace the value and inspiration of diverse people will be moved and enlightened by this book.
Jane B. Schulz, EdD taught thousands of students during her career: college students, mainstreamed elementary students, special education classes and kindergarten. Through this deeply personal, honest memoir, she is still teaching, and now the audience includes us all.
Dr. Schulz lives and works a message of love and outreach, and in Grown Man Now she teaches us all to overcome obstacles, to understand and celebrate diversity, to avoid prejudice in all forms, to include people of all circumstance, and to advocate for those we love and for those in need. Her book is as her students describe her: warm, stimulating, engaging, penetrating, and funny; it is incorporated as required reading in college classrooms.
Grown Man Now is a personal journey as well as a historical one. Born in the 1920s, her early years convey the family life and exterior forces that molded her character into this determined peacemaker and civil rights pioneer. In 1956, at a time when people with Down syndrome were called Mongoloid and were considered hopeless and disposable, her third son, Billy, was born with the disability not diagnosed for over a year. Schulz’s life and memoir chronicle the development of hope and opportunity for people with disabilities from Billy’s infancy through the present, where the reader is given a rich portrayal of the life of a middle-aged man with Down syndrome, a grown man now.
See Jane and Billy Schulz in videos on several pivotal topics (Advocacy for People with Disabilities, Education Then and Now, Real Work / Real Community, Independence and Interdependence) and share some lighter moments (Frogs, Pool Shark Billy) on their website, grownman.com.
Also available, unabridged, as an audio MP3-CD which syncs online for chapter titles. Live the triumphs, heartbreak and laughter with the author and her son, Billy–their story, in their own voices. Inspiring on a daily walk or drive. Excellent for people with visual disabilities.
Play time approx. 11 hours.
