Why "The American Dream Learning Center"?

As a business that promotes education and health, a good friend recently brought up a good point. She asked "Where did the name 'The American Dream Learning Center' come from?". It is a good question.

It was October 2021. I had just left my classroom job and I was disgusted by what I saw during COVID in the school system in NYC. No matter what you believe about the protocols during COVID, the fact of the matter is we should have been first responders for children. We should have put the children above ourselves, because that is what adults are supposed to do. Because of media outlets and opinionated organizations like the United Federation of Teachers, the energy of fear was pretty prevalent throughout the schools. Instead of encouraging healthy habits like healthy eating and decreasing stress to improve immune system function, there was mandated random testing, reprimanding a child's mask if it wasn't on perfectly, and lots of fear. Fear was the overall dominant energy.

This is not an environment of academic growth and prosperity. Not to mention the massive irony I realized even before I was a Certified Health Restoration Coach: 80% of the immune system lives in the G.I track. The status quo at the time was to be so concerned about a child's mask status throughout the day, but it was fine to pull it down to eat complete processed garbage for snack and lunch. Processed foods lowers their immune system response internally. Being so concerned with a mask while the internal immune system response was lowered by junk food didn't make any sense to me.

After I left the school system, I was venting to a good friend about this. Between the more useless assessments (not all school assessments are created equal) and non-stop tedious paperwork, I wanted to my entire energy to be devoted to scaffolding material and building a strong individualized, academic foundation for children (Learning Coaching). I make one of my long-time clients giggle with this: I call it "The House of Knowledge". It's a great analogy for students to understand the goals of their academic growth and learning new material. You have to build "the house of knowledge".

As a special education teacher in a specialized school, I also saw so much metabolic disease. Consumption of highly processed food and drinks were prevalent. Another chronic issue in the school was GI issues. The sinful part is most medical professionals will say "the GI issues are related to Autism. Take laxatives and have a nice day". It's sad to say, but if I had $5 for every time a child had a laxative related GI mishap in my classroom, I could retire and never work again. I think its medical neglect and child abuse to only recommend laxatives in a school age child that comes to school for services and support. Where is the quality of life?

Later on in late 2022, I found "The Wellness Way" and their case studies that show how much can actually be done to relieve the suffering for these children. I was drawn in by the case studies of getting children relief from these chronic symptoms that disrupted learning outcomes and growth. I started their "Health Restoration Coaching" program in 2023, graduated in May 2024, and I currently offer "Health Restoration Coaching" at The American Dream Learning Center because of what I described above. It's insane to think that a child can be receptive of any academic intervention or service while being in an inflamed metabolic state. Any academic intervention, while being in an unreceptive, inflamed metabolic state, is just added stress on an already stressful situation.

But flashback to October 2021, I was passionately venting to my friend at the gym about my desires to actually structure learning and teach children without the noise that is the demands of the classroom and to promote health & wellness to improve the quality of life of children and families. I needed a name for my business. At the time, I had a Youtube channel called "The Adventures of Ms. A" that I made to reach my students during the COVID era lockdowns. During lockdowns, my teenage students on the Autism Spectrum were acting like typical teenagers: They wanted to be on Youtube at 2 am and sleep during the morning. To bridge this gap, I put myself on Youtube teaching so I can reach them during non-school hours when they were awake :).

But "The Adventures of Ms. A" didn't seem like a real business name. After all my venting, my friend at the gym looked at me and said "The American Dream Learning Center". I was describing the idea of "The American Dream": achieving goals and success while creating the best life possible. That is my mission and what I wish for everyone : having the resources, information, tools, and different perspectives to sculpt the best learning outcomes and quality of life possible.