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More Than a Mutt
By Robin Jurczyk
Henry Wrinkles Foundation
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010 12:11 PM CDT
Students in Tammy Cole’s classroom at the School for the 21st Century were taped by Jimmy Penney from the EAST Initiative/Ram Channel on Sept. 8 for a segment on CBS about the Muttigrees curriculum developed by Yale University.
Muttigrees is a curriculum developed by the Edward Zigler Child Development Center at Yale that focuses on the social and emotional learning of children through the use of “muttigrees,” dogs that have been adopted from shelters. It is being developed by Yale’s School of the 21st Century in collaboration with Pet Savers Foundation and supported by the Caesar and Illusion Milan Foundation. |
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| Paragould’s School of the 21st Century (S21C) was one of the five pilot sites when the program launched last year in five states. Dr. Mattia Stevenson at Yale contacted Vicki Shelby, program director at S21C, to share that CBS wants to do a segment on Muttigrees. They needed video footage of an experienced teacher doing the program in the classroom. Tammy Cole piloted the curriculum last year with her class and offered feedback for revisions, so her classroom was chosen. The revised curriculum includes puppets and the involvement of real life Muttigrees. With that in mind, Yale wanted a real dog that had been adopted from a shelter in the footage. |
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Henry Wrinkles was contacted and he joined Cole’s classroom for the taping. Henry was adopted from PAWS six years ago by Susan Boyd and is familiar with the curriculum since he was involved with one pilot session last fall. Before he arrived, the children read a book about dogs and created a chart about the parts of a dog’s body. When Henry arrived, they were able to confirm their information was correct.
After discussing how animals and people have many of the same body parts, the children went to their tables and drew their own version of a Muttigree.
The Muttigrees curriculum will be promoted all across Arkansas through S21C schools and be available to others. For more information, contact Vicki Shelby at vshelby@paragould.k12.ar.us or by phone at (870) 236-8064. |
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