I just finished reading a great book called Life Entrepreneurs by Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek. The authors interviewed 55 entrepreneurs and looked at the commonalities. Basically, everyone married their hobbies or passions to their work - or stated differently, their work is their passion. This doesn't mean you become a workaholic or anything, just that you fuse the "loves" together and work at what you love. I thought it was a great summary of what everyone should aspire to. One quote I thought was especially important in terms of how we are educating our children (and ourselves) is:

"Students are being asked to play a greater role in their own learning, helping to choose their schools and educational programs ans set their own learning goals. More and more schools are recognizing opportunities to expose students early on to "awakening" and character-forming opportunities, such as global travel, outdoor education, team- and project-based learning, entrepreneurship education, voluntary service learning, internships, and more" 

I think this quote illustrates the philosophy behind the San Carlos Charter Learning Center beautifully. Teach to the whole child and teach them in the way that they learn best. Help them discover who they are and what their values are. Then they can find "work" that matches their values and true selves. 

I think a lot of times children are misdiagnosed with Asperger's or autism when in reality it is probably sensory processing disorder. I am not pretending to be a doctor here and make an armchair diagnosis of anyone, but I think there is a lot of commonality between the three that is missed or not evaluated in depth enough to distinguish between them. There is an article about the founder of BitTorrent who is (self-diagnosed) Asperger's. It is an amazing article in that most people know that there is something wrong with themselves but they don't know what it is until later in life. Most people find coping skills but not complete social conformity.

The sensory processing issues can be debilitating for some: for example, being touched can be excruciating and elicit a fight or flight reaction. For a child that has to line up for recess, lunch, or library time every single day, this can be frustrating or exhausting, not to mention, lead to fighting. 

If you know someone like this, and there are a lot more in the Silicon Valley than in other places, please pass on the article about Bram Cohen at BitTorrent. The comments on the article are illuminating as to the misinformation and mis-perceptions out there.