Lorri Horn, born and raised in California, has been working with kids all her life. She has a Masters of Arts in Education, a Bachelors of Arts in English, a California State teaching credential, and has been Nationally Board Certified in Secondary Education. Lorri taught English and journalism at Santa Monica High School for 15 years. She also served as English department chair and Teacher Leader for six years, was a mentor teacher, and taught UCLA California Literature Project.
Lorri’s background as a career schoolteacher and instructional leader make her especially qualified to help you with your educational needs. She homeschools and tutors students in English (Language Arts), critical reading, and writing. She also works with elementary school through college-aged students who need assistance with executive functioning in all content areas. When she’s not tutoring other people’s children, or wrangling her own child to do his homework, she writes books.
A Bit About the Executive Functioning Work I Do With Students:
I work with students, mostly upper elementary school on the cusp of transitioning into middle school, all the way into college age. Along with any test data and parental input, I generally use a constructivist approach mixed with critical and culturally relevant pedagogy to find out what is of value to the child as we construct a work plan together.
I approach executive functioning as a skill learned in the context of some greater purpose or goal, as I can think of few topics more dull to a child than learning these skills in isolation. We artfully weave them into whatever it is they face for the week(s) ahead and get some buy-in for what needs to get done. I think kids find me pretty funny and fun, and that helps, along with a full-sized dose of mirroring back to them any misery or frustration they feel. Empathy takes us far.
Many of my students are gifted students who have been or not yet been diagnosed with ADHD. Many, I think, would qualify as 2e, and part of the problem they face lies in the dogmatic adherence to a traditional sequence they encounter in schools (even those that claim to be progressive). Additionally, they struggle with teachers who have their own executive functioning challenges — whereas some students are able to navigate such discombobulated instructions, mine often get lost or check out.
I utilize many educational, psychological, and philosophical thinkers in my work with students — essential concepts such as Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, Bruner’s scaffolding, Ogbu’s oppositional behavior, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, Dewey’s constructivism, and Freire’s critical consciousness.
I offer both support and instruction to children in these ways. I also help parents to understand some of the greater contexts for their children’s challenges and how they might better assist them between our sessions (both in terms of logistics and in terms of the artful dance of handling teenagers who don’t want interference). My role is often liaison as much as anything else.