October 1, 2018
EDCAL 7
Students make their mark and celebrate reading
Young students at Quail Summit
Elementary in Diamond Bar took a spot-on
approach to promoting creativity, art, and
collaboration during Dot Day held Sept. 14.
“It’s a day where we celebrate making a
mark in this word, believing in yourself, and
others,” said elementary learning specialist
Leann Legind.
The annual event was inspired by the
book “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds,
about a caring teacher who dares a doubting
student to trust in her own abilities by being
brave enough to “make her mark.”
What begins with a small dot on a piece
of paper in spires people around the world to
discover the power and potential of creativ-
ity in all they do.
“Dot Day is about not fearing creativ-
ity, but rather embracing it,” said Principal
Frances Weissenberger.
In the past few years, Dot Day has become an international celebration with
more than 13 million students in 178 coun-
tries participating each September.
“Students were so excited to create art on
this special day,” Legind said.
The children and staff members arrived
at school decked out in polka dot clothing,
hats, socks and headbands, with dotted
t-shirts and jeans. Some even sported dot-
ted faces.
Teachers read The Dot to their students
and classrooms created canvas art dots to be
featured in a unique gallery.
The young students joined an outdoor
collaborative art project throughout the day
by painting designs on pink, purple, blue,
green, green, yellow, orange and red circles.
Each grade level also had the opportu-
nity to learn about famous artists such as
Wassily Kandinsky, who created the Squares
with Concentric Rings watercolor in 1913. Third graders painted their own
Kandinsky-inspired masterpieces.
“Dot Day inspired me because anyone
can draw anything if their heart wants to,”
said Macie Marquez.
“Even simple things can be art and art
doesn’t have to be perfect. It teaches us to
persevere and never quit,” said classmate
Ian Xia.
“We connected the dots at Quail Summit
to inspire creative teaching and learning,”
Legind said.
CARSON thy, better known as CIDP. The rare disease
is associated with muscle weakness, loss of
reflexes and decreased mobility in the hands
and feet.
“It’s like your nerve’s a wire,” Ellen
Stubstad said. “And it chomps at the outside
of the wire. And that can grow back over
time. But his also got a bit into the inside
which would be your axons.”
The disease had an immediate impact
on Carson’s daily activities. Simple things
like opening a locker or holding a pencil
were now complex tasks. The loss of bal-
ance led to multiple falls on the Amador
High campus. Carson received medical care
at Stanford University, a three-hour drive
from the high school. Despite the frequent
doctors’ appointments, Carson opted to
keep his condition private from many of his
friends. In fact, he went to great lengths to
hide it. “With my braces, I would always wear
jeans,” Carson said. “And I had a catheter
at one point where it would stick out. And
I was known for wearing sweatshirts. But it
was all normal.”
Carson was also determined to stay up to
speed with his schoolwork.
“All these appointments we went on,
it was, ‘Get me back to school,’” Ellen
Stubstad said. “He also wanted to keep his
grades up. Because he thought if his body
was going to fail him, then he’ll focus on
his brain.”
While many of Carson’s friends were
unaware of his battle with CIDP, some of
the staff members at Amador High were
looped in and quickly stepped up to help.
“That’s the pride we have here in Amador
County of the advantage of being small
town is we truly are a family,” Amador USD
Assistant Superintendent Jared Critchfield
Continued from page 1
do anything really showed me that there’s
always something you can do.”
In November 2013, Carson found his
bright future very much in doubt when he
began experiencing muscle weakness on the
soccer field.
“His PE teacher and the soccer coach
and a couple parents said something’s
wrong with your kid,” Carson’s mother
Ellen Stubstad said. “He’s running weird
and he’s falling over. And we didn’t think
much of it other than we decided to go
to the hospital and just kind of get him
checked out.”
After a battery of tests and several misdi-
agnoses, doctors told Carson he had chronic
inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropa-
All dressed up on Dot Day,
Quail Summit Elementary
students celebrated creativity.
The book “The Dot” is about
a teacher who encourages a
student to make her mark in
the world.
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said. “And you just watch, from counselors
to staff members, teachers, it doesn’t matter.
And this is the kind of stuff this school has
done for decades.”
Nearly five years since the diagnosis,
Carson is now in remission. The unfortu-
nate reality is the disease could return at
some point in the future. Now a freshman
at the prestigious Claremont McKenna
College, Carson is not allowing that fear to
affect his plans. In fact, he says he’s grateful
for the disease.
“It made me the person who I am today,”
Carson said. “I feel like I’m a lot more open
now. Before that, there was not a lot of
adversity. There were just small things. But
going through something this serious, in a
time where you’re growing and learning, it
opened my eyes to other people around me.”