This past Summer, my wife and I wanted to give our daughter a chance to develop her critical thinking and creative writing ability without all of the pressures and responsibilities during the normal school year. We were introduced to Irina through a mutual friend, and she created a program with a series of interesting and grade level appropriate short stories that served as a launching pad for analyzing characters and imagining what might have come next. Each week there was a reading and writing without "school rules" assignment that Irina would discuss with our daughter. Writing without the rules and grading pressure enabled our daughter to focus on thinking and getting her ideas on paper.  Irina's thoughtful and one-to-one discussions about the stories and analysis of our daughter's writing made each class a highly anticipated activity.  After this program ended our daughter told me she wished she could have Irina as her English and Language Arts teacher all year long. There was a delightful chemistry in this collaboration and it gave our daughter a better feeling about writing and self-expression.  My only regret is Irina is not our next door neighbor who we could frequently visit.

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