A couple of weeks ago two other students, our supervisor Dave, and I traveled to Kansas City to visit Missouri's version of our orientation center. It's called Alphapointe. It is much different than ours. It's different physically and philosophically.
The building itself is only seven years old, and still smells new, where ours is ... well, a hell of a lot older. Alphapointe is all on one floor, where our orientation center has six floors, seven if you count the basement and we do use the basement. Alphapointe is located out in what seemed to me to be an office park-like area. Away from the city. In Des Moines we're located smack dab in the middle of the city.
In my opinion the most important difference is between the philosophies of each orientation center. While Alphapointe has an environment of a sheltered workshop where workers assemble writing pens for the federal government and manufacture plastic bottles for VA hospitals, it seems like they funnel their clients in that direction. It seems to me that they teach their clients specific skills to reach their goal of employing them.
The goal at the Iowa center, in contrast to Alphapointe, is to give the students tools they need to be competitive and independent in their daily living. Don't get me wrong, we work hard at the center and we earn the tools we have when we leave the school. Since we have the tools to cope in the day to day activities it takes to secure a job and hold onto any career that we choose, I believe we have a stronger center than other states do.
As I've noted in this writing the Kansas City center tries to funnel their students toward a certain type of employment. The Iowa center is like a sieve, students venturing out to do whatever career they are interested in. Now, everyone isn't successful, but everyone has the green light to try out what they are interested in. I think we are pretty capable of doing anything, except drive a cab, or fly a plane, although with the computers on board, piloting a plane may be more realistic than driving a car.
In short, we are given the tools to achieve whatever we want to achieve. It's like teaching a person to fish, not just feeding him the fish.
I like the analogy you use to describe the two programs. Given that the Des Moines program gives students broader exposure to learning skillsets, do they ever allow for "independent study" or for students to tell the center what they would like to learn about? Seems like it could be a good way for the program to keep evolving their curriculum and stay relevant.
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