After
graduating with his Bachelor’s degree in 1964, Chuck Stilwell became part of an
18-man team sent to Zaire, Africa, which is now the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. From 1964-1967 he helped train about 100 hand-picked students to become
leaders in their country.
Returning to
San Diego in 1967, he became Vice Principal and teacher with the San Diego, CA,
City & County Schools for 2 years in Outdoor Education, which serviced 24,000
6th graders per year.
Between 1969
and 1972, he taught 5th and 6th grades in disadvantaged schools in San Diego
for 3 years. It was during that time period he developed a private learning
center in San Diego and was soon supervising 15 other centers using the same
program he helped to promote.
Chuck
Stilwell earned his Master’s degree in 1972 in Human Behavior & Education
with an emphasis in educating those with various learning deficiencies. His
Master’s Thesis included a project which involved testing the lowest-scoring 150
students in an elementary school of 900 students. He then took the lowest 75 of
those students and developed a plan to teach them reading, spelling,
vocabulary, focusing skills and cursive handwriting. The students were pulled
out of regular classes 5 days per week for 45 minutes per day. By the end of
the 7 month project the students gained an average of 2.7 grade levels in
reading accuracy, comprehension and spelling, and vocabulary. That was
significant, since most of them were regressing before attempting the
programmed tutoring.
After 10
years in San Diego, Mr. Stilwell and his family moved to Arizona, where in
1980, he again established a learning center in Sierra Vista, AZ and remains
its present owner/director.
For over 47
years, Mr. Stilwell has continued to help students achieve at least 2-3 grade
levels improvement usually during periods of 6 to 12 months. Some have been
seriously handicapped with learning disabilities, dyslexia, ADHD symptoms or
autism. Others just needed advancement.
Mr. Stilwell
has been contracted by Expressways To Learning®, Inc. to consult in 14 states,
American Samoa and Sonora, Mexico and with the Apache Indian Nation with learning
labs using the nationally acclaimed Expressways To Learning® Reading and Math
systems in public and private schools and learning centers. He also oversees
ETL’s distance learning program. Among other things, he is writing a strategic
manual for home businesses to be ready for publication in 2018.
In his spare
time, Chuck enjoys landscaping and working with his acre of plants, fruit trees
and garden. His wife, Sue, owns S&S Tours.
They both enjoy traveling during vacation times to other countries as
well as exploring our own country. Chuck enjoys reading, writing, hiking,
family and church activities.
He is having
too much fun to retire anytime soon!
