Stephen Schutz Email & Phone Number

In 2002 I opened Starfall.com, a social enterprise to help teach young children to read (I consider myself an expert in this field becuase I couldn't read myself until the 5th-6th grade). Starfall Education expanded into math and became widely used in the US and worldwide. It became a non-profit 501c3 in 2015. In 1997 I founded the bluemountain.com with my son Jared Polis. The idea originated when I designed and programed an electronic greeting card for my son's birthday.In 1972 my wife (Susan Polis) and I "dropped out" to travel the country. To support ourselves we sold our handmade posters - this evolved (accidentally) into a business: Blue Mountain Arts greetings (which we still own today). I received a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, in 1970. But spent most of my time at Princeton campaigning against the Vietnam war. Then I worked at ESSA (now NOAA) in Boulder Colorado for a two-year post-doc.Graduated from MIT in 1965 after studying art at High School of Music and Art in New York.

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  Founder, Chairman

  Starfall Education Foundation

  Jan 2000 - Present - Boulder, Colorado

  Starfall, a Twinkle in Children's EyesI struggled to read as a child. So naturally I was motivated to create a resource to help children learn to read. In the year 2000, I browsed through a children's bookstore and was shocked to discover that beginning reading books were much too difficult. The idea behind Starfall was hatched.From the start I wanted to create an interactive program. I realized that the Internet was a perfect place to do this. This may seem obvious now, but not in 2000. Back then most educational software was CD-ROM based.The Starfall website was opened on August 27, 2002. It was completely free to the public.My vision was to encourage self-confidence in children by employing positive motivation. We want to stimulate their excitement for learning and see a twinkle in their eyes! This is not the path most e-learning programs follow. The typical educational paradigm assumes that you learn only by distinguishing the correct answer. While this paradigm may be appropriate for a nurse who is studying to pass a nursing exam, I don't believe it's best for young children. First of all, a young child may prefer to repeat the same activity over and over again before moving on. A child may prefer to skip ahead into the hardest sections for a while, before retreating back to the familiar. But most importantly, I believe children prefer to learn while playing and having fun.Starfall's slogan expresses our philosophy: "Where children have fun learning to read!"