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Kids' Quotes Don't Drug Them The Easter Egg Hunt Clara Middleton, April 4 The twin murder trials of the parents of Rebecca Riley, who died at age 4 of an overdose of the psychiatric drug, clonidine, have cast a spotlight on the beliefs and practices of the doctor who prescribed the drug. Kayoko Kifuji was granted immunity in both trials in exchange for her cooperation for testifying. Reactions from jurors, comments online and letters to the editor based on newspaper accounts of Kifuji’s testimony range from confusion, shock, and outrage directed at the doctor’s role in the tragedy... The Massachusett’s BRM in allowing Kifuji to practice again without any penalties or restrictions has essentially told doctors and the public that this kind of management of children’s behavior problems is “within the standards of current medical practice” – a phrase that comes up both in licensing and malpractice cases. It has sent a message that the psychiatric child abuse of children through drugs will be tolerated in the state of Massachusetts. More
Chris, age 10
I don’t like reading because I do understand the words but I can’t make a movie of it in my head. More
We lost Denny Mather
One principled, compassionate, and down-to-earth homeschooling mom…
Clara Middleton, August 31
I am terribly sad to be writing this. Denny Mather, one of the first contributors to this site, passed away earlier this month after years of battling cancer. She initiated the Home Schooling blog on MoBB and opened the eyes of many readers to the everyday life of homeschoolers. She had an honest and insightful way of capturing the large and small but all-important experiences that go into deciding to homeschool and the ongoing challenges of pulling it off. She raised and educated one terrific young man whose loss is that much greater because of the kind of woman and mother Denny was. My love and deep condolences to her wonderful family.
I myself owe a huge debt of gratitude to Denny. More
Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
Erica Goldson
I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system.
Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contend that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme.
While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared. More
The "ADHD Personality": Its Cognitive, Biological, and Evolutionary Foundations
Peter Gray, Freedom to Learn, Psychology Today
The brains of people diagnosed with ADHD are no doubt different from those of other people, but that doesn't make ADHD a "disorder." ADHD (except in extreme cases) is only a disorder to the degree that we, as a society, fail to tolerate impulsiveness and fail to provide environmental conditions in which people with widely differing personality characteristics can make best use of their strengths and learn how to compensate for their weaknesses.
In the remainder of this essay I'll describe briefly current thinking concerning the cognitive and neural foundations for ADHD and explain further why I think our focus should be on changing our system of schooling to accommodate children's diversity rather than on changing children's brain physiology to accommodate schoolin. More
100 Years Later - The Flexner Report Still Relevant
Can Medicine and Psychiatry Self-Reform?
Lawrence Diller, The Last Normal Child, Psychology Today
The increasing professionalism of medicine in the first two decades of the past century allowed doctors to be in charge of the medications prescribed. Drug companies quickly succumbed to rules set by doctors that prohibited direct advertisements and required companies to submit their products to more rigorous testing of effectiveness and safety... However, in the last two decades the federal government in changing rules and funding for medical research pushed doctors (especially university scientists) and the drug industry together in the hope that new and more beneficial products would emerge. Instead drug industry creativity has stagnated (not in terms of making profits) and doctors' credibility has been deeply damaged by multiple allegations of conflict of interest.
From the highest levels of medical academia to the front line practicing specialists (especially in psychiatry, orthopedics and cardiovascular medicine) there is proof of industry influence on doctors' opinions and decision-making. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
Are Homeschoolers Entitled to Summer Vacation?
Clara Middleton, July 23
This is our first summer as homeschoolers. My son left school in February and I did some official “teaching” from March through May. Come June, however, Jack started rebelling against our “lessons.”
I put “teaching” and “lessons” in quotation marks because what we basically did together was read. And look at maps, discuss topics that came up, look up some of the things we didn’t know, etc. It wasn’t that different from reading together when he was in school. We are just a reading family. But the fact that Jack was now officially a homeschooler made him look at reading together differently. He saw reading time as teaching time now. More
I Want Your Stories of ADHD in Homeschoolers, Unschoolers, and Free Schoolers
Peter Gray, Freedom to Learn, Psychology Today
Dear Readers:
As I pointed out in my last post, one in every eight boys and one in every twenty-five girls in the US has been diagnosed with ADHD, and most of them are taking powerful stimulant drugs as treatment. Surveys have shown that most ADHD diagnoses are initiated because of the child's disruptive behavior in school or failure to complete school assignments.
But what about children not attending a conventional school? Is ADHD also a problem for them? Do those children also require drugs in order to function well? I have searched the ADHD research literature, which is huge, and found no studies addressing that issue. As a small, first step toward remedying that deficit, I am hereby inviting homeschoolers, unschoolers, Sudbury schoolers, and free schoolers to submit their stories about ADHD. If your child is not attending a standard school and has been diagnosed with ADHD, and if you and the child are willing, I ask you to send me that story. More
ADHD and School: The Problem of Assessing Normalcy in an Abnormal Environment
ADHD diagnoses derive from schools' intolerance of normal human Diversity.
Peter Gray, Freedom to Learn, Psychology Today
According to the most authoritative recent data, approximately 8% of children in the United States, aged 4 to 17, have been diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The same reports note that the disorder is about three times as frequent in boys as it is in girls, so this means that roughly 12% of boys and 4% of girls have received the diagnosis. Think of it. Twelve percent of boys--that's approximately one boy out of every eight--has been determined by some clinical authority, using official diagnostic criteria set out by the American Psychiatric Association, to have this particular mental disorder! If only teachers' ratings were used, the numbers would be even greater. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
Time for Some Major Changes, 2&3
Clara Middleton, July 11
Change Number 2: Less Work
The second change I made was that I cut back and changed my work hours. There was just no way I could spend even four consecutive hours a day working. Expecting a ten-year old boy to entertain himself for hours and hours in an apartment is just not realistic...
Change Number 3: The Move
The biggest change we decided to make, however, is to move out of San Francisco. My husband and I are both city people and as for me, San Francisco is the smallest of the cities I have lived in. I used to live in New York City and I still dream of living there again. But… I cannot bear to see my ten-year old cooped up in a city apartment all day. More
Parenting Makes People Miserable. What Else Is New?
Sady Doyle, The Atlantic
It's easy to mock New York magazine's recent article on "why parents hate parenting." So many of its points seem obvious: Children decrease romance between spouses, diminish one's social life, and can be unholy terrors. (Jennifer Senior, its author, relates an awful-sounding interlude in which her son dismantled a wooden garage and then proceeded to pelt her with the pieces of it as she made repairs.) Still, there's one conclusion Senior makes that merits a bit of skepticism. She suggests that the hatred of parenting is recent, and raises "the possibility that parents don't much enjoy parenting because the experience of raising children has fundamentally changed." In some important ways, it has. But the complaints raised by the piece aren't new at all; in fact, people—women, most notably—have been voicing them for the better part of the last 60 years. More
All Joy and No Fun
Why parents hate parenting
Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine
From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think.
Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.) More
What Does It Mean to Be Well-Educated?
Alfie Kohn, alfiekohn.org
No one should offer pronouncements about what it means to be well-educated without meeting my wife. When I met Alisa, she was at Harvard, putting the finishing touches on her doctoral dissertation in anthropology. A year later, having spent her entire life in school, she decided to do the only logical thing... and apply to medical school. Today she is a practicing physician -- and an excellent one at that, judging by feedback from her patients and colleagues.
She will, however, freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the multiplication table. And forget about grammar (“Me and him went over her house today” is fairly typical) or literature (“Who’s Faulkner?”). After a dozen years, I continue to be impressed on a regular basis by the agility of her mind as well as by how much she doesn’t know. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
Time for Some Major Changes,1
Clara Middleton, July 2
The day I had my meltdown one thing became very clear to me: I couldn’t continue the way we were doing things. For starters, I just could not bear to watch my kid spend hours in front of a screen.
That day my husband stayed home from work to take Jack out so I could have a couple of hours of breathing space. By the time they returned from their outing I had packed away the VCR, DVD player, Xbox, and Jack’s computer. No more screen time. Cold turkey in cold blood! Having seen me sob uncontrollably that morning Jack looked around with wide eyes but said nothing. More
Motherhood: the new oppression
Margaret Wente, The Globe and Mail
Motherhood came easily to my mom. She popped out the three of us, as reliably as toast, every other year. But by modern standards she was a mediocre parent. She smoked. She drank. She drove us around without seatbelts, while she smoked.
After I turned 10, she often left the three of us at home, unsupervised, for hours at a time. (She figured I was smart enough to call a neighbour if the house burned down.) We raced around without bike helmets, and made our way to school on our own. We never wore sunscreen except at the beach.
Now we know better. The obligations of responsible mothering have been ratcheted way up. They start before conception, when you must swear off alcohol and tobacco so as not to harm your hypothetical embryo. Abstinence from all things, including ice cream (you can’t gain too much weight!) extends through pregnancy. Natural childbirth? Of course, preferably at home. Epidurals are for losers. More
Adderall Receives Honorary Degree From Harvard
The Onion
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Citing the drug's extensive contributions to almost every field of academia, Harvard conferred an honorary doctoral degree upon a 30-day supply of Adderall during the university's 359th commencement exercises Thursday.
"Harvard is proud to honor the tremendous merits of Adderall, without which many of you would not be sitting here today," Harvard president Drew Faust said in her opening address to the nearly 1,900 unblinking and intensely focused students receiving their diplomas. "I don't think I'm exaggerating matters when I say that Adderall has been an inspiration to us all."
The psychologically addictive drug then received resounding applause from the assembled graduates, with many jumping to their feet, clapping in near unison for 25 straight minutes, temporarily forgetting where they were, and then grinding their teeth in celebration of the well-deserved honor. More
Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated
The (Troubling) Theory and Practice of Control from Within
Alfie Kohn, alfiekohn.org
If there is one character trait whose benefits are endorsed by traditional and progressive educators alike, it may well be self-discipline. Just about everyone wants students to override their unconstructive impulses, resist temptation, and do what needs to be done. True, this disposition is commended to us with particular fervor by the sort of folks who sneer at any mention of self-esteem and deplore what they insist are today’s lax standards.
While I readily admit that it’s good to be able to persevere at worthwhile tasks -- and that some students seem to lack this capacity -- I want to suggest that the concept is actually problematic in three fundamental ways.
I. PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES: Critical Distinctions
II. PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES: Underlying Beliefs
III. POLITICAL ISSUES: Practical Implications
More
The Dramatic Rise of Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents
Is It Connected to the Decline in Play and Rise in Schooling?
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Children are more anxious and depressed than ever before. Why?
Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past fifty to seventy years. Today five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant. More
When will the real bullies be held accountable?
Cevin Soling, The War On Kids
The true underlying cause of bullying is school itself. School creates an environment where students are powerless and resort to bullying as a means of having a sense of feeling like they have some degree of control. This behavior can also be seen most dramatically in prisons. All of people's worst attributes surface in those kinds of breeding grounds and they stem from being in an oppressive environment.
The school programs designed to teach respect are blindly founded. Whatever impact they may have comes from suppressing symptoms and not treating the disease. The programs are not designed to change school, but rather attempt to condition students to accept their incarceration in a docile way. On the surface, they try to teach students to respect one another, but in a school environment, such lessons are typically ludicrous since students receive very little respect. More
Teaching Totalitarianism in the Public Schools
John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
Over the past several decades, America's public schools have increasingly adopted the mindset that students have no rights, and school officials have not been reticent about communicating this message to young people. Indeed, this totalitarian outlook has been reinforced by an educational curriculum so focused on preparing students to enter the machinery of the corporate state that there is little time left over for the things they really need to learn such as what their rights are, how to exercise them, and the duties and responsibilities of citizenship.
What can be done? To start with, we need to make sure that our young people are learning what freedom is really all about. And if that is not happening in the schools, then we need to teach them about freedom at home. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
Uncertainty, Improvisation, Approximation
Clara Middleton, June 15
While going through emotional breakdowns and making life changes I don’t expect myself to be “teaching” or my son “studying” an awful lot. Math has completely slipped but we do keep on plodding through my version of a liberal arts “curriculum.” As I pick books and read and discuss them with Jack I give education more thought than I probably ever did. I am determined to give my son an excellent education. (Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon… and for the rest of his life.) More
Join the club. Tell your side.
The Boy Is Always Guilty: Update on Katie
Cathy Paige, June 12
Two years after our encounter with Katie’s “situation,” I got an update on what was going on with her at school. Since second grade when my son and Katie were separated on the school yard, they were never placed in the same classroom. No problem there. I was happy to forget about Katie and her mother. But as it happened, in fourth grade an informed school staff person – let’s call her Ms. P – updated me on new developments.
In the middle of fourth grade suddenly a boy was transferred from the other fourth grade classroom to my son’s. I didn’t think much of it but it turned out to be a relevant story to this article. More
Bullies to Buddies
Harvard Elementary School students find the best solution to bullying
Izzy Kalman, Psychology Today
The modern world is wracking its brains out trying to figure out how to deal with the "epidemic" of bullying. It's like a hydra–you cut off one head and two more grow back. We need a new paradigm. We need an approach that is based on psychology rather than law-enforcement. We need to teach people how to handle the problems of life, not to try to protect them from those problems and to punish problem-makers out of existence. That approach has been failing throughout the world. It is about time that adult researchers recognize what is so obvious to children. More
The Funniest Kids Test Answers Of All Time
Katla McGlynn, Huffington Post
We at HuffPost Comedy love kids behaving badly, acting like adults or just being plain hilarious. So naturally we loved these funny test answers. When we were in school, if we didn't know the answer to a question, we'd simply guess or leave it blank. But kids these days? Let's just say they've come up with all kinds of creative ways to say "I don't know." Whether they're blaming an elephant or turning math grids into Tetris games, these kids didn't mind entertaining (or insulting) the teacher. Vote for your favorite! More
Freedom from Bullying: How a School Can Be a Moral Community
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Many years ago, as part of my early studies of the Sudbury Valley School, I sat in on a school meeting at which the main agenda item had to do with a complaint made about a new student's clothing. A new teenaged enrollee had been coming to school wearing a leather jacket with a swastika painted on it. At most schools this kind of offence would be quickly and efficiently handled by the principal, who would call the student into his or her office and order the student to remove the jacket and never bring it back to school. But that's not how Sudbury Valley handles things. Sudbury Valley has no principal. It is run--entirely run--in democratic fashion by the School Meeting, which includes all students (age 4 on through high-school age) and staff members together. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
After the Honeymoon, the Crash
Clara Middleton, June 6
Well, it was bound to happen, wasn't it?!
A couple of months into our liberation from school all kinds of things fell apart. First of all, the emotional crash… Being forced to do something that is mostly torment for six out of your ten years of life leaves not just scars but some open wounds as well. On a deep level Jack was – still is – quite confused. He is glad to be out of school but he still carries a lot of unhappiness and anger in him. He is given to meltdowns. More
The Pink Version of ADHD
Amy Azzam, In service, The ASCD Community Blog
The data on ADHD are boy-dominated. And it's easy to see why: Students depend on their teachers for referrals, and who do teachers overwhelmingly refer? Boys. Their hyperactivity is easy to spot; it sticks out like a sore thumb in the classroom. Teachers have a far tougher time identifying the girls, which means that their data never get into the mix.
So what kinds of behaviors do girls with ADHD tend to exhibit?
•They often internalize. If a boy with ADHD fails a test, he's likely to say that the test was "stupid" whereas a girl with ADHD is likely to say that she is stupid.
•They compensate better than boys do and often manage to get decent grades. If they remember at the last minute a project that’s due tomorrow, they’ll often coerce their mothers into helping them get it done on time.
•They often blame themselves and have low self-esteem, factors that may lead to depression.
•Their hyperactivity often expresses itself as hyper-talkativeness.
•They may have few or no friends.
•They have a big problem with time management. More
Should High School Start at 11 AM?
Dennis Rosen, Psychology Today
Why do teenagers stay up so late, and why are they so chronically sleep deprived?
First of all, they have lots and lots to do, including homework, sports, hanging out with friends, TV, texting, chatting, internet, and often find it very difficult to shut everything down and out for the night. They also drink a lot of caffeine, with 75% reporting that they consumed at least one caffeinated beverage daily. Developmentally, they become more independent, and less inclined to do precisely as they are told by their parents. The body's internal circadian clock shifts tends to drift more in this age group than in others, with the signal to fall asleep occurring slightly later each day. Finally, the pressure to fall asleep as a function of the degree of sleep deprivation decreases during adolescence and this is thought to be because of physical changes in the brain during this period.
So should all high school students start classes at 11 AM?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Join the club. Tell your side.
The Boy Is Always Guilty, Part 3
Cathy Paige, May 25
This all happened toward the end of Peter’s second grade. Summer vacation started shortly after that and by third grade the school had almost forgotten everything. After all, we were not the only ones who had bad experiences with Katie and her mother. And anyway I had certainly been a more visible member of the school community than Katie’s mother and I am sure any doubts anybody had about my character did eventually vanish. But the whole incident certainly hurt both Peter and me. More
The Second World Conference on Arts Education
Arts for Society, Education for Creativity
Seoul, Korea, May 25-28, 2010
Leading experts will assemble at the Second World Conference on Arts Education from 25 to 28 May in Seoul, to share ideas and highlight the importance of arts education in and out of school. The conference is hosted by the Republic of Korea and co- organized by UNESCO.“A broad arts education teaches the importance and value of cultural diversity,” underlined the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova. “This cultural awareness is of immense benefit in our increasingly multi-cultural modern societies, where to understand another culture is to better understand one’s neighbour.” More
Y'all Busted
Rap against schools pushing ADHD drugs
E. B. Chill
For lyrics and transcript see here.
Psychiatric drugging of American children is cause for alarm
The use of powerful drugs to treat younger and younger patients has gone far beyond disturbing.
Leigh Donaldson, The Portland Press Herald
The age of children being medicated with prescription psychiatric drugs is getting younger and more widespread every year. According to a 2010 study of data on more than a million children reported by American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's journal, the use of powerful anti-psychotics with privately insured U.S. children, ages 2 through 5, doubled between 1999 and 2007.
In the 2007 study, the most common diagnoses of anti-psychotic treated children were pervasive developmental disorder or mental retardation (28.2 percent), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (23.7 percent) and disruptive behavior disorder (12.9 percent). More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
The Honeymoon
Clara Middleton, May 19
The first couple of months of home schooling are definitely sweet. It’s the honeymoon stage and decompression feels like a million bucks.
In our case, the first relief was from daily torment. For the first time after years, Jack did not have to face his tormentors every day. He was not constantly on the defensive or being punished for his attempts to get even. He was calmer and more relaxed. He also enjoyed the fact that his unhappiness was finally being acknowledged – and he even felt a little vindicated. The day he came with me to meet with the school district’s family liaison officer he especially felt validated. More
School Bullying: A Tragic Cost of Forced Schooling and Autocratic School Governance
Antibullying laws will work only when students make the laws
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Let's say you are 15 years old, or 13, or 11, and for some reason--a reason over which you have no control--you have been singled out by your schoolmates as an object for scorn and humiliation. Every day at school, for you, is another day in hell. You are called "whore," "bitch," "slut;" or "fag," "pussy," "scum;" or worse. People deliberately bump into you and knock your books out of your hands in the hallway. Nobody sits with you at lunch, or, if they do, those people are harassed until they stop sitting with you. These bullies are not the brutish looking comic-strip bullies, whom nobody likes and who steal other kids' lunch money. No, these bullies are among the popular kids--the athletes, cheerleaders, preppies. They are popular not just with most of the other kids but also with the teachers, school administrators, and adults in the larger community. More
Idle parenting means happy children
Tom Hodgkinson, Telegraph
An unhealthy dose of the work ethic is threatening to wreck childhood. Under a tyrannical work-obsessed government, years that should be devoted to play and joyful learning are being stifled by targets and tests. Leisure time is being invaded by the commercial and escapist virtual worlds of the computer. Pushy parents don't help by making childhood a stress-filled time of striving and competing...
The welcome discovery that a lazy parent is a good parent took root when I read the following passage from a DH Lawrence essay, Education of the People, published in 1918: "How to begin to educate a child. First rule: leave him alone. Second rule: leave him alone. Third rule: leave him alone. That is the whole beginning." More
Join the club. Tell your side.
The Boy Is Always Guilty, Part 2
Cathy Paige, May 12
The more I thought about the whole thing the more uneasy I became. At first I had thought nothing of a couple of seven year-olds being curious about each other’s body parts. But then I started thinking about what the inspector had said about how kids who are exposed to certain “situations” at home act those out at school. Frankly, I started getting grossed out. What exactly had gone on between Peter and Katie? What had she suggested to him? Even, what words had she used? I also started to get worried. I remembered that back in first grade my son had complained that Katie followed him around on the school yard. More
When Homeschooling Doesn't Do the Job
Denny Mather, May 10
Home schooling is not for everyone. I met one mother who seemed to be too lazy to get her kids off to school in time so stayed in bed until whenever and then would eat (cereal from the looks of the counter and table and splatters on books) before going on to whatever lessons might be available. Maybe I should give her some slack, I was only in her home once… Maybe an illness? But Mick wasn’t learning much about anything as far as I could tell. More
Educating My Boy: Chronicles of a Free-Schooler
Clara Middleton, May 6
I have unexpectedly found myself home schooling – or as I like to call it, free schooling – my son. This is a major change in our lives. In this blog, Educating My Boy, I will chronicle the many aspects of this change. It will reflect a range of experiences and ideas, from personal views and family decisions to experiments and challenges in educating a ten-year old boy.
Decompression, the first stage
The important fact about our situation is that we’re not starting from scratch. The positive aspect of it is that I have a ten-year old who can read and write and has basic math. This small little detail makes a world of difference. It makes life a lot easier on me. The negative aspect of not starting from scratch is that we have a lot of things to overcome. We have a lot of bad memories to leave behind and a lot of bad habits to unlearn. Some homeschoolers call this “de-schooling." More
Join the club. Tell your side.
The Boy Is Always Guilty, Part 1
Cathy Paige, May 4
One afternoon a few years ago when my son was in second grade I answered a telephone call that took me quite by surprise. “This is inspector Bradley from the juvenile division of the police department,” the caller said. “The mother of one of your son’s classmates has filed a complaint against you for frightening her daughter.”
Frighten who? How? What the…?
Inspector Bradley was a peach and a pro. In very diplomatic language he let me know that he understood there was something murky going on. “You have nothing to worry about,” he said. “It’s just a requirement that I inform you of this charge.” More
Why Have Trustful Parenting and Children’s Freedom Declined in Recent Decades?
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Why is trustful parenting so much more difficult than in decades past? Why are today's children afforded less freedom than we were when we were children? In this essay I suggest the following reasons: (1) the decline of neighborhoods; (2) the decline in adults' firsthand knowledge of child development and the worldwide sharing of fears; (3) the increased uncertainty about the future; (4) the increased intrusiveness of school systems into children's and families' lives; and (5) the rise of a pedagogical model of child development that has its origins in the increased power of schools. More
Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom
Carol Wanagel, Home Education Magazine
1: Home schooling is legal.
2: Textbooks are the most stultifying, mind-deadening books in the world.
3: It takes about an hour and a half a day to cover everything they would cover in a day at school.
4: The more you teach, the less they learn.
5: Most of what we do in school beyond the third grade is a big waste of time.
6: The pursuit of any one interest will result in a complete education.
7: School is not the only, the best or even the most common route to a job.
8: Public schools are typical government agencies- excessively costly, inefficient and incompetent.
9: If kids are not dropped into school and abandoned to peer influence at an early age, they do not become hostile and alienated adolescents. They become friendly, cooperative and productive young adults instead.
10: Testing and grading are the two most destructive things the schools do.
11: If you stick to doing what's right, even bureaucrats may see the sense of it. More
Homeschooling: Reactions from Family and Friends
Denny Mather, April 21
We had sent Vincent to the public school in Sumtown, Montana, only a few weeks before we decided to home school him. It was something I had never considered (though my one friend in California who did it was rather nutty) but after a few weeks of misery Dale and Vincent and I could take no more. So, we checked out of the public school system and got into home schooling – or free schooling, or whatever you want to call it. I come from a large family, two sisters and three brothers, plus, of course Mom and Dad. We are lucky; we all get along well together. I think I e-mailed all of them to let them know that we were going to teach Vinnie at home. So, no holds barred, I recently asked them all to tell me what they really thought when I announced that I was home schooling Vincent. And what they think of it now… More
ADHD: Something is Out of Whack, Part 2
Sedona, April 19
When the new school year began I was filled with dread about the phone calls that always started about a month into the school year. And sure enough, I was called by Dylan’s teacher. It was in fourth grade when things really began to fall apart for Dylan as he began sinking under the pressure to perform. I took him to a speech and language evaluation center to be tested and he made low scores on these tests. A meeting about what to do was held and the teacher, school psychologist and principal attended. At this meeting I was told that if Dylan was in another school district he’d probably do just fine. What were we suppose to do? Move to another community? How could a boy be “normal” in one school district and “special ed” in another? I was now feeling more confused than ever, after years of being told about Dylan’s struggles in school. I felt like I was raising an academic misfit. More
Parents' obsession with their children's self-esteem plus profit-driven diagnoses create a dangerous prescription
Lawrence Diller, San Francisco Chronicle
In our zeal to help our children feel better about themselves, are we really doing them any favors, or could we actually be hurting them? It's counterintuitive, but our worries over our children's self-image and self-esteem may be unwarranted and unintentionally lead to unnecessary medical intervention and possible harm.
I've come to this opinion after evaluating and treating over 2,500 children for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the condition that has become the explanation for virtually all children's underperformance and misbehavior at school.
November is a busy month for me because it's time for the first parent-teacher conferences prior to the year's first report card for most schools. And this time of year parents are all asking the same question, "Does my kid have ADHD?" More
Drugging Kids
John Merrow
Ring out the old, ring in the new” is a popular refrain on New Year’s Eve, but, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of ‘déjà vu all over again,’ in Yogi’s memorable phrase, particularly when it comes to medicating children. In mid-December the New York Times reported that poor children are four times more likely to be given powerful antipsychotic drugs than their middle-income counterparts...That’s today’s news, but for me it literally is déjà vu all over again, because I have reported on this same issue twice, first in the 70’s and again in the mid-90’s. More
ADHD: Something is Out of Whack, Part 1
Sedona, April 12
Many years ago as Dylan’s kindergarten year was coming to an end his teacher told me his wasn’t reading as well as his classmates. I was surprised to hear this because all year long I’d had the impression that he was having a good year. I wasn’t dissatisfied or disappointed at all with his reading ability for a kindergartener. He was learning the beginning sounds and could recognize all the numbers and letters so I was happy and wasn’t the least bit worried. I mean, after all this was kindergarten and he was just six years old. She also said that maybe he wasn’t reading so well because he might have ADHD. She said that I needed to read a book, The Hyperactive Child, and I could do that at a local doctor’s office in our community. This doctor operated an ADHD clinic and was an expert on ADHD because he had it himself. The teacher then recommended that Dylan get some tutoring during summer vacation to improve his reading skills. My initial reaction was: “Tutoring for a kindergartener…!!! You’ve got to be kidding.” But I trusted the teacher’s judgment and Dylan went to a tutor for just two sessions. The tutor seemed to think that his reading skills were “good enough.” And that was “good enough” for me. More
A group of kids left these messages inside plastic eggs for another kid during an Easter egg hunt:
More
How I Became This, Part 4
Tyler, age 19, April 1
We moved from Surfer Town California, to Wyoming, and, more than that, we moved to Dyed-in-the-wool CowboyTown, Wyoming. Did you know that they hate Californians around those parts? Neither did I! I think I spent about a month enrolled in that hellhole of a school. I only spent two weeks actually there. I was out sick for the rest. Of course, all the doctors said, I wasn't really sick, I was just malingering. So, back I went. Back to the kids who hated me and the teachers who scorned me, all just because of where I came from. Fights ensued, physical ones between me and students, and verbal ones between me and teachers. More
Increasing Number Of Parents Opting To Have Children School-Homed
The Onion
According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home. Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children, and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society. Thousands of mothers and fathers polled in the study also believe that those running American homes cannot be trusted to keep their kids safe. More
Bi-Annual Public School Inferno
Aurore B. Reales, March 29
It happenend again. One year my son gets a good teacher and the next year he has stomach aches and hates school. Second grade was great and he wanted to become a teacher like his beloved Ms Smith. This year, third grade, he breaks down on me again, crying in deep despair and says he hates school. I wish he'd said "I don't like school. I don't want to go." But no. "I hate school" is what he says and he also says that he NEVER is going to be able to do fourth grade homework and be good enough to enter college and learn a profession he really likes. And he says he wants to be a retired adult. I don't ever want to be a retired adult, I don't see any appeal to it, so it really worries me. More
Wholesale Sedation of Young Children Medically, Morally Indefensible
Dr. Lawrence Diller, The Patriot Ledger, March 27
How I Became This, Part 3
Tyler, age 19, March 25
So, a few years later now, and I have undergone a transformation. I am no longer afraid of fighting; I now see violence not as something bad in and of itself, but a means to an end... I also have been labeled as having an anger problem and have been forced to see the school counselor a few times. (Story for another time.) I also get the joy of going to a new school. Being "the new kid" is never fun. Even once you grow up, you can still be "the new kid." You just got hired for a job, "new kid." It is much the same. You have that feeling of being an outsider, and people are going to have to test the waters with you to find out if they like you or not. They might do this by striking up a conversation, or asking around about you. Bullies do this by fighting. More
Obama Promise: Brighter Education Futures for Kids
Cevin Soling, The War on Kids
The new principles introduced by the Obama administration with regards to renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act can be summed up essentially as harm reduction. The plans to ameliorate NCLB and provide additional funding for schools demonstrate an earnest desire to improve schools, but also reveal an utter lack of imagination through the continued support of an institution that does much more harm than good. A number of fallacious beliefs are at the heart of education reform movements. One in particular, which enabled the enactment of NCLB and which persists today, is that teacher performance can be objectively determined through testing. More
Temperament: A Useful Way of Looking at Differences Between People
Monda, March 24
One of the more useful analytical tools that have emerged in recent decades is the concept of temperament. Temperament refers to the innate traits we are born with. These traits do not reflect any kind of judgment on a person. Having one temperamental trait or style has nothing to do with how smart, good, creative, or anything else someone is. These are just tendencies we are born with. There are nine traits or components to each person's temperament. (These traits are measured on a continuum. I'll describe the extremes to make my point.). More
Empty Neural Calories
Should we be concerned about the global impact of always-on, empty neural calories? Are our minds going the way of our stomachs?
David Rock, Psychology Today, March 21
My ultra-sugared breakfast muffin contained what are sometimes called 'empty calories'. Empty calories make you feel better in the short term, but your brain then craves more when you crash from the sudden sugar high. Plus there's no nutritional goodness like there is in more complex foods. I have a sense that we are rapidly moving toward giving people 24/7, easy access to 'empty neural calories'. These calories, in the form of perceived social connectivity, increase the overall stimulation of the brain, but may not do much to make our brain more integrated, adaptive or functional. In fact, just like sugar, some types of neural stimulation have you wanting more and more, without ever feeling satisfied. The result can be a reduction in healthy neural functioning, in the form of a reduced ability to focus. More
All Too Obvious -- or is it?
Clara Middleton, March 19
I came across this post "Video game hurts schoolwork of boys," in the Washington Post blog The Answer Sheet by Valerie Strauss. It reports that "a new study concludes what you’ve already suspected: Young boys who play video games do worse on tests than children who don’t." It also cites another study that concludes "kids who play violent video games become more aggressive and less caring--regardless of age, sex or culture--than young people who don’t play these games."
We all know this, right? Well, we -- the adults -- are certainly always saying this. I recommend that you go to this article and read it but I especially recommend that you read the comments left by some boys themselves. I detest violent video games as much as the next parent, but my question is this: Shall we listen to what the kids have to say -- or not? Read it here and think about it. Better yet, express your thoughts on this site. I invite the young men who read this site to write something about this!
How I Became This, Part 2
Tyler, age 19, March 16
Fast forward a few years, and find a first grader. He is doing well in school because his parents have already taught him most of what he is supposed to be learning. He has no problems at home. However, he gets in fights all the time. He gets in confrontations almost once a day and comes to blows with someone at least once every two weeks. Now, want to know the weird part? Those kids who I was fighting, I had no freaking clue who they were. They were not in my class, I think, and I did not know them from outside of school... I just flat didn't know them. Maybe they were from the next grade up, maybe they were from my grade and I had just never noticed them, but, for whatever reason, they hated me. One time, out of the blue, someone came up from behind me and held my arms and another came up from in front and started hitting me. This is first grade! How do these kids know to do that? More
The Morally Questionable Lessons of Formal Sports
A sports tournament led boys to something like inter-tribal war
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Much of boys' play involves mock battles. In some cases the battles lie purely in the realm of fantasy. The boys collaboratively create the battle scenes, decide who will play which parts, and, as they go along, decide who is wounded, or dies, or is resurrected. Some people, who don't understand boys' play, mistake such play for violence and try to stop it, especially when it is acted out in a vigorous, rough-and-tumble manner. But it isn't violence; it's play. We should think of those players not as warriors but as junior improvisational Shakespeares. Such play does not create enemies; rather, it cements friendships... Fantasy battles and informal sports are pure play, and pure play creates friendships, not enemies. Formal sports are not pure play, and therefore they have the capacity, under some conditions, to create enemies. More
Scenes from Classroom Q, Part 10
Tiffany Duncan, March 11
By now all parents in the class know that we have left. I have since talked to a number of them who are puzzled about why Andrew was singled out for disciplinary measures and concerned for their own kids. Many have reservations about the teachers’ ability to handle the kids (especially the boys) and are underwhelmed with the kids’ “academic” progress (the symbolism of the new logo’s “scientific” doodles notwithstanding). Many are disgruntled and feel isolated. The parent-teacher conference is an unpleasant experience they dread. And of course more kids (boys, need I mention?) are now turning into “problem” children who perhaps need to be held back one year (an all too frequent occurrence at Hillside). More
How I Became This, Part 1
Tyler, age 19, March 8
I honestly feel as if I have lived two lives. I went to public school from kindergarten all the way up until sixth grade. Looking back at my experiences through my current perspective, I think I can say that I was miserable the whole time. I hated being bullied everyday. I hated being treated like a number. I hated the way my classmates acted. Matter of fact, I hated just about everything.
Eventually, my hatred came to a boiling point, and my parents made the decision to home school me. This saved my life. More
How Developmental Psychology’s Marriage to the School System Distorts Our Understanding of Children
To understand children we must observe them where they're free
Peter Gray, Psychology Today
Have you ever seen the Handbook of Child Psychology? If not, I urge you to take a look at it the next time you have the opportunity to visit a university library. Handbook is a misnomer for this work; you'd need both arms to carry it all, and if you have a weak back you might want to carry it only a part at a time. The rest of its title--of Child Psychology--is also, in my opinion, a misnomer... When the most recent edition came to my university's library, I eagerly hauled it down from its shelf to find out what it had to say about children's play and curiosity, the topics that interest me most. Here's what I found.
None of the 79 chapters are about play or even hint at play in their title. When I checked the subject indexes of each volume I found a few page references to play, but when I followed these up I discovered that, in all four volumes combined, slightly under 10 total pages are devoted to play... What about curiosity or exploration? Here the story is even worse. Not only is there no chapter on these topics, but curiosity doesn't appear in the index at all, and exploration appears in the index to just one volume. More
Of Drugs and Coyotes...
Denny Mather, March 2
I reread the article “Drugging Kids” by John Merrow this morning and it really made me mad – again! I was told by Vinnie's 3rd grade teacher and principal that Ritalin might help calm Vinnie down... Number one: I didn't know that Vincent needed to be calmed down. From what I saw on my weekly visit to help in the classroom Vinnie was well-behaved and polite in the room and no more rambunctious than any other boy on the playground. Number two: When did teachers and administrators get their medical degrees?
I watched one bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little child (maybe a little over active—what about diet? Or more discipline at home?) turn into a drooling caricature of a boy after his parents did put him on Ritalin. (They were white, middle class, very decent people and parents.) The playground supervisor said she could tell almost immediately the kids who were on such drugs.
But enough of that tirade, back to school at home… More
A Fabulous Educational Resource: Khan Academy
Read this letter and check out this brilliant and very useful enterprise: www.khanacademy.org
Mr. Khan,
No teacher has ever done me any good--this may sound harsh but I mean it quite literally. I was force fed medication to keep me from talking and chastised for not speaking out when called on. Where I am from blacks are not welcomed with open arms into schools--my mother and her sisters had to go to a small shack two hours from home when they went to school. About five years ago my family collected enough money to move from where i was born, so that I could have a chance at having an education and living a real life. But without a real mastery of elementary math I was slow to progress.
I am now in college and learning more than I ever have in my life. But an inadequate math background has been holding me back. I found the Kahn Academy in June of 2009, right after I completed Math 141 ( a college algebra course). I have spent the entire summer on your youtube page. And I just wanted to thank you for everything you are doing. You are a Godsend. Last week I tested for a math placement exam and I am now in Honors Math 200. No question was answered incorrectly. My placement test holder was so impressed by the breadth of my knowledge of math that he said I should be in Linear algebra.
Mr. Khan, I can say without any doubt that you have changed my life and the lives of everyone in my family. More
Children Teach Themselves to Read
Peter Gray, Psychology Today, Feb. 25
The general assumption in our culture is that children must be taught to read. Vast amounts of research go into trying to figure out the scientifically best way to do this. In the education stacks of any major university library you can find rows and rows of books and many journals devoted solely to the topic of how to teach reading. In education circles heated debates--dubbed "the reading wars"--have raged for decades between those who believe that most emphasis should be placed on teaching phonics and those who take what is called a "whole language" approach to reading instruction...
In marked contrast to all this frenzy about teaching reading stands the view of people involved in the "unschooling" movement and the Sudbury "non-school" school movement, who claim that reading need not be taught at all! As long as kids grow up in a literate society, surrounded by people who read, they will learn to read. More
Parents Are a Secret Weapon Just Waiting to Be Discovered
Roberta Furger, Edutopia, Feb. 24
As I've spent time in school communities throughout the country, I've seen firsthand the power of [school/parent] such partnerships to turn failing schools around and transform entire communities. I've seen immigrant parents become school leaders and frustrated teachers become positive, effective educators through such partnerships. And, perhaps most importantly, I've seen how children in even the most challenging of circumstances can thrive academically when the adults in their lives partner to improve schools.
True partnerships aren't easy. They require trust, respect, and willingness to compromise and, ultimately, to share power and responsibility. Although some might argue that's a lot to expect of parents and educators, given what's at stake -- our children and our schools -- is it right to expect any less? More
Childhood in the Eye of the Experts
By Ann-Marie Stoehr, Feb. 18
Independence disorder
Frequent bouts of freedom
Severe refusal of conformity
Vivid imagination syndrome
More
Some numbers to think about
From The Boys Project www.boysproject.net
For every 100 girls:
-- enrolled in elementary grades there are 107 boys enrolled
-- enrolled in twelfth grade there are 98 boys enrolled
-- enrolled in gifted and talented programs in public elementary and secondary schools there are 94 boys enrolled
-- who graduate from high school 96 boys graduate
-- expelled from public elementary and secondary schools 335 boys are expelled
-- diagnosed with emotional disturbance 324 boys are diagnosed with emotional disturbance
-- women enrolled in college there are 77 men enrolled
-- women who earn a bachelorís degree from college 73 men earn a bachelorís degree
-- females ages 15 to 19 that commit suicide 549 males in the same range kill themselves
-- girls ages 15 to 17 in correctional facilities there are 837 boys behind bars
-- women ages 18 to 24 years living in emergency and transitional shelters there are 86 men living in similar shelters. More
Scenes from Classroom Q, Part 9
Tiffany Duncan, Feb. 16
The last day of school for Andrew was the day of the Christmas party, with many parents present. It was an eye-opening, if dreadfully unpleasant, experience. Up until that time my unhappiness was with the teachers. While I had some misgivings about some parents I did not suspect anything. But, to my great surprise, there were a number of parents who pointedly avoided me. People I was in the habit of greeting pleasantly twice a day for the last year and a half would not even make eye contact with me. That’s when I started to get the feeling that perhaps there was more to the story than met the eye. More
Homeschooling: Encountering the Religious Element
Denny Mather, Feb. 10
There are many reasons for home schooling. Most of the people we met were doing it for religious reasons. I have absolutely nothing against religion (my main principle is “The Golden Rule”) but found some of the mothers rather hard to take when they tried to force it on us.
There was the time when we went on a field trip to the chemistry department of the college here, where the kids got to blow things up and talk of all the wonderful things that chemists do. We also took a quick tour of the biology department. I found out later that two of the mothers told the woman in charge of the outreach department that they did not want any mention of evolution to be made... More
More U.S. Children Being Diagnosed With Youthful Tendency Disorder
The Onion
REDLANDS, CA–Nicholas and Beverly Serna's daughter Caitlin was only four years old, but they already knew there was a problem.
Day after day, upon arriving home from preschool, Caitlin would retreat into a bizarre fantasy world. Sometimes, she would pretend to be people and things she was not. Other times, without warning, she would burst into nonsensical song. Some days she would run directionless through the backyard of the Sernas' comfortable Redlands home, laughing and shrieking as she chased imaginary objects.
When months of sessions with a local psychologist failed to yield an answer, Nicholas and Beverly took Caitlin to a prominent Los Angeles pediatric neurologist for more exhaustive testing. Finally, on Sept. 11, the Sernas received the heartbreaking news: Caitlin was among a growing legion of U.S. children suffering from Youthful Tendency Disorder. More
Teaching Students with ADHD
Dena Landon, DanceTeacher Magazine
Having ADHD children in dance class may prove to be a challenge, but it’s one worth tackling. When their energy is given a positive outlet, they will often respond with a great deal of love and joy, making all of your efforts worthwhile.
Because most dance classes are only 45 to 90 minutes long, involve constant change and provide an outlet for physical energy, dance teachers have a unique opportunity to be positive influences on ADHD children. Are there strategies that teachers can use to help them learn dance at the same time as handle their occasionally disruptive behavior? The answer is yes. Here are some clues:
-- Simplify Your Classroom
-- Rethink Class Structure
-- Tweak Your Technique More
Learning from Dancers: An Interview with Medhi Bahiri and Judith Fugate of BalletNY
Clara Middleton, Jan. 28
Dancers – and dance itself – have a lot to teach all of us who are involved in raising and educating children in general and boys in particular. All the research about the difficulties that boys have in schools agrees on the basic point that boys are physical and learn through active engagement. It would then make sense to look at dance training for tips on how children learn through direct physical engagement and how discipline and concentration play into it. I will explore these points through interviews with a number of dancers. But first, the complexities of the decision to become a dancer, training, performing, and sharing your knowledge through dance education…More
From Blues to Jitterbug
A personal account of when drugs fail
Aurore B. Reales, Jan. 26
I saw the film The War on Kids and was shocked by how frequently drugs seem to be prescribed for children. It was especially horrifying to hear that many of the kids involved in school shootings and other crimes had been on anti-depressants. I want to describe my own experience with anti-depressants, with an accurate and personal perception on how they manipulate the neuro-chemistry. Having been "treated" with five different anti depressants over a period of three years this is an essay in what potential damage anti-depressants can cause in the human body. More
Looking Up "Transmogrify" and Other Teaching Strategies
Denny Mather, Jan. 25
My “bad boy” finished off his first semester of college in December with a 3.9 GPA! Vindication for home school! We did have a lot of people tell us we were crazy when we started, and actually told me that I wasn't educated enough to take on such a task. (I had 2 years of college, hated every minute of it.) It does help, of course, to have a smart kid... More
Gender Gap
Are boys being shortchanged in K–12 schooling?
Richard Whitmire and Susan McGee Bailey
Debates about gender and schooling have taken a surprising turn in the past decade. After years of concern that girls were being shortchanged in male-dominated schools, especially in math and science, there has grown a rising chorus of voices worrying about whether boys are the ones in peril. What does the evidence say? And what does all of this mean for policy proposals like single-sex schooling or teacher hiring? In this forum, Whitmire and Bailey sort through these questions in a talk with Education Next. More
Transcending Barriers through Music
Mark Jackson, Jan. 20
Music has a wonderful effect on people in that it crosses all barriers. It’s a participatory activity and it is a passive activity. As a music teacher I have found that working as a collective group or a team gives an ensemble the cohesiveness that enables the music to transform them. Everyone can strive to make the music beautiful. Each player has to play his or her instrument correctly or the ensemble suffers... When I am working with my band there is no time for racism, prejudice, or social competition. I have never experienced resistance to music because of ethnicity. Music transforms us when we listen and when we perform it. More
What Two Boys Got Out of the Movie Avatar
Clara Middleton, Jan. 15
Everyone’s been talking about Avatar. During the holidays I sent my son and a friend to see it while I sat in a café and did my own work. I generally don’t like long and loud movies. But I heard so many people discuss the movie that I decided to go see it after all. I went with two boys and later interviewed them about the movie. The boys gave themselves the names “Shock” and “Deadpool” for the interview. Here’s what they got out of the movie. More
Scenes from Classroom Q, Part 8
Tiffany Duncan, Jan. 13
While we’re on the topic of culture, a few words about the parent/administration culture are also in order. When my stepchildren were at Hillside, my husband had been very involved. From cleaning up the yard to sitting on the board, he had enjoyed volunteering at the school. It was of course required that we continue volunteering, so in keeping with my background and what I thought I had to offer, I joined the development committee. The school now had a full-time development director and a full-time development assistant. (The calculator in my fundraising and development mind was busy making additions and subtractions.) More
The Music Teacher: Mark Jackson in Taos, New Mexico
Clara Middleton, Jan. 7
I was in New Mexico over the holidays and had some interesting conversations with Mark Jackson, an accomplished musician who taught in Taos public schools for a number of years. Mark is an opera singer. He has sung in the US with renowned companies such as Boston Opera Company, Boston Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, the Minnesota Opera Company, and New York City Opera. He has given recitals all over the world. He moved to Taos in 2002 and when the following year he accepted the directorship of the bands at the high school and middle school, his commitment was a most welcome contribution to the Taos public school system. More
Home Schooling: Tips and Ideas for Beginners
Denny Mather, Jan. 4
I am not a supermom! I just did what we felt we had to do to keep Vincent sane and interested, rather than shut down.
Home schooling is not for everyone and there are some people who should not attempt it. A child who does not listen to you as a parent won't listen to you as a teacher. Single parents, unless independently wealthy, would not be able to give the time needed for education. Parents with little or no schooling themselves probably wouldn't be able to teach their children well. Many of the Sumtown home schooling families had more than one child. I really respect the moms who could keep up with many age levels. The older kids did help and, it seems to me, the younger ones benefited greatly listening in on lessons for the others. More
The Making of a Bad Mom
Aurore B. Reales, Jan. 1, 2010
Moms, let's give ourselves a pat on the back, or even better, let's stand in a circle and pat each others’ backs. Unfortunately, instead of showing solidarity with each other we let each other feel as bad as we feel ourselves: the full-time working mom sneers at the stay-at-home mom for doing "nothing" (out of guilt), the stay-at-home mom feels sorry for the working mom for not being able to stay home with the kids while criticizing her lifestyle, the 3-projects-juggling mom is constantly apologetic to the full time working mom who has to work so hard and to the stay-at-home mom who manages her home so perfectly, and feels unaccomplished in all areas herself…
I myself have quite a journey behind me. More
What is Bullying and What Can Be Done About It
From National Mental Health Information Center, Dec. 14
Bullying involves repeated acts of physical, emotional, or social behavior that are intentional, controlling, and hurtful. Bullying is a learned behavior, evident as early as two years of age. Bullying can be either direct or indirect. Direct bullying usually is seen and felt readily. Indirect bullying (deliberate exclusion, name calling, etc.) is much more difficult to identify, often is more difficult to remedy, and should be clearly seen as different from direct bullying. Boys are more typically engaged in direct bullying and girls in indirect bullying, but that is not always the case. Just be alert and consider the following:
-- Bullying is defined by a power imbalance between the bully and the target.
-- A bully's power can be derived from physical size, strength, verbal skill, popularity, or gender.
-- A bully's target feels tormented, helpless, and defenseless.
-- Bullying can include hitting, name-calling, threatening, intimidating, kicking, spreading rumors, teasing, pushing, tripping, excluding someone from a group, or destroying someone's things. More
Join the club. Tell your side.
What are they teaching girls—and boys about girls?
Laura, Dec. 12
I don’t have a daughter and raising a son has been far from a piece of cake, but lately I’ve been getting chills about what some mothers of girls must be going through. My son is ten years old and starting to get interested in “preteen” stuff. God help us.
I let my son pick his shows when he watches TV and I keep an eye on what he picks. It used to be that he was only interested in cartoons – Cartoon Channel, Sponge Bob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ben Ten, that sort of thing. I’ve watched plenty of this stuff with him and aside from the loud and rapid-fire action that I think promotes ADD I didn’t really mind them. I found their content for the most part inoffensive and often quite funny. They are action-packed, full of blasting gadgets and high speed vehicles, and kind of gross – the way boys like it. More
Are We Trying to Tame Our Wild Boys?
Examining whether we've gone too far in the quest to quell violence on the playground
Peg Tyre, Dec. 11
Where the Wild Things Are (both the book and the recently released movie) is about a boy who was sent to his room for being, well, wild. The film, which was No. 1 at the box office its opening weekend, has reignited the debate over how parents and schools react to typical boy behaviors. Some parenting experts have even suggested that the book and the movie offer guidance on disciplining kids without squelching their spirits completely... Back in 1963, when the book was written, it was a time when boys could play Cops and Robbers and shout "Pow! Pow!" without the threat of school expulsion. It's very different today... All of this begs the question of whether our society is trying to "tame" the normal, if rambunctious, impulses of little boys who like to play a bit rough and who sometimes get angry. More (scroll down to second blog)
Home Schooling: Socialization Worries
Denny Mather, Dec. 9
People always ask, "What about socialization in home school?" Ha! One reason Vincent hated public school was the other kids. You didn't hear me saying the F word at home. You didn't see us cheating at games, nor did we have class punishment. He wasn't getting beaten up on the playground. More
Male Mythology and Boys' Art Making
Anna Grahame, Dec. 6
I have taught comicbook drawing over a couple of years. It is usually boys who attend these classes and I would often have one girl among five boys. There was never a moment’s hesitation in my group about what they wanted to draw – they immediatley jumped into it and started drawing. The stories were full of action and violence. I never censored them, because I knew something vital was expressed that needed to get out. I sense that there is something that I as a woman don't understand in boys' imagery, and I found it simply interesting to observe. More
The War on Kids
A documentary by Cevin Soling, Dec. 3
Read no further. Watch this clip for an interview with Cevin Soling on the Colbert show. A trailer of the documentary is posted in "In the Arts" on the right side of this page. More
A Snapshot of My Life
An Exhibit at V&A Museum of Childhood, London, Dec. 3
In a project led by the photographer Gideon Mendel, pupils from Kingsmead School in London were given cameras to record what they saw. Their photos offer a child's eye view of family life. See this and this and read this.
How to Avoid Power Struggles
Monda, Dec. 3
ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) is now becoming as much a common diagnosis as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). In fact, they are often combined. ODD is especially connected to power struggles between children and adults. Minimizing power struggles is an effective strategy in dealing with children, “ODD” or not.
It is important to understand that the basic drive of a child engaged in power a struggle is to:
--Resist or refuse the “control” of others.
--Rebel against “positive reinforcement” which he perceives as manipulation. More
I am no longer a teacher. I am an implementer.
Carol (second grade teacher), Nov. 30
My deepest source of angst right now is NCLB (No Child Left Behind). It sucks the heart and soul out of learning for both students and teachers. I'm so agitated by NCLB changes my principal put in place last Monday that I dread going to school tomorrow.
The second grade team of three teachers were told we would be in a matriculation meeting all Monday morning to determine which children were neediest and how we could meet their needs. I saw this as an opportunity to contribute in problem solving. Instead, first thing, we were informed top down of some changes that would be happening in our classrooms and were subsequently handed an English Language Arts (ELA) lesson plan schedule showing us exactly what we would be teaching from the adopted ELA curriculum, on which day, which page, at what time, and for what duration of time. More
From the Editor: Why "Bad"?
Clara Middleton, Nov. 29
A number of readers recenly objected to my use of the word "bad" in the name of this site. I thought it might be a good idea to post here a section of my explanation in From the Editor.
The most interesting thing about using the word “bad” is that it seems to have a very good outcome. It evokes contrariness in people: “Boys are NOT bad,” they retort indignantly. And then all the good things they have to say about boys flow out of them: Boys are funny, imaginative, and affectionate. Their energy is electrifying and awesome. They are hypersensitive to fairness, courage, and honor. They are very smart.
Aha… mission accomplished! More
Igniting Life-Long Curiosity and Observation
Sbolch, Nov. 29
From a college admission essay:
The Real World does not have enough childishness in it. Not childishness in the sense of first grade curriculum, but in form of raw creativity, observation, naïve abstractions, and playfulness that children are taught to grow out of. This worries me. I do not want to isolate myself from the bizarre and entertaining world around me in order to join a working class of logical thinkers. And I do not want the students I taught to surrender to an adolescence of thoughtless five-paragraph-essay production; they should discuss and ask questions, stare just as long at the pictures and the story they find in it as they spend time reading. More
Thanksgiving Thoughts
Ben (age 10), Nov. 25
I'm grateful for my brother Andrew because he's funny, cool, and hyper. I'm also thankful for my friend Dylan and my friend Joe, they are both good companions. Dylan is a good secret keeper and Joe helps me with everything. I'm grateful for my rats that I can come home to and pet. More
Quick Guide for Helping a Child Solve Problems
Monda, Nov. 24
There are many time-tested and practical techniques that children can learn to help them solve problems on their own. Most parents have probably read about or observed these practical solutions or have come up with similar versions on their own. Sometimes it helps to be reminded of these tips in an organized nutshell. Here’s a quick refresher course. More
Back in Time
Denny Mather, Nov. 23
I walk almost every morning. It's my time to think as well as get a bit of exercise – and the dog loves it. I miss Vincent going with me and listening to his chatter, but he's in college now and has a different schedule. Yesterday I was trying to come up with an article related to home schooling but all I could think of was when Vinnie got the "bad boy" label in public school... Second grade was when my boy turned bad. I got a call from the principal asking me to come to his office to discuss Vincent's anger management problem! More
Professional Crazy-Maker
Olive Andlairn, November 19
I lead a reading group in my son’s third grade classroom. The other day the assignment was to finish reading a book and then to answer some questions. My son Jerry has recently been depicted as having “learning problems” and unable to finish his work. In his group of eight he was the first to finish the book. (Look at that, what a surprise! How would I have known that had I not volunteered in the classroom?)
When Jerry was finished his buddy Roderick asked him across the table about the answers and how to spell certain words. It was interesting to see that my son was considered to be the one who knows the answers and that “buddies” have their own system. Roderick was the second to finish his work. I had the pleasure to teach Roderick in my art club and I have known him since kindergarten. He is a typical overly intelligent boy, spirited, animated and active. He can't sit still, disrupts others and is hard to deal with in the classroom because it takes so much energy out of you. He is also very talented and inventive when he draws and paints and very inquisitive. More
Join the club. Tell your side.
This Constant Battle with Junk
Katie T, Nov. 17
Well, we all know raising children is hard work. Even in the most ideal circumstances – happy family, supportive community, peace and prosperity, etc. – it is still hard work. We can’t really complain about that because the idea is that we should not have kids until we really know what we’re getting into. But there are parts about being a mother that are not just hard work but unnecessary hardship. Those, I absolutely hate and cannot get used to. More
How to Reduce Power Struggles
by Monda, Nov. 13
We all know how easy it is to fall into power struggles with children. Teachers have it particularly difficult because of the number of children who might be challenging them at once and because of all the demand on their time and energy. In a workshop given by Marilla Pivonka, MFT, in Corte Madera, CA, I picked up some tips that teachers might find helpful on how to avoid these power struggles. Pivonka based her Power Struggle Reduction Plan on the "Houdini Technique” originally developed by Seth Godin. More
Is Misbehaving our Cultural Norm?
Liz, Nov. 11
When my mother and stepfather first moved to Fort Lee, NJ, in the 1980's, there were many Japanese families who were sent to live in the US for 2-3 years. I heard many of my mother’s Japanese neighbors sitting around her apartment discussing the lack of discipline in US schools. They were incredulous when I described behavior that I routinely encountered as a NYC public school teacher. More
Book Recommendation: Me, MySpace, and I
(and the creation of Acronym Kids)
By Anna Grahame, Nov. 6
In this book the author points out the cultural differences across the three latest generations, differences that can result in miscommunication. We can often see the effects of this miscommunication in the classrooms today.
Imagine the scenario where a Baby Boomer teaches children who at the age of two could already use a mouse, play simple computer games, and had learned basic reading skills to maneuver through educational sites. I volunteer in such a classroom, my son’s, helping out the overwhelmed teacher with her 19 kids. More
Langston Hughes, "Mother to Son"
Submitted by Liz, Nov. 5
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters... More
Solutions to Bed Wetting
Miranda, Oct. 23
Years ago I adopted an eleven year-old boy who had suffered many traumas in his earlier life. From my side, I became a single mother without previous experience, as I had no children. Every so often when I would go into his room I would find it smelling simply awful! More
What I'm good at
Ben (age 9), Oct. 17, 2009
Sleeping is one of my specialties. In fact it is my only specialty. What makes me fall asleep is a good massage. You are probably wondering what sleeping has to do with education? Well, when I’m being educated, I fall asleep, like now ZZZZZZ.
This is a homework assignment by Ben in fifth grade. The instruction was to write a few paragraphs on what he thinks he is good at, in response to a quote from President Obama's recent address to students. More
