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Dear Ms. Weathers,
I recently attended a Nebraska and Lincoln Public Schools "mental
health" conference, promoted to Lincoln educators, where the keynote
speaker the last day was the Governor of Nebraska. Here is my letter
to the governor after the event. I noticed that you published my
pre-conference letter to the governor on your bulliten board and hope you
will also publish this one. I REALLY had to "grit my
teeth" to keep from blasting him for his pro-child drugging stance
but I was able to find something about his remarks that was appropriate.
I felt that I had to water down the tone of my letter some so I could be
assured a bit more that he would read the letter. Note that the
psychologists/social workers at the event were pushing child drugging.
Hope this helps our cause.
Sincerely,
David F. Wiegand
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David F. Wiegand
7230 Shamrock Court
Lincoln, NE 68506
402-450-5451
July 7, 2003
Governor Mike Johanns
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 94848
Lincoln, NE 68509-4848
Subj: Your Remarks at the Mental Health Conference &
School Behavior Problems and How To Improve Academic Performance.
Dear Governor Johanns,
I am the Lincoln Public Schools Paraeducator, (teachers' aid) who wrote
you earlier objecting to what I forewarned would be the emphasis of the
recent school sponsored mental health conference - drugging school
children with mind-altering psychotropic drugs. In my earlier
letter, I urged you to use the weight of your office to encourage more
effective solutions to educational problems such as doing a better job of
teaching children to read.
After hearing your remarks at the conference, I thought you might be
interested in some observations and data that I have collected regarding
decreasing school behavior problems and improving academic achievement in
school children. What I especially found thought provoking (and what
inspired this letter), was your comments about the nutritional supplement
Empowerplus and how it improved the symptoms of various behavior
syndromes.
Approaches to improve school behavior and academic performance include:
· Prescribing drugs,
· Administering nutritional supplements,
· Eliminating food toxins,
· Implementing various instructional strategies and,
· Prayer
Here is some of what I wrote you earlier. When assisting a student
with learning material, I look for signs that a child understands the
material presented. That "Oh yea, I GOT it!" accompanied
by a brightening of the child's demeanor is what I look for to confirm
that learning has occurred. What some of my colleagues and I observe
is that children who are on legal, (but harmful), mind-altering drugs are
often more difficult to bring to that level of understanding in the
classroom. Some children are so hyped up on their current
"medication" that they are unable to focus, and their attention
can involuntarily shift suddenly so that anything that occurs in the
classroom takes them "off task." Learning seems to stop
when a child is drugged. Other children, obviously over-medicated,
(apparent even to a non-medical observer,) are lethargic and listless, and
have lost that zest and enthusiasm that must be present for optimum
learning to occur.
In my experience, children are more difficult to teach when on drugs.
What so especially contra-indicates drugged children in an educational
setting is that I find that once the child is off medication, the child
can then be helped using traditional classroom discipline and educational
methods. Children at my school suffer from no mental
"disease" requiring the administration of dangerous cocaine or
methamphetamine-like drugs. The common denominator of all the
students in youth detention is that they are out of communication because
they have not been effectively taught how to read.
The majority viewpoint expressed at the mental health conference was that
administering harmful psychotropic drugs is appropriate in handling
educational problems. My own experience in the classroom, validated
by various academic studies, indicates that this is NOT the case.
According to the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, (1999); 44:811-813,
children who take amphetamine-type or other prescribed, mind-altering
drugs do not perform better academically. Another study published in
the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
describes the findings of the 1998 U.S. National Institutes of Health
Conference on ADHD that kids taking prescribed, mind-altering drugs still
have a higher level of some behavior problems. The 2000 NIH ADHD
Consensus Statement additionally stated: "…stimulant treatments may
not 'normalize' the entire range of behavior problems, and children under
treatment may still manifest a higher level of some behavior problems than
norm
al children. Of concern are the consistent findings that despite the
improvement in core symptoms, there is little improvement in academic
achievement or social skills.”
Considering the well-documented adverse side effects of drugs that have
been in use for some time and the lack of long-term patient history of the
newer drugs, I feel that it is highly inappropriate for school personnel
to encourage parents to drug their children, even second hand.
During one breakout session at the conference, we were advised on how to
get around a parent who objected to drugging their child. The
session attendees were told that if they felt a child needed psychiatric
drug treatment, they should encourage the parent to take their child to a
private psychologist or psychiatrist who could directly recommend or give
the child drugs!
Another solution to school behavior and academic problems is the solution
you mentioned in your remarks at the conference - nutritional supplements.
Scientific literature validating your remarks is not only extensive.
It is vast! The references listed on the www.truehope.com
website alone are staggering! As only one example, a study conducted
in Poland of 116 children diagnosed with ADHD concludes, "The
findings herein presented indicate that it is necessary to take into
consideration a possible bioelements deficiency among children with ADHD.
Consequently, the accomplished study proves that there is a need of
magnesium supplementation in ADHD children irrespectively of other mental
disorders." According to “The Vitamin B3 Dependent Child”
an article in a 1971 issue of Schizophrenia, niacin supplementation was
helpful for symptoms of, "hyperactivity, deteriorating school
performance, perceptual changes and inability to acquire or maintain
social relationships"
How odd that our school system seems to favor drugging school children
when numerous studies indicate that the cause of many symptoms of mental
illnesses and poor academic performance are actually physical deficiencies
of various vitamins and minerals. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
apparently cause many of the very same symptoms that the psychiatric
industry has listed under diseases found in the DSM, and for which the
preferred “treatment” is powerful psychiatric drugs!
In the area of nutrition, effectively handling educational problems with
vitamin and mineral supplementation is not the only approach.
Eliminating toxins from food seems to be effective as well. As
reported in a 1986 issue of International Journal of Biosocial Research,
"The introduction of a diet policy which lowered the quantity of
sucrose, synthetic food color/flavor, and two food preservatives, (BHA and
BHT,) over 4 years in 803 {New York} public schools was followed by a
15.7% increase in mean academic percentile ranking above the rest of the
nation's schools who used the same standardized tests." The
October 2002 issue of the Feingold Association newsletter Pure Facts,
relates how instituting a "healthy food" school lunch program
has improved student behavior and academic performance at the Appleton,
Wisconsin, Central Alternative High School. According to the report,
“Principal, LuAnn Coenen is amazed at the change she has seen in her
school. Each year principals
are required to file a report with the state of Wisconsin, detailing
the number of students who have: dropped out, been expelled, been found
using drugs, carrying weapons or who have committed suicide. Since
the start of the program, she reported, the numbers in every category have
been zero.” Dr. Thomas Scullen, Superintendent of the Appleton
Area School District told the interviewer, “Students who previously had
been headed for trouble have turned their lives around. We have kids
who have had a lot of problems and got through the whole last year without
an expulsion. Dropouts dropped to non-existent. Kids came to
school. They have learned that with healthier foods it's going to
make them a better person. It keeps them more focused and makes them
happier.”
How odd too that our school system seems to favor drugging school children
when studies and current programs in existing schools indicate that many
symptoms of mental illness and poor academic performance can be eliminated
by eliminating toxins from food! Food toxins also cause many of the
very same symptoms that the psychiatric industry has listed under diseases
found in the DSM, and for which the preferred “treatment” is powerful
psychiatric drugs.
The most appropriate intervention by educators to improve behavior and
academic performance (except for school administrators and nutritionists
who would implement a healthy food plan school wide) is implemented in the
classroom. Teacher strategies to help both normal and “problem”
children include:
· Establishing clear classroom routines and procedures,
· Implementing the successful classroom strategies of other teachers, and
· Teaching students successful study strategies that result in the
student being able to effectively apply the material studied.
In the area of improving reading comprehension and reducing illiteracy,
the Los Angeles World Literacy Crusade, headed by Reverend Alfreddie
Johnson, comes to mind. According to data collected by Applied
Scholastics on their website at www.appliedscholastics.org,
"Forty students who participated in a World Literacy Crusade
community tutoring program at Will Rogers Elementary School in Los Angeles
County gained almost a full grade of reading ability in a seven week
period. During the same time period, the students also received
tutoring in math resulting in a 20 percent improvement in their math
tests." Not exactly a double blind study. Right?
Sure! But, by using the techniques of the World Literacy Crusade,
don’t you think we could duplicate that in any school in Nebraska!
I sure feel we could! Especially here in Lincoln if we replaced the
thirty-nine or so LPS psychologists who want to drug kids with a hundred
or so effective tutors who could teach the children to r
ead!
The World Literacy Crusade uses the educational technology developed by
author and Nebraska native L. Ron Hubbard. The study technology he
researched indicates that many school behavioral problems are associated
with damaging educational practices that practically force the student to
miss-behave! As an example, nervous hysteria, excessive anxiety, and
feelings of having been "wronged" by others can follow not
understanding the words in the material the student is studying.
Apparently, accumulating words not fully understood can result in the
symptoms of various "mental" illnesses in a student! What
a real crime it would be if we were part of "treating" lack of
effective study techniques by giving the student powerful psychiatric
drugs. Except for your comments about nutritional supplements and
coping strategies and spiritual solutions presented the second day of the
conference, the drug solution predominated. What a shame!
The last intervention approach is prayer. On the second day of the
conference, two speakers alluded to spiritual approaches and for this I am
gratified. Dr. John De Frain distributed a handout titled,
"Spiritual Well-Being: Sacred Connections," and Kathy Dunning
spoke about how families can intervene based on observations of
"strengths." Kathy also related how a spiritual emphasis
in her life and in her family helped her to confront family crisis.
Of course, this approach may not be practical, appropriate, or even
desired by the individual educator. One aspect of prayer as an
intervention strategy is that one does not have to actually intervene with
anyone to apply this approach. One can pray by oneself and not have
to engage anyone else in the application. After all, your prayers
are to your Deity as you see it or not, according to your own personal
conscience and they should be private when you are in a public school
setting.
In summation, there is much evidence to indicate that mind-altering drugs
do not work to effectively improve individual long-term school behavior
and academic performance. Nutritional interventions, educational
interventions, and prayer DO work both as effective intervention
strategies for the individual student, and for school wide implementation.
Could you not as the Governor, issue an order to Nebraska State Education
authorities to contact the Appleton, Wisconsin school authorities and hear
their experience with healthy school lunches first hand? And then,
could you urge that Nebraska's schools provide healthy lunches to
students? Could you not urge more effective medical treatment by
directing HHR to apply nutritional intervention strategies in every case
where the State was involved with treating the mentally ill? Could
you, by looking at funding allocations, steer funds away from the drug
oriented psychological/psychiatric approach to literacy programs and
toward
effective programs such as the Los Angeles World Literacy Crusade?
And would you, as the political leader of Nebraska, by word and by
example, show that spiritual solutions to life's problems are much
preferable to dangerous mind-altering drugs?
As you consider your actions in formulating any mental health policy that
applies to Nebraska's schools, I sincerely hope that you will urge
effective non-drug solutions to improving school behavior and academic
performance.
Sincerely,
Signed,
David F. Wiegand
cc: Doug Christensen, Ph.D., Commissioner, Nebraska State Department of
Education
Kimberly J. Peterson, Member, District 1, Nebraska State Board of
Education
Philip H. Schoo, Superintendent of Schools, Lincoln Public Schools
Kathy Danek, Member, District 1, Board of Education, Lincoln Public
Schools
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