Author: AbleChild

The Exhausted School: Bending the Bars of Traditional Education

Written by AbleChild on June 7, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

Another genius work from John Taylor Gatto, making a strong case for educational liberty. The book is a collection of thirteen essays written by award-winning teachers and their students, which were presented at the 1993 National Grassroots Speakout on the Right to School Choice. The essays outline how the reforms being made to the educational system actually work, and what kind of impact they are likely to have. Also included in the essays are successful teaching methods which can be used in both traditional and non-traditional classroom settings.

In the book, Gatto, who is a huge proponent for strengthening the role of family in a child’s life, warns against potentially harmful school reforms such as creating longer school days to relieve parents of the “burden” of their child. Another possible reform that Gatto warns against in the book is getting rid of summer holidays and keeping schools open year-round. In The Exhausted School, Gatto stands up against the conformity and systematization that the contemporary school system is trying to force upon students which removes individuality and damages the family.

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including A Different Kind of Teacher and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

Reviews

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul:

“Gatto’s voice is strong and unique.”

Mental Health Records Matter in Mass Shootings

Written by AbleChild on May 18, 2022. Posted in Articles, Violence.

Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out

Written by AbleChild on April 25, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book by Jack Petrash, who has over 25 years of teaching experience, provides an in-depth yet easy-t0-comprehend guide to Waldorf education. The concept for Waldorf education was created by Rudolf Steiner, and Waldorf schools have been around since 1919. But mainstream education appears to be moving away from the three-dimensional approach that Waldorf encourages (artistic, physical and academic) and putting more focus instead on things like standardized testing and other external symbols of achievement.

Waldorf education encourages the development of the whole child, not just for their career or next level of education, but so they can give their own life direction and be economically and socially responsible. Some other important concepts taught through the Waldorf method include learning to separate emotion from action, learning to combine feelings with thinking (which results in idealism), self-discipline, and not specializing too early. Waldorf education also advises against introducing children to technology too early, without first allowing them to become accustomed to the world without it. Waldorf education encourages children to “try some of everything” in the early years of their education and become well-rounded. Learning through imitation and leading by example is highly encouraged with Waldorf education, instead of simply instructing children what to do and hoping they follow suit.

One of the main principles of Waldorf education is to follow the rhythm of the learning of the child, and to try to align education based on where the child’s interests lie at any given stage of their life. Also, in Waldorf schools a particular class has the same teacher as their main instructor from first through eighth grade. This process is called “looping.” Also, with Waldorf education, grade school students make their own readers in bound books starting in first grade, and create their own textbooks and workbooks as well throughout grade school and high school. These concepts and more are covered in Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out.

About the Author

Reviews

Eric Utne, founder of the Utne Reader:

“Jack Petrash’s eloquent, wise, and deeply moving book gives me a new found appreciation for Waldorf education. Even though I have been a Waldorf parent for nearly twenty-five years and a Waldorf teacher for nearly two years, I found Petrash’s explanation of the curriculum’s three-fold approach fresh and illuminating. Whether you are a parent, an educator, a policy maker, or simply a person interested in human growth and learning, read this book. You will learn how relevant education through the “head, heart, and hands” can be for our children and for the future we hope to create.”

About the Author

Jack Petrash is an educator with over 40 years of experience in the classroom. He has written a considerable amount of insightful information on education and parenting. His other books include Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from Baseball and Navigating the Terrain of Childhood: A Guidebook for Meaningful Parenting and Heartfelt Discipline. Petrash is also the founder and director of the Nova Institute, which encourages the convergence of Steiner-Waldorf education and mainstream education. He currently resides in Kensington, Maryland.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 25th Anniversary Edition

Written by AbleChild on March 23, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

With over 100 years of mandatory schooling behind us now, we have seen the progression of issues such as illiteracy and learning disabilities in our children. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, which is John Taylor Gatto’s radical treatise on how the formal education system is damaging our children and families, is a true eye-opener. This New Society Publisher’s bestseller was originally published in 1992, had a 10th anniversary edition published in 2002, and the most recent 25th anniversary edition was printed in 2017, with a foreword from Zachary Stayback, who is an Ivy League dropout and cofounder of tech startup career foundry Praxis.

Gatto, who spent 30 years teaching in the public school system before writing this book, is an advocate for education being central to the family, instead of being used to separate children from their families. In the book, Gatto makes a strong case that effective education should promote individuality and privacy instead of conformity. Gatto is an advocate for home schooling, and points out how back in the 1800s children’s skill levels were developed much earlier than they are now, and far beyond what our school systems consider acceptable nowadays. The book also introduces the idea that genius is a very common quality that is being suppressed in our society, and we have been made to believe that genius is a rarity.

Dumbing Us Down, which opens with a speech given by Gatto in 1991 when he was named “Teacher of the Year,” is known to be a fairly easy read. In the book, Gatto explains how the modern public school system is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills children are born with, and replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment. Gatto encourages children to be their own teachers and in charge of designing their own education. And he makes a strong case for why the mass education system that has developed in America does not support democracy or any of the values the United States was taught as a result of the American Revolution.

While Gatto explains how the school system itself is setting children up for failure, he also believes there are many humane and caring teachers in our schools that are just caught in a faulty system. Another key takeaway from this extremely valuable and timeless text is Gatto’s concept that “the teaching function, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone,” and that we should not just be looking to education professionals to define “good teaching.”

About the Author

Reviews

Meryn Callander, author and co-founder of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children:

“Gatto presents a credible case for his belief that school is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramidal social order, even though such a premise is a fundamental betrayal of the American Revolution.”

The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children

Written by AbleChild on February 17, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

Dr. Ben Feingold, the pediatrician and allergist who wrote Why Your Child is Hyperactive, is a champion for dietary solutions to manage behavioral issues in children. In 1979, he published The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children. This book was developed on the basis that certain chemicals, such as artificial flavors, and artificial colors and preservatives that are in food can be detrimental to children, causing behavioral issues and interfering with learning ability. Feingold’s argument is that most neurotransmitters that affect mood and learning ability are developed in the gatrointestinal tract, from the foods we ingest. This book offers an alternative to pharmaceutical medication that has garnered successful results for many parents and children over the years, in achieving the goal of reduced hyperactivity in children, and improvements in the ability to focus.

The introduction of many of these “problem chemicals” in our foods began towards the end of Word War II, and Dr. Feingold was the first to notice how these chemicals triggered behavioral and learning issues due to their allergy-inducing properties. Some of the other symptoms Dr. Feingold observed at this time in patients of his were hives, asthma, headaches, stomach issues, urinary issues and nasal congestion.

The main food groups that the Feingold Diet eliminates are: 1) Synthetic (artificial) colors and flavors and preservatives BHT and BHA and 2) Fruits, vegetables and various other types of foods that contain natural salicylates. There are two stages for the diet. First, these two food groups are eliminated. Second, about 4 to 6 weeks later, if the child is responding with positive behavioral changes, food from the second group (salicylate fruits and vegetables) can be slowly re-introduced. But foods from the first group of synthetic flavors, colors and preservatives are not re-introduced at any point.

The Feingold Cookbook brings to light the scientific evidence that indicate diet can affect behavior and learning ability in children, and introduces a list of forbidden foods. And since it can be a challenge for many families to implement the dramatic changes the Feingold Diet requires, The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children offers helpful suggestions for recipes that have been used by families that follow this diet. Today, the Feingold Association has increased the Feingold food list to thousands of acceptable brand names of foods and non-food products.

About the Author

Dr. Ben Feingold is a pediatric allergist who taught pediatrics at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and then moved to Los Angeles where he practiced pediatrics for 22 years. While in Los Angeles, Dr. Feingold served as chief of pediatrics at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, was an associate in allergy at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, and an attending pediatrician at the Los Angeles County Hospital. His research has been a source of controversy and heavy discussion among certain bodies in government. But much of his research has been of much interest to the U.S. Senate and State of California. Dr. Feingold can be thanked for the removal of certain harmful substances from our food supply, as well as the increased safety in food production around the world.

Feingold’s research led to more research done by others, which suggested in 1980 that artificial food dyes might indeed adversely affect the behavior of children. In 1951, Dr. Feingold married his wife, Helene. Together, they wrote The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children, which was published in 1979, four years after Why Your Child is Hyperactive.

Dr. Feingold was born in Pittsburgh in 1900 and did his undergraduate and medical work at the University of Pittsburgh. He was an intern at Passavant Hospital in Pittsburgh, and then went on to serve as a fellow in pathology at the University of Gottingen in Germany in 1927, followed by a fellowship at the children’s clinic at the University of Vienna from 1928-1929.

Though Feingold is gone, the Feingold Foundation continues his valuable work and research, and you can find more information on their website.

Why Your Child is Hyperactive

Written by AbleChild on January 6, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book, written by practicing pediatrician and allergist Dr. Ben Feingold, contains sound research and medical advice about how artificial food coloring and flavoring is often the culprit of hyperactivity in children. From this book, the widely renowned “Feingold diet” was derived. And 36 years after it was first published, there are still many parents overflowing with gratitude for the positive effects the book’s diet recommendations have had on their children. In fact, the book is considered by many to be even more relevant today, since there are much more artificial ingredients in foods that make up a large part of peoples’ everyday diets.

While the advice in the book is laid out with simple and clear instructions, these changes are difficult to make, but as many parents have reported, the results make it all worth it. In Stage One of the Feingold Diet, synthetic flavors, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners are removed from the diet, along with salicylates such as aspirin. Dr. Feingold’s research has found many of these products trigger hyperactivity in children. In Stage Two of the Feingold Diet, some of the products removed in Stage One are slowly reintroduced and closely monitored to see if they have an adverse effects on the child’s behavior. With the Feingold Diet, it is important that parents keep a journal of what products have been removed from their child’s regimen and which products have been reintroduced.

The benefits of the work that goes into the Feingold Diet is that it’s all natural and will likely remove products that were never good for your child (or yourself if you choose to follow the diet). And Feingold recommends that if parents are able to see positive results from the diet, they should consider talking to their child’s psychiatrist about taking them off any medications they have been put on for ADD or ADHD. This should only be done under the supervision of a mental health professional, since many drugs prescribed for ADHD are forms of speed and can be dangerous to withdraw from too quickly. Why put any drug into your child’s body that they may not need and that can cause adverse side effects? The Feingold Diet may be the answer to your child’s behavioral issues that you have been waiting for. And it could be a program that parents themselves, along with the rest of the family, may also want to follow and reap the long-term benefits.

About the Author

Feingold’s research led to more research done by others, which suggested in 1980 that artificial food dyes might indeed adversely affect the behavior of children. In 1951, Dr. Feingold married his wife, Helene. Together, they wrote The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children, which was published in 1979, four years after Why Your Child is Hyperactive.

Though Feingold is gone, the Feingold Foundation continues his valuable work and research, and you can find more information on their website.

Why Johnny Still Can’t Read: A New Look at the Scandals of Our Schools

Written by AbleChild on December 10, 2021. Posted in Essential Books.

Now that Rudolf Flesch has made the argument that phonics is the most effective way to teach children how to read in his last book, Why Johnny Can’t Read – And What You Can Do About It, this second book further examines the role of phonics in the education system. Thirty years after publishing Why Johnny Can’t Read – And What You Can Do About It, acknowledges how over time the progressive agenda that has been indoctrinated into school faculty has forsaken much of the teaching method of phonics. Instead, teachers now promote a look-and-say method of teaching children to read which uses only a small part of the phonics method of teaching.

Flesch believes this unsound approach to teaching children to read is meant to be detrimental, since it can have a domino effect onto the child’s other studies, and prevent them from reaching their full potential. Knowledge is power, and as years go by, more of our children are being stripped of this power. This book shows parents how to be their child’s best advocate, and see through the education system’s agenda to bypass necessary and extremely important steps in their child’s learning.

About the Author

Rudolf Flesch is an Austrian-born American author, readability expert and writing consultant. He was a major advocate for plain English and the use of phonics rather than sight reading to teach children in the United States. He created the Flesch Reading Ease tests, and was co-creator of the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests.

Flesch is probably known best for Why Johnny Can’t Read: And What You Can Do About It. His other books include How to Test Readability (1951), How to Write Better (1951), The Art of Clear Thinking (1951), The ABC of Style: A Guide to Plain English (1964), and How to Write Plain English: A Book for Lawyers and Consumers.

Why Johnny Can’t Read – And What You Can Do About It

Written by AbleChild on November 8, 2021. Posted in Essential Books.

This book, written in 1955 by author, readability expert and writing consultant Rudolf Flesch, is all about phonics, which is the method recommended by the U.S. Department of Education for teaching children to read. Why Johnny Can’t Read and What You Can Do About It contains all the materials and instructions anyone would need to teach a child to read at home. The book, which was reissued in 1986, also serves as an exposé on the American education system’s failure to properly teach this method to so many children over the years.

In the 1950s, Rudolf Flesch began tutoring a boy named Johnny who was held back in sixth grade because he had such weak reading skills. Once Flesch began working with Johnny, he realized that at age twelve this child still struggled to understand even some of the simplest words. The reason for this was that Johnny had not been instructed using phonics, which teaches children how to sound out or “decode” words. Once Johnny was introduced to phonics, he began to excel at reading.

Phonics is also referred to as the “foundational skills” of reading because while children could learn to read books in kindergarten or first grade by memorizing words, that will not help them once they get older and are assigned more challenging reading materials. So often the negative impact from lack of phonics instruction doesn’t become apparent until the child gets a bit older and is faced with these more complicated reading assignments. The scientific community stands by phonics as the best way to teach children to read. There have been movements to ensure it is used in schools, but as the book reveals, enforcing it has been a whole different story.

About the Author

Flesch is probably known best for Why Johnny Can’t Read: And What You Can Do About It. His other books include How to Test Readability (1951), How to Write Better (1951), The Art of Clear Thinking (1951), The ABC of Style: A Guide to Plain English (1964), and How to Write Plain English: A Book for Lawyers and Consumers.

Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People

Written by AbleChild on October 8, 2021. Posted in Essential Books.

This provocative expose of the psychology, and in particular the psychotherapy industry was first published in 1996 and was written by Tara Dineen, who has been referred to as a “dissident psychologist” with 30 years of experience. In Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People, a wildly popular book which has been cited in both Time magazine and The New York Times, Dineen makes solid, well-founded arguments that focus in on the rise of “victim culture” in the world of professional psychotherapy.

“Victim culture” is basically the idea that these psychotherapists prey on people who may not even need counselling, by convincing them they are a victim of some person, situation or affliction from their past. Then they position themselves to be right there to heal the victim.

By 1995, 46% of the U.S. population had seen a mental health professional – this is one of the interesting statistics which Dineen gives to readers to show the sharp increase in the amount of people influenced by psychotherapy. And there is a glaring lack of scientific evidence to support many of these theories that create these so-called “victims.”

Some of the topics covered throughout the book include Victim-Making, Fabricated Victims, Selling Psychology as a Science, The Business of Psychology, The Technology of Victim-Making, The Rise to Power of the Psychology Industry, and Living in the Shadow of the Psychology Industry. The book shines light on the question of who should be able to determine if a person has suffered enough to require psychological counselling, and when it should be necessary to intervene.

About the Author

Dr. Tana Dineen is a former practicing psychologist who graduated in 1969 with her Honours Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University, and received her Masters (1971) and Doctoral degree (1975) from the University of Saskatchewan. She also worked as a Treatment Director of a large psychiatric hospital for four years, where she established specialized programs that won her an American Psychiatric Association prize for Innovative Programming. Dineen is a Full Member of the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association.

Dr. Dineen began to notice that psychology, which was originally a science dedicated to the curing of serious pathology, had been watered-down into a broad range of pseudo-science and pseudo-therapy. After a period of time, she could no longer stomach the profession, and believed that psychology could no longer reform itself from the inside, which led her to leave her clinical practice. Now she runs a B&B in Victoria, British Columbia. She also writes several monthly columns for Canadian newspapers on various topics.

Reviews

Mark Sauer, San Diego Union-Tribune:

“Renegade psychologist dukes it out with feelings folks.”

LA Daily Journal:

“This gun is not for hire! Clinician slams the expert-witness racket.”

Lynn McAuley, Ottawa Citizen:

“Tana Dineen…the woman who put psychology on the couch.”

Michael Roberts, Denver Westword:

“Tana Dineen…arguably the planet’s preeminent psychotherapy critic.”

The Mail on Sunday (London):

“…argues that psychology has changed from a respectable academic discipline into an industry eager to sell its products…”

The Myth of the Hyperactive Child: And Other Means of Child Control

Written by AbleChild on September 30, 2021. Posted in Essential Books.

Though this book was published back in 1975, it was ahead of it’s time. Authors Peter Schrag and Diane Divoky produced a very well-researched book that is backed up by bold and insightful arguments. Schrag and Divoky examine the landscape of mental health profession, the public school system, and how they are shifting into a more authoritarian role, and are no longer advocates for our children. The authors expose the loose haphazard research done on “disorders” such as MBD (minimal brain dysfunction) and the lack of evidence of the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs like Ritalin, as well as the dangerous side effects of these drugs. The book also gives an in-depth analysis of the increased implementation of practices such as psychological testing, data banks, “predelinquency screenings” and behavior modification, to “fix” our children, many of whom are perfectly healthy and normal.

The authors warn parents of the psychiatric labels and psychotropic drugs that could be forced on their kids, who have no defense. And much of this psychiatric treatment, under the guise of “helping” the child, is likely to in fact cause further psychological damage. This begins a vicious cycle that leaves your child a slave to the government system, with various psychiatric labels that follow them around for their lifetime. The Myth of the Hyperactive Child is written from a unique perspective that explains the big picture of the mental health industry (and society in general) that was taking place in 1975, and is still taking place now in 2021. Specifically the book puts the focus on the increasing power of institutions over individuals, and their interference with human liberties. The book also points out that while the safety of psychotropic drugs is a concern, there is a bigger issue we are facing that threatens our children and society at large: the “ideology of drugging” and early intervention.

About the Author

Peter Schrag is an American writer, editor and scholar of California politics and political history. Schrag was a columnist and page editor at the daily newspaper the Sacramento Bee for nineteen years. He wrote for the weekly magazine The Nation for nearly a half century. Schrag is also a former visiting scholar at the Institute of Government Studies at the University of California.

A notable honor Schrag received during his career was being listed as a notable editor and writer by Marquis Who’s Who. He was a Guggenheim fellow from 1971072, and a National Endowment of the Arts fellow from 1976-77. He was born in Germany, and received his Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College in Massachusetts. Some of the other books Schrag has published include When Europe Was a Prison Camp: Father and Son Memoirs, 1940-41 (Indiana University Press, 2015), Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future, and Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in America’s Schools.

Reviews

Aryeh Neier, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

“For the last half century, Americans have been responding to real and imagined social problems by pinning derogatory labels on people, excluding them from opportunities available to others, and then bemoaning the worsening of the problems. Some of the newest and most dangerous labels stigmatize young children. They are called ‘hyperactive,’ ‘predelinquent,’ or are said to suffer from ‘learning disabilities.’ In their fine book, Diane Divoky and Peter Schrag give us an absorbing account of what is going on. The information they gather and the insights they share with us give us a chance to save our children from the awful things done to them in the guise of helping them.”

The New York Times:

“Schrag and Divoky present us with fine polemical writing in a well‐researched and thoughtfully argued brief intended to stimulate informed action against the widespread use of drugs, psychological testing, data banks, “predelinquency” screening, [and] behavior modification[.]”