Tag: school system

The Boy Who Burned Too Brightly

Written by AbleChild on August 9, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book is an excellent resource for parents, teachers, school counselors and anyone that works with children. It is an allegorical tale that paints an excellent picture of what it’s like for children diagnosed with ADD, ADHD and other psychiatric labels, and how these children are treated in the school system. The Boy Who Burned Too Brightly, written by David J. Welsh, is a fiction story about a town where everyone has a flame burning on the top of their head. Randall is a boy who is unique and his parents love that about him and don’t think there is anything wrong until a teacher points out the brightness of his flame and he is then brought to a “child pyrologist” who diagnoses him with Defective Flicker Syndrome.

In the book, Randall is then medicated with a drink called “quiescence,” which is representative of the psychiatric drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Prozac and Zoloft that millions of children are prescribed in our world today. In The Boy Who Burned Too Brightly, Randall’s differentness is suppressed, and those around him want his behavior to be more consistent with those around him, instead of magnifying his special and unique attributes and letting them truly shine. The book shows that to some people a flame may be too bright, but to others, brightness is a true gift that should be encouraged and shone to the world.

About the Author

Dr. David J. Welsh is an educational psychologist who has been in private practice in Forth Worth, Texas since 1985. Aside from writing books, he was also a producer and host of a show called Issues of the Mind from 1987 to 1997. He received his bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University in 1975, then went on to get his master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1978, and was awarded his PhD in educational psychology from the University of Texas in 1984. Dr. Welsh is a member of the American Psychological Association and Texas Psychological Association. He is also a former president of the Tarrant County Psychological Association.

Reviews

Jane L. Brown, RN, Center for Effective Learning, Virginia Beach, VA:

“I missed several words on my first read–I had tears in my eyes. It’s absolutely wonderful!”

Ron Rubin, Center for Developmental Disabilities, Univ. of Vermont:

“In a world that espouses honoring diversity, it stands out as a heart-felt treatment of what ‘honoring’ truly means.”

La Nelle Gallagher, Learning Disabilities Association of Texas:

“This book is probably the most creative and clever book on learning differences I have ever read!”

Author Dr. Thomas Armstrong:

“Certainly hits the nail on the head. I enjoyed reading it and will share this book with others.”

The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing-Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem

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

In this book, author and education professor Maureen Stout gives a much-needed examination of some very significant changes that have taken place in the education system. These changes are the result of the self-esteem movement that seems to be taking over the school curriculums and other areas of culture as well. So many new trends and theories have been popping up that are all related to this movement, from emotional intelligence to Ebonics to Howard Gardner’s theories of multiple intelligences, which Stout examines in this book.

In The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem, Stout delves into the history of how this self-esteem movement came to be, and why it’s ultimately detrimental to our children’s learning curve. She explains how schools have become more of a grounds for therapy than quality education nowadays, and condemns the styles in which the teachers have been trained to systematically push self-esteem in every area of their instruction to our children, from the school curriculum to the class environment. Stout explains how as a result of the self-esteem obsession, our children are underachieving and lacking true confidence that comes from actually putting in the work and earning the rewards.

Stout also offers practical solutions in The Feel Good Curriculum. She identifies four effects that stem from self-esteem’s infiltration of our school system: narcissism, emotivism, separatism, and cynicism. Then, Stout prescribes four concepts that should be used to replace these effects and restore our children’s education back to what it should be: a system that produces effective and strong adults that know the value of hard work, are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and are prepared to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

About the Author

Maureen Stout is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the California State University, Northridge. She resides in Los Angeles, and also wrote Teaching and Learning Outside the Box: Inspiring Imagination Across the Curriculum.

Reviews

Library Journal:

“A passionately argued and fluidly written attack on contemporary education philosophy.”

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can’t Read, Write, Or Add

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

In this book, author Charles J. Sykes addresses what he considers to be the problem with the high pedestal on which self-esteem has been placed in the education system, which sacrifices children’s ability to read, write, add, subtract and compute. He attributes this issue to the way teachers have been trained, and educational policies that have been developed. Sykes says that while today’s children feel good about their abilities, they are in reality much less capable than children from previous generations.

In Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add, Sykes explains that the education system has a growing budget and taxpayers are paying more out of pocket for education. Yet, the quality of education is going down the tubes. Children are having to meet lower requirements for standardized testing, and the system is designed to make everyone pass, but it’s not designed to allow students to master any skills or abilities.

As time goes by, America’s children may have better self-esteem, but they are scoring lower and lower in international math and science tests. How are we to solve this problem, get our children back to focusing on their basic abilities, and restore quality education? Sykes lays out solutions and steps that parents and teachers and students can use to fix all of this.

About the Author

Charles J. Sykes is an accomplished author, editor and talk show host. Hailing from Wisconsin, he had a very highly rated talk show there. After stepping down in 2016 from his talk show, he became a contributor for NBC/MSNBC as well as contributing editor for The Weekly Standard. He has also hosted other podcasts and radio shows. Sykes has written for publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, New York Review of Books, Newsweek and Time.com, and has made appearances on networks including ABC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, and NPR.

Sykes also serves as a sitting member to organizations like Advisory Committee for the Democracy Fund and Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy. Other books Sykes has published include “A Nation of Victims,” “Profscam,” “The Hollow Men,” “The End of Privacy,” “50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School, “A Nation of Moochers,” “Fail U” and “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” which is an eye-opening analysis of Trump-era conservatism.

Reviews

The Boston Globe:

“This intelligent and devastating book…brings together every aspect of the current disaster…all in clear, well-researched detail.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“A spirited call-to-arms…Sykes asks brave questions.”

Kirkus Review:

“A scathing critique that grabs America’s educational establishment by the scruff and shakes it…Parents and visionary educators, if not educrats, should sit up and take notice.”

Washington Post Book World:

“A very important book.”

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail

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

If you are curious about how school curriculums came to be structured in a manner that puts the population of America in an intellectual slumber, this text is a must-read. The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail gives a very thoroughly documented history of the education system from the late 1800s to 1999.

Written by whistleblower Charlotte Iserbyt, a former official at the Department of Education during the years 1981-1982 of the Reagan administration, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America exposes the people, government organizations, corporations and domestic and foreign groups that orchestrated this elaborate but purpose-driven plan to ruin the education system through the years. One of the main premises of this plan was to draw it out very gradually so the American people aren’t likely to notice.

In the book, Iserbyt gives shocking details, gathered from her time in the Department of Education as well as the comprehensive research she did afterwards on her discoveries, which will open your eyes to this elusive plan. She shows why and how students are lacking the reading and math skills that allow them to think independently, and are instead being taught peripheral content that government entities, special interest groups and corporations want them to know. This book will also help you gain a better understanding of the true intentions politicians have when they are passing education reform legislation.

Based on the stark facts revealed in the paper trail that makes up The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, it seems that a pure education has become a near-impossibility in America. Originally published in 1999, the book was updated in 2011 with an important 16-page addition.

About the Author

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt is a freelance writer and education professional and activist. She served as a school board director in Maine and co-founded Guardians of Education for Maine, an educational activism group. She served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would manipulate curriculum in America’s classrooms.

Iserbyt also served in the American Red Cross overseas during the Korean War. She has written articles that were published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and she has participated in Congressional hearings. Some of her other publications that exposed the Soviet and Communist doctrine infiltrating our classrooms include the 1985 booklet Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum and the 1989 pamphlet Soviets in the Classroom: America’s Latest Education Fad. She was born in 1930 in Brooklyn, New York and died on February 8, 2022. Sons of Liberty did a remarkable tribute to her work following her death, the video can be viewed here.

Reviews

David Risselada, Author of “Not On My Watch” and “Psychopolitics in America: A Nation Under Conquest”:

“I have been reading and researching Iserbyt’s book Deliberate Dumbing Down of America for a while now. I was in a social work education program where I was told I wasn’t fit for the program because I opposed the notions of social justice and white privilege. This is when I found Iserbyt’s work. I have written two books myself and blog continuously on the dangers we face concerning operant conditioning and other change methods. In fact, a link to DDD is on my page as well as New Lies For Old and other essential reading. Thanks for what you do. It is definitely appreciated and there are those of us out here fighting the good fight.”

The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools

Written by AbleChild on June 16, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

Driven by data, statistics and thorough research, this powerful exposé of the American education system shows how teachers are purposely trained to be academically inferior, so their teaching will follow suit. Most of these teachers are even outscored on SAT tests by their own students that are about to go to college. This is an eye-opening and comprehensive testament to how poorly educated American students are becoming.

In The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools, author Martin Gross exposes how weakened school curriculums have become, with only one in five students taking trigonometry, physics or geography while in high school. He points out noticeable things like how when you drive around town, it seems every parent has a “My Child Made Honor Roll” sticker on their car, alluding to the lowering standards of education that awards every child a trophy. These lower standards of teaching have infiltrated our system thanks to establishment powers-that-be that have slowly nurtured a system designed to promote ignorance. So-called “remedies” the government offers to fix education, such as federal funding and smaller class sizes, are rendered useless because they do not even address the issue of government control and establishment ideals that are the crux of the problem.

Not only does The Conspiracy of Ignorance reveal how teaching has been designed to produce low performing, poorly educated students, author Martin Gross also gives detailed instructions on how to fix the problem. He outlines what can be done to increase public awareness of this issue and see to it our children receive a level of education that will allow them to contribute to society and give them a fighting chance for the successful, happy and healthy life that they deserve.

About the Author

Martin L. Gross has written dozens of books around topics like psychiatry, psychotherapy, the medical care system, government spending and taxation. Several of his books became New York Times bestsellers, including The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z, A Call for Revolution, The End of Sanity, The Medical Racket and The Conspiracy of Ignorance. Before all of this, Gross, who has also written novels, was a newspaper reporter and magazine editor. Gross has testified before Congress five times, and though he was an active Democrat in the 1950s and 1960s, he has most frequently been a guest on conservative television and radio shows. Gross’s books were very popular in the 1990s and enjoyed a revival after the Tea Party was born. He has also been a member of the faculty of The New School for Social Research and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Science at New York University. He passed away August 21, 2013, and is survived by his two daughters and two grandchildren.

Reviews

Booklist:

“Longtime institutional critic Martin Gross is always fluent, persuasive and uncranky. Now, in one of his best books, he takes aim at the public schools.”

The Underground History of American Education

Written by AbleChild on June 11, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

John Taylor Gatto shines once again in this exposé of the true history of American education, i.e., not the version of history that the government and media have led you to believe. He reveals where the concepts and ideas that rule contemporary education truly originated. In the book, Gatto explains how most teachers and school staff may believe they are contributing to the good of their students and do not intend on making their students dumber. However, these teachers are caught in a faulty system that is designed to make individuals easily controlled by the government and corporate entities. Basically, the education system is designed to create mindless, obedient consumers who won’t question government authority or fight corporate power.

In The Underground History of American Education, Gatto pleads for less restraint of the individuality and critical thinking of students in the school system. He shows how deeply embedded these toxic ideas are that have infiltrated the school system we know today. By going back through history and connecting the dots and giving examples and revealing ideas from leaders that have been strategically hidden, Gatto helps the reader to truly understand what is wrong with our schools.

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 Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.

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

Archive.org:

“The book is absolutely riveting, and the country would be better off if more citizens read it and demanded real change to the system. Gatto’s book deserves five stars because it dares to speak the truth.”

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

Reviews

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul:

“Gatto’s voice is strong and unique.”