Forget the Pledge of Allegiance. Today’s teachers are more likely to start the school day with an ‘emotions check-in.’ Abigail Shrier on the rise of ‘trauma-informed’ education.
As a lifelong teacher, I firmly believe that, in addition to everything else, what’s driving this approach is that it’s much easier to chat about feelings than to do the hard work of teaching, for instance, math, or history. And, you get to feel like a hero every day. Doing ‘real’ teaching is an arduous task, often thankless in the short run but profoundly rewarding in the long run.
I’m a college professor and I came here to say exactly the same thing. Combine this laziness with an urge to present oneself as an all-knowing savior of the vulnerable, and you have a truly toxic individual.
What schools are currently banning those books? Books are only banned when the reader has no access. If parents want their children reading about the best lubricants for anal sex. Let them do that at home. Thus the book is not banned. The same with the tittles you mentioned. Both belong on 7-12th grade reading lists. If they aren’t nothing prevents parents from reading them with their children. Actually that should happen regularly. Outrage at reading
about Scout, Jem, Dill and Bo Radley or Huck and Jim most often comes from officious liberal parents white and black.
TxFrog, you call them Democrats, because THOSE books are racist! They “trigger” the WOKE parents and must be banned. Nothing about sexually explicit material in them - otherwise NO Problem!
Removing pornography from taxpayer funded schools is an obligation of the taxpayer. If Mom's for Liberty was removing these books from public libraries, you would have a point. They're not. They are removing things from public schools. But your argument is irrelevant. Public schools have been completely destroyed by teachers unions and the Democratic Party. To the extent that Mom's for Liberty is prioritizing the wrong thing, you are correct. mom's for Liberty should be REMOVING their children from public schools. Let Democrats send their kids to shitholes, get beaten up, depressed, addicted to drugs, and have their sexual organs removed... I don't give a shit what happens to the children of leftists.
Agreed. For the mere polite comment disagreeing with them, these "good Christians" labelled me severly mentally ill, a troll, a communist propagandist and so on. What a warm welcome from these proponents of Christian love and defenders of civil discourse! And, of course, I get similar downpour of "tolerance" from the anti-racist crowd if I say something in their face that they don't like, for example, that some black people were slave owners, too. I am always relieved to find out that I am not alone on the island.
Perfect. The solution is outlined perfectly in the declaration of indepence. You nutsack leftists can go on your merry way in your blue cesspits. Meanwhile the normal and sane humans can have as many states as we can capture.
When my private school began to have longer homeroom meetings in the AM and then end every day with advisor-advisee meetings, the swap was shorter or fewer academic classes. The powers that be, furthermore, interrupted schedules throughout the year to have "break it up" activities that would "increase mental well being." Utterly silly.
I used to say, Kids don't need variety, they need reliable consistency; but I was considered a crank.
Oh, my students enjoyed the activities well enough, but they saw it all for what it was.
Oh, I don't think the school made any money off these advisor meetings or "break it up" days. The exercises required only energy, better directed towards academic pursuits.
Now, on the other hand, DEI training for faculty, which made lots of money for the consultants who came in and bored us silly, that really was costly. And annoying. Many of my colleagues and I had already, for decades, been adding black literature and history to the curriculum, and turning things inside out to "do even more!" struck us as overkill.
The more time that’s spent on “fluff” means less time spent on actual subject matter…contributing to the abysmal, below-grade-level performance in basic categories like math, English, reading, etc.
Unfortunately, the teachers are also forced to do these activities. SEL is seen as the solution to every problem and our school district expects and requires it. Personally, I hate it and find it to be an endless, ineffective, frequently boring and developmentally inappropriate waste of everyone's time.
When the PTA consistently fund raises for counselors rather than readingvspecialist, art supplies, after school tutoring, etc. there needs to be a recognition that this is not solely a teacher problem. Lots of folks have drank the kool-aid!
JoAnne, it depends on each school - as to how many people have quaffed the kool-aid and how many know this is all absolute lunacy. Good teachers, good PTA members, good principals and administrators, ALL know this is harming kids. They need to be brave and calmly tell the union, admin/district, and confused parents that the focus of public schools needs to be excellence in academics! Not gender or racial identity or the latest mental illness. I have seen small groups of parents be very effective at stopping nonsense - by being media savvy in their local community and framing the way forward as "this is stopping now or else." And they have to mean it. If teachers would lead the way for 2 weeks - 2 months at their school, all of this could disappear. I wish them luck and pray for their courage.
Very true. But it's very hard when Democrats and our entire societal fabric is feeding unrealities telling kids men can be women & vice versa, and men too can get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed. And also everyone can have their very own "my truth".
Can you shed some light on how education got this way? How did this mess eat into the education system over time?
It seems like 30 years ago our society as a whole didn't take mental health seriously enough. (Remember Tipper Gore's mental illness pet project and also all the talks about health insurance should mental health treatments when HRC attempted her failed health care system overhaul). Seems like now we have an over correction. Was this what happened? Or something else?
I also think that parents increasing abdicated responsibility to schools. Over time we expected the schools to basically be primary caretakers for kids. Before my mother retired, her school basically had all kids on free lunch (because they didn't want the poor kids having a stigma attached). And then they had free breakfast as well.
Overtime, the school is just expected to take care of everything. Add a generation or 2 of new teachers who care more about the kids feeling good or happy as opposed to focused on learning.
Its just a mirror of mainstream society. We keep asking someone else to fix everything, eventually we cede all power and ability to take care of ourselves which attracts the kinds of people who like running people's lives....usually for the wrong reasons.
The community consists of previous poorly educated graduates of our schools. It turns out that kids who have been constantly preached to about oppression and victimhood (and taught little else) grow up to be less than ideal parents.
All of this originated in the education system, run by and for educators. It will not change until the teachers demand change.
The education system does not exist in a vacuum. A very small example, Shirer talked about kids being independent, but I have tied shoes for 4th graders in general education who haven't been taught to tie their shoes. There are students who can't get in or out of their clothing to go the bathroom or zip their coat to stay warm on the playground.
Why aren't the parents teaching these very basic skills or buying clothes that match and support their child's independence? As a child, my parents drilled me on putting on coats, snow pants, and boots because this was my job. (For kindergarten and first grade, I was in mittens because I couldn't master gloves!) Zippers get caught & shoes get incredible knots and the teacher will help, but on the day to day basis children should have the ability to dress themselves. Getting dressed and undressed by oneself is an essential part of a child's self esteem and gives great independence, but parents aren't empowering their own children because of teachers' unions and a problem with the educational system? Shrier is correctly also pointing at parents!
I think you're right there's an overcorrection. You are also correct that 30 years ago we did not pay enough attention to mental health. Back in the late 60s and early 70s our whole society began to embrace the "I'm ok, you're ok" mantra. So, why were some people NOT ok? The conclusion became," everything is society's fault." Therefore, finding out what's wrong with people became unimportant. We validated every feeling, even the dangerous ones. In school, I have seen truly bad kids. We have not been able to address things that made the kid bad. It wasn't his/her fault, they said. He needs self-esteem. We have to understand his perspective. While the latter might be true, the onus was on us to help the child, never to get the child to help himself; to conform to the accepted norms of society, and to assimilate into the collective to a certain degree. These were always individuals whose personal brand of individualism differed so much from the mainstream as to be socially unacceptable. People who should have been seen by a mental health professional were allowed to be themselves. How dare we suggest there's something wrong with the person because he/she does not fit into our box. Well, mass shooters are a perfect example. Most are socially on the fringes. They are malcontents. Students in schools are similar. How dare I suggest a child needs help. Social workers and school psychologists have told me this for years. Students hurt themselves, hurt others, refuse to engage socially, engage in negative behaviors, exhibit signs of all manner of ant-social behavior, and are rarely faced with consequences and analysis. We cannot "blame the victim" by administering consequences. We cannot label someone by placing him under analysis. The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.
Perhaps, as a young teacher over forty years ago, the second colleague I ever disliked was a woman who did psychoanalysis in her English classes and wheedled secrets out of her students.
She was charismatic, very well-educated, and unlike Miss Jean Brodie, happily married.
But having kids adore you is indeed intoxicating. Many did. The students who saw through her and understood that her motives were entirely self-serving, though, disliked her intensely.
Since that time, the only teachers I pretty much ignored, and only in my last ten or so years out of forty, were young ones who spent their time reading teaching booklets (you mean, you don't know how to write a paragraph yet? or, with your eyes blindfolded, teach sixth graders how to?) and talked educational-Teachers College-Bank Street gobbledygook at the faculty lunch table.
Still, I know some very good teachers are still out there trying to hang on until the winds change. They always do.
Exactly right. We need to get rid of SEL and all these school counselors who encourage excessive rumination on all manner of topics including Gender Theology.
"Democrats Don’t Want Parents Involved In Childhood Education"
But, next up, I hear there is a push to put little medical facilities in each high school. Want to bet that will mean more government control & parents even less aware of what happens to their kids?
It's also another byproduct of the abandonments of standards. There are teachers who could implement a more rigorous traditional pedagogy--poem memorization, sentence diagramming, table memorization, intensive math drills, etc.--and? Many PARENTS would howl. Just as they would if a strict bell-curve grading system gave their own darling a C- (grade inflation is only offensive on the other kid's report card). The rigor vacuum that obtains in a keep-things-moving-pass-everyone school culture is bound to be filled with some kind of busy work. In other words, what's happening just might be less conspiratorial than it is inevitable within a system where a large percentage of the school population isn't cut out for academics.
My students' parents howled when English teachers did not teach grammar. But that was long ago, and probably those who came after my time was up didn't know any better. . . .
I immigrated to the US while I was in elementary school, and I kept waiting and waiting until they would teach grammar in English class, but that time never came.
Before the advent of "adolescent literature," children read books that were written by authors with style, and my friends and I were able, just through reading, to master complex sentence structure without struggle -- although we did get that grammar in school anyway.
Nowadays, children's books are thin gruel.
For authors whose cadences bring out the best in us, go back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. But I am sure you know that already.
For the record, my father entered first grade c. 1930 knowing only Greek. When his new schoolmates made fun of him, his parents instituted an "English only" rule at home. Dad went on to Brooklyn Tech and after the war became an engineer in an aerospace company.
He never forgot his Greek. It wasn't as though he lost his culture.
I was about to come in and say the same thing. Egads. I was always told to push through. As my daddy used to say and he was right, this too shall pass.
I'd presume that many students manipulate this system to their advantage as well, in terms of turning in assignments on time or taking tests when scheduled. Additionally, this feeling like a hero comment gets to the heart of the problem. We wrap this "help" in the cloak of altruism, but a lot of it is making the care giver feel good for giving care, and normal kids don't need the care, so there's this subtle motivation to see problems that perhaps aren't real pathology
Well history I think is bound to elicit an emotional response. And I tend to think all the sciences flow from math which I freely admit may be incorrect. But I think you are saying that the other subjects are fact based and I agree. I may be biased but I want to live in a fact-based world. I will adjust my emotions in response thereto.
Math is hard for many students, prepared or not. I was a wizard at reading, writing, history, non-math science, and arithmetic--but math killed me. I had a brain wired for everything but [(x+y)/{aBc+dx}] x [AaBbCcDd] . . .
Yeesh. Typing that equation still creeps me out 50 years after high school. My teachers tried their best, but no dice for me. Many students have the same reaction.
I was the same way until, working at an engineering company, I decided I would give math one more try at the local JC. There was a teacher who made everything clear. I worked hard and studied hard for that class every night after work. I've earned many A's in my academic career, but that is the A I am most proud of of all my grades. I wish I knew the teacher's name, but it's lost in the mists of time.
I agree. It's all about how to present the subject. People that love a subject were usually exposed to a teacher who was passionate about it and knew how to communicate it appropriately.
That's a great story, Cynthia, and I'm so happy you made it work for you. Funny thing, I can grasp geometry, astrophysics, and other "visual" math concepts, because I can see them in my head and so they make sense. Algebra is so purely theoretical and conceptual math I can't approach it at all.
Fortunately for me, I've made a good living as a writer for 50 years, so arithmetic sufficed. But I envy those few who have mastered both sides of their brains--creative and conceptual math.
I might be in the minority here, but I didn't like chatting about feelings when I was school age, and I'm not fond of it now when I'm in my 60s. Give me math or history and day!
Frederick, I could not agree more! SEL(as presented here) is inappropriate in all classes but especially math & science. It’s no wonder the US trails the world in basic education.
I am a psychiatrist and the stuff Abigial Shrier is bringing to light has been making me nuts for years. But it's not just baked into the school system, it's rampant in the mental health community and of course, it is fueled by social media. I would make this book, and her one on the 'gender-affirming' phenomena required reading in every graduate program, even and especially the on-line ones, cranking out mental health workers.
Those graduate programs are run by Democrat psychopaths. There are no tweaks to required reading that will improve this even marginally.
The vast majority of the people who work at universities are mentally ill Democrat parasites. Eliminate all financial support and watch it burn to the ground. This isn’t education this is Enron.
You don’t try to keep the Luftwaffe around just because airplanes are important.
Very true. But no one wants to admit that the Dems opened the door to this. No one has done more irrevocable damage than the leftist agenda. And the only rebuttal they have is...what about January 6th?
Pompeo's remark is ridiculous. Pompeo is part and on board with the architecture & implementation of the Ukraine insanity. Because of that, this country is closer to being incinerated than it has ever been. I have done the math on that. If only half of Russia's ICBMs are functional, there won't be much left afterward. Incineration is the correct word. Russia's MIRV warheads are 750 kilotons. Russian ICBMs carry 8-12 warheads. Twelve can incinerate an area near the size of Texas.
We have ground down Russia's conventional forces using Ukraine's fanatic Banderas to do it. Russia will defend itself, and Russia is prepared for nuclear war more than any other nation on earth.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Totally different scales of damage.
So, the answer is "let's ban The Great Gatsby from the school libraries in Florida because it traumatizes our children" ? Moms For Liberty aren't Democrats.
So we have a multi-trillion dollar nationwide network of communist indoctrination camps that are churning out illiterate racist kids with psychiatric disorders who hate the country………and your primary concern is that a couple dozen moms in Florida disagree with you on the precise age-appropriateness of the Great Gatsby??
I have never heard something that indicates severe brainwashing and mental illness quiet as strongly as that.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida's governor on Thursday fired back at what he calls a "book ban hoax" regarding what children are exposed to in classrooms.
Speaking in Orlando, DeSantis emphasized that Florida does not ban books in schools, but instead empowers parents to object to learning materials if they feel it's inappropriate for a certain age group.
Local school districts then have the power to remove those materials or allow them to only be viewed by students of a certain age.
"Over the past year, parents have used their rights to object to pornographic and sexually explicit material they found in school libraries," DeSantis said. "We also know that some people have abused this process in an effort to score cheap political points."
DeSantis admitted, however, that some parents have abused their objection power by raising concerns about books like the Bible, Johnny Appleseed and "The Giver" just to send a political message.
"I am calling on the Legislature to make necessary adjustments so that we can prevent abuses in the objection process and ensure that districts aren't overwhelmed by frivolous challenges," DeSantis said.
The governor said he's directed the Florida Department of Education to take action to "prohibit bad actors in school leadership positions from intentionally depriving students of an education by politicizing the book review process."
DeSantis is also calling on the state legislature to "enact policy that prioritizes parents' voices by limiting bad-faith objections made by those who don’t have children learning in Florida."
Wow, just a mere fact-checking caused me labeled as strongly mentally ill! Just in case, another minor fact, a co-founder of Moms For Liberty is married to a chair of Florida Republican Party, so she may have some influence 😂. The difference between you and me is that I see both sides doing wrong things, and that frees me up from righteousness. I call it for what it is.
It was the nature of your “fact-check” that exposed you as brainwashed and mentally ill.
I pointed out that Democrats control education in America and your fact check of this was that The Great Gatsby is no longer Rated G in Florida so really it’s both sides.
Only a sociopath feels comfortable putting forward an argument that reprehensibly dishonest.
Education is a shitshow because it is totally controlled by Democrats…….BUT THERE WAS A COACH WHO PRAYED AFTER A FOOTBALL GAME SO IT IS BOTH SIDESY!!!!
What are you quoting? I searched the quote and no results were found. Why is Moms for Liberty relevant to a discussion of appropriating education resources for non-education purposes?
Ideological utopianism (poseur DEI/Marxist woke) funded by tax dollars and grants willingly approved and distributed by pay-to-play D.C. politicians. Both groups in service to malignant narcissism (DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos). It represents the theft of the resources, the life and labor, "we the people" provide. No more hidden budgets and appropriations. No hidden add on's. No more "..gee we found a few billion dollars we didn't know we had..", or flat bed trailers stacked with cash earmarked for baksheesh and graft. Total transparency on all tax dollars spent.
First, if that's not your real name, I appreciate the throwback to the greek physician. Secondly, having recently graduated, we could not have discussed Shrier's first book in my classrooms. I genuinely think that would never happen, since the profession of therapists/psychiatrists is in denial. But I agree with you; I think it would be beneficial reading across the board.
This is exactly like an issue I dealt with 30 years ago. I started a company got investors and went off a cliff. It hit me hard. 5 or so years later I met a shrink, Lee.
We talked, he asked me what I'd been doing about it. I said I was resting more, working less hard, the popular ideas. Lee said, "You know, the people that made that stuff up never tested it, never presented a shred of evidence it works." Then he asked me what I'd learned and said to work hard with that.
About the core thing he asked, you know what that means about you? I answered. He said, "It means you're not a sociopath. Not a bad thing. But it should have a point, right? Should benefit someone? Who is this benefitting? Besides my bank account?"
We became friends until he died. Lee didn't respect that idea of life separation rules. I asked him once. He replied pretty close to, "Oh, that's because we don't police our profession well enough. Those immature people shouldn't be licensed in the first place. If you have so little self-awareness you abuse and manipulate people as props in your own narcissistic theater, how can you do anything but prey on anyone who comes to you no matter what the rules are?"
He was of the... life is tough, deal with it school.
I think he was right. My theory is that we all have issues (not trauma, issues) and that maturity is melding childhood experiences, including those issues, into a cohesive personality to successfully navigate life. And life has ups and downs. But then the chattering vlass decided that kids must be protected from bullying and so much damage has flowed from that.
What's truly infuriating is, if you try to call out some of the lunacy going on in our schools, YOU will be attacked. Not far from where I live the school system in a town in Connecticut installed a tampon dispenser in the boys room at the local high school. Within a half hour it was destroyed, and to the local wokesters, it was like 9-11 had just happened. As with most things, there IS a sensible compromise, such as putting the tampon dispenser in a gender-neutral restroom or even in lightly trafficked hallway. But to the woke, this is an "opportunity" to "educate" the rubes among us. As with everything they advocate, they never seem to realize that bad things happen when they set themselves up as thought police! Closer to home, a daycare center has as one of its students a four-year-old boy who is being raised by two lesbian women is being encouraged to experiment with gender by two people who are clearly ideologues. This child has a name that can be either a boy's or a girl's name - probably intentional from birth. Instead of telling this little boy that it's ok for him to do "girl things" - perhaps playing with dolls or reading girls' books or liking purple and pink - they are sending him to daycare wearing dresses and barrettes - and saying things like "you're my sweet little girl." I know for a fact that growing up as ANY little boy can be tough if you're not one of the tough guys ...but these women are making it worse. He's in for some tough times when he goes to Kindergarten. But... were I'd ever to say anything, I'd be the crazy one. I'd be the "hater." I'd be treated like a criminal.
I heard about that! Several times actually, it made national news. The child of the two moms sounds like emasculated him
is the goal. And I think it would be confusing for a child to be in a two parent family with no one of your gender with whom to identify. I said yesterday that I think some of this is fueled by confusion over bias and prejudice. In my small town there was a considerable brouhaha over gender identity in schools. Bullying and not being allowed in the bathrooms and locker rooms of their preferred gender was lamented. They produced a slate of candidates for school board and the fight was on when folks not experiencing gender dysphoria produced an opposing slate. The vitriol from the gender crowd was astonishing. They would say they experienced vitriol as well and maybe they did, but I did not see it. But I just kept wondering about the vast majority of students who were just normal kids trying to navigate school. Why was it okay to ram values they did not share down their throats. It elevates the interest of the few above the interest of the many.
That's a beautiful definition of maturity!!! Cohesion and navigation require thinking skills and risk; I fear that kids aren't given the time or room to mess up these days. That's where the best learning happens.
My husband and I were aware that all of our three children experienced bullying at school (in the 2010s). We never once went to the school to raise a concern or to 'make it stop'.
We thought it best for our children to learn how to cope with it. And they did.
And they learned a resilience which has served them well.
My simple theory after talking to hundreds of “mental health professionals” for my research is the same as the discussion Abigail raises with the teachers. If you don’t have mastery of your own subject matter and self, you have the potential to do great harm. Those with “rescuing” tendencies due to their own psychological make up will impede the growth of others. It is a form of “power theft” and it is right to call it out. It is right to return power to the individual and teach that set of core skills. Sadly, there are very very very few like Lee who have that kind of mastery anymore. Glad you made it through the challenges.
So much poison is now 'baked into the school system' that they are maybe now beyond repair - which is why home schooling is surging in the US. "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” ......
That vast infrastructure of buildings full of classrooms children and teachers. Kids spending their weekdays being taught by teachers – how could things possibly be otherwise? In this essay I try, firstly, to sketch an impressionistic snapshot of this ‘Schools in Crisis’ media flurry and then to dip a toe into the hazy waters of what could possibly replace them as the means by which society teaches its children." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Each state needs laws that are directed to teaching the three Rs (of course science, civics, computer science and other traditional core subjects). Teachers and administrators are threatened with immediate firing If the vary from not only this teaching plan but they must leave their ideologies and politics at the schoolhouse door.
Great handle. You have a constrained or conservative view of healthcare interventions, as do I. I'm not a psychiatrist, rather, I'm an ER doc but I've seen so many kids for mental health issues over the past 30+ years. I'm well aware that there are kids who desperately need medication and intensive therapy, but in general I hate to see so many kids sucked into the mental health system. Something happens there that is the opposite of empowering.
Opposite of empowering is spot on. I highly recommend The Coddling of the American Mind. It primarily focuses on colleges, but the issue is spread well beyond the campus. The entire concept of mental health and wellness today seems focused on reinforcing cognitive distortions rather than combating them. Everything you feel is valid, no matter how over the top, nonsensical, or self destructive it may actually be. The book breaks a lot of it up in to the embracing of what the authors call the 3 great untruths which fly in the face of everything we've known about happiness and good mental health.
"What doesn't kill you, makes you weaker" (so avoid hardship and discomfort at all costs), "Always trust your feelings" (No matter how unreasonable or self defeating they may be), and "Life is a battle between good and evil people" (so never see the good in someone you disagree with, never consider they may be right about something, never accept their criticisms no matter how constructive, don't even consider that they may be wrong, but have good intent. They're evil.)
My teen is one of those many kids who got sucked in to it through an ER visit while some of the hospital medical staff were quietly sharing with me they shouldn’t do this to our kid.
It was a nightmare. And a Herculean labour on our side to “suck out.” We ended up leaving the country. I felt that as parents we just couldn’t win in the US.
I am amazed at how much younger the 'mental health crisis' patient I see in the ER is now. Seriously, I don't recall seeing an 8 year old going off the rails in the ER before. let alone daily. Sitting with a behavioral sprecialist for hours finally I couldn't take it anymore and just went to the 8 year old with my best mom voice and said 'cut it out, stop screaming'. And to my astonishment, she did
I love the irony of a psychiatrist using the phrase “making me nuts” 😂 but I agree. Instead of teaching resiliency and the idea that you’re stronger than you think you are, we teach victimhood and debilitation as the great virtues of our time. The result of course is a race to the bottom. My grandparents are all rolling in their graves.
Thank you, Dr. Galen - on behalf of all of us parents on PITT.substack.com
Our family was struck by the Trans Cult at school prior to Dr. Littman's study and Ms. Shrier's essay in the WSJ. I thought that would be the end of this madness for sure! Instead, the Federal Government - using the National Teachers Union & US Assistant Health and Human Services Mutilation Lord Admiral Mengele Levine continues to double down. Several states follow the lead energetically including CA where Newsom and AG Bonta are strongmen mirroring the Feds: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gavin-newsom-sued-over-policy-forcing-teachers-to-lie-to-parents-about-students-gender-confusion/ Of course, once the kid/frog is boiled in Ideology to that extent at school, merely informing the parents is weak tea.
And, only slightly off topic - maybe GA AG Willis and CA AG Bonta could hook up in jail. One of them would just have to swap "genders" to share a cell. Taxpayers would still be paying for their escapades by funding prison food. :-0
Children are not creatures of the state/schools - or at least they should not be.
One of the things that frightens me is that people are getting anti-depressants from their PCP. Apparently this is how most people get them. The process of getting anti-depressants right can be incredibly long, incredibly difficult, and scary. In my opinion, you need to have someone who is very familiar with these drugs, how to use them, how to combine them, and accompany them with a therapy component to ensure a good outcome.
Apparently the most common problem with PCPs prescribing them is that the dosages are too low to actually help the person.
I should say my psychiatrist, who I have enormous respect for, does not agree with my opinion on this. :) So I will defer to the experts, but it still scares me. I have seen people who are being treated for mental health issues that aren't going through a psychiatrist and it just doesn't seem like you're setting yourself up for success doing things that way.
Good to know. And kind of scary. In my experience mental health involves a team that is overseen by a psychiatrist that ultimately makes the diagnoses and writes the scripts, then the psychologist meets regularly with the patient for what I think of as routine maintenance, and social workers handle issues adjacent to mental health. I have always thought that was way too much bureaucracy.
Planned Parenthood dispenses Synthetic Cross sex hormones to anyone who wants them on a first visit. Age = 16? No problem. Anything else would be the hated "gatekeeping". But they are serious drugs.
Our daughter had an IEP up until middle school. A learning support teacher wanted her to drop Spanish so that she could have a free period to spend in learning support room to get help with homework and test prep. Our daughter loved Spanish and it was her favorite subject. We had her attend the annual IEP meeting to self advocate for continuing Spanish and stopping the learning support. The teacher in the meeting said, “I’m concerned it will be too much for you and if you don’t succeed it will harm your self esteem.” Our daughter said “My self esteem will be harmed by not trying. If it doesn’t work out I can handle it.” One of our proudest moments. The teachers and school psychologist didn’t know what to say. It did work out. She’s a junior at university, just made the deans list and will be studying abroad this spring in Spain.
I love this. Good for her! May she go far!! My son with ADHD was coddled by the system for years and years, but was always failing. Then he started taking up guitar and became REALLY good at it. The feeling of success carried over into every other part of his life. Now he is a successful happy young adult who handles challenges with grace.
It's pretty much literally impossible to become really good with a musical instrument if one has a problem with attention span. The usual suspects tried to pin the faddish ADHD label on our son as early as toddlerhood. In his Montessori kindergarten, his teacher told us he was the only child he had ever had in class with the necessary attention span to complete a tedious pegboard exercise.
I respectfully disagree. Kids with ADD/ADHD can hyperfocus, so they can become excellent at the things that most interest them. Hence the poster whose daughter excelled in Spanish. Those with ADD/ADHD are often very good at creative arts.
“It's pretty much literally impossible to become really good with a musical instrument if one has a problem with attention span.”
People with ADHD aren’t unable to ever pay attention - they frequently hyperfocus on something that really interests them. What they have a hard time doing is focusing on things that are important, but that they find uninteresting.
I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 22. Prior to that, I’d tried my best to concentrate on Calculus in high school, because I thought taking 4 years of math when 3 were required would be impressive to my dream school. Despite extra help and tutoring, I could not force myself to concentrate on it. It was like trying to listen to one person talk when twenty other people around you are talking more loudly. I knew how much I *wanted* to focus on it, and I thought I was a selfish person for not being able to when so many people were trying to help me.
My parents let me drop the class because I was failing. Got into the college anyway.
You know I think that is so true. In preschool this same boy was the most focused and most talented at all the puzzles and pattern toys. Same skill set was apparent when he took up music. I can't figure out what happened in between. The teachers saw him as less capable than others and he fulfilled those expectations.
I learned not to believe everything the teachers said about my children. My takeaway about their assessments was you are trained to teach the easy to teach children and you don’t want to exert yourself. Children are not complicated, pay attention, and provide what they need to thrive.
One year my daughter’s teacher emailed me upset that she wasn’t enthusiastically playing a game to prepare them for upcoming state standards tests. I just ignored it. Those tests are for the schools to get funding and are horrible for the students. They lose an entire week to prep for them. My daughter didn’t like the game or the tests. I told her not to worry about it.
You have hit the nail on the head-expectations! When the adults set the expectation, the children will rise or stoop to the occasion. If the expectation is that they cannot accomplish something because of a feeling or a circumstance, they won't accomplish it. If we label them, they will fit the label.
I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school and was a music major on a full tuition scholarship for the saxophone. It's not "pretty much literally impossible". It's just hard
My daughter was diagnosed ADHD inattentive type -she played piano for several years and played competitive recitals. She dropped it eventually though because she didn’t enjoy it. Maybe because it got too difficult and the practice was too much. When she’s really into something though there’s no stopping her.
What a fabulous story and what a proud moment for everybody. Your story brings up what I think is also at the root of this which is parents who either wholeheartedly agree with these approaches or are cowed by authority and won’t advocate for their child. I’m 53 years old and raised two outstanding young men who are doing well and I attribute it to my husband and I Pretty much parenting the way our parents did back in the day. I felt I knew what was best for my child, and that they needed to face challenges head on. I was pushed by both boys teachers when they were in early elementary school that they were hyperactive or ADHD and should probably go see a counselor or get on medication to which I responded that they were boys and this is how they acted, and to back off .
All I see now is parents trying to wrap their kids in cotton wool and protect them at all costs from everything, rendering them depressed and anxious.
Yea…let’s take away the student’s favorite and stick her in a one on one with a teacher assistant in middle school to help her possibly fading self esteem. That sounds like fun. As a former teacher this option makes me sick! I’m so sad for the education most of our kids are receiving. They eventually grow up and become “leaders” as adults. Well done on you for bringing her to the IEP meeting and letting her self-advocate!
Side note: Dr. Phil was on the view yesterday (no I would never waste my time…just saw clips) and he said the biggest damage done to kids was keeping them out of school during the pandemic. Of course Whoopi just couldn’t comprehend.
I’ve heard him make comments about this prior to being on the View. Even if he did early on, he’d probably be censored along with the many qualified doctors and researchers. What a disgusting time in our current history…the abuse of children by the left. It’s sinful.
My son's middle school teacher told me that honors math classes in high school would be too hard for him because he didn't earn A in her class. I didn't listen, he graduated from one of the top engineering schools and is now a principal engineer at a prominent tech firm with dozens of patents to his name.
Great that it worked out for your son. As a high school teacher of a college level class (Corporate Finance) I believe that there is benefit to looking at student performance in pre cursor courses such as accounting, math skills, etc. to assess whether a student is likely to do well in the class. In every instance where I had a concern, the student struggled. Most recognize they're in over their heads and switch out. Those who stay struggle the entire year. I don't know how they feel about it but it's painful for me to see them do poorly assessment after assessment.
You might believe there's no harm in trying the class, but we should keep in mind that the student's schedule was made with that class in mind. There may be few if any appealing classes being taught the same period as the course the student intends to drop.
Kudos to you and your daughter. I bet she will love Spain, I lived there for a few years quite some time ago and wish I still did. Be prepared for your daughter expressing a desire to move there permanently ! To paraphrase and alter a bit (in english) a Spanish phrase; my body is in the US but my heart is still in Spain.
Worry not, especially since Spain is her destination. Visiting is easy now that we're in the jet age of travel. To me the Spanish are the most gracious and friendly people in Europe, just ahead of the Italians. If she is planning on being in Madrid have her look up the Madrid chapter of the Hash House Harriers. That's a running/social club that meets almost every Sunday to jog (and down a couple of beers) in the countryside. The club has a nice mix of Ex-Pats and locals and it's very easy to forge friendships with that group. She'll have a blast.
She’ll be spending most of her time in Barcelona but definitely intends to visit Madrid as well. I will be sure to tell her about the Hash House Harriers. Thank you for the encouraging words. I feel better about her going. Her father and I will be joining her for one week after her program is completed to enjoy Spain as a family.
My experience with the IEP trap (where federal govt. offers public schools more money per student for this farce of a program) is that it allows kids to graduate from high school despite being totally illiterate
Way back in the 3rd grade my grandkid begged to repeat the grade, but the public school psychologist and principal insisted doing so would irrevocalby harm his "self esteem".
In 10th grade, despite or more likely BECAUSE of an IEP, after flunking every subject 3 years in a row yet still getting promoted (despite all F grades), we finally realized the school did not care if he became literate. We pulled him out of well-funded public school classes to enroll him part of the school day in a small private school offering 2:1 student teacher tutoring. He caught up in less than a year, made mostly A's and a few B's, and actually made honors math. However, the public school, threatened by the success of the alternative school, refused to accept the credits earned by this accredited private school. This was despite the fact the private school applied even tougher criteria than the public school online or IEP programs and would not allow a kid to advance until they had achieved at least a B on their tests.
Years before when the counselors insisted it would embarass him horribly and hurt his self esteem to be held back, I said, "No. What will hurt his self esteem it after continually flunking classes year after year, or with his IEP be allowed to pass without ever learning anything, about the time he is 16, he will look around and think he is the stupidest kid in class and then he'lll drop out." Sadly it proved true. He did drop out as did so many other marginal students during covid. But at least he had learned to write, do math and most importantly, learned he wasn't stupid.
Of couse, most kids don't begin to have the money to attend a costly private tutoring school. My grandkid told me how his friends were realizing late in high school how poorly they'd been educated and were fellng very resentful.
The fact is when math class begins to sound like a foreign language, as happened with my grandkid, the kids simply assume they are really stupid and uneducable. Worse, in today's public schools, the kids learn they really never have to even pretend to try to get by. No wonder the high tech corporations (who enthusiatically fund the Democrats) insist on all those immigrant work VISAs and love open borders where desperate folks will do any job...our kids never learn a work ethic, and even if they do manage to graduate, they are illiterate to boot.
My experience is not unique. Almost all of the parents in a Changes parent group I attended said that even if their kids did make it down the aisle to get their HS diploma, they were doing so nearly illiterate and unable to do much more than add and subtract.
Brava to your daughter!! Abigail Shrier talks about this kind of thing more in the Honestly episode.
Our son has just recently gotten an “auditory processing disorder” diagnosis, and they are already talking IEP or 504. Shrier encourages parents ask “will accommodations make my child STRONGER?” We are firm believers in the idea there are more important things in life than GPA!
Maybe instead of this mental health check garbage it would be better and more life affirming to use yesterday’s essay on fentanyl as the morning check in and do a one minute just say no to drugs exercise
BTW were there any demographics mentioned on who is taking the Ritalin or adderall ? I bet it’s white boys this is pushed on
My son was very social in first or second grade. He was a very smart kid and was always helping others with their work. So the teacher said he should take Ritalin. I said are you nuts? Separate his desk so he isn’t so close. She did and it worked
More than 2 decades ago when my son was in Kindergarten he was always getting in trouble. Everything distracted him. If we had ever tested him I'm sure he would have been diagnosed with ADHD and drugs recommended. We avoided that path and made our own diagnosis: typical boy. Turns out we were right. Oh yeah, today he is a successful engineer.
Piggybacking off of this, I would add that we need more male teachers. I have two sons, and I see how they respond and behave with male authority figures vs female ones. I think we as a society need to do more to encourage young men to see education as a viable career opportunity and stop the stigma that surrounds men who choose professions that involve working with kids.
I know a Marine who spent his second career teaching middle-school students. What an example he set by the way he carried himself -- and not just to boys. "He changes lives," his wife told me.
A program called Troops to Teachers is also worth a look here. It's for military members who are considering going into education after their commitments end. I've only read about it, but it makes sense to me.
Elementary Education has always been predominantly female. My first male teacher was in the seventh grade. The problem today is the mission of elementary education has been hijacked by ideologues.
And I would argue that feminism has been hijacked by the ironic ideology that women must behave like men to be “empowered.” So that goal goes both ways.
Mr. Spann was my fifth grade teacher. He was serious but kind and wasn’t afraid of discipline when warranted, the threat of which ensured that wasn’t very often. As a preteen boy, he changed my life’s trajectory, even though I didn’t know it at the time.
So, I completely agree with you, as long as it’s not a bunch of pajama boys.
I couldn’t agree more. We need more male teachers that actually act and behave like serious minded men. The males that teach my nieces are all beta males that come off as pathetic and weak (w/ the exception of 2 male teachers that are coaches for football & basketball). The rest of them are truly laughable.
This can start at the small scale. Maybe women-dominated parent groups could start including dads, for a change. No matter how great a dad we are, the women always reach out to the mom.
Yes, more male teachers! I was pleasantly surprised when looking for high school alternatives for my 8th grade son. Context: We’re in suburb north of NYC & are upset by radical curriculum that was snaked into our public school district’s health class by NYSED, content that wasn’t there when my older two boys took the same exact course just 4yrs earlier; we learned religious schools are less tethered to NYSED ideology and their sex-ed courses even mention abstinence as an option, gee how refreshing! We’re practicing Catholics, so we visited 3 all-boys, Catholic schools w/in 10 miles of our home. In all 3 schools, we were encouraged to take a guided tour during school hours. Loved seeing the instructors, the majority of whom, are male, in such a positive role. Just FYI, it was this document from the NYSED published just this past June that sent me into high gear looking for alternatives to our public school district. Some of your TFP readers may be interested. https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/student-support-services/creating-a-safe-supportive-and-affirming-school-environment-for-transgender-and-gender-expansive-students.pdf
Read my post about what it's like to be a teacher in the woke SEL era. Anyone sane who can afford it is quitting. We'll be replaced by cheap & obedient illegals. Stay tuned.
Twenty years ago, my son's teachers said he was a behavioral problem who couldn't learn to read. They pushed everything from Ritalin to summer school to special education. I told them no every time and filled in the gaps for him myself.
My son double majored in college in history and geographic information systems. He taught himself programming and computer science. He is now in an elite program in the DOD and has his own company for his DIY technology products.
His teachers would have slapped any label on him that they could to pad out their pet programs, and they didn't care if it ruined his life in the process. Some kids actually do need the programs and a very few might need the drugs, but more parents need to say no.
I'm autistic, have ADHD, and know I wouldn't have gotten an education if I attended public school. The special ed classes are a joke around here; students spend all day watching movies and coloring pictures instead of learning anything real. Had I not been homeschooled (and been able to get the math/testing accomodations I needed without having to repeat grades), I wouldn't be where I am today--a college senior who's about to graduate with a 4.0 in May. My path hasn't been a typical one, and that's a good thing! I'm beyond hyped to see the homeschool community thriving, and welcome all the new programs out there that I couldn't have dreamed of back in 2016 (when I graduated highschool)!
And has anyone done studies about if Ritalin and adder all are precursors to addiction? Or have those drugs contributed to school shootings because it seems like every one of those angry kids are taking something.
There are studies indicating that the vast majority of school shooters are on some version of psychotropic drug. Of course, there are also those that say the opposite.
Yep. The war on men and family, followed by the war on boys, expanded to include the war on girls, now expanded to the war on free peoples everywhere. Drug'em, butcher'em, incarcerate'em and if they still won't comply, send'em to the euthanasia center.
It would be awesome if non-drug interventions/therapies worked for all kids labeled ADD/ADHD. But not all parents are willing to try this, so some kids really do benefit from the meds. As a teacher, I've seen it make a huge difference for the kids who really need it.
Knowing that our oldest son--who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age 4 (yes, he *really* has it)--would likely experience pressure to medicate, we started classical homeopathy treatment. (To anyone who thinks it's all woo-woo, we observed *radical* changes in his behavior after doses.) He got through elementary school without ADD meds. A combination of increased maturity and home-schooling during middle school got him through high school.
He still has ADHD. He has to use various coping strategies to go about living a "normal" life. But he learned to drive (something we were worried he would never have the focus for), and he has a good job, a wife, and now a son of his own.
I'm not sure how much of that would have been possible with the intervention we sought very early.
Not only was the homopathetic powerful, but there is a tremendous power in the family pulling along side of him. The "various coping strategies" and proving to him that he could master middle school in a different setting was a support that gave him power, self esteem, and an independence that simply taking a pill would not have provided.
Easier for the kids ie do they actually learn better? Or easier for the teachers where kids can turn into numbed robots.
Boys have a lot of energy. so do girls. Go to any playground with kids and it’s all movement and yelling. Maybe the answer isn’t screens and drugs but a lot of recesses to burn off energy. Lessons through exercise. As they get older, they settle down to more intense learning.
No. For ex., I had a student who just couldn't focus to do math. When he started taking meds, suddenly he could concentrate and was actually able to do the problems. He was so excited and proud to be finally learning and not different from the other kids. This student was in middle school, and his reward for meeting certain goals was a trip to the gym to shoot hoops. He was also given "movement breaks." The meds actually helped more in this case.
SEL is designed to create anxiety out of thin air. It is designed to create, not healthy individuals, but activists ready to dismantle systems of oppression. It is designed to recenter the abnormal and push normal to the fringes. It is designed to make an underclass of dependent people.
Let me tell you how frustrating this is for teachers, who have no choice but to live through this crap. We'd much rather be presenting actual academic content!
“It explained that the brain is like a hand, with the thumb folded into the palm. “Our amygdala is really important in serious situations,” said the voice-over. This sounded right. We felt like neuroscientists.”
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OR YOU COULD JUST TEACH THEM TO READ AND DO BASIC MATH.
No--It is the well planned and organized destruction of Western Civilization and the ascent of the same totalitarianism that almost burned the 20th Century to the ground. It's a kinder softer tyranny.
Are you kidding? That would give them objective skills and individual agency. The point is to ingrain victimhood with grievances eliminating individual responsibility so they can become a welcome addition to the proletariat, although I do think the Russians and Chinese try to teach their kids useful skills. Maybe that’s the next phase, once individuality freedoms and responsibilities are eliminated and the “State” is fully functioning. Think this is hyperbole? Perhaps. But just remember, all these little victims-in-training will be running things in a decade or two.
Reminds me of the so called innovative teachers who invented a new way to learn how to read. It didn’t work. Now we have lots of kids who can’t read.
It seems like every day I read stories of how the “smart people” do something, it fails horribly, but there are no consequences for them. Just lots of victims scattered all over.
“Advocates of social-emotional learning claim that nearly all kids today have suffered serious traumatic experiences that leave them unable to learn.”
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Well yeah okay this is technically true since going to a government school where you are trained by communists to be an annoying jackass is probably pretty traumatic.
The "circle time" that degenerated into multiple kids weeping and sharing private information with their peers horrified me. That information almost certainly got used later as weapons by bullies.
These kids who have hard lives at home are being actively deprived of coping skills. Instead of being encouraged to focus on things that can give them a way out of the rough world of their childhood, they are being forced--apparently all day long--to focus on their unhappiness.
To me, that looks like emotional abuse of children who have already been abused by someone else.
It reminded me of the Communist struggle sessions. I'd bet if students didn't say what was making them sad, they'd either be forced to wait until someone brought something up, or endure some sort of collective punishment, like extra homework
Very much agree Celia. Not only can the private information be used against them by their peer group, but the children who receive the information could pass it on to their respective family members and neighbors for adults in the community to misuse for gossip and slander against the child’s family. That alone would further traumatizes a child. This was disturbing to read. This exploits the child and his troubled family. Surely there is a more private way to address family issues.
We might consider: working three jobs- on the freeway two hours before dawn- streets unsafe at any speed- stressed out single parent non family-I've got to score soon- tweet jeebus where did all these homeless people come from- that mtr'fkr looks dangerous- I'm never going to own a home- why did my rent suddenly go up thirty percent-is this package smaller and cost more- to hell with public transportation-I barely escaped with my life last time- sorry you can't go- the park is too dangerous son -why are Billy Gates and the CCP buying up all the farmland - yes orange is the new black and but protein is the new steak-Joe looks sleepy- is that Barry standing behind him-34 trillion is a lot of money- how did I end up owing China a hundred thousand dollars- by the way who gave my kid fentanyl- I didn't sleep last night- the sound of gunfire makes me nervous-is that guy in the doorway dead- how many million illegals did you say crossed the southern border- so nobody knows exactly how much money disappeared where- why is that bats#it crazy woman calling me deplorable- so they staged what exactly- that news anchor makes twenty million a year she must be telling the truth- why would she lie to me- yes son a good education is the pathway to a brighter future- you're fifteen years old now--what? You can't read?
The economic incentives that take root, once these therapies are built into “medicine”, are impossible to tear out. They grow and envelop the society, and an entire class of medical practitioners’ livelihoods depend on its support and further growth. That means more “patients” will be pulled into the maw. If your career depends on growing your practice to feed your family, you WILL find more people to diagnose, treat, put on medication, and further entrench in the therapy mindset that will overwhelm our society.
This essay isn’t about “ medicine”. These are the lowest level hacks , “ counselors”,teachers, and bureaucrats who are indoctrinated the youth and dumbing down society. It’s a Marxist , Maoist tactic for cultural revolution for a power grab.
Once a “disorder” is in the DSM-V, it enters an ecosystem with referral points, therapists, and ultimately medication. I support your belief that it is Maoist/Marxist in effect, but it is tangled up in our decadence as a culture.
Putin and Xi can sit back and watch the show, and that extends far beyond this conversation on therapy culture. It is how we roll as a people.
The DSM is a billing manual and a political treatise,having nothing to do with patient care. For example, they removed the word disorder from the diagnosis of gender dysphoria for political doctrine reasons. GD is as much a psychological problem as is anorexia nervosa, but the Trans cult and DEI has control over psychiatry and medical training in general.
Psychiatry is the least evidence based field in medicine and always has been.They do less and less “ talk” therapy and largely push pills and ECT the brain with no data to support their claims of safety and efficacy. It’s rotten , powerful, and stigmatizing
And the next step is legislation so that the funding is permanent, the prices non-negotiable and obfuscated, and the people who profit are untouchable. It's a problem with the whole medical industry and one reason why our health care is the most expensive in the world.
Hopefully President Trump will eliminate the Department of Education, the ultimate funding source for this dangerous nonsense. Third-world countries educate their children better, for a few pennies on the dollar.
Talking about eliminating the Department of Education or the IRS is sort of like talking about repealing Obamacare. Until there is viable replacement legislated, it’s just hot air. These guys can barely agree on a speaker, let alone come up with a replacement for a major federal agency. They can talk about burning down the house while running around with torches, but only a few are genuinely stupid.
Education is not mentioned in the Constitution. There is no reason for it’s existence other than to influence the state education departments to bow to the will of the ruling political party in Washington. Please name one thing it does that a state education department can’t do better.The Constitution specically enumerates Federal powers, everything else, like education, belongs to the states.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but education at the time of the constitution was a semi-literate teacher, a couple of books, some chalk and piece of slate. For about 5% of kids.
Nuclear energy wasn’t mentioned in the constitution, but I don’t think we would want to leave that up to the states either. I think we need to have national standards for education, because I’m not in favor of a state handing out diplomas without any kind of standardized testing or accountability.
This is the same trite 2nd amendment argument. Thi-i-i-ings have cha-a-a-anged since the Constitution was written!!!!! Which overlooks a few things. First the Constitution was designed to provide a framework of government to stand the test of time. It is rather elegant in its simplicity. Second, it can be amended if there is need and sufficient agreement thereon. Third, one of those amendments, the 10th, provides that those things not authorized by the Constitution to the federal government nor prohibited by it to the States, remain with the States. I think federal control of education has failed. Pretty much across the board. In part because the federal government is merely a bureaucracy. In the sphere of education it cannot teach, it can only administer those who do. Without diving into it, I feel certain that the social emotional learning model is a DoE brainchild.
Then you are a Federalist and do not believe in states’ rights. Would you abolish the Electoral College as well? Remember, the Founding Fathers explicitly avoided creating a democracy in favor of a constitutional republic. By your line of thinking, perhaps we should federalize all licensing as well ( doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc)?
The Dept of Education was created to collect statistics on public schools. That was all. It has grown into a destructive behemoth in bed with the NEA, one of the most corrupt orgs in our country today. Together and apart they do nothing good.
We used to educate our children better, in little red schoolhouses.
Spending thousands per student to produce kids who have never learned to read or do math is not just a poor investment; it's abuse of our kids by the government.
Freedom is bad for kids. They need to stop giving kids the power to make "decisions" in their life until late teens. Let them hate their parents for putting a lot of restrictions. And for jesus sake - take away their phone and tell your congress person to restrict this non-porn pornography of social media.
I like your pithy analysis. I disagree on the freedom thing. Kids need guardrails, but they need to learn also from hard experience. I had great freedom as a kid. No phone - heck, my parents had no idea where my friends and I were - once we were out of eyesight. We learned to face problems and adversity that happens in childhood. Resiliency is like a muscle that needs constant exercise.
I guess I meant freedom in life choices - yes, they need freedom to do activities and not be overscheduled by parents. But they need rules and consequences. I don't know how many parents ask their 9 year old children "What do you want to do when they are going out? They don't get those kind of choices unless its their birthday. You are going with mom and dad, end of story. They need to learn to lose and deal with it. Because in life you have to lose and lose and lose until you start winning or understanding that you already won - if you came from a family that gives you food, shelter, a few toys (a few) and schooling.
Personally, I would make it a law that kids have to share a room. And if they are an only child - have another kid live with them!!! And no locking their door! That is another thing that I don't know what parent thought they should do that. The child's room is not their room - its their mom and dad's room. The parents should knock once they are older - but I would make it a felony for a kid to lock their room.
The only thing that still bugged me as an adult was that my dad was always stressed and in a bad mood and would yell at us for anything small. He did what he should do - support the family and pay for college (we were upper middle class). But I could never talk to him without getting yelled at or telling me I'm stupid (I was an A student). Child of the Depression he was.
They introduced “mood meters” in our school district where every day elementary kids enter class and put their name on an emotion. I asked my kids (high school) if they have something similar and sure enough they do. But the older kids game it “I alternate between yellow(neutral) and green (happy). If it’s always green they think you’re not taking it seriously” 🤦🏻♀️ Well credit teachers to know at least that much. If the end goal is to build confident, well adjusted kids, let kids learn how to read, write and do math; these are actual skills that will enable them to be productive contributing members of society and THAT is what will give them confidence. And I don’t believe kids should be happy 100% of the time; they need to fail a test, get cut from a team and have fights with friend groups; this is when they acquire some resilience and once they get through it, they will recognize how to navigate through life’s hiccups and that is what will make them truly happy and confident adults.
How does a person’s body develop immunity? From experiencing illnesses. How can a child learn to face adversity? From experiencing it. It’s not the traumatic death sentence the pearl clutching nanny state makes it out to be.
“Good therapists are trained specifically to avoid encouraging rumination, a thought process typified by dwelling on past pain and negative emotions. Rumination is a well-established risk factor for depression.”
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Hey, this reminds me, did you guys know that we used to have slavery??
Hey, don't forget that women couldn't vote, establish their own credit, and their husbands could beat them! I want to ruminate all day, every day, rather than be thankful for the women and men that changed things so I could live a better life.
Perhaps you should listen to Janice Fiamengo on Tammy Peterson’s recent podcast titled “Dismantling Feminism.” Frankly, feminism is ruining as many lives as it purports to ‘improve.’
We have absolutely lost the way. I read about refugees from brutal totalitarian regimes who dragged themselves to school through bombings, risk of arrest and other horrors because they understand how important education is. Then here in some of the most affluent districts in America we are talking about our feelings rather than learning basic math skills? This is creating a generation of navel gazers.
I do think part of the job of a parent is to help your child understand that “big feelings” are a normal part of life and that they will always eventually pass, not by suppressing them or, at the other extreme, talking about them endlessly, but by simply allowing yourself to feel what you feel until the feeling moves. This is what builds emotional resilience. Feeling despair or anger, letting yourself ride that wave and then coming out the other side. But this is something to work on in the family, not the job of a teacher.
As a millennial, we’re seeing that a lot of us have a hard time with reality due to the shortcomings we learned from schooling —hence the term “extended adolescence”
As a lifelong teacher, I firmly believe that, in addition to everything else, what’s driving this approach is that it’s much easier to chat about feelings than to do the hard work of teaching, for instance, math, or history. And, you get to feel like a hero every day. Doing ‘real’ teaching is an arduous task, often thankless in the short run but profoundly rewarding in the long run.
I’m a college professor and I came here to say exactly the same thing. Combine this laziness with an urge to present oneself as an all-knowing savior of the vulnerable, and you have a truly toxic individual.
Combine this laziness with an urge to present oneself as an all-knowing savior of the vulnerable, and you have a truly toxic individual...
Funny. I thought what you have is called a Democrat. But I guess "toxic individual" will suffice...
Or a RINO….they are both one and the same who preach “Psychobabble”
Moms For Liberty who demand banning traumatizing books from school libraries aren't Democrats, they are hard-core Republicans.
“Traumatizing”? They’re sexually explicit age-inappropriate books. In a normal society, both sides of the aisle would be against them.
People who equate calling for age appropriate material with banning books.
What are the people who ban "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"?
What schools are currently banning those books? Books are only banned when the reader has no access. If parents want their children reading about the best lubricants for anal sex. Let them do that at home. Thus the book is not banned. The same with the tittles you mentioned. Both belong on 7-12th grade reading lists. If they aren’t nothing prevents parents from reading them with their children. Actually that should happen regularly. Outrage at reading
about Scout, Jem, Dill and Bo Radley or Huck and Jim most often comes from officious liberal parents white and black.
See my response below.......Burbank, California school district.
Assholes.
But perhaps I need some emotional instructional therapy to become less judge-y :-)
Leftists
MORONS!!!
They are Democrats who object to the "triggering" language
The school administrators in Burbank California is one example of the people who banned them.
TxFrog, you call them Democrats, because THOSE books are racist! They “trigger” the WOKE parents and must be banned. Nothing about sexually explicit material in them - otherwise NO Problem!
A subplot of Harper Lee’s book is an alleged rape. But tells the story of the times.
Removing pornography from taxpayer funded schools is an obligation of the taxpayer. If Mom's for Liberty was removing these books from public libraries, you would have a point. They're not. They are removing things from public schools. But your argument is irrelevant. Public schools have been completely destroyed by teachers unions and the Democratic Party. To the extent that Mom's for Liberty is prioritizing the wrong thing, you are correct. mom's for Liberty should be REMOVING their children from public schools. Let Democrats send their kids to shitholes, get beaten up, depressed, addicted to drugs, and have their sexual organs removed... I don't give a shit what happens to the children of leftists.
You're a leftist. Leftism isn't an ideology but a mental disorder.
So's rightism. Trump and his moronic MAGAts are Exhibit A.
My beef is with *far* lefters and righters, not the normal ones somewhere in the middle.
Agreed. For the mere polite comment disagreeing with them, these "good Christians" labelled me severly mentally ill, a troll, a communist propagandist and so on. What a warm welcome from these proponents of Christian love and defenders of civil discourse! And, of course, I get similar downpour of "tolerance" from the anti-racist crowd if I say something in their face that they don't like, for example, that some black people were slave owners, too. I am always relieved to find out that I am not alone on the island.
Perfect. The solution is outlined perfectly in the declaration of indepence. You nutsack leftists can go on your merry way in your blue cesspits. Meanwhile the normal and sane humans can have as many states as we can capture.
Why?
I agree.
When my private school began to have longer homeroom meetings in the AM and then end every day with advisor-advisee meetings, the swap was shorter or fewer academic classes. The powers that be, furthermore, interrupted schedules throughout the year to have "break it up" activities that would "increase mental well being." Utterly silly.
I used to say, Kids don't need variety, they need reliable consistency; but I was considered a crank.
Oh, my students enjoyed the activities well enough, but they saw it all for what it was.
It's a moneymaking resource sucking scam feeding on children.
Oh, I don't think the school made any money off these advisor meetings or "break it up" days. The exercises required only energy, better directed towards academic pursuits.
Now, on the other hand, DEI training for faculty, which made lots of money for the consultants who came in and bored us silly, that really was costly. And annoying. Many of my colleagues and I had already, for decades, been adding black literature and history to the curriculum, and turning things inside out to "do even more!" struck us as overkill.
"Moneymaking resource sucking scam" is just another name for "government subsidy." What ever the government subsidizes we will get more of.
The more time that’s spent on “fluff” means less time spent on actual subject matter…contributing to the abysmal, below-grade-level performance in basic categories like math, English, reading, etc.
I had the same reaction. Unprepared or lazy teachers waste time having these kinds of discussions when they haven’t prepared for class.
Unfortunately, the teachers are also forced to do these activities. SEL is seen as the solution to every problem and our school district expects and requires it. Personally, I hate it and find it to be an endless, ineffective, frequently boring and developmentally inappropriate waste of everyone's time.
Then stand up to it! Gather others and say you won't tolerate this shit in your workplace. Why are so many scared to do the right thing?
Thank you! Good teachers, please for God’s sake stop this!! 4 or 5 of you at your school just need to be brave and say No. Calmly, but no.
When the PTA consistently fund raises for counselors rather than readingvspecialist, art supplies, after school tutoring, etc. there needs to be a recognition that this is not solely a teacher problem. Lots of folks have drank the kool-aid!
Even where people have not drunk the Kool-aid there are state and federal mandates...
JoAnne, it depends on each school - as to how many people have quaffed the kool-aid and how many know this is all absolute lunacy. Good teachers, good PTA members, good principals and administrators, ALL know this is harming kids. They need to be brave and calmly tell the union, admin/district, and confused parents that the focus of public schools needs to be excellence in academics! Not gender or racial identity or the latest mental illness. I have seen small groups of parents be very effective at stopping nonsense - by being media savvy in their local community and framing the way forward as "this is stopping now or else." And they have to mean it. If teachers would lead the way for 2 weeks - 2 months at their school, all of this could disappear. I wish them luck and pray for their courage.
Same here!
Sounds just like unprepared or lazy students…
Family breakdown.
We are done as a nation. This generation will grow up and blunder into nuclear war, unable to deal with reality as it is.
Very true. But it's very hard when Democrats and our entire societal fabric is feeding unrealities telling kids men can be women & vice versa, and men too can get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed. And also everyone can have their very own "my truth".
I am a teacher for 27 years and I fully agree. Thank you.
Can you shed some light on how education got this way? How did this mess eat into the education system over time?
It seems like 30 years ago our society as a whole didn't take mental health seriously enough. (Remember Tipper Gore's mental illness pet project and also all the talks about health insurance should mental health treatments when HRC attempted her failed health care system overhaul). Seems like now we have an over correction. Was this what happened? Or something else?
I also think that parents increasing abdicated responsibility to schools. Over time we expected the schools to basically be primary caretakers for kids. Before my mother retired, her school basically had all kids on free lunch (because they didn't want the poor kids having a stigma attached). And then they had free breakfast as well.
Overtime, the school is just expected to take care of everything. Add a generation or 2 of new teachers who care more about the kids feeling good or happy as opposed to focused on learning.
Its just a mirror of mainstream society. We keep asking someone else to fix everything, eventually we cede all power and ability to take care of ourselves which attracts the kinds of people who like running people's lives....usually for the wrong reasons.
They sure are trying to run our lives...
Lets fire all school counselors and end SEL.
We are creating mental health problems through excessive rumination on CRT, Gender Theology... you name it.
Thank you. Schools are a reflection of the community's concern du jour.
The community consists of previous poorly educated graduates of our schools. It turns out that kids who have been constantly preached to about oppression and victimhood (and taught little else) grow up to be less than ideal parents.
All of this originated in the education system, run by and for educators. It will not change until the teachers demand change.
The education system does not exist in a vacuum. A very small example, Shirer talked about kids being independent, but I have tied shoes for 4th graders in general education who haven't been taught to tie their shoes. There are students who can't get in or out of their clothing to go the bathroom or zip their coat to stay warm on the playground.
Why aren't the parents teaching these very basic skills or buying clothes that match and support their child's independence? As a child, my parents drilled me on putting on coats, snow pants, and boots because this was my job. (For kindergarten and first grade, I was in mittens because I couldn't master gloves!) Zippers get caught & shoes get incredible knots and the teacher will help, but on the day to day basis children should have the ability to dress themselves. Getting dressed and undressed by oneself is an essential part of a child's self esteem and gives great independence, but parents aren't empowering their own children because of teachers' unions and a problem with the educational system? Shrier is correctly also pointing at parents!
I think you're right there's an overcorrection. You are also correct that 30 years ago we did not pay enough attention to mental health. Back in the late 60s and early 70s our whole society began to embrace the "I'm ok, you're ok" mantra. So, why were some people NOT ok? The conclusion became," everything is society's fault." Therefore, finding out what's wrong with people became unimportant. We validated every feeling, even the dangerous ones. In school, I have seen truly bad kids. We have not been able to address things that made the kid bad. It wasn't his/her fault, they said. He needs self-esteem. We have to understand his perspective. While the latter might be true, the onus was on us to help the child, never to get the child to help himself; to conform to the accepted norms of society, and to assimilate into the collective to a certain degree. These were always individuals whose personal brand of individualism differed so much from the mainstream as to be socially unacceptable. People who should have been seen by a mental health professional were allowed to be themselves. How dare we suggest there's something wrong with the person because he/she does not fit into our box. Well, mass shooters are a perfect example. Most are socially on the fringes. They are malcontents. Students in schools are similar. How dare I suggest a child needs help. Social workers and school psychologists have told me this for years. Students hurt themselves, hurt others, refuse to engage socially, engage in negative behaviors, exhibit signs of all manner of ant-social behavior, and are rarely faced with consequences and analysis. We cannot "blame the victim" by administering consequences. We cannot label someone by placing him under analysis. The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.
Over correction is an excellent word to use in this conversation!
Thank you.
"And, you get to feel like a hero every day."
True, I'm sure that's intoxicating.
Perhaps, as a young teacher over forty years ago, the second colleague I ever disliked was a woman who did psychoanalysis in her English classes and wheedled secrets out of her students.
She was charismatic, very well-educated, and unlike Miss Jean Brodie, happily married.
But having kids adore you is indeed intoxicating. Many did. The students who saw through her and understood that her motives were entirely self-serving, though, disliked her intensely.
Since that time, the only teachers I pretty much ignored, and only in my last ten or so years out of forty, were young ones who spent their time reading teaching booklets (you mean, you don't know how to write a paragraph yet? or, with your eyes blindfolded, teach sixth graders how to?) and talked educational-Teachers College-Bank Street gobbledygook at the faculty lunch table.
Still, I know some very good teachers are still out there trying to hang on until the winds change. They always do.
".... until the winds change. They always do."
The correct response to most of the problems identified in these comments
Is this not the next step in “the state” raising US children and superseding parental rights and responsibilities.
Bingo.
Exactly right. We need to get rid of SEL and all these school counselors who encourage excessive rumination on all manner of topics including Gender Theology.
"Democrats Don’t Want Parents Involved In Childhood Education"
https://victorygirlsblog.com/democrats-dont-want-parents-involved-in-childhood-education/
Good news:
Teachers suing CA Governor Newsom and AG Bonto who are behind policy (which mimics the Federal Policies):
"Gavin Newsom sued over policy forcing teachers to lie to parents about students’ gender confusion"
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gavin-newsom-sued-over-policy-forcing-teachers-to-lie-to-parents-about-students-gender-confusion/
But, next up, I hear there is a push to put little medical facilities in each high school. Want to bet that will mean more government control & parents even less aware of what happens to their kids?
It's also another byproduct of the abandonments of standards. There are teachers who could implement a more rigorous traditional pedagogy--poem memorization, sentence diagramming, table memorization, intensive math drills, etc.--and? Many PARENTS would howl. Just as they would if a strict bell-curve grading system gave their own darling a C- (grade inflation is only offensive on the other kid's report card). The rigor vacuum that obtains in a keep-things-moving-pass-everyone school culture is bound to be filled with some kind of busy work. In other words, what's happening just might be less conspiratorial than it is inevitable within a system where a large percentage of the school population isn't cut out for academics.
My students' parents howled when English teachers did not teach grammar. But that was long ago, and probably those who came after my time was up didn't know any better. . . .
I immigrated to the US while I was in elementary school, and I kept waiting and waiting until they would teach grammar in English class, but that time never came.
I am sorry about that.
Before the advent of "adolescent literature," children read books that were written by authors with style, and my friends and I were able, just through reading, to master complex sentence structure without struggle -- although we did get that grammar in school anyway.
Nowadays, children's books are thin gruel.
For authors whose cadences bring out the best in us, go back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. But I am sure you know that already.
For the record, my father entered first grade c. 1930 knowing only Greek. When his new schoolmates made fun of him, his parents instituted an "English only" rule at home. Dad went on to Brooklyn Tech and after the war became an engineer in an aerospace company.
He never forgot his Greek. It wasn't as though he lost his culture.
I was about to come in and say the same thing. Egads. I was always told to push through. As my daddy used to say and he was right, this too shall pass.
That would explain all the 'river to the sea' chilluns who can't name either the river or the sea referred to.
I've been wondering if they're learning *anything* about real subjects at all.
I'd presume that many students manipulate this system to their advantage as well, in terms of turning in assignments on time or taking tests when scheduled. Additionally, this feeling like a hero comment gets to the heart of the problem. We wrap this "help" in the cloak of altruism, but a lot of it is making the care giver feel good for giving care, and normal kids don't need the care, so there's this subtle motivation to see problems that perhaps aren't real pathology
Is math hard to teach or hard for unprepared students to learn?
Math is arguably the one subject that does not involve emotion.
I'm not so sure about that, Lynne. I recall being pretty pissed when my I got my test scores handed to me :-)
That made me laugh. Thanks.
I would argue that literature is the only subject that involves emotion. All the others should not.
Well history I think is bound to elicit an emotional response. And I tend to think all the sciences flow from math which I freely admit may be incorrect. But I think you are saying that the other subjects are fact based and I agree. I may be biased but I want to live in a fact-based world. I will adjust my emotions in response thereto.
Math is is taught completely different now. It's really terrible.
Math is hard for many students, prepared or not. I was a wizard at reading, writing, history, non-math science, and arithmetic--but math killed me. I had a brain wired for everything but [(x+y)/{aBc+dx}] x [AaBbCcDd] . . .
Yeesh. Typing that equation still creeps me out 50 years after high school. My teachers tried their best, but no dice for me. Many students have the same reaction.
I was the same way until, working at an engineering company, I decided I would give math one more try at the local JC. There was a teacher who made everything clear. I worked hard and studied hard for that class every night after work. I've earned many A's in my academic career, but that is the A I am most proud of of all my grades. I wish I knew the teacher's name, but it's lost in the mists of time.
I agree. It's all about how to present the subject. People that love a subject were usually exposed to a teacher who was passionate about it and knew how to communicate it appropriately.
That's a great story, Cynthia, and I'm so happy you made it work for you. Funny thing, I can grasp geometry, astrophysics, and other "visual" math concepts, because I can see them in my head and so they make sense. Algebra is so purely theoretical and conceptual math I can't approach it at all.
Fortunately for me, I've made a good living as a writer for 50 years, so arithmetic sufficed. But I envy those few who have mastered both sides of their brains--creative and conceptual math.
Shane, trust me, I've lost all mastery in the 35 years since I took the class, I just had a great teacher at that JC.
Yes.
I am also a teacher and I cannot agree with you more!
I might be in the minority here, but I didn't like chatting about feelings when I was school age, and I'm not fond of it now when I'm in my 60s. Give me math or history and day!
Frederick, I could not agree more! SEL(as presented here) is inappropriate in all classes but especially math & science. It’s no wonder the US trails the world in basic education.
“Amen!” from a fellow teacher
I am a psychiatrist and the stuff Abigial Shrier is bringing to light has been making me nuts for years. But it's not just baked into the school system, it's rampant in the mental health community and of course, it is fueled by social media. I would make this book, and her one on the 'gender-affirming' phenomena required reading in every graduate program, even and especially the on-line ones, cranking out mental health workers.
Those graduate programs are run by Democrat psychopaths. There are no tweaks to required reading that will improve this even marginally.
The vast majority of the people who work at universities are mentally ill Democrat parasites. Eliminate all financial support and watch it burn to the ground. This isn’t education this is Enron.
You don’t try to keep the Luftwaffe around just because airplanes are important.
Very true. But no one wants to admit that the Dems opened the door to this. No one has done more irrevocable damage than the leftist agenda. And the only rebuttal they have is...what about January 6th?
Bari just can't bring herself around to the fact that the Dems and their beloved "unions" fucked the whole American pie...
You nailed it. Teachers unions are mafiaesque organizations and have bought and paid for the Dem/Soc Party.
Ten percent of the delegates to the Dem/Soc national convention are members of one of the teachers unions.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/21/democrats-in-bed-with-teachers-unions/
Teachers unions help no one but politicians. They haven't helped one teacher or student that I've seen.
As Mike Pompeo said: “Randy Weingarten is the most dangerous person in America.”
Mike Pompeo is one of the most dangerous people in the world. Stupid and loud.
As opposed to Randi Weingarten who is very smart and not shrill.
Does it make his comment any less valid?
Pompeo's remark is ridiculous. Pompeo is part and on board with the architecture & implementation of the Ukraine insanity. Because of that, this country is closer to being incinerated than it has ever been. I have done the math on that. If only half of Russia's ICBMs are functional, there won't be much left afterward. Incineration is the correct word. Russia's MIRV warheads are 750 kilotons. Russian ICBMs carry 8-12 warheads. Twelve can incinerate an area near the size of Texas.
We have ground down Russia's conventional forces using Ukraine's fanatic Banderas to do it. Russia will defend itself, and Russia is prepared for nuclear war more than any other nation on earth.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Totally different scales of damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/magazine/randi-weingarten-teachers-unions.html
You didn't answer my question.
That explains a lot. Thanks for the insight.
So, the answer is "let's ban The Great Gatsby from the school libraries in Florida because it traumatizes our children" ? Moms For Liberty aren't Democrats.
So we have a multi-trillion dollar nationwide network of communist indoctrination camps that are churning out illiterate racist kids with psychiatric disorders who hate the country………and your primary concern is that a couple dozen moms in Florida disagree with you on the precise age-appropriateness of the Great Gatsby??
I have never heard something that indicates severe brainwashing and mental illness quiet as strongly as that.
I've been noticing that we've attracted a few more trolls. Compost has competition.
THG does seem to be a troll going off topic but:
Mom's for Liberty is a great parental rights group which is not the topic of this essay. And, they are under all out attack from the Left.
Plus:
"Gov. Ron DeSantis concerned with 'bad actors' in school book objection process
Florida's governor wants Legislature to combat 'frivolous challenges'
https://www.wptv.com/news/education/floridas-governor-concerned-with-bad-actors-in-school-book-objection-process
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida's governor on Thursday fired back at what he calls a "book ban hoax" regarding what children are exposed to in classrooms.
Speaking in Orlando, DeSantis emphasized that Florida does not ban books in schools, but instead empowers parents to object to learning materials if they feel it's inappropriate for a certain age group.
Local school districts then have the power to remove those materials or allow them to only be viewed by students of a certain age.
"Over the past year, parents have used their rights to object to pornographic and sexually explicit material they found in school libraries," DeSantis said. "We also know that some people have abused this process in an effort to score cheap political points."
DeSantis admitted, however, that some parents have abused their objection power by raising concerns about books like the Bible, Johnny Appleseed and "The Giver" just to send a political message.
"I am calling on the Legislature to make necessary adjustments so that we can prevent abuses in the objection process and ensure that districts aren't overwhelmed by frivolous challenges," DeSantis said.
The governor said he's directed the Florida Department of Education to take action to "prohibit bad actors in school leadership positions from intentionally depriving students of an education by politicizing the book review process."
DeSantis is also calling on the state legislature to "enact policy that prioritizes parents' voices by limiting bad-faith objections made by those who don’t have children learning in Florida."
Thank you. Also, The Great Gatsby isn't banned in Florida.
Wow, just a mere fact-checking caused me labeled as strongly mentally ill! Just in case, another minor fact, a co-founder of Moms For Liberty is married to a chair of Florida Republican Party, so she may have some influence 😂. The difference between you and me is that I see both sides doing wrong things, and that frees me up from righteousness. I call it for what it is.
It was the nature of your “fact-check” that exposed you as brainwashed and mentally ill.
I pointed out that Democrats control education in America and your fact check of this was that The Great Gatsby is no longer Rated G in Florida so really it’s both sides.
Only a sociopath feels comfortable putting forward an argument that reprehensibly dishonest.
Education is a shitshow because it is totally controlled by Democrats…….BUT THERE WAS A COACH WHO PRAYED AFTER A FOOTBALL GAME SO IT IS BOTH SIDESY!!!!
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Come for the articles.....stay for Kevin Durant?'s linguistic swordplay.
Well put, Kevin.
What are you quoting? I searched the quote and no results were found. Why is Moms for Liberty relevant to a discussion of appropriating education resources for non-education purposes?
Removing a volume from a school library is not "banning" it and it is dimwitted to think so.
Let’s spare all children from The Great Gatsby.
It can be read, only if it is read to children by a drag queen.
You are correct Sir!!
Ideological utopianism (poseur DEI/Marxist woke) funded by tax dollars and grants willingly approved and distributed by pay-to-play D.C. politicians. Both groups in service to malignant narcissism (DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos). It represents the theft of the resources, the life and labor, "we the people" provide. No more hidden budgets and appropriations. No hidden add on's. No more "..gee we found a few billion dollars we didn't know we had..", or flat bed trailers stacked with cash earmarked for baksheesh and graft. Total transparency on all tax dollars spent.
First, if that's not your real name, I appreciate the throwback to the greek physician. Secondly, having recently graduated, we could not have discussed Shrier's first book in my classrooms. I genuinely think that would never happen, since the profession of therapists/psychiatrists is in denial. But I agree with you; I think it would be beneficial reading across the board.
This is exactly like an issue I dealt with 30 years ago. I started a company got investors and went off a cliff. It hit me hard. 5 or so years later I met a shrink, Lee.
We talked, he asked me what I'd been doing about it. I said I was resting more, working less hard, the popular ideas. Lee said, "You know, the people that made that stuff up never tested it, never presented a shred of evidence it works." Then he asked me what I'd learned and said to work hard with that.
About the core thing he asked, you know what that means about you? I answered. He said, "It means you're not a sociopath. Not a bad thing. But it should have a point, right? Should benefit someone? Who is this benefitting? Besides my bank account?"
We became friends until he died. Lee didn't respect that idea of life separation rules. I asked him once. He replied pretty close to, "Oh, that's because we don't police our profession well enough. Those immature people shouldn't be licensed in the first place. If you have so little self-awareness you abuse and manipulate people as props in your own narcissistic theater, how can you do anything but prey on anyone who comes to you no matter what the rules are?"
He was of the... life is tough, deal with it school.
I think he was right. My theory is that we all have issues (not trauma, issues) and that maturity is melding childhood experiences, including those issues, into a cohesive personality to successfully navigate life. And life has ups and downs. But then the chattering vlass decided that kids must be protected from bullying and so much damage has flowed from that.
What's truly infuriating is, if you try to call out some of the lunacy going on in our schools, YOU will be attacked. Not far from where I live the school system in a town in Connecticut installed a tampon dispenser in the boys room at the local high school. Within a half hour it was destroyed, and to the local wokesters, it was like 9-11 had just happened. As with most things, there IS a sensible compromise, such as putting the tampon dispenser in a gender-neutral restroom or even in lightly trafficked hallway. But to the woke, this is an "opportunity" to "educate" the rubes among us. As with everything they advocate, they never seem to realize that bad things happen when they set themselves up as thought police! Closer to home, a daycare center has as one of its students a four-year-old boy who is being raised by two lesbian women is being encouraged to experiment with gender by two people who are clearly ideologues. This child has a name that can be either a boy's or a girl's name - probably intentional from birth. Instead of telling this little boy that it's ok for him to do "girl things" - perhaps playing with dolls or reading girls' books or liking purple and pink - they are sending him to daycare wearing dresses and barrettes - and saying things like "you're my sweet little girl." I know for a fact that growing up as ANY little boy can be tough if you're not one of the tough guys ...but these women are making it worse. He's in for some tough times when he goes to Kindergarten. But... were I'd ever to say anything, I'd be the crazy one. I'd be the "hater." I'd be treated like a criminal.
I heard about that! Several times actually, it made national news. The child of the two moms sounds like emasculated him
is the goal. And I think it would be confusing for a child to be in a two parent family with no one of your gender with whom to identify. I said yesterday that I think some of this is fueled by confusion over bias and prejudice. In my small town there was a considerable brouhaha over gender identity in schools. Bullying and not being allowed in the bathrooms and locker rooms of their preferred gender was lamented. They produced a slate of candidates for school board and the fight was on when folks not experiencing gender dysphoria produced an opposing slate. The vitriol from the gender crowd was astonishing. They would say they experienced vitriol as well and maybe they did, but I did not see it. But I just kept wondering about the vast majority of students who were just normal kids trying to navigate school. Why was it okay to ram values they did not share down their throats. It elevates the interest of the few above the interest of the many.
Lynne-
That's a beautiful definition of maturity!!! Cohesion and navigation require thinking skills and risk; I fear that kids aren't given the time or room to mess up these days. That's where the best learning happens.
My husband and I were aware that all of our three children experienced bullying at school (in the 2010s). We never once went to the school to raise a concern or to 'make it stop'.
We thought it best for our children to learn how to cope with it. And they did.
And they learned a resilience which has served them well.
That was mine and my husband's strategy as well. It worked out too.
My simple theory after talking to hundreds of “mental health professionals” for my research is the same as the discussion Abigail raises with the teachers. If you don’t have mastery of your own subject matter and self, you have the potential to do great harm. Those with “rescuing” tendencies due to their own psychological make up will impede the growth of others. It is a form of “power theft” and it is right to call it out. It is right to return power to the individual and teach that set of core skills. Sadly, there are very very very few like Lee who have that kind of mastery anymore. Glad you made it through the challenges.
Hmm, interesting. I like his approach.
So much poison is now 'baked into the school system' that they are maybe now beyond repair - which is why home schooling is surging in the US. "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” ......
That vast infrastructure of buildings full of classrooms children and teachers. Kids spending their weekdays being taught by teachers – how could things possibly be otherwise? In this essay I try, firstly, to sketch an impressionistic snapshot of this ‘Schools in Crisis’ media flurry and then to dip a toe into the hazy waters of what could possibly replace them as the means by which society teaches its children." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Each state needs laws that are directed to teaching the three Rs (of course science, civics, computer science and other traditional core subjects). Teachers and administrators are threatened with immediate firing If the vary from not only this teaching plan but they must leave their ideologies and politics at the schoolhouse door.
Fine as an idea but how - given where we are - do you realistically actually make that happen?
Through strict legislation.
Great handle. You have a constrained or conservative view of healthcare interventions, as do I. I'm not a psychiatrist, rather, I'm an ER doc but I've seen so many kids for mental health issues over the past 30+ years. I'm well aware that there are kids who desperately need medication and intensive therapy, but in general I hate to see so many kids sucked into the mental health system. Something happens there that is the opposite of empowering.
Opposite of empowering is spot on. I highly recommend The Coddling of the American Mind. It primarily focuses on colleges, but the issue is spread well beyond the campus. The entire concept of mental health and wellness today seems focused on reinforcing cognitive distortions rather than combating them. Everything you feel is valid, no matter how over the top, nonsensical, or self destructive it may actually be. The book breaks a lot of it up in to the embracing of what the authors call the 3 great untruths which fly in the face of everything we've known about happiness and good mental health.
"What doesn't kill you, makes you weaker" (so avoid hardship and discomfort at all costs), "Always trust your feelings" (No matter how unreasonable or self defeating they may be), and "Life is a battle between good and evil people" (so never see the good in someone you disagree with, never consider they may be right about something, never accept their criticisms no matter how constructive, don't even consider that they may be wrong, but have good intent. They're evil.)
My teen is one of those many kids who got sucked in to it through an ER visit while some of the hospital medical staff were quietly sharing with me they shouldn’t do this to our kid.
It was a nightmare. And a Herculean labour on our side to “suck out.” We ended up leaving the country. I felt that as parents we just couldn’t win in the US.
I am amazed at how much younger the 'mental health crisis' patient I see in the ER is now. Seriously, I don't recall seeing an 8 year old going off the rails in the ER before. let alone daily. Sitting with a behavioral sprecialist for hours finally I couldn't take it anymore and just went to the 8 year old with my best mom voice and said 'cut it out, stop screaming'. And to my astonishment, she did
I love the irony of a psychiatrist using the phrase “making me nuts” 😂 but I agree. Instead of teaching resiliency and the idea that you’re stronger than you think you are, we teach victimhood and debilitation as the great virtues of our time. The result of course is a race to the bottom. My grandparents are all rolling in their graves.
I couldn't agree more, not to mention the wireless radiation and blue light that disrupts growth hormone and spikes stress hormones:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/how-does-emf-affect-children
Thank you, Dr. Galen - on behalf of all of us parents on PITT.substack.com
Our family was struck by the Trans Cult at school prior to Dr. Littman's study and Ms. Shrier's essay in the WSJ. I thought that would be the end of this madness for sure! Instead, the Federal Government - using the National Teachers Union & US Assistant Health and Human Services Mutilation Lord Admiral Mengele Levine continues to double down. Several states follow the lead energetically including CA where Newsom and AG Bonta are strongmen mirroring the Feds: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gavin-newsom-sued-over-policy-forcing-teachers-to-lie-to-parents-about-students-gender-confusion/ Of course, once the kid/frog is boiled in Ideology to that extent at school, merely informing the parents is weak tea.
But, perhaps Dr. Jason Rafferty who is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics will lose his license: https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/Ayala-v-AAP-Complaint_stamped.pdf
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-american-academy-of-pediatrics-named-in-bombshell-detransitioner-lawsuit
Dr. Rafferty was at Brown - the same place that ran Dr. Littman out. So much for the Ivy League?
And, only slightly off topic - maybe GA AG Willis and CA AG Bonta could hook up in jail. One of them would just have to swap "genders" to share a cell. Taxpayers would still be paying for their escapades by funding prison food. :-0
Children are not creatures of the state/schools - or at least they should not be.
"Democrats Don’t Want Parents Involved In Childhood Education" https://victorygirlsblog.com/democrats-dont-want-parents-involved-in-childhood-education/
I don’t suppose you practice in SoCal and are accepting new patients?
One of the things that frightens me is that people are getting anti-depressants from their PCP. Apparently this is how most people get them. The process of getting anti-depressants right can be incredibly long, incredibly difficult, and scary. In my opinion, you need to have someone who is very familiar with these drugs, how to use them, how to combine them, and accompany them with a therapy component to ensure a good outcome.
Apparently the most common problem with PCPs prescribing them is that the dosages are too low to actually help the person.
I should say my psychiatrist, who I have enormous respect for, does not agree with my opinion on this. :) So I will defer to the experts, but it still scares me. I have seen people who are being treated for mental health issues that aren't going through a psychiatrist and it just doesn't seem like you're setting yourself up for success doing things that way.
Social workers and psychologists can write scripts?
Psychology is a philosophy, not a science.
It varies from shrink to shrink.
Good to know. And kind of scary. In my experience mental health involves a team that is overseen by a psychiatrist that ultimately makes the diagnoses and writes the scripts, then the psychologist meets regularly with the patient for what I think of as routine maintenance, and social workers handle issues adjacent to mental health. I have always thought that was way too much bureaucracy.
Planned Parenthood dispenses Synthetic Cross sex hormones to anyone who wants them on a first visit. Age = 16? No problem. Anything else would be the hated "gatekeeping". But they are serious drugs.
I predict we are going to see a future wave of mental illness related to these hormones. And physical ailments.
You describe it well. It is why so many people suffering a mental health crisis end up in jail.
Psychologists can not prescribe drugs. Psychiatrists can and do (a lot).
Our daughter had an IEP up until middle school. A learning support teacher wanted her to drop Spanish so that she could have a free period to spend in learning support room to get help with homework and test prep. Our daughter loved Spanish and it was her favorite subject. We had her attend the annual IEP meeting to self advocate for continuing Spanish and stopping the learning support. The teacher in the meeting said, “I’m concerned it will be too much for you and if you don’t succeed it will harm your self esteem.” Our daughter said “My self esteem will be harmed by not trying. If it doesn’t work out I can handle it.” One of our proudest moments. The teachers and school psychologist didn’t know what to say. It did work out. She’s a junior at university, just made the deans list and will be studying abroad this spring in Spain.
I love this. Good for her! May she go far!! My son with ADHD was coddled by the system for years and years, but was always failing. Then he started taking up guitar and became REALLY good at it. The feeling of success carried over into every other part of his life. Now he is a successful happy young adult who handles challenges with grace.
It's pretty much literally impossible to become really good with a musical instrument if one has a problem with attention span. The usual suspects tried to pin the faddish ADHD label on our son as early as toddlerhood. In his Montessori kindergarten, his teacher told us he was the only child he had ever had in class with the necessary attention span to complete a tedious pegboard exercise.
I respectfully disagree. Kids with ADD/ADHD can hyperfocus, so they can become excellent at the things that most interest them. Hence the poster whose daughter excelled in Spanish. Those with ADD/ADHD are often very good at creative arts.
I read somewhere that ADD/ADHD people are overrepresented among successful small business owners .
“It's pretty much literally impossible to become really good with a musical instrument if one has a problem with attention span.”
People with ADHD aren’t unable to ever pay attention - they frequently hyperfocus on something that really interests them. What they have a hard time doing is focusing on things that are important, but that they find uninteresting.
I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 22. Prior to that, I’d tried my best to concentrate on Calculus in high school, because I thought taking 4 years of math when 3 were required would be impressive to my dream school. Despite extra help and tutoring, I could not force myself to concentrate on it. It was like trying to listen to one person talk when twenty other people around you are talking more loudly. I knew how much I *wanted* to focus on it, and I thought I was a selfish person for not being able to when so many people were trying to help me.
My parents let me drop the class because I was failing. Got into the college anyway.
You know I think that is so true. In preschool this same boy was the most focused and most talented at all the puzzles and pattern toys. Same skill set was apparent when he took up music. I can't figure out what happened in between. The teachers saw him as less capable than others and he fulfilled those expectations.
I learned not to believe everything the teachers said about my children. My takeaway about their assessments was you are trained to teach the easy to teach children and you don’t want to exert yourself. Children are not complicated, pay attention, and provide what they need to thrive.
I agree. And they are so eager to label those that do not fit their mold.
One year my daughter’s teacher emailed me upset that she wasn’t enthusiastically playing a game to prepare them for upcoming state standards tests. I just ignored it. Those tests are for the schools to get funding and are horrible for the students. They lose an entire week to prep for them. My daughter didn’t like the game or the tests. I told her not to worry about it.
They can hyperfocus on the one or two things that they are passionate about.
You have hit the nail on the head-expectations! When the adults set the expectation, the children will rise or stoop to the occasion. If the expectation is that they cannot accomplish something because of a feeling or a circumstance, they won't accomplish it. If we label them, they will fit the label.
I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school and was a music major on a full tuition scholarship for the saxophone. It's not "pretty much literally impossible". It's just hard
My daughter was diagnosed ADHD inattentive type -she played piano for several years and played competitive recitals. She dropped it eventually though because she didn’t enjoy it. Maybe because it got too difficult and the practice was too much. When she’s really into something though there’s no stopping her.
What a fabulous story and what a proud moment for everybody. Your story brings up what I think is also at the root of this which is parents who either wholeheartedly agree with these approaches or are cowed by authority and won’t advocate for their child. I’m 53 years old and raised two outstanding young men who are doing well and I attribute it to my husband and I Pretty much parenting the way our parents did back in the day. I felt I knew what was best for my child, and that they needed to face challenges head on. I was pushed by both boys teachers when they were in early elementary school that they were hyperactive or ADHD and should probably go see a counselor or get on medication to which I responded that they were boys and this is how they acted, and to back off .
All I see now is parents trying to wrap their kids in cotton wool and protect them at all costs from everything, rendering them depressed and anxious.
My experience as well.
Yea…let’s take away the student’s favorite and stick her in a one on one with a teacher assistant in middle school to help her possibly fading self esteem. That sounds like fun. As a former teacher this option makes me sick! I’m so sad for the education most of our kids are receiving. They eventually grow up and become “leaders” as adults. Well done on you for bringing her to the IEP meeting and letting her self-advocate!
Side note: Dr. Phil was on the view yesterday (no I would never waste my time…just saw clips) and he said the biggest damage done to kids was keeping them out of school during the pandemic. Of course Whoopi just couldn’t comprehend.
I'm so happy to hear Dr. Phil said that ... but where was he when we needed him?
He was on something else the other day and said the border was broken.
I’ve heard him make comments about this prior to being on the View. Even if he did early on, he’d probably be censored along with the many qualified doctors and researchers. What a disgusting time in our current history…the abuse of children by the left. It’s sinful.
My son's middle school teacher told me that honors math classes in high school would be too hard for him because he didn't earn A in her class. I didn't listen, he graduated from one of the top engineering schools and is now a principal engineer at a prominent tech firm with dozens of patents to his name.
Can’t understand the jump towards lowering the bar without considering other factors.
Great that it worked out for your son. As a high school teacher of a college level class (Corporate Finance) I believe that there is benefit to looking at student performance in pre cursor courses such as accounting, math skills, etc. to assess whether a student is likely to do well in the class. In every instance where I had a concern, the student struggled. Most recognize they're in over their heads and switch out. Those who stay struggle the entire year. I don't know how they feel about it but it's painful for me to see them do poorly assessment after assessment.
You might believe there's no harm in trying the class, but we should keep in mind that the student's schedule was made with that class in mind. There may be few if any appealing classes being taught the same period as the course the student intends to drop.
Kudos to you and your daughter. I bet she will love Spain, I lived there for a few years quite some time ago and wish I still did. Be prepared for your daughter expressing a desire to move there permanently ! To paraphrase and alter a bit (in english) a Spanish phrase; my body is in the US but my heart is still in Spain.
Well that would break my heart but it’s her life to live. I fear her traveling abroad without us. But I have to let her go and keep the faith.
Worry not, especially since Spain is her destination. Visiting is easy now that we're in the jet age of travel. To me the Spanish are the most gracious and friendly people in Europe, just ahead of the Italians. If she is planning on being in Madrid have her look up the Madrid chapter of the Hash House Harriers. That's a running/social club that meets almost every Sunday to jog (and down a couple of beers) in the countryside. The club has a nice mix of Ex-Pats and locals and it's very easy to forge friendships with that group. She'll have a blast.
She’ll be spending most of her time in Barcelona but definitely intends to visit Madrid as well. I will be sure to tell her about the Hash House Harriers. Thank you for the encouraging words. I feel better about her going. Her father and I will be joining her for one week after her program is completed to enjoy Spain as a family.
Living in Barcelona !! Even better than Madrid in my opinion.
My experience with the IEP trap (where federal govt. offers public schools more money per student for this farce of a program) is that it allows kids to graduate from high school despite being totally illiterate
Way back in the 3rd grade my grandkid begged to repeat the grade, but the public school psychologist and principal insisted doing so would irrevocalby harm his "self esteem".
In 10th grade, despite or more likely BECAUSE of an IEP, after flunking every subject 3 years in a row yet still getting promoted (despite all F grades), we finally realized the school did not care if he became literate. We pulled him out of well-funded public school classes to enroll him part of the school day in a small private school offering 2:1 student teacher tutoring. He caught up in less than a year, made mostly A's and a few B's, and actually made honors math. However, the public school, threatened by the success of the alternative school, refused to accept the credits earned by this accredited private school. This was despite the fact the private school applied even tougher criteria than the public school online or IEP programs and would not allow a kid to advance until they had achieved at least a B on their tests.
Years before when the counselors insisted it would embarass him horribly and hurt his self esteem to be held back, I said, "No. What will hurt his self esteem it after continually flunking classes year after year, or with his IEP be allowed to pass without ever learning anything, about the time he is 16, he will look around and think he is the stupidest kid in class and then he'lll drop out." Sadly it proved true. He did drop out as did so many other marginal students during covid. But at least he had learned to write, do math and most importantly, learned he wasn't stupid.
Of couse, most kids don't begin to have the money to attend a costly private tutoring school. My grandkid told me how his friends were realizing late in high school how poorly they'd been educated and were fellng very resentful.
The fact is when math class begins to sound like a foreign language, as happened with my grandkid, the kids simply assume they are really stupid and uneducable. Worse, in today's public schools, the kids learn they really never have to even pretend to try to get by. No wonder the high tech corporations (who enthusiatically fund the Democrats) insist on all those immigrant work VISAs and love open borders where desperate folks will do any job...our kids never learn a work ethic, and even if they do manage to graduate, they are illiterate to boot.
My experience is not unique. Almost all of the parents in a Changes parent group I attended said that even if their kids did make it down the aisle to get their HS diploma, they were doing so nearly illiterate and unable to do much more than add and subtract.
Your daughter is awesome!
Brava to your daughter!! Abigail Shrier talks about this kind of thing more in the Honestly episode.
Our son has just recently gotten an “auditory processing disorder” diagnosis, and they are already talking IEP or 504. Shrier encourages parents ask “will accommodations make my child STRONGER?” We are firm believers in the idea there are more important things in life than GPA!
Maybe instead of this mental health check garbage it would be better and more life affirming to use yesterday’s essay on fentanyl as the morning check in and do a one minute just say no to drugs exercise
BTW were there any demographics mentioned on who is taking the Ritalin or adderall ? I bet it’s white boys this is pushed on
My son was very social in first or second grade. He was a very smart kid and was always helping others with their work. So the teacher said he should take Ritalin. I said are you nuts? Separate his desk so he isn’t so close. She did and it worked
Parents need to say no to those drugs.
More than 2 decades ago when my son was in Kindergarten he was always getting in trouble. Everything distracted him. If we had ever tested him I'm sure he would have been diagnosed with ADHD and drugs recommended. We avoided that path and made our own diagnosis: typical boy. Turns out we were right. Oh yeah, today he is a successful engineer.
Amazing! These children are also "adhd" because blue light via EMF from devices overstimulates and spikes cortisol, the alertness/stress hormone, and destroys growth hormone: https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/how-does-emf-affect-children
Parents need to say no to teachers, most of whom come from the same cohort of 1/3 of teenaged girls who seriously contemplated suicide.
Piggybacking off of this, I would add that we need more male teachers. I have two sons, and I see how they respond and behave with male authority figures vs female ones. I think we as a society need to do more to encourage young men to see education as a viable career opportunity and stop the stigma that surrounds men who choose professions that involve working with kids.
I know a Marine who spent his second career teaching middle-school students. What an example he set by the way he carried himself -- and not just to boys. "He changes lives," his wife told me.
A program called Troops to Teachers is also worth a look here. It's for military members who are considering going into education after their commitments end. I've only read about it, but it makes sense to me.
I know a neurosurgeon who quit to teach high school. I think often about how fortunate is students were to have him
This sounds amazing!!
Agreed, education is overwhelmingly female and is suffering from unrestrained toxic femininity.
Elementary Education has always been predominantly female. My first male teacher was in the seventh grade. The problem today is the mission of elementary education has been hijacked by ideologues.
Excellent point! There seems to be a goal of teaching boys to be more like girls. Drastic mistake.
And I would argue that feminism has been hijacked by the ironic ideology that women must behave like men to be “empowered.” So that goal goes both ways.
Mr. Spann was my fifth grade teacher. He was serious but kind and wasn’t afraid of discipline when warranted, the threat of which ensured that wasn’t very often. As a preteen boy, he changed my life’s trajectory, even though I didn’t know it at the time.
So, I completely agree with you, as long as it’s not a bunch of pajama boys.
Remember the paddle (and "oh no he drilled holes in it") ?
I absolutely do. It's a small world!
Agreed, education is overwhelmingly female and is suffering from unrestrained toxic femininity.
I couldn’t agree more. We need more male teachers that actually act and behave like serious minded men. The males that teach my nieces are all beta males that come off as pathetic and weak (w/ the exception of 2 male teachers that are coaches for football & basketball). The rest of them are truly laughable.
Do you think the benefits of male teachers has anything to do with the fact that most young women lean left? Nah, couldn't be, right?
Do most middle and upper middle-class mothers lean left? Could that be the relevant fact?
Well. Pay them more. Or maybe you try it?
This can start at the small scale. Maybe women-dominated parent groups could start including dads, for a change. No matter how great a dad we are, the women always reach out to the mom.
That is a good point that I am going to consider with my own parenting.
You'd have to finally make teaching a respected profession with a salary that reflects its value. This actually happens in other countries. Not here.
Couldn't agree more Gail. Some of my best teachers were men, who filled in for that father figure I never had.
Yes, more male teachers! I was pleasantly surprised when looking for high school alternatives for my 8th grade son. Context: We’re in suburb north of NYC & are upset by radical curriculum that was snaked into our public school district’s health class by NYSED, content that wasn’t there when my older two boys took the same exact course just 4yrs earlier; we learned religious schools are less tethered to NYSED ideology and their sex-ed courses even mention abstinence as an option, gee how refreshing! We’re practicing Catholics, so we visited 3 all-boys, Catholic schools w/in 10 miles of our home. In all 3 schools, we were encouraged to take a guided tour during school hours. Loved seeing the instructors, the majority of whom, are male, in such a positive role. Just FYI, it was this document from the NYSED published just this past June that sent me into high gear looking for alternatives to our public school district. Some of your TFP readers may be interested. https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/student-support-services/creating-a-safe-supportive-and-affirming-school-environment-for-transgender-and-gender-expansive-students.pdf
Will women who identify as men help? According to Shrier’s last book, we seem to have an abundance of them!
Strongly agree!!
Read my post about what it's like to be a teacher in the woke SEL era. Anyone sane who can afford it is quitting. We'll be replaced by cheap & obedient illegals. Stay tuned.
Twenty years ago, my son's teachers said he was a behavioral problem who couldn't learn to read. They pushed everything from Ritalin to summer school to special education. I told them no every time and filled in the gaps for him myself.
My son double majored in college in history and geographic information systems. He taught himself programming and computer science. He is now in an elite program in the DOD and has his own company for his DIY technology products.
His teachers would have slapped any label on him that they could to pad out their pet programs, and they didn't care if it ruined his life in the process. Some kids actually do need the programs and a very few might need the drugs, but more parents need to say no.
I'm autistic, have ADHD, and know I wouldn't have gotten an education if I attended public school. The special ed classes are a joke around here; students spend all day watching movies and coloring pictures instead of learning anything real. Had I not been homeschooled (and been able to get the math/testing accomodations I needed without having to repeat grades), I wouldn't be where I am today--a college senior who's about to graduate with a 4.0 in May. My path hasn't been a typical one, and that's a good thing! I'm beyond hyped to see the homeschool community thriving, and welcome all the new programs out there that I couldn't have dreamed of back in 2016 (when I graduated highschool)!
Fantastic! Congratulations and good luck to you!
And has anyone done studies about if Ritalin and adder all are precursors to addiction? Or have those drugs contributed to school shootings because it seems like every one of those angry kids are taking something.
There are studies indicating that the vast majority of school shooters are on some version of psychotropic drug. Of course, there are also those that say the opposite.
Yep. The war on men and family, followed by the war on boys, expanded to include the war on girls, now expanded to the war on free peoples everywhere. Drug'em, butcher'em, incarcerate'em and if they still won't comply, send'em to the euthanasia center.
It would be awesome if non-drug interventions/therapies worked for all kids labeled ADD/ADHD. But not all parents are willing to try this, so some kids really do benefit from the meds. As a teacher, I've seen it make a huge difference for the kids who really need it.
Knowing that our oldest son--who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age 4 (yes, he *really* has it)--would likely experience pressure to medicate, we started classical homeopathy treatment. (To anyone who thinks it's all woo-woo, we observed *radical* changes in his behavior after doses.) He got through elementary school without ADD meds. A combination of increased maturity and home-schooling during middle school got him through high school.
He still has ADHD. He has to use various coping strategies to go about living a "normal" life. But he learned to drive (something we were worried he would never have the focus for), and he has a good job, a wife, and now a son of his own.
I'm not sure how much of that would have been possible with the intervention we sought very early.
Not only was the homopathetic powerful, but there is a tremendous power in the family pulling along side of him. The "various coping strategies" and proving to him that he could master middle school in a different setting was a support that gave him power, self esteem, and an independence that simply taking a pill would not have provided.
Easier for the kids ie do they actually learn better? Or easier for the teachers where kids can turn into numbed robots.
Boys have a lot of energy. so do girls. Go to any playground with kids and it’s all movement and yelling. Maybe the answer isn’t screens and drugs but a lot of recesses to burn off energy. Lessons through exercise. As they get older, they settle down to more intense learning.
No. For ex., I had a student who just couldn't focus to do math. When he started taking meds, suddenly he could concentrate and was actually able to do the problems. He was so excited and proud to be finally learning and not different from the other kids. This student was in middle school, and his reward for meeting certain goals was a trip to the gym to shoot hoops. He was also given "movement breaks." The meds actually helped more in this case.
SEL is designed to create anxiety out of thin air. It is designed to create, not healthy individuals, but activists ready to dismantle systems of oppression. It is designed to recenter the abnormal and push normal to the fringes. It is designed to make an underclass of dependent people.
It is intentional and it is 100% deliberate.
SEL is like DEI in that it's designed to create consulting fees.
And to justify degree programs
Create the disease, sell the solution, call yourself a hero.
Oh but sorry this article was about education, not COVID lol
Let me tell you how frustrating this is for teachers, who have no choice but to live through this crap. We'd much rather be presenting actual academic content!
Tell me how this makes you feel and how can we change how this is presented to be less intimidating and more inclusive?
/jk
LOL 😆
Keep telling kids there is a monster under the bed. It’s the same thing our current administration is doing with the grown ups.
“It explained that the brain is like a hand, with the thumb folded into the palm. “Our amygdala is really important in serious situations,” said the voice-over. This sounded right. We felt like neuroscientists.”
——————————————————————-
OR YOU COULD JUST TEACH THEM TO READ AND DO BASIC MATH.
Am I wrong to view this as a cult of freaks hired to extol the virtues of victimization?
I had the same immediate thought: make everyone a victim
I call it the Victimhood Sweepstakes.
The article said literally that - every child is a victim of trauma.
Why do you assume that teachers support this crap? A lot of us don't, but can't afford to quit or can't find other jobs.
No--It is the well planned and organized destruction of Western Civilization and the ascent of the same totalitarianism that almost burned the 20th Century to the ground. It's a kinder softer tyranny.
Are you kidding? That would give them objective skills and individual agency. The point is to ingrain victimhood with grievances eliminating individual responsibility so they can become a welcome addition to the proletariat, although I do think the Russians and Chinese try to teach their kids useful skills. Maybe that’s the next phase, once individuality freedoms and responsibilities are eliminated and the “State” is fully functioning. Think this is hyperbole? Perhaps. But just remember, all these little victims-in-training will be running things in a decade or two.
“all these little victims-in-training will be running things in a decade or two.”
This has been going on for a very long time. Think decades. Increasing in intensity every year. They are running things now. Isn’t it obvious?
No one thinks this is hyperbole.
My thought, exactly. That would be a major improvement over this moosh.
Can't do that. We live in a first world country where some people have to invent first world problems.
It won't be first world for long.
Reminds me of the so called innovative teachers who invented a new way to learn how to read. It didn’t work. Now we have lots of kids who can’t read.
It seems like every day I read stories of how the “smart people” do something, it fails horribly, but there are no consequences for them. Just lots of victims scattered all over.
And never ever are they held accountable or admit they were WRONG
That's the thing that really makes me angry. As long as they *meant* well, they experience no repercussions when the results are bad.
No, don't suggest we go back to the old ways of learning. How dare you suggest that those old fussy methods may have actually worked....better *gasp*.
For centuries.
“Advocates of social-emotional learning claim that nearly all kids today have suffered serious traumatic experiences that leave them unable to learn.”
——————————————————-
Well yeah okay this is technically true since going to a government school where you are trained by communists to be an annoying jackass is probably pretty traumatic.
#metoo
I was a public school kid. School was the one place I could escape from the stress and worries I had at home. This is a travesty.
The "circle time" that degenerated into multiple kids weeping and sharing private information with their peers horrified me. That information almost certainly got used later as weapons by bullies.
These kids who have hard lives at home are being actively deprived of coping skills. Instead of being encouraged to focus on things that can give them a way out of the rough world of their childhood, they are being forced--apparently all day long--to focus on their unhappiness.
To me, that looks like emotional abuse of children who have already been abused by someone else.
It reminded me of the Communist struggle sessions. I'd bet if students didn't say what was making them sad, they'd either be forced to wait until someone brought something up, or endure some sort of collective punishment, like extra homework
Very much agree Celia. Not only can the private information be used against them by their peer group, but the children who receive the information could pass it on to their respective family members and neighbors for adults in the community to misuse for gossip and slander against the child’s family. That alone would further traumatizes a child. This was disturbing to read. This exploits the child and his troubled family. Surely there is a more private way to address family issues.
We might consider: working three jobs- on the freeway two hours before dawn- streets unsafe at any speed- stressed out single parent non family-I've got to score soon- tweet jeebus where did all these homeless people come from- that mtr'fkr looks dangerous- I'm never going to own a home- why did my rent suddenly go up thirty percent-is this package smaller and cost more- to hell with public transportation-I barely escaped with my life last time- sorry you can't go- the park is too dangerous son -why are Billy Gates and the CCP buying up all the farmland - yes orange is the new black and but protein is the new steak-Joe looks sleepy- is that Barry standing behind him-34 trillion is a lot of money- how did I end up owing China a hundred thousand dollars- by the way who gave my kid fentanyl- I didn't sleep last night- the sound of gunfire makes me nervous-is that guy in the doorway dead- how many million illegals did you say crossed the southern border- so nobody knows exactly how much money disappeared where- why is that bats#it crazy woman calling me deplorable- so they staged what exactly- that news anchor makes twenty million a year she must be telling the truth- why would she lie to me- yes son a good education is the pathway to a brighter future- you're fifteen years old now--what? You can't read?
Exactly!
Same.
The economic incentives that take root, once these therapies are built into “medicine”, are impossible to tear out. They grow and envelop the society, and an entire class of medical practitioners’ livelihoods depend on its support and further growth. That means more “patients” will be pulled into the maw. If your career depends on growing your practice to feed your family, you WILL find more people to diagnose, treat, put on medication, and further entrench in the therapy mindset that will overwhelm our society.
This essay isn’t about “ medicine”. These are the lowest level hacks , “ counselors”,teachers, and bureaucrats who are indoctrinated the youth and dumbing down society. It’s a Marxist , Maoist tactic for cultural revolution for a power grab.
Yes, and.
Once a “disorder” is in the DSM-V, it enters an ecosystem with referral points, therapists, and ultimately medication. I support your belief that it is Maoist/Marxist in effect, but it is tangled up in our decadence as a culture.
Putin and Xi can sit back and watch the show, and that extends far beyond this conversation on therapy culture. It is how we roll as a people.
The DSM is a billing manual and a political treatise,having nothing to do with patient care. For example, they removed the word disorder from the diagnosis of gender dysphoria for political doctrine reasons. GD is as much a psychological problem as is anorexia nervosa, but the Trans cult and DEI has control over psychiatry and medical training in general.
Psychiatry is the least evidence based field in medicine and always has been.They do less and less “ talk” therapy and largely push pills and ECT the brain with no data to support their claims of safety and efficacy. It’s rotten , powerful, and stigmatizing
“It’s a Marxist , Maoist tactic for cultural revolution for a power grab.”
Winnah Winnah Chicken Dinnah! 😢
Outstanding analysis!
And the next step is legislation so that the funding is permanent, the prices non-negotiable and obfuscated, and the people who profit are untouchable. It's a problem with the whole medical industry and one reason why our health care is the most expensive in the world.
A clear conflict of interest.
there is no doctor anywhere in the US, let alone psychiatrists, who will say there is any shortage of patients. Our world is very unhealthy
Hopefully President Trump will eliminate the Department of Education, the ultimate funding source for this dangerous nonsense. Third-world countries educate their children better, for a few pennies on the dollar.
Talking about eliminating the Department of Education or the IRS is sort of like talking about repealing Obamacare. Until there is viable replacement legislated, it’s just hot air. These guys can barely agree on a speaker, let alone come up with a replacement for a major federal agency. They can talk about burning down the house while running around with torches, but only a few are genuinely stupid.
Education is not mentioned in the Constitution. There is no reason for it’s existence other than to influence the state education departments to bow to the will of the ruling political party in Washington. Please name one thing it does that a state education department can’t do better.The Constitution specically enumerates Federal powers, everything else, like education, belongs to the states.
Wait a minute! Follow the Constitution? Now that’s a radical idea!
Hear, hear.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but education at the time of the constitution was a semi-literate teacher, a couple of books, some chalk and piece of slate. For about 5% of kids.
Nuclear energy wasn’t mentioned in the constitution, but I don’t think we would want to leave that up to the states either. I think we need to have national standards for education, because I’m not in favor of a state handing out diplomas without any kind of standardized testing or accountability.
This is the same trite 2nd amendment argument. Thi-i-i-ings have cha-a-a-anged since the Constitution was written!!!!! Which overlooks a few things. First the Constitution was designed to provide a framework of government to stand the test of time. It is rather elegant in its simplicity. Second, it can be amended if there is need and sufficient agreement thereon. Third, one of those amendments, the 10th, provides that those things not authorized by the Constitution to the federal government nor prohibited by it to the States, remain with the States. I think federal control of education has failed. Pretty much across the board. In part because the federal government is merely a bureaucracy. In the sphere of education it cannot teach, it can only administer those who do. Without diving into it, I feel certain that the social emotional learning model is a DoE brainchild.
Then you are a Federalist and do not believe in states’ rights. Would you abolish the Electoral College as well? Remember, the Founding Fathers explicitly avoided creating a democracy in favor of a constitutional republic. By your line of thinking, perhaps we should federalize all licensing as well ( doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc)?
The Dept of Education was created to collect statistics on public schools. That was all. It has grown into a destructive behemoth in bed with the NEA, one of the most corrupt orgs in our country today. Together and apart they do nothing good.
The DoE should be eliminated and education returned to the states. It was only created in 1979 and just look.at what has happened to education since.
Vicek for VP. It will happen
I'll take Vivek, Donalds or Stefanik. The other names thrown out are non-starters for me.
Tim Scott ?
We used to educate our children better, in little red schoolhouses.
Spending thousands per student to produce kids who have never learned to read or do math is not just a poor investment; it's abuse of our kids by the government.
Freedom is bad for kids. They need to stop giving kids the power to make "decisions" in their life until late teens. Let them hate their parents for putting a lot of restrictions. And for jesus sake - take away their phone and tell your congress person to restrict this non-porn pornography of social media.
I like your pithy analysis. I disagree on the freedom thing. Kids need guardrails, but they need to learn also from hard experience. I had great freedom as a kid. No phone - heck, my parents had no idea where my friends and I were - once we were out of eyesight. We learned to face problems and adversity that happens in childhood. Resiliency is like a muscle that needs constant exercise.
I guess I meant freedom in life choices - yes, they need freedom to do activities and not be overscheduled by parents. But they need rules and consequences. I don't know how many parents ask their 9 year old children "What do you want to do when they are going out? They don't get those kind of choices unless its their birthday. You are going with mom and dad, end of story. They need to learn to lose and deal with it. Because in life you have to lose and lose and lose until you start winning or understanding that you already won - if you came from a family that gives you food, shelter, a few toys (a few) and schooling.
I got yelled at if I spent more than 15 minutes on the phone unless it was real homework.
Hahaha, true enough! Me too! Shared finite resources were also a teachable moment.
Personally, I would make it a law that kids have to share a room. And if they are an only child - have another kid live with them!!! And no locking their door! That is another thing that I don't know what parent thought they should do that. The child's room is not their room - its their mom and dad's room. The parents should knock once they are older - but I would make it a felony for a kid to lock their room.
In an other era, you would be considered the “law & order” candidate / parent… and I don’t have a problem with that!
And many would agree that those restrictions we hated our parents and authorities for, later in life we appreciated.
The only thing that still bugged me as an adult was that my dad was always stressed and in a bad mood and would yell at us for anything small. He did what he should do - support the family and pay for college (we were upper middle class). But I could never talk to him without getting yelled at or telling me I'm stupid (I was an A student). Child of the Depression he was.
They introduced “mood meters” in our school district where every day elementary kids enter class and put their name on an emotion. I asked my kids (high school) if they have something similar and sure enough they do. But the older kids game it “I alternate between yellow(neutral) and green (happy). If it’s always green they think you’re not taking it seriously” 🤦🏻♀️ Well credit teachers to know at least that much. If the end goal is to build confident, well adjusted kids, let kids learn how to read, write and do math; these are actual skills that will enable them to be productive contributing members of society and THAT is what will give them confidence. And I don’t believe kids should be happy 100% of the time; they need to fail a test, get cut from a team and have fights with friend groups; this is when they acquire some resilience and once they get through it, they will recognize how to navigate through life’s hiccups and that is what will make them truly happy and confident adults.
How does a person’s body develop immunity? From experiencing illnesses. How can a child learn to face adversity? From experiencing it. It’s not the traumatic death sentence the pearl clutching nanny state makes it out to be.
Is there any option for kids to opt out of this nonsense?
In my district, parents can opt their kids out of the big bi-annual SEL surveys.
“Good therapists are trained specifically to avoid encouraging rumination, a thought process typified by dwelling on past pain and negative emotions. Rumination is a well-established risk factor for depression.”
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Hey, this reminds me, did you guys know that we used to have slavery??
Hey, don't forget that women couldn't vote, establish their own credit, and their husbands could beat them! I want to ruminate all day, every day, rather than be thankful for the women and men that changed things so I could live a better life.
Perhaps you should listen to Janice Fiamengo on Tammy Peterson’s recent podcast titled “Dismantling Feminism.” Frankly, feminism is ruining as many lives as it purports to ‘improve.’
We have absolutely lost the way. I read about refugees from brutal totalitarian regimes who dragged themselves to school through bombings, risk of arrest and other horrors because they understand how important education is. Then here in some of the most affluent districts in America we are talking about our feelings rather than learning basic math skills? This is creating a generation of navel gazers.
I do think part of the job of a parent is to help your child understand that “big feelings” are a normal part of life and that they will always eventually pass, not by suppressing them or, at the other extreme, talking about them endlessly, but by simply allowing yourself to feel what you feel until the feeling moves. This is what builds emotional resilience. Feeling despair or anger, letting yourself ride that wave and then coming out the other side. But this is something to work on in the family, not the job of a teacher.
And you hit the nail right on the head.
John Taylor Gatto, who won NY Teacher of the year multiple times has long spoke out against public education due to the traumatizing effects it has on children: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/origins-of-modern-education
As a millennial, we’re seeing that a lot of us have a hard time with reality due to the shortcomings we learned from schooling —hence the term “extended adolescence”
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-millennials-hate-adulting