Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Seuss by sharing a great book which explores the philosophical and moral dilemmas often found in his stories. 

Since Theodore Geisel published his first children's book in 1937 under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss, children and adults alike have been captivated by the charming and laconic tales of whimsical characters and imaginative worlds. But Dr. Seuss' stories are more than just catchy poems; they often wrestle with serious philosophical and moral dilemmas, whether it is Horton discovering the very essence of life or the Lorax teaching us about morality. Dr. Seuss and Philosophy Oh the Thinks You Can Think! explores philosophical concepts such as the nature of the good life in Oh the Places You'll Go, the nature of knowledge in McElligot's Pool, Postmodernity in On Beyond Zebra, business and the environment in The Lorax, and moral character in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among many others. Anyone who loves Dr. Seuss or is interested in philosophy will find this book to be intriguing and enlightening.

Learn more about the book, here.

Mental Illness Does Not Erase Your Dreams: The Little Metal Box

By Randye Kaye (parts first published on Ben Behind His Voices blog)

Mental illness makes news. Usually sensational news. CNN reports that Jared Lee Loughner is unfit to stand trial. Last month, Catherine Zeta-Jones spoke openly about her bipolar diagnosis. Charlie Sheen? Anybody’s guess. (But I say: get that man into treatment, stat!)

But what about the people who don’t make the news? What about the large proportion of consumers who are managing their lives somehow, or trying to, without shooting anyone or landing on the cover of People? Those who have been diagnosed with mental illness deserve respect - and help. Their courage is enormous, the obstacles often beyond comprehension for those who don't understand.

My son, Ben, earned another six college credits this semester, and is still on the Dean's list. Plus - in the past two months - a new job, and a move to his own small apartment. All this after seven hospitalizations, seven years in a group home, eight years unemployed. Amazing! He's getting his life back in small steps. But there’s no news coverage for people like Ben.

Why did it take so long? Ben has paranoid schizophrenia. That kind of messes up your path to maturity. Never, never compare his progress to someone else his age whose brain functions without illness. There are other yardsticks to use.

Ben spent lots of time dealing with an illness whose onset confused us all, and then lots of time learning to recover. He’s still learning to recover. But years ago, when all was in confusion and chaos, he’d still had dreams, which he wrote down and kept in a little metal box. I discovered these seven years after his fifth trip to the Emergency Room for psychiatric admission.

When I cleaned out Ben’s last apartment seven years ago, I’d found a little metal box. At that time, I peeked at its contents: more scraps of paper, obviously precious enough to be stored in this place of honor. I couldn’t bring myself to open these papers then. What crazy ideas would I find written on them? He was so desperately ill, his schizophrenia so in charge of his mind at that time. I’d seen enough; I’d heard enough. I threw the box in with the rest of his “desk supplies” and stored it away with more evidence of his disastrous attempt to live on his own that year.

Recently, I rediscovered that old metal box in a storage bin in Ben’s childhood bedroom. It had originally held mints: “Organic Cinnamon Snaps! Over 100 snaps per box,” reads the cover. The hinges are covered in duct tape now; the picture of forests and volcanoes under the words has faded. Ben’s little treasure box, now seven years old.

I open it. Inside are pages ripped from a small spiral notebook, carefully folded to fit. I hesitate. I do – and I don’t - want to open these.

What will I find? What secrets has he kept in here? I hold the box in my hand, a key to the things my son considered sacred when he was 20 years old.

I take out the first paper and unfold it. I expect to see what I have found before in his writings from that period: grandiose ideas, poetic phrases, delusions that guide my son when his symptoms flare up.

But I’m wrong. It’s only a list of phone numbers, readable, organized. His friends, our family, his most recent employers. At the bottom of the list, the names of some old friends – from high school days – with no numbers listed.

People he hoped to get in touch with again, I think. I’d almost forgotten how many friends he used to have. So many friends. Would they even talk to him now?

I open the next paper. It’s another list, with “Stuff” written across the top, then: candles, lawn chair, blank tapes, phone card, origami paper. The list goes on; it’s a “want” list, or a shopping list. Things he’d like to have for his birthday, perhaps. The simplicity of these small desires touches me.

The next sheet is a to-do list. Again, the handwriting is legible and the columns organized. There are about seventy-five items on this list. Most are written in blue ink, a few in green, black or red. I stare at this for a long time.

Among the plans he’d made:

• Write letters (with a list of over twenty people, including me, Ali, other family, old friends, our rabbi, his old therapist – what had he wanted to say?)
• Write play
• Write animal language dictionary
• Make gifts: Mom pillow, Dream Catchers, Ali cookbook (for his sister)
• Compose college essay
• Build a drum
• Make chess set

More lists: movies he wanted to see, videos he wanted to rent, books he wanted to read, CDs he wanted to buy.

I’d almost forgotten that he used to have dreams. So many dreams, such simple ones. Any dreams at all. It’s not fair! He had all of these plans. Will he ever get to do them?

At the bottom of the pile is a last piece of folded paper. This one is messier, but I can still read what it says. It is full of quotes, ideas, and plans that are more internal. Written here are ideals Ben wants to live by, almost like New Year’s Resolutions:

• Listen a lot.
• Blow nothing up out of proportion.
• Simplify, don’t be hypersensitive.
• Don’t judge people.
• Don’t use your muscles, use your mind.
• Don’t use big words.
• Think before I speak or act.
• Don’t try to control others, let them be.
• Reach out to people, lovingly.
• Hear and consider others’ points of view.
• …and the list continues.

I’d had no idea Ben was trying to change himself all the time I was desperately trying to change him.

Plans for his life - a life at a standstill for so many years. A life worth living; a life worth saving; a life stolen from him. Will he – will we -ever get it back? My boy, my precious boy. I know you’re still in there. Come back to us. Come back to you.

I wipe my eyes, carefully refold the papers and put them back in the little metal box. I wish I could sleep with it under my pillow, like a lost baby tooth, and have my wishes – and Ben’s – come true.

Randye Kaye is an actress, broadcaster, voice talent, and speaker. She is the author of Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope.

The Publicly Profane Odd Future of the Music Industry

By Elizabeth B. Christian

What’s a headstrong, creative musical artist to do now that the music industry is in freefall, and record labels prefer signing easily moldable youth who can be pre-packaged and marketed to a mainstream audience with a ready-made profit margin? Singing talent is optional as long as you look like a star and will do as your label commands. In fact, labels often balk at originality in a marketplace increasingly based on the bottom line rather than the message in the music.

The music industry of the 21st industry reminds me of a 1973 episode of the iconic sitcom The Brady Bunch in which a record producer offers Greg the role of rock star Johnny Bravo because he “fit the suit,” not because of any musical genius.

Perhaps this type mindset is part of the reason for the epic fail of the industry, suggests Christian Clancy, former Interscope Records executive and co-manager of one of raps’ rising stars. Clancy told Billboard in March that the new business model is one in which artists come from a place of authenticity—and you can feel it in their lyrics and see it in their imagery. They may not produce No. 1 hits overnight, but in time this brand of artists will garner lasting and loyal fans.

Enter: Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA), a group of 11 alternative hip-hoppers who skate, create and debate what direction they want to take their artistry in next. Led by a 19-year-old known to fans as Tyler, the Creator, OFWGKTA is much more concerned about the group’s authenticity than airplay. Thanks to catching the ears and eyes of superstar Kanye West in the summer of 2010, however, airplay and Internet attention have followed.

Clancy, co-manager OFWGKTA, believes the group’s genre-bending, real-world branding is the wave of the future of music. The group formed in 2009 and released its first self-produced album Bastard on its website, oddfuture.com, near year’s end to little fanfare from hip-hop media. The group gave out free albums and recorded and posted a music video for its song French. People started talking and tweeting and Tumblring.

Kanye and Soulja Boy then publicly endorsed OFWGKTA, leading to an appearance in February on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and the release of two iTunes singles, Yonkers and Sandwitches, thus far the only two songs available from the group for retail purchase, selling 12,000 and 6,000 units respectively within the first month.

That, however, is about to change with Odd Future’s Tyler, the Creator’s second album due out May 10, distributed by XL. What most definitely is not going to change, Clancy said, is the group members’ commitment to staying true to themselves and not some corporate music magnate.

To say Odd Future is rough around the edges would be an understatement. The group voices profanity as often as many of us take breaths. They rap about committing violent and sexual crimes, use homophobic and misogynistic phrasing, and have no respect for anything or anyone with whom they disagree. Still the message resonates with many in the younger, urban generation. And the creativity of the group--profane words notwithstanding--cannot be denied. No other twentysomething musical artists out there can boast of writing and producing their own music, marketing it, doing their own promotional material, and creating and choreographing their own music videos and shows.

It’s a powerful package—headstrong youth whose motive isn’t profit or political correctness.

Now, if this secondary placement of profit after authenticity catches on in the music industry, it would most certainly be an odd future.

Elizabeth Barfoot Christian is assistant professor of journalism at Louisiana Tech University and the editor of Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture.

Next blog: The political branding of country music: 10 years post 9/11

Everything Old is New Again: The Marketing Magic of TV’s Glee

By Elizabeth Barfoot Christian

FOX’s hit show Glee reminds me of what a music-loving Norman Lear might have developed were he producing television shows today. The edgy, envelope-pushing dramedy is making its mark on the topics of teen sexuality, teenage pregnancy, disabilities and fitting in—in ways never-before-seen on network TV.

What makes Glee different from the likes of Lear’s controversial ‘70s shows like Maude (topics included TV’s first abortion and women’s equality), All in the Family (topics included racism, bigotry, homosexuality, rape, breast cancer), and The Jeffersons (TV's first upper-middle class black couple dealt with topics of racism, suicide, gun control), along with his other shows, is that Glee is having this dialogue set to song and dance routines.

Unlike these in-your-face shows of yesteryear, Glee is using key social issues as an inroad to conquering the world of music marketing. And the results are phenomenal.

Music is often called the universal language, and Glee is proving that power as it tackles 21st century teen issues set to song, then sells you the show’s soundtracks via iTunes.

What’s so crazy about the success of Glee is that musicals and television traditionally don’t mix. Or they didn’t—until now. And now every music producer and songster in town is trying to get his tune remixed by the high schoolers in New Directions, the fictional-turned-real-life touring group from Glee. The group has taken on an eclectic choice of tunes from as far back as the 1920s and made them relevant again to a new audience—one with disposable income to burn. (According to Canadian Business magazine, Glee has the highest audience percentage with incomes more than $100,000).

The average week draws viewership of 12 million, and the first season of the show drew 19 Emmy Award nominations. Already bigger than the Beatles, Glee has had 75 hit singles in just a year and a half—outpacing Britain’s Fab Four, who had 71 from 1964 to 1996.

As of January, Glee has released nine soundtrack albums, selling five million copies. More than 13 million copies of the show’s singles have been digitally downloaded. Artists they have covered, including Madonna, Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, and Queen, have also seen some of their old hits rechart on the Billboard Hot 100.

Glee went on a four-city tour of 13 live concerts last summer. One Los Angeles show sold out in 30 seconds, surprising even longtime music industry insiders. Expectations for 2011 are even greater, as the audience has only grown. Glee has graced the cover of Rolling Stone and performed for President Obama. Dozens of websites have been created by Gleeks, the show’s loyal followers, and keep a constant update on characters, musicians who should get the Glee treatment, and merchandise offerings from ringtones to tangible products and where to buy them. Macy’s already has a Glee clothing line and plans to launch a home décor line this spring. “Glee” has become a brand unto itself. Entertainment Weekly writer Tim Stack called “Glee” the music industry’s “biggest story of the year.” First aided by its American Idol lead-in, it’s expected to gain further ground when in February FOX airs a special episode immediately following the Super Bowl.

High school, like music, is a universal experience. And that’s key to understanding the Glee marketing phenomenon. This is one bandwagon, it seems, to which we can literally all relate. And many in both the music and television industries are happily taking that to the bank.

Elizabeth Barfoot Christian is assistant professor of journalism at Louisiana Tech University and the editor of Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture.

Next blog: Who’s the bad guy now? Can American Idol survive without Simon and what this could mean to music sales?

Two Common Questions: How “Ready” are Students to Answer Them?

By Frank Burtnett

What do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you want to go to college?

Just two interrogative sentences consisting of a total of eighteen words, but individually or together they can stir excitement, curiosity and anxiety in the student to whom they are directed. Admittedly, the responses will vary greatly for different students at different times in their personal schooling and development. And, in some instances, the student may not be able to offer an answer. That’s okay too.

One’s career development consists of a series of stages---awareness, exploration, decision-making---during the formative years. Options are considered which are then followed by educational experiences, including the acquisition of knowledge and skills in a formal setting called school or college. Along the way some real “hands on” experiences like part-time or summer work, along with service learning (volunteerism), may be sprinkled into the learning process.

Eventually, the formal educational experiences end or slow down and the individual moves from school or college to the workplace and continues to grow and develop there. Over the span of one’s work life, additional adjustments will be made during the maintenance, mobility and advancement stages of the career development process. One working in contemporary America can also expect that continuing education is going to be a significant part of those developmental stages.

Sound complex? In reality, there is usually a comfortable flow to it all. And for most, it typically results in career satisfaction.

Today educators are using the expression “career and college readiness” to refer to the preparedness that leads students through school and college and into the workplace. President Obama, Secretary of Education Duncan and the most recent chair of the National Governors Association have each spoken on the importance of youth readiness as a critical aspect of our nation’s “Race-to-the-Top.” This long overdue emphasis on “readiness” suggests the best results will occur when education supports and facilitates the career development process.

Teachers, counselors and all educators, along with parents, can play a critical role in helping students set realistic educational and career goals and then take the action steps that are needed to make those aspirations a reality. In my two Rowman & Littlefield Education books, Bound-For-College Guidebook (2009) and Bound-For-Career Guidebook (2010), I offer information, answer questions and engage my readers in personal exercises that will help them structure their exploration and decision-making and more effectively engage in the transitions that take them from school-to-college and school-to-work.

The more students know about the educational and career development process---the more “ready” they will be to control those parts of it that are the most controllable. There are no “one size fits all” solutions or answers. Every student should have the opportunity to choose his or her life’s work---not be sentenced to it.

Frank Burtnett is the President and Principal Consultant of Education Now (www.ednow.org) in Springfield, Virginia and Rockport, Maine and the author of the Bound-For-College Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Applying to Colleges and the Bound-For-Career Guidebook: A Student Guide to Career Exploration, Decision Making, and the Job Search.

Transform, Not Reform

By Francis M. Duffy

Here we go again! One more time politicians and pundits are calling out school systems for failing to provide America’s children with the education they need and then offering their worn, tired, and failed recommendations for change: A longer school year. Fire incompetent teachers. Create charter schools. Dump more money into failing schools. Practice continuous improvement. Reform! Reform! Reform!

None of these “fixes” can do what needs to be done to provide America’s children with the education they need to succeed in our 21st Century knowledge economy. We need to transform our school systems, not reform them.

Education reform is a failed strategy because it focuses on fixing the broken parts of school systems (which is pejoratively referred to as piecemeal change) while sustaining the underlying paradigm that drives teaching and learning in those systems. Fixing the broken parts of any school system is a failed change strategy when the underlying paradigm has outlived its usefulness.

A paradigm is a set of theories, models, beliefs, and so on that influence the performance of an entire field. The dominant paradigm influencing the performance of school systems is one that emerged at the beginning of the Industrial Age in the late 1700s-early 1800s. This Industrial Age paradigm created a factory model for educating groups of students by requiring them to learn a fixed amount of knowledge in a fixed amount of time. There is no place in that paradigm for providing each child with an educational experience that is tailored to his or her needs, interests, and abilities. There is no place in that paradigm for providing children with a personalized educational experience. This paradigm always has and always will leave children behind. Leaving children behind is an unavoidable consequence of the Industrial Age design of America’s school systems.

Providing America’s children with an education that satisfies the requirements of our 21st Century knowledge society requires a paradigm-shifting revolution that drives out four old inter-connected Industrial Age paradigms that influence the design and performance of America’s school systems. The four paradigm shifts are:

Paradigm 1: the way teachers teach and how children learn (shift from group-based, teacher-centered instruction to personalized learner-centered instruction;

Paradigm 2: the design of the internal social infrastructure of school systems (shift from an mechanistic, bureaucratic organization design to an organic, participative design; and, transform organization culture, the reward system, job descriptions, and so on, to align with the requirements of the new core and support work processes;

Paradigm 3: the way school systems interact with external stakeholders (move from a crisis-oriented, reactive approach to an opportunity-seeking, proactive approach); and,

Paradigm 4: the way in which educators’ create change (shift from piecemeal change strategies to whole-system change strategies).

A revolution to transform America’s school systems requires political advocacy, courage, passion and vision. Although a revolution to drive out the old paradigms requires muscular political advocacy, when educators in school systems and politicians interested in education step forward to lead or join this revolution on the front lines of change they will require much more than political advocacy. Fighting this revolution requires significant courage, passion, and vision. They must have courage to stand and fight for that in which they believe. They need passion to give them the emotional energy and resilience they need to persevere. And, they must have a vision to serve as their North Star to keep them moving in the right direction.

Further, these three traits—courage, passion, and vision—must be simultaneously present in each change leader. A change leader can have courage, but lack passion and vision. A change leader can have a powerful vision, but lack the courage to fight for it. A change leader can have courage and a vision, but lack the passion to pursue the vision relentlessly. All three traits must be present all at once in each man and woman who steps forward to lead this revolution.

Our society cannot afford to carry its old education paradigms forward. It does no good to dream of an idealized future for education if that future is just a projection and continuation of the past. Instead, change-minded revolutionaries should imagine that the four paradigms controlling the design and performance of school systems were destroyed last night and now they must invent four new paradigms. What would be the main features of those new paradigms? How could educators change the mental models supporting the old paradigms? And, importantly, how can they design new school systems driven by the four new paradigms and the new mental models required by the paradigms?

The time is now. The need is great. The past before us is not the future. We need to create a brand new future for America’s school systems—a future created through transformation not reformation.

Francis M. Duffy, Ph.D. is the author of Dream! Create! Sustain!: Mastering the Art & Science of Transforming School Systems. He can be reached at duffy@thefmduffygroup.com.

School Bullying and Teen Suicide

By Stuart W. Twemlow

Suicide in victims of bullying at school is a rare event, and a startling one. In general, teenaged boys are much more likely to die by suicide than girls. This is true in all age groups by a factor or three to four. The recent case of Phoebe Prince, aged 15, who hanged herself in South Hadley, Massachusetts, after chronic bullying by a group of girls and boys in the school (who have been charged criminally), is an exception. The school has been the center of a cyclone about bullying in Massachusetts that will no doubt lead to many law suits, much acrimony, and defensiveness by the school, the parents of the children who bullied, and the parents of Phoebe Prince.

Interestingly, research conducted by the Menninger Foundation and Baylor College of Medicine has shown that bullying has had much more of a negative affect on boys than girls in terms of chronic victimization. In a study we performed over a three-year period in elementary-school-aged children, severely bullied boys ended up with internalizing symptoms including depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and actions significantly more than girls. Chronic, severe victimization by others of a peer group, especially in teenagers who are susceptible to peer-group opinion, is extremely damaging, traumatizing, and humiliating. In some ways, the experience is like multiple rape in front of an audience, especially for these peer-sensitive adolescents.

The United States of America, which has for many years lagged behind the rest of the world including the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, in research into bullying, is finally beginning to wake up. In the last five years especially, there has been a massive increase in serious research about bullying. However, we are no nearer to the solution. We have not found a way of reducing bullying in a stable way in schools. One of the points that we do know is that the school must be committed to it with the same intensity as it is committed to teaching intellectual skills. It is not simply an add-on to make children more comfortable. We also know that punishing bullies does not work at all. Most zero-tolerance programs have been dropped.

So what does work? We have found that teaching children to be aware of each other and how relationships are developed (mentalizing) is extremely important. Children must become conscious of how they use their personal power as victimizers, victims, or even bystanders. Adults are very important models for this conduct. But the last word has not been said.

Phoebe Prince’s tragedy has caused an uproar, fueling suggesting that bullying be made a mandated reporting offense. This would focus a great deal of attention on bullies and may lead to punishment or treatment for them, but it would leave the massive audience of bystanders and victims unattended. Easy as a legal solution sounds, until the community as a whole adopts anti-bullying as a high-priority public-health issue, no meaningful change will occur.

Stuart W. Twemlow, MD, is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine and the co-author of Why School Anti-Bullying Programs Don’t Work.

Domestic Violence while Dating: The Yeardley Love Case

By Marilyn Fernandez

On May 3, 2010, Yeardley Love, a University of Virginia student, was discovered by her roommates, dead in her bed, bruised, with a pool of blood on her pillow. Another UVA. student, George Huguely, has been charged with first-degree murder in his former girlfriend's death. Both came from privileged backgrounds, were star lacrosse players and were getting ready to graduate and move on to bright, successful futures. Yeardley Love’s death ended life as they both knew it, particularly for Yeardley, but also for Huguely, albeit in a different way.

Here is what we know based on newspaper reports of the violence. There was physical violence at least in the way he allegedly killed her and perhaps other forms also (such as sexual, verbal, intimidation, stalking) about which we might never know. There are reports of Huguely acting on his jealous rage (attack on a sleeping teammate for allegedly kissing Love), history of alcohol abuse even as a minor, and history of violent past run-ins with law enforcement.

This tragic incident and what we know of the troubled relationship (like the physical violence, anger, stalking, harassment, and property damage) raise several reflections and questions. It presents a classic case of intimate partner violence. It also reminds us that intimate partner violence does not discriminate across age, relationship status (dating), wealth and many other social characteristics (such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, presence of children, etc). Yet, apparently restraining orders and associated legal protections are not available in Virginia for victims in dating relationships. Also, don’t universities have responsibilities in helping their young students protect themselves from such violent and dangerous circumstances? How proactive are universities in this regard?

Other salient questions relate to what could happen to the accused Huguely, if he is found guilty? He could get some form of legal punishment (jail time, anger counseling, treatment for alcohol abuse, and/or community service when he gets out). The type and severity of punishment would depend on the laws in Virginia and how deftly Huguely’s lawyers might be able to get his sentence reduced. But, even if Huguely receives the maximum punishment for his offense, will it rehabilitate him? How does society make sure that he will not offend again? And how about the loss experienced by Yeardley, her family and friends? Yeardley is no more. But, even if Yeardley was alive and even after the legal process is completed, she probably, like many victims of intimate partner violence, might experience a hunger for healing, for a chance to let her abuser and her community know what the violence has done to her and what she has lost because of the violence. Intimate partner violence often silences victims and it is seldom that the victim’s voice is heard in the adversarial legal system. Also, how about the loss experienced by Yeardley’s parents, her siblings, and friends? In addition to the legal adjudication, might some form restorative justice encounters and intervention (face-to-face meetings, letters) with appropriate supervision, be appropriate? Through such encounters they can let Huguely know what they have lost and also how he could restore their losses. Of course, the choice of the restorative encounter format should ultimately be the choice of victim’s family. Restoration might involve requiring Huguely to work with other victims of intimate partner violence so that he understands how violence affects others. In the ultimate analysis, let’s hope that the lessons Huguely learns is that alcohol, anger, wealth, or athletic prowess, nothing, gives anyone the right to harm another.

Marilyn Fernandez is professor of sociology at Santa Clara University and author of Restorative Justice for Domestic Violence Victims: An Integrated Approach to Their Hunger for Healing.

Fix the System to Heal the Kids

By Pat Pernicano

I spent March 18-20 in Chicago at the Ben Franklin Summit for Clinical Excellence, entitled Freud Meets Buddha: Mindfulness as a Therapeutic Tool for Healing Trauma. The conference focused on the impact of child abuse, neglect, and evidence-based treatment. It was clear that a wide range of professionals researching and treating trauma, from MDs to PhDs, are on the same page.

The conference presented abundant data about what goes wrong when children are abused and/or neglected: their brains change (memory areas shrink and thinking areas can’t shut off strong emotion); they don’t trust anyone (“attachment deficits”); they think they are the cause of the maltreatment (“insignificant” or “not-good-enough” children); and they end up in relationships and situations that “prove” their skewed beliefs are true.

So what does it take for these kids to heal and become resilient adults? If they are going to stay in their families, the whole family needs to change. The parents (many who were abused or neglected as kids) have their own work to do. And if kids aren’t going to stay in their families, they need to be somewhere they can have long-lasting, safe, trusting, “secure base” relationships: new attachments that undo the old beliefs and experiences. The relationships need to be close and personal, with as much autonomy and control as possible given to the child who formerly had so little control over his or her life.

Believe it or not, nurturing, loving, consistent, dependable relationships have the capacity to heal the damaged brain, the poorly regulated hormone system, and the person’s sense of self. Throw in some good therapy and self-care (relaxation, yoga, meditation) and you may see lasting change.

So what actually happens to kids in “the system” (CPS, courts and treatment)? The parents get classes in parenting and “offender” groups but don’t change their relationships with their kids. It’s pretty sad. The parents who never got cared for don’t have a clue how to put their children’s needs (emotional and physical) before their own. The kids get removed, “protected,” and put in group or foster homes, many too large for close attachments to develop. And when the children show their rage, sadness or defiance, they are once again “not good enough” and get bounced to the next home.

The system doesn’t work. Kids “bounce” from home to home; and the biological parents remain without a clue. How can you give what you did not get? Clearly we need a bigger type of change— systemic, attachment-focused change that is more than “skin-deep” and gives kids a permanent, loving home much earlier in life.

Pat Pernicano, PsyD, is director of clinical services at Providence Self Sufficiency Ministries, and the author of Family-Focused Trauma Intervention: Using Metaphor and Play with Victims of Abuse and Neglect (Jason Aronson) and Metaphorical Stories for Child Therapy: Of Magic and Miracles (Jason Aronson).

A Firm Resolution to End Solitary Confinement Cells in Schools

by Mary Hollowell

Many people are shocked to learn that various American schools, today, have solitary confinement cells. These are not just extra classrooms but are genuine cells with exterior locks that were constructed specifically to confine unruly students. Some of them have padded walls, and most of them are dark. The majority of students who are thrown into them are students with disabilities ranging from autism to serious emotional disturbance. I expose this horrific practice called “school seclusion” in my book The Forgotten Room.

Additional evidence for school seclusion comes from a 2009 National Disability Rights Network report titled “School is Not Supposed to Hurt” and a subsequent Government Accountability Office report, which found hundreds of cases of injury and death due to restraint and seclusion in our nation’s schools. Phyllis Musumeci, a Florida child advocate, also compiled a vivid grassroots photo collection titled “Restraint and Seclusion Behind Closed Doors", and journalist Maureen Downey shed more light on the issue in her Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial “The Forgotten Rooms.”

Some of the damage to children is invisible, and the wounds from being held captive in small, dark places may never heal. In my own state of Georgia, a boy named Jonathan King died in a school solitary confinement cell when he hung himself with a rope. The preponderance of evidence of the unthinkable has led federal legislators to introduce the H.R. 4247 Prevention of Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act, which will regulate punitive measures in schools and provide funding for more data collection, teacher training, and reporting.

State Policy

On January 12th, I sat in a Safe Schools Initiative meeting beside the grieving and courageous parents of Jonathan King and their lawyer. We watched the wheels of school policy turn slowly in Georgia. A proposed rule prohibiting restraint and seclusion will be introduced in a series of public forums across the state. It is anticipated that school administrator associations will oppose the dismantling of solitary confinement cells, preferring to retain them as disciplinary measures. If all goes well, however, the proposed ban will be approved by the State Board of Education in March.

An advocate called for a round of applause for the efforts of the Georgia Department of Education. I recognized it as a political tactic designed to prod DOE employees in the right direction. It was subtler than my own shock and awe tactics of using graphic prose and photographs in my book.

While most of the room clapped, I couldn’t bring my own hands together. How could I applaud an agency that was so slow to act and was responsible for the death of a child in the most horrendous way? How could the banning of school solitary confinement cells not be anything but instantaneous? I vowed personally to Mr. & Mrs. King, “We will end this.”

Mary Hollowell is associate professor at Clayton State University and the author of The Forgotten Room: Inside a Public Alternative School.