Tigger Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 How American Made Its Children Crazy Your thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aelwydd Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 You know, I started to read it, but then I got bored and distracted and couldn't finish it. So, I'll wait and skim other posters' responses here to determine if I agree with it or not. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plucky Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I think he is cherry picking his sources for adhd. While that one "expert" believes meds do not help adhd, the majority of studies, drs. and professionals disagree with him. Here's one such expert debunking his source: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/03/lily-hechtman-medication-is-the-best-way-of-treating-adhd/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Some good points, some points i really disagree with and some really disjointed arguments. Waldorf, pshaw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6packofun Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Yeah, the writing seemed all over the place and I couldn't get into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sputterduck Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 It hurt my head. I couldn't finish it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerPoppy Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I found the first couple of paragraphs to be poorly written, but then he seemed to get into the flow. While some of his individual points may or may not be accurate, I have to say I agree with the overall thrust of the article. I am a huge believer in carefully building children's attention spans from birth. (I'm not saying that anyone causes ADHD, just that parents should do what they can to foster the development of this ability in their children.) I agree with limiting screens while brains are developing. I agree with utilizing classical methods. I like slow food, acoustic instruments, and hands-on discovery. The author may have taken a somewhat different path to that place than I did, but I think he gives much food for thought. It's not as if there's actually just ONE answer--most problems have a multitude of causes that intersect. His ideas may have merit as a piece of the puzzle, or for some people in some situations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthwestMom Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 "Until the passage of the 2005 Individuals with Disabilities Act, schools had the power to force children to take ADD drug, namely amphetamines, or bar them from classrooms, even when parents objected to the medication." This is false. This piece represents the writer's opinion, not an objective reality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 If you look at what Waldorf kids are doing when they leave school (there's one here so I see it) I'd hardly call their results an unqualified success, or really, a success of any kind. I think it's important to discuss what happened to kids with ADD in the good old days-they pretty much dropped out of school, went into trades, or worked in factories, and were able to support their families that way. That is no longer true. The loss of manufacturing jobs has much to do with the rise in diagnosis\medication for attention problems, IMO. Our world has far fewer options for the impulsive than the world of 150 years ago. So we try to medicate them into functioning in the world we have now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 How American Made Its Children Crazy Your thoughts? That was painful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Some good points, some points i really disagree with and some really disjointed arguments.:iagree: I was reading an article yesterday that said that "now children as young as 4 years of age can be accurately tested for ADHD, so if your child has problems focusing in preschool..." :001_huh: Sorry. Four-year-olds were not meant to be focusing in preschool, so in that regard - yes, I do believe that America is making its children crazy. "Until the passage of the 2005 Individuals with Disabilities Act, schools had the power to force children to take ADD drug, namely amphetamines, or bar them from classrooms, even when parents objected to the medication." This is false. This piece represents the writer's opinion, not an objective reality. That may be false, legally. But I know several families that have been pressured relentlessly by the school district to have their children medicated. I did like this part of the article: Learning how to learn is the point of education. We will forget the great majority of specific things we were taught: Euclidean proofs, the polynomial theorem, Roman emperors, French grammar, atomic weights, the poems of Browning, and whatever else was stuffed in our heads as schoolchildren. What we learned, if we learned anything, is to memorize, analyze and explain. If we know geometry, algebra or French today, it is not because we retained our knowledge but because we re-learned the subject. School, in short, taught us to concentrate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 It hurt my head. No kidding. It went beyond poorly written to flat-out bizarre. There were a couple good points, but they're buried in overgeneralizations and blatant inaccuracies. For example, the "Individuals with Disabilities Act"--I think the writer means the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA--has been in existence (beginning under another name) since the 70's. It was revised in 2004, not 2005, to bring it into alignment with NCLB, but special needs education legislation has never given schools the right to force medications on children. Definitely written to feed the beliefs of a particular audience. Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 You know, I started to read it, but then I got bored and distracted and couldn't finish it. So, I'll wait and skim other posters' responses here to determine if I agree with it or not. :) Haha...ummmmmmm....me to:001_huh: Faithe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASDAQ Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 "That is the local Waldorf school, part of an education movement founded by the German mathematician and mystic Rudolf Steiner. Some of Steiner's ideas were strange, but his educational method - learning by doing - is robust. At the New York Steiner School my children attended, for example, 8th-graders learned the Renaissance by making copies of 16th-century scientific instruments, singing four-part Renaissance vocal works, and staging a play about the 17th-century physicist Johannes Kepler. The 9th-graders studied Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" by staging the complete play, rotating the cast so that every child memorized a couple of hundred lines" These are exactly the same arguments American educationists have been making for well nigh a hundred years now. Learn by doing. Relevant education. Learn how to learn. I don't agree with it. I think that's a disjointed and ineffective way to learn about the Renaissance. " It appears that Chinese children, who must memorize several thousand characters in order to complete elementary education, do not suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Two-thirds of Chinese children graduate secondary school, which involves a grueling exercise in memorization." Wait, shouldn't they be learning by doing? Hard to imagine anything less Waldorf than Chinese traditional education. Fifteen years ago it was Japan that was going to whup us all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Geek Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Since several other things have been addressed I thought I might address computers. Computers can be used as a tool in education just like anything else. Yeah there is a lot of junk on the internet, but there are some really good things. Spreadsheets, word processing, slide presentation software all make computers powerful tools. It is all in how you use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventureMoms Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 "That is the local Waldorf school, part of an education movement founded by the German mathematician and mystic Rudolf Steiner. Some of Steiner's ideas were strange, but his educational method - learning by doing - is robust. At the New York Steiner School my children attended, for example, 8th-graders learned the Renaissance by making copies of 16th-century scientific instruments, singing four-part Renaissance vocal works, and staging a play about the 17th-century physicist Johannes Kepler. The 9th-graders studied Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" by staging the complete play, rotating the cast so that every child memorized a couple of hundred lines" These are exactly the same arguments American educationists have been making for well nigh a hundred years now. Learn by doing. Relevant education. Learn how to learn. I don't agree with it. I think that's a disjointed and ineffective way to learn about the Renaissance. " It appears that Chinese children, who must memorize several thousand characters in order to complete elementary education, do not suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Two-thirds of Chinese children graduate secondary school, which involves a grueling exercise in memorization." Wait, shouldn't they be learning by doing? Hard to imagine anything less Waldorf than Chinese traditional education. Fifteen years ago it was Japan that was going to whup us all. :iagree: I was wondering the same thing about the Renaissance. For an 8th grader, that does not sound like a great education in the time period. Sing songs & make instruments...that sounds like a great supplement to an education about a time period, but where's the meat? And I could not figure out how he was using the success of traditional Chinese education to support Waldorf. That was kind of nonsensical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zuzu822 Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 :iagree: I was wondering the same thing about the Renaissance. For an 8th grader, that does not sound like a great education in the time period. Sing songs & make instruments...that sounds like a great supplement to an education about a time period, but where's the meat? And I could not figure out how he was using the success of traditional Chinese education to support Waldorf. That was kind of nonsensical. I tend to agree. I think Waldorf has a great emphasis on handwork and arts integration in the early years, but this seems a little like "pea and stick" work. If this was truly the bulk of the main lesson it is sorely lacking depth and breadth. (And this is coming from a musical family...DH rebuilds pipe organs in his spare time. :tongue_smilie:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AuntieM Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Reads like propaganda, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 That was painful to read. I also think the writer was cherry picking facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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