WELFARE MYTHS

[M2]

night owl, thanks for that refreshing perspective.  To be quite literal here, it looks like you are owning your baby .

Every Sunday morning we listen to a Lutheran preacher on the local christian radio station, in the car on the way to church.  Today he said that there are 2 categories of people, those who have believed in Christ as their saviour and those that have not.  Then he listed a number of 2 categories.  This one was interesting by Anonymous, "There are 2 categories of people. Those who take and those who give.  The takers eat better, but the givers sleep better."

A number of people in my church have dysfunctional backgrounds and/or physical hindrances.  I have not met one yet who is living in victim status.  I know one who has chronic back problems.  She is always in pain.  Yet you would never know it by her disposition.  She has a full time job.  She is involved in church ministry.  She has a heart to minister to others.  And I always enjoy her company.  She would definitely qualify for welfare, but I do not think that she has ever even considered it.

Happy Sunday to all.
Marcia

P.S.
There are 2 categories of people, those that do something, and those who say, "Why did we do it that way?"

[editor]

Here's something worth reading.  It's very well documented and researched.

The Title of the book is, "One Nation Under Therapy."

Here are two brief reviews from Amazon,

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
"Cancer patients who talk about their ordeal in therapy groups do not live longer," write Sommers (Who Stole Feminism?) and Satel (P.C., M.D.) in this suck-it-up polemic. For them, the pervasiveness of therapeutic thinking and practice in American life provides not healing catharsis but enervating psychic drag and evasion of responsibility. The authors marshal a litany of studies from a variety of perspectives, aiming to convince readers that taking one's lumps with as much equanimity as possible is far preferable to exploring one's feelings via an "unwholesome therapism"--or, worse, using one's "therapized" feelings as an excuse for bad behavior. Placing themselves in the tradition of Christopher Lasch and Allan Bloom, they begin with "The Myth of the Fragile Child," decrying the creeping prohibitions on dodgeball and tag (seen by some as too aggressive and competitive) on the nation's playgrounds as coddling. The next chapter, "Esteem Thyself," takes direct aim at the ideas of Abraham Maslow and self-actualization advocate Carl Rogers, while the following chapters chronicle the descent from "Sin to Syndrome" and "Pathos to Pathology," and track the enforcement of "Emotional Correctness." While basically a one-note book with little grace in its description of its foes, or in its insistent call for taking responsibility for one's own actions, Sommers and Satel's jeremiad will likely generate debate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Philosopher-turned-controversialist Sommers and psychiatrist Satel argue as forcibly against contemporary psychotherapeutic notions and nostrums as Sommers did against radical feminism in Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War against Boys (2000). The American Enterprise Institute colleagues question five pet doctrines of contemporary therapy by presenting the research evidence for and against them. That is, they review the relevant literature, letting its conclusions speak for themselves; though they are critical of the five shibboleths, they don't have to apply spin to be convincing. Properly conducted research doesn't, they show, back up the fashionable dogmas that (1) children are psychologically fragile and mustn't be stressed, (2) self-esteem is the sine qua non of psychological health, (3) what moralists call sins are expressions of mental illness, (4) the emotional effects of trauma must be acted out, and (5) all war and disaster witnesses suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sure, some kids are hypersensitive, self-esteem isn't unimportant, PTSD is a real condition, and so forth. Folly and worse result, however, when the five dogmas are generalized as they are in current practice, a point Sommers and Satel drive home--anent dogmas 4 and 5, in particular--in the long sixth chapter, "September 11, 2001: The Mental Health Crisis That Wasn't." Well-written, well-informed public affairs argumentation. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

[editor]

Here's another review of the book mentioned below,

In their new book One Nation Under Therapy, Christina Hoff-Summers and Sally Satel explore and describe the transcendence of therapism over common sense and reason.
 
Years ago I was enrolled in a psychology class in which I happened to be the only male present.  On the first day, there were about thirty students arrayed at desks around a blackboard.  The professor came in and introduced herself.  Then she requested that each student say their name while “telling the class some details about yourself.”  When the procession reached me I said my name…and nothing else.  The professor eyed me carefully.  She then asked, “Won’t you tell us something about yourself?”
“No,” I answered. “I don’t get into all that stuff.”

Such expectations of personalization and sharing are now sadly the norm in primary, secondary, and higher education classrooms across the country.  Requests to emote come from one’s peers and associates and are more rule than exception.  Reticence in meetings or events is viewed with suspicion.  The value of being A Quiet Man may well have died with John Wayne.

Our nation is under the thrall of a movement that exerts its loathsome and self-righteous influence upon us whenever we tug at a dog’s leash or tell somebody that they should “toughen up.”  The name of this movement and belief system is therapism and its takeover of America has displaced traditional values like resilience, drive, pride, and honor. 

Dr. Christina Hoff-Sommers, author of the exquisite, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women, and the equally superb, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, now addresses this subject in a new book co-authored by Dr. Sally Satel (PC MD: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine), which is called One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance. It explores and describes the transcendence of therapism over common sense and reason.  The text is concise and brisk and, once finished, the reader will be fully informed of the inner-workings of the therapeutic culture and understand how it came about in the first place.

For this reviewer, the most intriguing sections of the book concern our public schools which have become, in many ways, a loco therapistis for the country’s children.  To summarize the current situation, our primary and secondary institutions are presently expected to provide services which they are in no way qualified to offer.  It is now believed by many professionals that bestowing students with a good education alone is not fulfilling our mission.  They regard it as essential that we prepare pupils for every facet of life.  The line between teacher and social worker is becoming increasingly blurred.   

The school as one stop well-being center is now accepted by many an educator.  Obsessing about feelings and processing them is the height of chic. The posture of care makes others regard you as devoted, empathic and vested.  Should one appear otherwise he will look like a bat-wielding Neanderthal.  Exploring moods and student vicissitudes is cutting edge.  It’s right up there with using words like “modality” and “rubric.”  Should a teacher desire alienation, they would be advised to bring a copy of  Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth into their building’s faculty lounge and begin quoting from its pages extemporaneously. 

Not only is the idea of teacher as emotional facilitator a complete waste of time and energy, it is also invasive and deters children from absorbing the learning that is their due during instructional time.  Sommers and Satel note the futility that is emotion over education:


School officials should be leery of “feelings” exercises, and curricula that demand that students bare their souls.  Indeed, they should consider dispensing with them altogether…The purpose of education is not to find yourself, but to lose yourself.

Thousands of years of history might be a good subject to lose oneself in, and the act of trying would help students realize just how much grandeur occurred before our births.  However, even if a child wanted to immerse themselves in the study of past civilizations, One Nation Under Therapy showcases the fact that mambi-pambi censorship of textbooks by language police has left learning materials boiled of interest and flavor.  Anything that reveals the actual nature of humans has been de-boned.  Much of the curriculum is gloss and politically correct circumstance.  That therapism is the inherent enemy of education is a certainty.  No serious scholarship can emerge from a decade or three of self-obsession. 

By practicing reticence and reserve in regards to their feelings and thoughts it seems that many of our ancestors lived unfilled lives.  Yet, One Nation Under Therapy illustrates that the endless processing of feelings makes for pessimistic and dispirited obsessions -- and little else.  Through constant discussion, irritation can morph into rage.  The evidence suggests that inhibition and repression can be more adaptive responses to grief and stress than blabbing your feelings to every passerby. 

How did such toxic views and practices arise? Sommers and Satel, in the chapter “Esteem Thyself,” point in the direction of humanistic psychology and the works of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.  With the latter, his insistence that the quintessential question of life was, “Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?” indicates just how shallow and narcissistic he desired his patients to be.  On the Left they might refer to such a solid link to therapism as “a root cause.”  On the Right we might dismiss it with the commandment of “Get Over Thyself.”  Rogers saw schools as “personal growth centers” with nonjudgmentalism as their core requirement.  As for Maslow, his theories were so vague and unfalsifiable that they left themselves open for misrepresentation and manipulation by thugs like Abbie Hoffman and Charles Dederich.  Humanistic theory bares as close a resemblance to the truth as the fantasist political works of Noam Chomsky.

Therapism has turned criminal defense into one long chorus of “what’s your excuse?”  Offenders blame internal disorders and syndromes for their every violation.  They wholly expect that jurors will understand the way in which their brains became “hijacked” by impaired cortex functioning or their addiction to drugs. The therapeutic culture has made every citizen a potential victim and at no time was this more true than on 9/11, when trauma specialists and grief counselors descended upon New York City like reporters covering the Chandra Levy case.  They predicted a mental health disaster and that large segments of the Big Apple (according to one source, 1 in 4 individuals) would develop psychological disturbance due to the towers falling.  Happily for all concerned, their predictions were totally false.  Yes, we now know that there really is life and recovery without the mandatory babbling of psychologists and social workers.

We live in days when the saying “Be Strong” is equated with insensitivity and that appeals to bravery are an embarrassment to those who make them.  There is only one thing that must be done; all of us must be as judgmental as possible.  We should never excuse the immoral behavior surrounding us.  Rather than minimize and rationalize pathological acts on the part of the narcissistic, violent, or drug-addicted, our nation must embrace personal responsibility without qualifications.  We should follow the advice that Don Imus gives the sick children on his ranch, its time to “Cowboy Up.”
 
 

[Oscar]

Brent,

Interesting book.  However, it seems to suffer from a weakness in its understanding of the situation in modern public education.

Education is run by three groups: 1. Politicians   2. College professors   3. School administrators...who are all too frequently people who tried teaching and found that they weren't very good at it.  Most of them haven't actually taught anything to a kid in years.  They spend their time involved with staffing issues, going to meetings where other administrators explain how they must comply with the latest insane idea that has been enacted into law by the politicians, and doing paperwork required by the bazillions of regulations that they must know and follow.

Education is influenced by textbook publishers, who get their guidence from "experts" that are mainly college professors and school administrators.

Education is "done" by teachers, who haven't got time to enact all the nutsy psychological practices recommended by the college professors and written into the teaching suggestions of the Teacher's Guides.  With today's demands for "accountability" very little time is wasted on that sort of thing.

They use words like "Rubric" because they mean something.  A rubric is a standard by which one evaluates student work.  Your teachers have all used one, whatever they called it, when they evaluated your work.   If they didn't, they were just winging it when they graded your work, and that isn't good.

A "modality" is a method by which a person learns. Different kids tend to have different dominant learning modalities so good teaching needs to utilize two or more.  The most common are aural and visual.

Last night I gave a talk in my Cosmology class.  I used a powerpoint projector, so the others both heard what I had to say, and saw pictures, graphs and charts that supplied additional information and reiterated much of what I was saying.  I addressed the aural and visual modalities. 

Teachers, like any other profession, have a technical jargon that relates to their field.  They always have, and they probably won't give it up any time soon.  I, however, promise to do so just as soon as chiropracters drop the word "subluxation" from theirs.   

Anyway, if you really want to know what goes on at your kid's school, go there and observe, then make appointments with his/her teachers and talk to them.  People who write books like this one are really telling you about the wierd ideas of some folks who get public notice.

There are people who really do propose that the public schools become the point of contact for innumberable social services.  The school districts have neither the time, the money, nor the personell resources to make it happen, so they just pay lip service to the idea and go on trying to teach.

Thomas Maddux
(who has been there)

[editor]

Teachers, like any other profession, have a technical jargon that relates to their field.  They always have, and they probably won't give it up any time soon.  I, however, promise to do so just as soon as chiropracters drop the word "subluxation" from theirs.   

Anyway, if you really want to know what goes on at your kid's school, go there and observe, then make appointments with his/her teachers and talk to them.  People who write books like this one are really telling you about the wierd ideas of some folks who get public notice.

There are people who really do propose that the public schools become the point of contact for innumberable social services.  The school districts have neither the time, the money, nor the personell resources to make it happen, so they just pay lip service to the idea and go on trying to teach.

Thomas Maddux
(who has been there)

Great to have you back, Tom.

I have just ordered the book, haven't read it yet.  I'll read it, and perhaps say something later.

RE: subluxation's and trade/technical jargon....I gave up the word subluxation about eight years ago.  I had plenty of reasons for doing this.  Aural and visual modalities mean Show and Tell, right?

As for "Rubric," doesn't that mean the same as "grading" papers and scoring tests?

I know I have mentioned it elsewhere, many times, but we are quite involved with our kid's schools.  Been there, watched, talked, listened, asked questions.  Some of the stuff that goes on is madness, and the teachers all know it.  (It's not their idea, as you pointed out)

Tonite, I'm playing in a poker tournament with about 30 teachers.  We went to our oldest's football coache's birthday party last Saturday.  About 50 teacher's there, many of whom we know well.  I've had long discussions with them about many things, so while I totally agree with your suggestion to aquire some firsthand info, I want you to be aware that I have done so, in spades.

Here's just a few of the things that are happening a mile or two down the road, at our schools:

1.)no touching, no rough play, no acting like boys.
2.)Classes that teach about sexual harrassment....and classes that teach kids how to have "safe" sex. (in the highschool)
3.)Classes across the board where if a student does all the homework incorrectly, and fails every test, they still get a passing grade...BUT if a student does half the homework correctly, and get's A's on every test...they get a failing grade.
4.)Strong appeals to get kids involved with the school counselor, on meds, and enrolled as ADHD, Dyslexic, etc.  This gives more money to the school. (most of the latter is at college.)

Brent

[Oscar]

Great to have you back, Tom.

I have just ordered the book, haven't read it yet.  I'll read it, and perhaps say something later.

RE: subluxation's and trade/technical jargon....I gave up the word subluxation about eight years ago.  I had plenty of reasons for doing this.  Aural and visual modalities mean Show and Tell, right?

As for "Rubric," doesn't that mean the same as "grading" papers and scoring tests?

Brent

No,

Aural and visual modalities does not mean "show and tell" at all.

It means that different individuals have different ways of learning, or more specifically, different ways of taking in information.

Legitimate research has established this.  When two or more modalities are employed in instruction the everyone's learning curve goes up.  Long term and short term memory of the material is improved.

That is why chiropractic textbooks have illustrations.

And again, no,

"Rubric" does not mean the same thing as grading papers or scoring tests.

A rubric is a standard to which something is compared.  A rubric is involved in every chiropractic examination.  The current condition of the spine is compared to the ideal condition of the spine, and corrective measures are prescribed.

If one does not have a rubric, one cannot grade tests or score papers objectively.  If 2 plus 2 is not 4, some subjective standard must be used.  "I like Johnny, so he gets an A".  "Joe is a pain in the neck, so he gets a D."

You can "grade" papers just fine without a rubric.  The rubric makes it objective.

The most common use of the term is in grading writing assignments.  It is more difficult to make a rubric for essays than for, say, math.   But it is necessary if you wish to have an objective standard in order to evaluate student work.

As to the wierd ideas that the modern educational "experts" have....

That is why schoolboards are local.  The teacher's unions tend to get their candidates elected.....and they are usually pretty far left in their views.

unless concerned citizens care enough to organize, run for the board positions, and take the local schools back from the leftist nuts.

BTW....when are you going to run?

Thomas Maddux