Is boredom the real epidemic in our schools?

Me and my mother

I was at a large conference in the fall when the presenter asked the audience of more than 1000 educators to say the first word that comes to mind when thinking of high school. As if rehearsed for church choir, the audience responded.

Their answer? 

BORED!

I was thinking, wow! We all know this truth yet seem to accept it as just the way things are. When I tell this to other educators, some push back sharing all sorts of positive memories they had of high school. Still that doesn't negate the fact that a room full of pedagogical strangers came up with one answer to describe their high school experience. This hit home for me. 

When I was just three years old, my mother was called into my pre-school because they were concerned that there was something seriously wrong with me. In fact among other things they thought I might be "retarded." The conclusion was made based on warning signs they observed such as my not paying attention in class.  Fortunately, my mother got a second opinion and found the cause behind my lack of focus wasn't a mental condition, but in short, it was simply that I was bored. 

You can hear the story from my mother here:

The Plight of the Parent Education Advocate

Guest post by David Bernstein

I’m relatively new to the battle for wholesale educational change, but have fast learned that fighting for a different school model while parenting kids who go to fairly traditional schools requires a tortuous mental balancing act. On the one hand, I’m agitating for change to a badly broken education system, and on the other, I’ve  got to make sure that my own alternative-learning-style kids come out of the school system in one piece.

I love the movie The Matrix, not because it’s such a fabulous piece of art, but because of its powerful message of fighting back against a dehumanizing system that few fully understand.  The film depicts a future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a computer simulation meant to subdue the human population, while their bodies are used as an energy source (a little like factory schools producing kids to fuel an industrial economy that no longer exists). Once the main character, Neo, becomes aware of this manufactured reality, he joins a rebellion against the computers. Neo is constantly forced to move in and out of The Matrix in order to challenge it.

Scene from The Matrix

 

Such is the plight of the parent education advocate, fighting the education matrix from without one moment and engaging it from within the next; making sure our children get their work done one moment, and fighting to make sure the schools bend to their and other children’s needs the next.

Unwilling to learn?

Guest post by Lisa Cooley - Cross posted at The Minds of Kids

In most of today’s public schools adults feel so strongly that the standard subjects that have been taught for a hundred years are so crucial that no matter how different the world is today and how achingly indifferent kids are, they must learn it. Covering content is more important than learning. This idea is supported by the testing culture -- or perhaps the testing culture is actually doing the driving. So we design clever ways and means of getting the information in. Differentiated instruction, finding learning styles, teaching with multiple intelligences, rearranging tables and chairs in the classroom, unpacking standards, letting kids choose how they will learn a prescribed subject so that it can be “assessed”.... sound familiar?

All these methods are supposed to serve as shoehorns; ways to ease the information into kids, past that rock-hard wall of not giving a damn, into their brains in some form that they can access it (at least long enough to take a high stakes test).

But in the meantime kids are catching on as Marc Prensky shared in his article Engage Me or Enrage Me. Prensky points out that many of the kids we are trying to drug for non-compliance, don’t have A.D.D., they’re just not listening because they know what we’re trying to impose upon them is irrelevant for their success.  We now have a generation of students who are mad as hell and they’re fighting back. They are doing so by talking, throwing things, not listening, talking, leaning back in their chairs till they fall over, chewing gum, texting, skipping classes, taking bathroom breaks, and talking, talking, talking.

We adults are stumped! We must create rules for discipline and behavior, ban and block the tools for learning that they love, restrict their freedom of expression, and any other way we can think of for capturing them, holding them still and making them learn what they really really don’t care about. (What does this remind you of?)

And we are still so sure that if we allow kids to take the lead in their own learning, they will stray off to worlds unknown, frightening, dangerous. We MUST control what they learn.  There is in this system a willful ignorance of the facts: that true learning can only take place when the motivation comes from within. And there is a fear of taking a leap of faith: that if kids learn what they love, they will also learn what they need.

Let’s put down the burden. Just set it down and walk away. Make schools places where the first job of adults is to discover who these kids are, and provide support, time and resources to help them become the people they want to be.

Their futures are more important than our outdated ideas.  Let’s stop making learning hard. Let’s stop making schools into battlegrounds where the will of teachers is pitted against the will of students. Can’t we all just get along?

Let’s put teachers and students into productive partnerships, where trust and respect is at the core of the relationship; where teachers use their expertise and experience to guide and facilitate the learning that is most meaningful to students. Imagine the joy in our own hearts as we watch our kids work hard at stuff they love! Imagine how free we will all feel!

The first 5 steps you can take towards health without pills

Guest post by Heather Jones DeGeorge

Editor’s note: I’m often disheartened to find that in many cases educators and parents are quick to unquestioningly trust pharma industry influenced doctors about best treatments for children’s mental and health issues without considering or researching other options. Before going toward medicine first, it is helpful to get insights from health and wellness experts like Heather Jones DeGeorge who have had great success with helping families find health and wellness naturally.  I asked DeGeorge to share the top five things families can do to get started on a road to better mental and physical health without medicating. Here they are. 

In today’s fast-paced, quick-fix life, sometimes it can be hard step back, slow down, and take a moment to best assess what we can do for ourselves and our loved ones to live a healthy life. While it may be easier in the short term to live this way, the long-term results can be detrimental.  Instead of eating, and treating our bodies, right, we often look for the quick fix for medical conditions that could be alleviated by incorporating healthy practices into our lives.  And even for people who are not the “quick fix” type, they generally are unaware of options that are outside of their doctors limited expertise.  We have been trained to believe that our doctors would know about any reliably good alternative, but in fact, doctors have a pretty limited knowledge-base and they have a hard enough time keeping up with the research on that!  

I see this all too often with the growing number of school-age children who are being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD / ADD, diabetes, child obesity, bi-polar disorder, depression, asthma, and more.  Unfortunately, American medicine is all too happy to suggest the right synthetic pill to address the condition. The short term gains in addressing the symptoms, not only can have negative, long-term ramifications, but they also are not nearly as effective as getting to the underlying issues and treating our bodies to a healthy lifestyle.  

Specific conditions react to different types of changes.  Depending on the issue at hand there are a number of simple health and lifestyle changes that can be undertaken to address the condition without medication.  But in terms of overall health and just trying to initially get on track, here are the five that I have come across most often in supporting my health coaching clients in their drive towards better health.

ARE ADHD DRUGS HELPING OR HURTING YOUR KIDS?

Are ADHD medications putting your children in danger? Readers of this blog know my feelings on the subject and those who don't can click here to find out. In short medication should be a last resort after many other options have been examined.  

I’m so excited that Anderson Cooper is tackling the controversial issue of medicating children for attention deficit disorder in his show Anderson. In a heated debate, he has invited two moms to face off on the appropriate ways to treat children with ADHD. One of his guests Laurie A. Couture is a frequent contributor to this blog. Laurie is an unschooling, alternative education and attachment parenting coach and consultant. She is the author of Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the Causes of Our Children’s Acting-Out Behavior by Parenting and Educating the Way Nature Intended which was chosen as a finalist in the ForeWord Magazine Book-of- the-Year Awards in 2009. She appears as an expert in the documentary film, The War On Kids (2009) and is the host of The Free and Joyful Childhood Radio Show. Laurie was a recipient of the 2010 Manchester Union Leader’s Forty Under 40 honors.  Visit her website at http://www.laurieacouture.com.  

The pharma companies spend billions to get society to drug their kids. Laurie will tell us the many healthier alternatives. I can’t wait to hear Laurie advocate for children on this show. Here is a preview.

If you have a child diagnosed with ADD / ADHD this show is for you. Check it out and decide what's right for your kids.


To find out when it is on in your area, click this link and enter your zip code in the WHEN IT'S ON box.
Here is when it is on here in New York.
Debuts Thursday, March 08, 2012
Channel PIX11 M-F 4:00 PM

While you'll have to watch the actual show via your service provider, you can see what happened after the show below. 

To find out  Laurie's reaction to the show here. 

5 things you can do now before turning to ADD / ADHD drugs

Guest post by Heather Jones DeGorge

Editor’s note: I’m often disheartened to find that in many cases educators and parents are quick to unquestioningly trust pharma industry influenced doctors about best treatments for children’s mental and health issues without considering or researching other options. Before taking the advice to drug children it is helpful to get insights from health and wellness coaches like Heather Jones DeGeorge and  parenting coaches / counseling experts like Laurie A. Couture who have had great success with helping families find mental and physical health and wellness naturally. I asked DeGeorge to share the top five things families can do for children who have symptoms associated with ADD / ADHD. Here they are.

It’s a familiar scenario: Johnny or Jane (but statistically more frequently, Johnny) can’t sit still in class.  Add whatever other “disruptive to the learning environment” things you can think up.  Now add the at-home tensions.  Nobody needs me to paint a picture of what the world calls ADHD these days.  We may all have different pictures in our mind, but remarkably, they are likely to all qualify.  

The teachers and/or the doctors might tell you to remove sugar and food dyes.  MIGHT.  But at the end of the day, as recently exposed in a New York Times opinion piece by psychology professor L. Alan Sroufe most doctors are going to offer you a medication.  Some schools will bully you into believing that they will not evaluate your child for IEP/504 accommodations without a diagnosis—possibly without first trying medications (both of which are illegal—at a Federal level that overrides the state).

The Gifted/ADHD Connection

Guest post by Dori Staehle | Cross posted at Next Stage Educational Consulting

It reads like something from a science fiction novel: Millions of schoolchildren lining up everyday for the medication that will make them sit still, pay attention – and behave! Orwell’s1984 or Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron perhaps?

This is life imitating art. We’ve become so convinced that children need to be medicated in order to learn that we’ve completely ignored what’s really causing their inattention and hyperactivity in the first place.

As an educational consultant and private tutor, I’ve seen children medicated needlessly. I’ve seen the prevalent side effects, I’ve heard from frantic Moms after their sons were rushed to the emergency room. The sad fact is that the majority of children who are diagnosed as ADD or ADHD (often by their teachers!), are actually highly gifted, talented, and creative kids. The problem is: No one was looking for that.

Like they say, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. Since most teacher training programs and even graduate programs don’t cover this, let me explain what giftedness is. Giftedness is a complex phenomenon which encompasses high IQ and creativity, along with heightened sensitivities, and uneven development (combined definition from Dr. Linda Silverman, The Columbus Group, and this writer).

At many of my workshops, I outline the symptoms of ADD/ADHD taken from the psychologist’s “bible”, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).  Then, I add to the right side of the screen the traits of giftedness, as per The Gifted Development Center in Denver. Yes folks, both lists are exactly the same (you can seen this chart here).People who are super-talented, creative, or bright tend to be hyper. They space out when they’re bored or when they’re trying to figure something out. They tend to hyper-focus on areas of interest.

In addition, there are literally hundreds of medical conditions that can produce hyperactivity and inattentiveness (The Hyperactivity Hoax, Dr. Sydney Walker, http://amzn.to/z1djaQ).  Within my student population, 100% were right-brained, 95% were gifted, 90% were highly gifted with IQ’s in the 150-200 range (average IQ is 100), and all of them had allergies, asthma, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), food sensitivities, or a combination of all four.

In 2000, I spoke at a gifted education conference and posited that a huge percentage of students that are being labeled as ADD/ADHD are actually right-brained gifted, talented, and/or creative students. We are, in fact, medicating brilliance. We are also ignoring the underlying medical conditions and not accounting for the biggest trigger: stress.

Schools are left-brained institutions taught by predominantly left-brained individuals (Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child, Jeff Freed). They don’t understand those of us who are right-brained and creative, who think in pictures and tend to be random, not sequential. So, they medicate what they don’t like or don’t understand. Surely, there must be something wrong with these kids’ brains! In fact, ADD used to be known as a brain disorder – even though most of these kids have high IQ’s! You can almost call it a “left-brained conspiracy”. No wonder these kids are stressed out – they’re not allowed to be themselves!

Therefore, it is no surprise that there is a huge incidence of gifted, talented, and creative kids within the homeschooling population (www.hoagiesgifted.org). They can learn in ways that work for them and be with others like them. They can spend a great deal of time on their passions and take breaks or blow off steam when needed. This is their version of normal. Maybe it’s time to accept that and not try to change it.

---

Dori Staehle has close to 20 years of tutoring and consulting experience and has worked with public, private, and homeschooled students and their families.  She holds a BA in French and German from Wagner College in NY, and an MBA in finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ. In addition, she has done both graduate and post-graduate work in gifted education and gifted psychology while in CO.

Dori has written and published several articles on gifted education and homeschooling and developed the theory known as The Gifted/ADHD Connection. She is currently writing a book which is tentatively titled Hearing the Music: Why We Chose Homeschooling Instead of Ritalin.

How Ritalin ruined my childhood

Guest post from Peter Jung @peter_d_jung | Cross posted at EduPeter.

I like Adderall. I don't take it often at all, but I have a prescription that I can get filled whenever. When I need to write a 20 page paper in a few days, I take a pill, drink a caffeine drink, and turn into a robot for a while. Normally, I don't need to take pills to succeed in a class- I pay attention well enough, keep up on the reading, and take decent notes. If I lapse in any of these things, it's not something that can be attributed to any deficits in my ability to pay attention, but another source, such as frustration with the teacher's lecturing style, exhaustion from sleep deprivation, or something of the sort.

I don't have ADD, at least not in a way that impedes my learning in any real way. So, then, why can I get Adderall?

When I was 6, ADHD was a big thing. Everybody's kid had it, which explained any number of frustrating behaviors that their kids would engage in. I was a kid that engaged in frustrating behaviors, who also had a bit of neurological damage thrown in there. The neurological damage caused a speech impediment and gross motor dysfunction, which led to me going through physical and speech therapy for many years, but caused no apparent cognitive deficits.

What my parents and first grade teacher saw was a kid who would wander off, get frustrated easily, cry when faced with math homework, and had a hard time paying attention, preferring to draw constantly instead. My parents and teacher had a lot of frustrations with me concerning math homework around this time, and finally decided they needed to see a doctor about me. After taking a test that involved me staring at a computer monitor, trying to determine which orientation a blip of light was facing, I was diagnosed with ADD.

From my perspective, first grade was a really hard time for me. I loved to read and draw, but didn't really get along with any of the other kids. They were often mean to me, and I found I preferred to be alone with my drawings. My teacher would force the entire class to do these idiotic 'two minute timings' that involved 200 basic math problems, and a two minute time limit.

Of course, most kids blew through these. I looked at the seemingly endless pile of problems, and the two minute time limit, and had the first grade equivalent of a mental breakdown. I mean, two minutes? Who can do two HUNDRED problems in TWO MINUTES?! Two minutes is not a lot of time! 200 is a VERY LARGE NUMBER. NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS. I DON'T LIKE THIS SCHOOL PLACE ANYMORE.

So, while such thoughts flew around my head, the unfinished two minute timings piled up, and my teacher decided that I needed to stay in during lunch and recess every day to finish them. I would just stare at them, occasionally attempt to finish one and get discouraged, then just draw. So, I missed recess for a good chunk of my first grade year, which led to me spending every recess inside with the teacher after that. Part of it was I liked to draw more than I liked being outside, but another part of it was that I was very shy, and didn't really like how the other kids treated me. Having missed that year made me feel like an outsider, and I was too introverted to try to make friends.

Of course, that led to me going to the emotional counseling support group with all the junior sociopaths in the school. I would just talk about my collection of toy robots, or stay quiet.

Anyway, Ritalin happened around the beginning of second grade. I was given a time release pill that I was supposed to swallow so it would dissolve slowly over the day. Well, that didn't happen, as I had a gag reflex. I chewed it, and got a day's worth of Ritalin in a very short period of time.

I really don't remember much else from that point on. I have pretty vivid memories of my childhood up until taking Ritalin, and then... nothing. I have seen reports of my behavior that are pretty disturbing, and found artifacts from that time period that seem to imply some degree of massive depression, although my memories are a haze. What I do remember is being a complete loner who was content to sit in the back and draw or read all day. I also remember being able to see the logical circuits for traffic lights, and other patterns.

In 5th grade, my mom became so tired of hearing all these problems with me, and had the district give me an IQ test. The next day I was placed in the highly capable program, although I still tended to prefer to disengage and draw, as I was still pretty introverted.

Somehow, I managed to skate through elementary school, but in 6th grade, by month three, I was doing terribly. I was failing one class, and doing badly in all the rest. I didn't know what was going on, but I started to get scared, as no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do well. They apparently made an IEP for me that involved me sitting at the front of the classroom so I would pay attention better, and the teacher could keep track of me. It was all very frustrating for everyone involved.

Finally, a math teacher asked me if I could see what she was writing.

I told her I could, and then she asked me what she was writing. I told her the wrong answer.

Within weeks, I had glasses and my grades went from Fs to Bs. I was still on Ritalin, which made me very socially awkward and led to a lot of bullying, which made my entire middle school experience a horrible mess of bruises and cuts.

By 8th grade, my parents took me off the Ritalin, and I began making actual friends with the nerdy kids. I'm still friends with some of them today, and hang out with one on a weekly basis. I slowly learned how to socialize, and became more like a normal person that wasn't stoned out of their mind.

By 12th grade, I was pretty much normal. I had been in the IB program for the first two years of high school, then switched over to Running Start, which allowed me to take a few classes at the community college to knock out high school credits, and get free college credit. I still took a few classes at the high school, but they were all classes I was interested in- Calculus, Advanced Biology, Weight Training, Art, etc. I had a good group of geeky friends, and could make friends easily. I was really awkward around girls, but not in an unusual way. I was a pretty stereotypical nerd.

One day, I got pulled out of class to talk with the school psychologist. He asks me to sit down and tells me I have an IEP. I ask what that is, and he tells me that it's something that has to do with my mental health issues. At that point, I had begun conversing with the ceiling about how this man was not to be trusted, and the psychologist just laughed. So, I asked what this was all about, and he describes the IEP to me- I am to sit in front of the class and the teacher is to make sure I'm paying attention. Now, I had forgotten about this IEP thing, and generally sat in the front of the class because I was a teacher's pet, but I was rather shocked. He told me I had Static Encephalopathy, which explained why I needed physical therapy and speech therapy, but didn't really explain why I had to sit in front.

I ask him when this IEP was made. He tells me, beginning of 6th grade. I take off my glasses and gesture with them, "I got these a few months into 6th grade."

He chuckles, and shreds the document.

I think most of my problems with Ritalin could have been avoided with two simple things. If the teacher had just sat down with me and really talked with me about the two minute timings, and offered to let me do 10 problems instead of 200, I could have shown her I was competent. Also, if someone had given me a vision test earlier, I would have avoided being consistently high and losing so much of my childhood.

Even so, I think I did okay. I am largely self educated, having read the entire time-life science series of books my dad found at a garage sale in a summer, and spending so much time in the corner reading. I have no difficulty with math, social skills, or academic ability. I just think it is very important that a kid is consulted when dealing with medication, as often, kids know exactly what's up. Sometimes, yes, medications are necessary, but the application of them is so often done as a blunt weapon rather than a precise tool. With me, the problems were easily solvable, not based on any neurological deficit. As such, I feel that the psychologist's diagnosis was most certainly wrong.

Although, I must say, it is nice being able to get Adderall legally. And I use it honestly, only when I need to really cram or finish a project. Still, the feeling I have while on it is incredibly potent, and the idea that I was on this stuff for years frightens me greatly, just from the possibility that it might have impeded my brain's development. Thus far, I think I've developed normally, but I can't really tell.

In any case, I just thought I'd throw that out there, as a story of someone who went through elementary and middle school in a drugged out haze because he needed glasses.

----------------------------------------

Peter Jung is a graduate student interested in information technology and DIY Education. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-jung/13/6/5a6

What the doctors and teachers may not tell you when recommending medicating your ADD / ADHD child

I'm pissed off! I am pissed off because parents and educators are hurting children and they may not even realize it. This post is written to change that.  

If you are a parent or educator who is allowing a child you know to be drugged because they have an ADD / ADHD "disorder" you could be responsible for receiving short-term gains in exchange for long-term detrimental effects.  

Drugging children has well-known risks which I share below, but now there's another to add to list as a parent / friend just informed me. Schools had convinced her to drug her son providing all sorts of evidence from doctors and others that this was best for her child. The risks were not presented. Fortunately, she eventually realized something was very wrong with the path down which schools were leading her child and she pulled him out of school so he could own his learning and have a happy and successful life.

Unfortunately, the damage may already have been done.

If School Was Causing Your Child’s ADD / ADHD Would You Remove Him?

During a recent conversation with friends and family, the topic of ADHD / ADD came up and I shared my belief that this is not a disease that should result in people being drugged, but instead a personality type (like mine!) that should be honored.  My friends and family looked at me stunned.  They wondered how an educator like me didn’t know better as this new epidemic was clearly documented as a disease.  I then found out that a few of those among us had been drugged or had been responsible for drugging their children.  They were offended by my words! Fortunately, I'm used to this.  

Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten…

with labels such as ADD, ADHD, slow, dyslexic, learning disabled, just average, and even gifted!

Guest post by Mariaemma

Did you know that midlife crisis begins in kindergarten? Yes, it's true! It is in kindergarten (and sometimes in preschool!) that our society begins the process of teaching children (see how this happened to The Innovative Educator and Aaron Iba here) that they are not smart enough, not quick enough, not working to potential, not high enough on the bell curve, not as good as the next guy...just plain not measuring up!

Midlife Crisis is the term we use to indicate a trauma experienced in the middle years —usually having to do with the question, “What am I doing with my life?” There are stories of extreme reactions that all of us have heard: like the guy who is a doctor, quits one day, and goes to live in the woods; as well as less dramatic cases like the financial consultant who enters the ministry.

Breaking Free From The Boring Prison of School

Former students like me and Aaron Iba felt like school was a sentence.  This Prezi gives some insight into why.

Breaking Free from the Prison of School - Aaron Iba on Prezi

Tech (not meds) Cured My #ADD #ADHD & #SleepingDisorder

I slept through most of school.  I didn’t mean to sleep through it.  I felt really bad about sleeping through it.  Many of my teachers resented me for sleeping through it.  I tried a lot of things to combat this.  I got a good night sleep.  In high school I started drinking coffee.  In my first year of college, last year of high school I started taking No Doze until the day I got so sick from the coffee and No Doze that I stopped taking No Doze. From an assessment perspective, despite my sleeping, I was a great student.  I graduated in the top ten percent of my class in high school and college and did well on standardized tests.  The issue wasn’t just an issue in high school and college either.  Starting in pre-school, my mother got a call from the school concerned that I spent my days sleeping and they thought that perhaps I was retarded.  Yep, they actually told my mom that even though I was already reading and writing before I had entered pre-school.  My mom sent me out for tests at UCLA, and the results showed I was actually gifted.  So what was the problem?  If I was smart, cared about my grades and was doing well, why did I sleep so much?  

The answer is simple.  

Every Thorn Has its Rose

Guest post by Jacob Gutnicki
See part 1 of this post at The Unspoken Promise

Outside the district office there were 5 media vans parked. The local media wondered why the Superintendent was calling a press conference for 9 AM. Did it have anything to do with the state wide testing scandal? Perhaps he was going to address the rumor that low performing students were being deported to an annex school out of the country. Maybe the superintendent would address which files were stolen at a local High School or why a significant amount of technology equipment was recently dumped.

Soon enough, Dr. Williams began to read a prepared announcement. It said, "For the past few years I have had the great privilege serving as your community superintendent. I am proud of the work we accomplished together. This is why today's announcement is so difficult to make. Never the less, I must inform you that effective 3 PM, I am resigning from the position of Community Superintendent. In the interim, the Deputy Superintendent will run daily operations.

Meanwhile... The executor board’s office is fuming. "Why did he call for a press conference? Who told him to announce the Deputy Superintendent will run daily operations. Kyle, get Williams on the phone. This is a mess. Kyle, I also need you to Kathleen Wallstone on the phone. She has the support of the business community."

Kyle looks surprised. “Are you sure about this? Some of her positions are… questionable.” The chief executor said, “Do not ever question me!”

15 Minutes Later… Another press conference is called. Dr. Williams begins the press conference by apologizing. The chief executor then introduces the new community superintendent. Kathleen Wallstone, Principal of the Burrhus Frederic Skinner High School is named Superintendent. Mrs. Wallstone thanks the chief executor for this opportunity and then promises to bring a new age of accountability and forge partnerships with the business community.

The press conference is followed by questions from members of the media. Naturally, many of the questions were directed at the former Superintendent, as they were curious as to why he resigned from the position. However, he declined to answer the questions. His non-response sparked rumors as to what caused him to resign.

Thirty Minutes Later… Superintendent Stonewall calls Michael Lotta in her office. She says, “Michael I will make this brief. The chief executor has asked me to serve as the new Community Superintendent. Therefore, effective immediately, you are the new principal of the Burrhus Frederic Skinner High School.

The Unspoken Promise

Guest post by Jacob Gutnicki

As the sun rose, Superintendent Williams walked outside his house with much on his mind. He did not sleep well last night, as he had to carry through a very difficult decision. In a few hours from now he would shock the community. He would resign from the position of Community Superintendent. He could only imagine the rumors this announcement will inspire.

Matt Williams took a walk and reflected all that happened during his tenure as Superintendent. For seven years he worked tirelessly to change how schools educated children. After much deliberation and discussion he had convinced the community that “we need to look beyond the exams and look inside the child.” That mantra started the change in which schools began to focus on life skills and moved away from the test prep mentality. Numerous schools developed career programs, internships, partnerships with colleges, as well as other interesting opportunities. Numerous education publications lauded his reform efforts.

However, there were several schools that refused to change their ways. One such school was the Burrhus Frederic Skinner High School. Every step of the way Principal Wallstone refused to listen to the Superintendent. She also openly criticized his policies at school board meetings arguing “that monthly testing is the key to student progress.” Additionally, she had business leaders defending her practices making it very difficult to effectuate change at her school.



Despite it all, Superintendent Williams was pleased with the progress his schools made. The Thomas Elkins School of Invention was off to a good start. The school was offering programs and services to high needs students and has been well received by the community.

All of this became irrelevant in the last 24 hours. Yesterday he learned that his youngest son might be grappling with epilepsy. Perchance his son’s school took them to the zoo. When he spoke to the school, the teacher and the aide gave differing accounts of what happened. Additionally, his son recently started taking medicine to manage his on-going problems with Attention Deficit Disorder. Needless to say the recent sequence of events complicated matters. Superintendent Williams was wracked with guilt wondering if he could have done more to help his son with his Attention Deficit Disorder issues. He wondered if the medicine was the right choice and worried that his son may have a mild case of epilepsy. At the same time, he vexed what would happen with the school district in his absence. Ultimately he knew that his child’s welfare deserved his full attention and that he could no longer continue in the position of Community Superintendent. Matt knew that he must keep the unspoken promise every parent makes; protecting their kin by any means necessary.


And so it was. Matt Williams looked at his watch and noted it was time to go. He kissed his wife goodbye, jumped in his car, and headed off to face the media.

“All my life I fought this fight
The fight that no man can never win
Every day it just gets harder to live
This dream I'm believing in”
--Bruce Springsteen, The Promise

Coming Soon- Every Thorn has its Rose