Education System on Trial and Found Guilty

Until I studied Education, I had not questioned the education system. I do not think I’d had the tools to question it. But by the time I graduated (in Special Education), I had realized something was wrong. It was easy to see this while working with kids who were different (both gifted and those with learning difficulties).

Why?

Because special education kids did not fit into the “education box” and the school system did not cater for them. It got worse when I realized, thanks to my amazingly wonderful teachers, that the system just did not care for any of the kids, because every child is special and different in some way. The system cared for itself.

It was devastating!

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Children with Auditory Processing Disorders or Not?

A brain made from words marking the different brain functions

I went to study special education to help children and adults with learning difficulties. When I started my journey, over 30 years ago, I thought there were many people with learning difficulties. I still think there are, but in the past, I was convinced they were “organic” – physical, possibly genetic – and therefore hard to change.

Now, after seeing so many children and people of all ages, I think that social attitude creates or aggravates the problems in many cases. Many people have small difficulties that are blown out of proportion and labeled as disorders.

Auditory processing disorders are very popular and easily labeled, even among very young children. Every year that passes, I hear about younger and younger kids with auditory processing disorders. Recently, I even talked to a mother whose son was one year old and she insisted he had an auditory processing disorder. I am qualified enough to know that I cannot assess a child for APD at one year of age.

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Reading Challenges: Children with Weak Visual Perception

There are many possible causes for kids’ reading challenges. Sometimes, the kids need to deal with such overwhelming emotions they cannot learn anything, including reading. Other time, the teacher is not teaching how to read properly (yes, you will be surprised how many kids cannot read because their teachers did not teach them how to read properly).

However, some children have reading challenges due to their weak visual ability. This means that their brain is wired so that they are not very good at absorbing and processing visual input. It is important to understand that this is a brain function and has nothing to do with eyesight.

Many parents think that when their kids cannot read, we just need to read with them more, but that is not the case. It is like giving someone who cannot hold a pen different kinds of pens to solve the problem. Yes, reading more brings some benefit, but a weak visual ability requires stimulating the visual perception at a more basic level. Once this is done, reading becomes easier and more natural and no longer frustrates the child.

Strong visual perception is essential for good decoding and memory of symbols. Reading requires mostly visual perception to analyze and memorize, and some auditory support for non-basic words.

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There Are No Hopeless Teens

As a teen, I faced many challenges with how the system viewed my abilities. Since then, I got a degree in Special Education and promised myself that no teen that crossed my path would ever be hopeless. Over the last 30 years, I have had the honor of working with many teens who were given up by the system and have done my best to act on my promise.

A young boy (let’s call him Aaron) came to see me 3 years ago. He was a tall and handsome young teen in a big body. He was in 10th grade and his mom was very worried about him. She raised him by herself, together with his youngest brother after a very challenging breakup.

Aaron attended one of the most prestigious private high schools, located over an hour and half’s drive from his home and his academic scores were low. He was failing in most of the subjects. He also got in trouble with every teacher possible and had no friends.

Every day was a challenge. In the morning, Aaron refused to go to school. In the afternoon, he refused to do his homework. The school told his mom that Aaron was hopeless. But he was just was a smart kid that was lost in the system.

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I am not Black, You are not White and We are not Labels

I have been doing diversity education for the last ten years. The more people I saw, the more I realized how important this work was. For some unknown reason, people like labels. They think that labels help them define the world. I believe they shrink the world, limit thinking and restrict our range of experiences.

When I was 21, I was greatly inspired by one of my psychology teachers at university. She came to class and asked us, “Who are you?” At first, we thought she was weird. Well, she was weird (at least this is how we labeled her), but the more we discussed this topic, the more we realized that this weird question was all about the labels we put on others to help us define ourselves.

In one of the classes, she asked me, “Ronit, who would you be if your parents gave you a different name?” I looked at her, unsure if I had understood the question. I was puzzled for a while, and then said, “Me!”

In our psychology classes, we discussed identity and how the labels we give to everything around us limit the range of the experiences we have. At one stage, she told us to move around the room based on our labels. She asked all females to move to one side, all males to the other. Then, she moved us around based on other labels we are given in everyday life, like height, age, race, religion, the area of the country where we grew up, etc. It didn’t take us long to realize that labels divide us into groups, and when this is done, it is very easy to control us.

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Don’t Give Your Kids Psychiatric Drugs!

1 in 13 U.S. children take psychiatric drugs

No matter how hard parenting is, giving your child psychiatric drugs must be considered very seriously, because it is very often a bad idea. Here is why.

Working with parents and kids for 30 years, I can tell you that it is not easy to be a parent. It is not easy because unlike computers or other gadgets, kids do not come with an instruction manual and they do not behave in a way that is easy to predict.

Inexperienced parents react to things that do not work as they expect. Experienced parents, having raised other kids through the same situation, can see the patterns and not panic when something unexpected happens.

I realized this when I had an early childhood center. After working in a group of 30 toddlers, I became an experienced parent in a flash. Why? Because when you deal with 30 kids, you can see that when your child does not behave the way you expect, he/ she is still normal. When you see your toddler touching his/ her sex organs, you may think something is wrong with him/her, but when you see 30 toddlers doing it, and you see them stop when you do not pay attention to it, you feel a bit more relaxed about your own toddler and comfort yourself that he/she is normal.

Inexperienced parents have a problem with the concept of normality. Since they have nothing to compare to, they do not know what is normal and what is not and too often jump to the conclusion that something is wrong with their child and needs to be fixed. This fear and doubt mindset about children’s development, behavior and achievement can cause many problems, mainly because it determines the parents’ course of action.

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The Placebo Effect: How to Treat Your Kids for Free

“Using the placebo effect on kids is an effective technique to help them go through tough periods in their lives.”

This may seem like a bold statement, but when I learned about the placebo effect during my special education studies, I realized that the placebo effect activates the natural “pharmacy” we have in our bodies. When we believe something to be true, we make it true. It works the same when we take a physical tablet and when when we take an emotional tablet.

The more I explain what life coaching and emotional intelligence are, the more I realize how important the placebo effect is for my work. Most of my work is to plant positive ideas and beliefs in the minds of my clients. Once they hold on to those beliefs or ideas, I have done my job in setting them up for a better future.

The placebo effect works in the same way. You can plant an idea in your kids’ mind that they can do something, be healthy or be smart by giving them a sugar pill and telling them it will help them do or be what they want.

Actually, the placebo effect works for kids even when you apply it to their parents by convincing them that their kids are amazing and talented, because your pill will help them…

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Helping Kids Build Healthy and Powerful Character Traits

Many parents talk to me about their kids’ character traits and behavior. “He is a stubborn kid. He was always stubborn” or “She is a nag. She nagged from the first day she came home”. I wonder how much of what these parents are describing is real character (permanent and unchangeable) and how much of it we can change.

All kids are born with their unique character, a personality. This becomes really obvious when you have your second child. You realize that some of how they behave is just something they are born with. You notice that they have a certain character from the very first day you spend with them.

Unfortunately, not all character traits are wonderful and great. How they develop later on in life depends mainly on how we view these traits and how we react to them. For example, many parents treat their kids’ behavior as a result of a character trait. Since character is solid and fixed, they thing this behavior cannot be changed.

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Autistic Kids Recover

The first time I heard about Autism was 29 years ago, when I was studying special education. It opened up a whole new world for me. The institute where I studied had amazing teachers who specialized in autism. The institute had a center for Autism but unfortunately, students were not allowed to do work experience there. Throughout my bachelor degree I did work experience anywhere between once to 3 times a week. But never in the autism center.

In my third year of studies, I had to choose a work experience placement again. Many organizations gave presentations in an attempt to convince us to join them for the year. Once again, work in the Autism Center was not on offer. I was disappointed because I felt a pull to work with autistic children, or at least to learn more about them. In a very bold move, I specified the Autism Center as my first, second and third preferences for placement.

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Teaching & Education Beliefs: Caring

Previously on Teaching & Education Beliefs, I wrote it was the last set of beliefs, but they were not. Sorry. Today’s beliefs are. Here are the last 20 of my top 100 beliefs about teaching and education.

All kids are gifted. Every child has some talent or skill. Teachers are there to help them develop and excel in it. But remember, numeracy and literacy skills are not the only gifts available and they are not great predictors of excellence in the future.

Kids’ hobbies are very important for their emotional intelligence, more than their academic success. Encourage kids to have hobbies, share yours with them, introduce them to different people with different hobbies and give a stage in class to share theirs.

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