A concerned physician examines the skyrocketing use of Ritalin to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) and finds its causes in a mix of disturbing social, cultural, and economic factors as well as in the psychopharmacological model of mental illness. The explosion in ADD diagnosis and Ritalin treatment in the US is a “white, middle-to-upper-middle-class, suburban phenomenon.— Diller, a California pediatrician specializing in child development and behavior, as well as a family therapist, sees ADD not as a manifestation of a chemical imbalance in a child’s brain but of a living imbalance in many stressed-out American families. Among the causative factors that Diller identifies are the changing structure of family life, parents equipped with poor parenting techniques but anxious to give their child every advantage, rising academic competitiveness and pressure to succeed, and an overtaxed educational system where large classes provide many distractions and little individual attention. Also contributing are a managed-care health system that looks for low-cost solutions—Ritalin works fast and is a relatively cheap pill—and a school of thought that views ADD as being primarily a neurological disorder. When a behavior problem is classified as a medical disorder, Diller notes, insurance coverage is available and parental guilt is eased. He is not opposed to trying Ritalin but asks that other efforts be made to address a child’s behavior and performance problems first, such as parenting/family therapy and monitoring the school situation. Diller draws on numerous cases from his two decades of practice to illustrate both the problem and his own multimodal approach. In his conclusion he proposes steps that parents and professionals can take to halt the surge in ADD diagnosis and Ritalin treatment. Balanced and thoughtful, yet sounds a powerful alarm.
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1998
ISBN: 0-553-10656-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
An academic's meandering foray into the realms of the preliterate. Sanders (English and the History of Ideas/Pitzer College) fears for the fate of the printed word. Beginning with a history of literacy, he presents the ancient Greeks as the primary example of a people with a limited, verbal culture who flowered with their adaptation of the Semitic alphabet, which he contends not only allowed for superior intergenerational communication but also for the critical thinking that made Greek philosophy and ethics possible. Moving from human history to human development, the author posits that infants and people deprived of language cannot perceive in the abstract and are incapable of morality. He skates on thinner ice when he suggests that people stuck in verbal cultures, especially the functional illiterates of our inner cities, are a mindless, amoral mob. Here the humanities professor shows gaps in his hard and social science reading: Few of America's 70 million illiterates display the conscienceless violence of the sociopaths he fearfully describes. Displaying tinges of Eurocentrism when diagnosing the social problems of certain hyphenated Americans, Sanders also links illiteracy to feminism- -mothers not staying home to feed their children constant verbal stimulation. ``Among humans only women educate'' is a line that would resonate better were the author less obsessed with unproven theories about breast-feeding and the development of literacy. A volley fired at technology in general and computers specifically reads: ``Word processors have turned everyone into ghostwriters, so that technology...has sucked the very essence out of life.'' While TV and video games have pedagogic limitations, the author does not successfully demonstrate why trashy novels are better than classic films, why the confines of grammar are less stifling than the parameters of a video game, or why a TV show represents ``a shift from the human to the technical.'' A few pearls among the paranoia, but this flawed paean to literacy is as awkward as its title.
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-41711-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Instructions on developing a base from which educational research can move forward.
A look at methodology, not monsoons.
This book’s somewhat-confusing title signals a bit about the obscurity of the subject. The focus here is on educational theory, where the words "culture" and "climate" have more to do with the defining the personality of an institution or organization than they do with sunny skies or rites of passage. The idea is that large institutions, like school systems, are kind of like planets–their atmospheres evolve over time, often despite the intentions of those running things, hence the term "climate." Trying to reform a school system without understanding its atmosphere is like trying to colonize a planet before one knows whether or not the environment can sustain human life. Organizational culture has been in the public consciousness for a long time, and Knapp and Harrigan address the customs that develop organically in the course of an institution’s life. This small volume is really a literature review, a compendium of current reading material for academics in the field of elementary education. The authors take four categories–culture, climate, gifted and rural–and examine the articles and papers in which these categories "interact," in terms of the culture and climate of rural schools and the ways they support or don’t support gifted students. In rural communities and schools, being gifted is viewed as something suspiciously elitist, and schools have poured more resources into developing programs for the physically and developmentally disabled than for gifted students. The book suggests reforms are in order, but not until exhaustive research has been conducted. This is not a layman’s overview, though it might be an interesting read for parents with gifted children languishing in rural schools.
Instructions on developing a base from which educational research can move forward.Pub Date: March 22, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4196-5488-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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