http://nancyrappaport.com/
She discussed her new book, The Behavior Code: Practical Strategies for Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students. Rappaport described elaborate schemes to compensate for disruptive behavior in the classroom. She suggested ways for teachers to understand what students may lack and what causes problematic behavior. One parent explained that her child came to US schools from another culture and was thought to be unintelligent because of language and cultural differences. Is there a need for psychiatry to correct this? Another told of a young person new to this country who urinated in the classroom because she did not know how to ask to go to the bathroom. Again, is this a psychiatric issue?
Some questions include, "If teachers are focused on remedying what students lack, e.g., knowing how to behave in class, how can they teach traditional subjects to these students?" "What are psychiatrists doing in schools?" "If students are unable to behave properly how is that a matter for teachers to correct?" They spend too much time on discipline and not enough teaching basics.
"Does the focus on psychiatry in classrooms explain why US schools fail to educate students?" "Does the acceptability of pervasive failure indicate that the ruling class does not care if public school students learn anything?" "Do teachers unions' accumulation of power work contrary to teaching and learning?" Employers and colleges provide extensive remedial classes teaching young people what they failed to learn in secondary schools. Special education is a large profitable taxpayer funded business for the psychiatric industry. Is this an example of what passes for improving schools? More psychiatrists in public schools will only do more harm to the primary function of public schools. Psychiatry has its place but it is not in public schools.
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