At the request of the author, this post was briefly taken down in order to obscure the name of the school and of one student.
Do students have the right not to be subjected to emotional and psychological abuse? If pressure and chronic stress raise test scores, are they acceptable?
A group of mental health professionals prepared the following report. It is long. It is painful to read. This is what many schools are doing to our children. They must be stopped. This borders on criminality. Wake up. It is happening in many states and communities.
Dear Diane,
This is very Orwellian, but we wanted you to know about it.
I have attached a copy of report that I and several other university and mental health professionals in Texas schools have prepared.
We would like to ask your help in bringing awareness to this problem.
Thank you,
Joyce Feilke, Counselor Austin Independent School District
15 October 2013
To: Senator Jane Nelson & Committee for Health & Human Services
From: Joyce Murdock Feilke, Counselor, Austin ISD
Re: Report of Psychological Abuse in An AISD Elementary School
Dear Senator Nelson & HHS Committee,
I am writing to report my observations of psychological abuse in a public elementary school in AISD. I am providing this report to your committee
as my professional responsibility and according to the Texas Family Code. The conditions and methods described in this report can be confirmed by mental health experts as factors which are known to contribute to mental illness and criminality when used for conditioning and shaping behavior in young children.
During the past 30 years as a school counselor, I have observed a steady decline in the elementary school environment. This decline has resulted from complex reasons, but primarily from the obsession with statewide testing and corrosive school politics. Children in most elementary schools of Texas are being forced to function in an environment of chronic stress. Chronic stress is known to change brain chemistry in children and can lead to mental illness. Many of these young children with genetic predisposition to autism and other neurological, sensory, and developmental delays are experiencing chronic traumatic stress and will suffer even greater psychological harm. The demands for high test performance ratings are causing these children to be exploited and experimented on as if they were caged mice in a science lab. They are being psychologically abused on a grand scale that will impact the mental health of future generations.
It is common knowledge among educators in Texas that punitive methods of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which are known to cause psychological harm, are being used in many elementary schools across Texas to enhance test performance; however, I will focus my report on the one school where I have observed this psychological abuse – XXXXX Elementary school in Austin ISD.
XXXXXX Elementary School is a Title I School, which means it has a low socio economic population of minority students. Last May it received an
Exemplary performance rating on statewide testing as a result of a system that was implemented into the school over a three year period. That system, called The New 3 R’s, is said to mean: The Right Resources, The Right People, and The Right Systems.
The New 3 R’s System was designed by a former structural engineer who became a principal in AISD. He designed his own program of behavioral
engineering and experimented on the general elementary school population of minority students ages 4 – 11. It was a successful and efficient method of getting high performance on tests, and led to his school receiving an Exemplary performance rating on statewide testing and national recognition for his school. This high performance recognition led to the Austin ISD allowing another Title I school principal to implement the same New 3 R’s System. After the 2nd school implemented the program over three years and received an Exemplary rating on statewide testing, AISD allowed the principal to train other principals in Title I schools. AISD allowed this program to be implemented into Title I schools without adequate review by mental health experts who would have recognized the potential for psychological harm to young children.
The New 3 R’s System of behavioral engineering that AISD is celebrating and perpetuating uses the same methods of punitive classic conditioning that are known to enslave children for child labor and sex trafficking, and for obedience training for dogs and zoo animals. It is the same dysfunctional system that kept the black culture of the South submissive to oppression for the hundred years after the Civil War. It is the same dysfunctional system that led to the Nazi Regime in Germany prior to WWII. The New 3 R’s System has the same sophisticated dysfunctional dynamics and abuse of power that can be observed in every poisonous pedagogy that has ever woven its way through history. It can be observed in families, cults, and countries. It is efficient, and it does result in high performance, but at the expense of great psychological damage to its victims.
The use of punitive ABA methods for conditioning young children in a controlled environment is a violation of human rights. It is unethical,
immoral, and illegal. It is psychological abuse which research has shown to have high potential for mental illness and personality disorders that will manifest in young adulthood, but are known to have roots in childhood.
Positive methods of ABA are designed for use in specific educational settings by specialists with demonstrated expertise in the field of psychology and behavioral sciences. They are required to have certification by a regulatory board: Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB). ABA uses therapeutic methods of re-learning and management for autistic, disabled, and/or violent children with special needs, addictions, OCD, and other disabilities which may respond to positive ABA treatment. When ABA methods of punitive classical conditioning are used in a controlled environment on healthy young children whose brains are still developing, it can lead to permanent psychological damage. Those same methods can be observed in the dysfunctional dynamics of families with battered-person syndrome, and are sometimes known as mind control, or Stockholm syndrome.
What the New 3 R’s System calls good discipline, is actually punitive ABA. The signs of psychological abuse that I have observed from chronic stress in this system usually begin by age 6 – 8. The most common symptoms begin with signs of desensitization, anxiety, loss of imagination,
loss of spontaneity, loss of humor, regression, irritability, self injury, inability to concentrate, and dissociation. However, the most destructive effects of this psychological abuse will not manifest until the children reach their teenage years, or early adulthood. At that time, their conditioned emotional repression from victimization of institutional bullying and positive/negative ambivalent role modeling can lead to mental illness and criminality.
Children’s symptoms from chronic traumatic stress are the same symptoms as High Functioning Autism. It is the observation of this counselor, as well as a growing number of other mental health experts, that there is a relationship between the elementary school environment of chronic traumatic stress and the increase in psychiatric disorders that are known to co-occur with High Functioning Autism, especially anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and thought disorders. It is our believe that the elementary school environment of chronic traumatic stress is the environmental factor causing soaring rates of High Functioning Autism in children who have a neurological genetic predisposition to autism.
The elementary school environment of chronic traumatic stress is believed to be a cause of the increase in personality disorders, especially Narcissistic, Borderline, and Antisocial Disorders, which often lead to criminality and violence. These disorders do not manifest until adulthood, but are known to have roots in early childhood, with symptoms beginning around age 5. These symptoms can be observed in children who have no emotions of empathy or guilt, no emotions of pleasure, imaginative play, spontaneity, or humor.
In addition, symptoms of complex chronic traumatic stress can result from entrapment in dual environments of institutional bullying and ambivalent role modeling at school, and also at home. The psychological damage can increase with a lack of positive behavior modeling from teacher/caregivers and a lack of social and emotional attachments to teacher/caregivers and peers. This entrapment from psychological abuse in their total environment, and expectations which the child can never fully meet, are thought to lead to Dissociative Disorder as well as personality disorders.
Mental health professionals categorize these disorders into the following types:
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Dependent Personality Disorder
Histrionic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
ObessiveCompulsive Personality Disorder
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Schizotypal Personality Disorder
In 2008 the rate of personality disorders in the US was estimated at 1 in 10, and described as a major public health concern requiring attention by
researchers and clinicians. It is estimated to have steadily increased during the last five years and an elementary school environment of chronic traumatic stress is highly suspect as a leading cause.
The following descriptions are methods of the New 3 R’s System that I have observed in use at XXXXXXXX Elementary during the past two years. These methods are recognized as having potential for psychological harm.
ABSOLUTE CONTROL IN A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT
Absolute teacher/caregiver dominance in a controlled environment using punitive classical conditioning to shape behavior through fear, humiliation, and shame are the hallmarks of the New 3 R’s System. This poisonous pedagogy has been demonstrated throughout history to produce efficiency in human systems and gain desired performance, but at the same time repressing vitality, creativity, and emotions in children. This extreme form of discipline takes away any opportunity for self directed learning or original thinking. It represses children’s individuality and independence. It causes them to feel helpless and dependent. It breaks a child’s spirit and represses their imagination. It prevents the development of higher level thinking skills. Research has shown this pedagogy to cause children to become obedient to abusive authority, self destructive, codependent, addictive, mentally ill, and have deviant behaviors. It is institutional bullying.
PUBLIC HUMILIATION IN THE CHILD’S COMMUNITY
Any child with unfinished homework on any given day is singled out in the cafeteria during their lunch, in front of their school community, as punishment for not having completed their work. This method of shaming and humiliating a child during their lunch, in front of their peers, teachers, mentors, school staff, parents, and others, is a method known to cause psychological harm to children. It causes scapegoating and social isolation, and causes a child to become labeled as an “offender”. Many of the younger children cry when forced to sit in isolation by themselves in front of everyone in the cafeteria. Some of their peers show signs of sympathy, while others make sarcastic comments or looks, and others fear the same could happen to them. Most of the children see the injustice, and feel helpless and sad for the victims. This method of humiliating children causes strong emotions of shame, anger, and resentment for both the victim and the bystanders. By using this method, teachers are modeling negative behavior of “bullying”, while presenting it to the child as “good discipline”.
The cognitive and emotional conflict from such ambivalent positive/negative role modeling from teacher/caregivers causes confusion and distorted thinking in young children. They do not have adequate coping mechanisms to process the strong emotions this victimization produces. This ambivalent role modeling by teacher/caregivers is sometimes called “crazy making” by psychologists. The child who is victim of this institutional bullying will try to save face in front of his peers by denying his strong emotions of shame, anger, resentment, and self pity. Both the child who is victim and the children who are bystanders will learn that cruelty and disrespect from teacher/caregivers is acceptable and normal. It teaches children to deny and repress their own strong emotions, while keeping up the positive appearance and expectations of the teacher/caregiver. This “splitting” or distorted thinking (separating cognitive and affective) is considered a defense mechanism leading to personality disorders and regression. It distorts perception of reality. This method of the New 3 R’s is strongly associated with psychological abuse causing Narcissistic, Borderline, and Antisocial Personality Disorders.
Since children perceive themselves as they think others see them, this method of public humiliation and disrespect teaches them to devalue and disrespect themselves and their needs. It teaches them to fear and disrespect their teacher/caregivers, while at the same time working hard to gain their acceptance through their own performance and appearance of compliance. Teacher/caregivers who abuse their power and manipulate children’s emotions with this ambivalent method are demonstrating a lack of empathy and disregard for the dignity of the child. Teacher/caregivers who use this method are recognized as insensitive and cruel. They are modeling unhealthy behavior, while presenting it as positive discipline. They are teaching children to trust and depend on authorities who mistreat and disrespect them.
Since young children still have a developing brain and a fragile sense of self and identity, experiencing the strong emotions of victimization of institutional bullying over time will cause desensitization to cruelty and mistreatment that was modeled by teacher/caregivers. Years of this chronic psychological abuse can cause a child to become emotionally desensitized to the point of having no empathy for others who are mistreated. The child will be conditioned to perpetuate the same cruelty to themselves or others without guilt, since they learned this behavior to be normal and acceptable.
The child who suffered the most punishment with this method last year due to chronic homework problems, was also a victim of impoverished family circumstances. Her name is XXXX, and she is the oldest of five siblings. Her mother is intellectually handicapped. As a forth grader, XXXXX had assumed the role of parenting her younger siblings. They were a homeless family and had slept on the floor of a friend’s two room shed for two years. XXXXX spent time in cafeteria isolation on a regular basis. She was the victim of a cruel method which only increased her social isolation and
distrust for her teacher/caregiver, and enhanced her feelings of helplessness and worthlessness.
As counselor, my efforts to point out the harm in using this method and the psychological damage it could cause were ignored. I protested to both the
principal and the Social Emotional Learning Chairperson, and to higher AISD administration. The principal defended this method by calling it good discipline and one of her methods of success in the 3 R’s System.
Later, I was told by an AISD legal administrator to either support all the principal’s policies or leave. This punitive method of ABA illustrates callous disregard and professional ignorance by any administrator who would approve it to be used with young children and call it good discipline.
FRIDAY ASSESSMENTS
The discipline called Friday Assessments is a marathon of weekly testing sessions lasting up to four hours every Friday. This non stop testing begins at the start of the school day on Friday and lasts until lunch and up to four hours. This weekly four hour test is said to be a need to check student progress; however, it has all the characteristics of a simulated STAAR test, which last four hours. The children work in isolation behind triboards as they do during the STAAR for security. This disguised Simulated STAAR is mentally and physically exhausting for young children. It causes them to become desensitized and lethargic. While the purpose is apparently to condition them with test stamina for STAAR, it is robbing them of imagination and original thinking. This Simulated STAAR is an example of exploitation of children for the unrealistic demands of an administrator who lacks empathy for children and who does not understand their developmental needs. If the Friday Assessments were actually for the purpose of determining children’s weekly progress, then the children could be tested on different days for shorter periods of time. Four consecutive hours of testing every Friday for young children is not developmentally age appropriate or healthy, nor does it illustrate good professional judgement from an administrator. It is mental and physical cruelty. For children, it is torture.
NEW 3 R’S DAILY TIMED MATH DRILLS
The New 3 R’s uses morning math timed drills to start each day. These daily drills generate anxiety and set the pace for capturing absolute control of the child’s thinking and attention for the remainder of the day’s drill.
Many children develop anxiety disorders from being hurried on work that can be frustrating when they are not developmentally ready for excessive timed tasks. The chronic frustration of excessive tasks with limited time at an early age can lead to anxiety and somatic disorders, performance anxiety, fear of making mistakes, perfectionism, and self defeating behaviors. Such rigid regimens cause children to become passive and pressured. They lose the capacity for spontaneous imaginative play and a pleasure in intellectual discovery. This method of beginning each day with a regimen of anxiety, then holding children’s attention captive with absolute teacher dominated forced rote learning of test material for the rest of the day, resembles brainwashing. It creates feelings of helplessness and entrapment. Children are conditioned to shut down their own original thoughts and ideas and become a receptor for the teacher’s programming.
PUBLIC DISPLAY OF CHILDREN’S DAILY BEHAVIOR REPORT
Each child’s daily behavior report from the teacher is posted on the board for peers and others in the school to see. This is a punitive method of ABA for motivating children with fear and intimidation. This causes a child shame, anger, and resentment, as well as fear of additional punishment from home. This method serves as a threat throughout the day, and causes chronic stress and loss of trust in the teacher/caregiver. This method singles out a child for scapegoating by peers, and it conflicts with a child’s need for healthy attachment to the teacher/caregiver. This method of the New 3 R’s is a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
EXCESSIVE REWARD & PUNISHMENT FOR PERFORMANCE
The 3 R’s method of emphasis on performance rewards for young children neglects their most primary social and emotional developmental needs. Emphasis on performance rewards creates competition too early and hampers development of authentic self and identity. Young children perceive themselves as they think others see them; therefore, when only performance is rewarded with neglect of ongoing emotional validation, they begin to think of themselves as a test score, since that is what matters most to their teacher/caregiver. They will become conditioned to perform for their teacher/caregiver, while denying their own emotions and needs. Young children are not developmentally ready to have their performance depend on rewards/punishment since they have not yet learned coping skills for disappointment. They learn from behavior modeled by teacher/caregivers. When a young child sees others rewarded for performance while they are not, they are left with the strong emotions of sadness, jealousy, anger, resentment, and failure, which they are unable to process. The method of constant rewards for test performance reinforces negative emotions of winner/loser and competition for children too young to process the emotions. It does not allow children to learn intrinsic motivation.
MESSAGES OF MISTRUST AND INCOMPETENCE
There is intimidation and fear from constant surveillance, requiring children to carry a behavior checklist with them for all movement outside their contained classroom, such as library or lunch when supervised by someone other than their primary teacher/caregiver. This punitive method creates disrespect and lack of emotional attachment to the teacher/caregiver. It teaches children that the teacher/caregiver does not trust or believe in them to control their own behavior. The children will learn to think of themselves as incapable of controlling their own behavior without someone always monitoring it. It validates the teacher/caregiver’s mistrust and diminishes opportunity to learn self regulation and to function independently. It does not illustrate mutual respect. This method leads to paranoia and fear of making mistakes, as well as creating dependency and lack of opportunity for behavioral decision making.
THE RIGHT PEOPLE
The New 3 R’s uses a selective process for teachers and staff in order to
implement the program effectively into a school. There is a process of weeding out all teachers and staff who have objections to the methods of the system or who have recognition of the potential for psychological harm.
The Right People means that everyone on the faculty must agree with the principal and not express any opposition or disagreement to the methods.
The gradual selective process of the Right People begins with flight, fight, or freeze, which are the normal reactions to a threat of abuse of power.
FLIGHT: Those teachers who were not indoctrinated into the system by the end of the second year, either transferred, retired, or were terminated.
FIGHT: The school counselor is the only one left on the faculty at present who has continued to point out the psychological abuse in the system. The counselor filed two formal grievances of child mistreatment to AISD Human Resources last school year, but no changes were made in the system. At this time the counselor has experienced the full victimization of bullying by the principal and AISD higher administration: Threats, scapegoating, alienation of faculty, and retaliation continued until the counselor was forced to take leave on 17 September. The counselor filed an EEOC
grievance against AISD for retaliation on 17 September 2013, and is continuing to advocate for the children who are being exploited in an
environment of psychological abuse.
FREEZE: Teachers who remained in the school are desensitized and loyal
to the principal and the New 3 R’s System. They do not object to any of the punitive harmful methods nor do they empathize with the students. Teachers who function in chronic stress have similar symptoms as the students. They function in a “survive” mode rather than a “thrive” mode. They are robotic and scripted, emotionless, lack spontaneity and imagination, lack humor and flexibility. They are rigid and controlled. Their performance is measured by the test scores of their students, so they are dedicated to programming their students according to administrative directives. They obey orders without question. Many walk on eggshells for fear of making mistakes or displeasing the principal. They work very hard to keep up with the principal’s expectations and focus on their own performance. They are stern and demanding. They have lost the ability for imaginative play.
Summary:
The New 3 R’s System is a rigid system of behavioral engineering that uses punitive methods of ABA which are known to cause psychological harm to young children. Some of the methods are known to cause mental illness and criminality. The New 3 R’s is a sophisticated system of bullying.
AISD administrators allowed the New 3 R’s System to be used in elementary schools for the purpose of obtaining high performance ratings on statewide tests, but without adequate oversight of mental health experts who would have recognized the potential for psychological abuse.
AISD has allowed administrators to use punitive methods of ABA in violation of certification requirements and with methods known to cause
psychological damage to young children.
AISD administrators ignored the counselor’s reports of the New 3 R’s methods as being psychologically abusive to children, and retaliated against the counselor.
Children in Texas public elementary schools are entitled to have their mental and physical health protected by state law. There are currently
no agencies with adequate laws in place to protect the rights of these children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s an article that will appear in this Sunday’s NYTimes that describes how the increase in high-stakes standardized testing is correlated with the increase in ADHD:
Oh… and the “cure” for ADHD? Medication! So the solution to improving test scores seems to be brainwashing or brain-numbing… pick your poison…
“The correlations between the implementation of these laws and the rates of A.D.H.D. diagnosis matched on a regional scale as well. When Hinshaw compared the rollout of these school policies with incidences of A.D.H.D., he found that when a state passed laws punishing or rewarding schools for their standardized-test scores, A.D.H.D. diagnoses in that state would increase not long afterward. Nationwide, the rates of A.D.H.D. diagnosis increased by 22 percent in the first four years after No Child Left Behind was implemented.”
Ugh. What a tragedy. More unintended consequences, huh?
My older children escaped the standardized testing in the primary grades (lucky!) but I often wonder how my oldest son would have handled sitting still for that long. He became a very good student (eventually) but boy was he wiggly when he was 5, 6 and 7.
I was talking with my district special education coordinator this summer (I’m in a very large district). She said that the number of referrals for special education have skyrocketed since Common Core took hold. Suddenly, kids who were on-track or close to it are now special ed. It’s frustrating.
Check out the link between ADHD and Pearson (yes, those glorious people who bring you standardized testing): http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pearsons-quotient-adhd-test-shown-to-detect-adhd-fakers-225971561.html
Quote from the above article: ” During the same 30 years when A.D.H.D. diagnoses increased, American childhood drastically changed. Even at the grade-school level, kids now have more homework, less recess and a lot less unstructured free time to relax and play.”
In my children’s school, the principal thinks ADHD meds are “steroids for the brain” and has a standard recommendation for all parents whose children can’t sit still for 8 hours of drill each day. Last year, when my 7 year old son could not sit still in 2nd grade for two days of four hour STAAR test practice, it was recommended that I take him to the doctor and say that he could not “focus” on his schoolwork. All the doctor did was write out one sentence stating an ADHD diagnosis and a script for meds. The doctor seemed to be under the influence of the school? I decided it was not my son that needed changing, it was the school! I changed both my son and daughter to a private school this year, even though we cannot afford it. What is happening in elementary schools of Texas is abusive. I’m glad it is finally being called what it is:
Mental and Physical cruelty for children is psychological abuse!
wgersen: Thank you for the article. I am sending a copy to Arne Duncan, along with this blog article!
Well of course… when the end all, be all is about test scores and being “number 1” in the world, this is the result. I would suggest that instead of trying to be “competitors in the global market,” that we work to be the most humane. Of course, that doesn’t go over well in the reformer circles where rigor, grit, and tenacity are more important than caring for one’s fellow human beings.
Outstanding! It is time to start calling this stuff what it is. Child abuse.
State-enforced child abuse.
State sanctioned discrimination also. Lawsuits need to fly!
I suggest you explore Vertical Tutoring urgently…
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Joyce Feilke is a brave woman! She continues to speak out on behalf of the children who suffer daily abuse at the hands of callous administrators who only care about test scores.
I don’t think I have ever seen Godwin’s corollary violated by the initial post before.
You can stick your Godwin here: http://www.salon.com/2010/07/01/godwin/
I applaud the author for calling it like it is. We are headed for the Fourth Reich, but it’s impolite to talk about it. Please. It’s the corollary of the current meme that the only racism is calling someone racist.
Sorry, Dienne. Your post wasn’t here when I last looked and wrote my reply to TE. Thanks for sharing that article!
No need to apologize – your rebuttal was perfect.
You still haven’t and you never will. The issue with Godwin’s law is not that analogies to Hitler’s Nazi Germany are never instructive and always inappropriate. It’s that when such comparisons are made well into discussions, they sometimes look like a stretch and shut the talk down. That doesn’t mean the revelations are not insightful whenever they occur. People need to learn from history. And people need to be stopped from committing crimes against humanity. Forget Godwin and show some concern for abused children.
Why not let the market decide if this is child abuse? Think of the generations of working slaves the business roundtable will have manufactured now that education has become their re-education camps.
“Forget Godwin and show some concern for abused children.”
Excellent, CT.
Thank you.
Forget Godwin! Pay attention to history and current observations.
It can be observed by social scientists and intelligent people that the Schwarze Padagogik of traditional child-raising for generations in Germany leading up to WWII, uses the same methods of psychological abuse that can be observed in many elementary schools in Texas. This is “institutional bullying” which is known to have high potential for mental illness and criminality. This poisonous pedagogy conditions children with fear and intimidation for high performance, and causes the victim to repress the powerful feelings of victimization (shame, anger, and helplessness.) It conditions children to become loyal to the abuser It doesn’t matter if it is a school yard bully or a dictator with death squads. Bullying is on a spectrum. The victim always suffers on some level.
Forget Godwin! Pay attention to history and current observations.
It can be observed by social scientists and intelligent people that the Schwarze Padagogik of traditional child-raising for generations in Germany leading up to WWII, uses the same methods of psychological abuse that can be observed in many elementary schools in Texas. This is “institutional bullying” which is known to have high potential for mental illness and criminality. This poisonous pedagogy conditions children with fear and intimidation for high performance, and causes the victim to repress the powerful feelings of victimization (shame, anger, and helplessness.) It conditions children to become loyal to the abuser It doesn’t matter if it is a school yard bully or a dictator with death squads. Bullying is on a spectrum. The victim always suffers on some level.
Thank you Ken. That needed repeating.
Bullying is bullying, whether is was done by Nazi’s or the white culture of the Old South for the 100 years after the Civil War. It conditions children to be submission to oppression. It is the same “system” and uses the same methods. It is time to recognize that school administrators who are making policies to govern children are unable to empathize with those children. They are too self absorbed and too focused on their own performance. When they cannot recognize “bulling” and call it good “discipline”, and when we know those methods are harmful to children, it is a poisonous pedagogy.
Bullying uses the same methods whether it is done by Nazis or the white southern culture that kept the black culture oppressed for a hundred years after the Civil War. Bullying is on a spectrum from the smallest school yard bully to dictators who have death squads at their disposal. The Schwarze Padagogik used to discipline children in Germany for generations leading up to WWII, uses the same methods of “institutional bullying” we are observing in many Texas schools like this in the article. Psychological abuse (bullying) is very
difficult to recognize, but there are two conditions which allow it to be observed: Entrapment & Control. Children in schools have no escape from their abuse. When teachers or administrators abuse their power in ways that cause a child to experience the emotions of victimization in their daily environment, it is psychological abuse which has great potential for damage. Most parents and teachers do not realize they are “bullying”. They think they are doing what the child needs? They are not able to connect with the child empathically. Recognizing psychological abuse by its methods and dynamics in sophisticated systems of bullying takes expertise. That is what this article is about. This article should help people, especially school administrators, recognize psychological abuse. Good work Ms Feilke.
It comes as no surprise that administrators who employ such social engineering techniques target children whose parents are the least likely to know they have the right to informed consent or have the where-with-all and means to file law suits against those schools.
ACLU and Common Cause, where are you?
Right! Forget Godwin! It can be observed by social scientists and intelligent people that the Schwarze Padagogik of traditional child-raising for generations in Germany leading up to WWII, uses the same methods of psychological abuse that can be observed in many elementary schools in Texas. This is “institutional bullying” which is known to have high potential for mental illness and criminality. This poisonous pedagogy conditions children with fear and intimidation for high performance, and causes the victim to repress the powerful feelings of victinization (shame, anger, and helplessness.) It conditions children to become loyal to the abuser It doesn’t matter if it is a school yard bully or a dictator with death squads. Bullying is on a spectrum. The victim always suffers on some level.
Texas is a mess and the TSU report is just the tip of the iceberg. Some version of this systematic abuse is essential to the corporate, test tyranny that now substitutes for education, especially in the high-poverty, Title I schools. It is true nationwide.
Time for those who know, to describe the atmosphere in detail. Prejudices against color and class go unchallenged and instead, are reinforced by the paradigm. It is anti-democratic and deliberately destructive to bright, inquiring students but it just goes on and on until someone like Ms. Feilke joins forces with TSU and speaks out.
There needs to be a lawsuit- big time. Start with Arne’s DoEd and work down.
I think it important to make this clarification for any readers not familiar with ABA as it should be practiced: ABA was the first real treatment for children with autism and yes, in the early years (back in the 1960s), punishment was briefly part of the protocol. As the method was refined, the punative aspects were dropped and today, in treating children with autism, ONLY positive reinforcements are used — and used quite liberally.
The smallest effort on the part of the child toward the wanted response is immediately and strongly rewarded with whatever reward is most meaningful to the child (e.g., a piece of candy, a jump on a trampoline, a sticker, etc.). Frequent rest breaks are given. In this form, ABA has developed into one of the most effective inventions for autism spectrum disorders, particularly for very young children.
What these people in Texas are doing is a COMPLETE PERVERSION of ABA.
Once again, it appears all we are hearing from the special needs organizations are crickets. The ABA Certification Board should be all over this if for no other reason than the credibility of their field.
It took bravery and a high degree of professionalism to write that. Although it was painful to read I hope goes viral because it is absolutely intolerable to hear of such abuse.
“Since children perceive themselves as they think others [especially authority figures] see them, this method of public humiliation and disrespect teaches them to devalue and disrespect themselves and their needs.”
Foucault’s subjectivization at work in this abusive behavior by the authorities mainly caused by the educational standards and standardized testing regimes:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Great minds think alike!
The paragraph in quotes is from Noel Wilson’s work.
See below for Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
After I questioned a teacher via email and told her to stop chastising my 7 year old, stop yelling at him, stop pulling him in front of his peers to tell him that you are “sick and tired of his attitude”, stop removing him from reading to isolate him after he starts crying and then ridicule him for his low reading scores, and then force him to hug you … I received the following from the principal:
Dear Mrs. Reichart,
I have read your email chain with Ms. Roberts and have a few thoughts I’d like to share. Unfortunately I must acknowledge a pattern in your emails with Hilburn Academy staff. Here are a few things I’d like you to keep in mind:
1. All first grade teachers use the same classroom management plan and reflection sheet. Students are instructed about exactly what the expectations are and how the management plan works. I do not require my teachers to justify or defend their classroom management plans online or in person. We focus conversations on the students’ behavior and how to support them in making better choices instead.
2. Sending a reflection sheet home is absolutely acceptable for minor infractions like Lucien’s earlier this week. Please do not expect a phone call for minor incidents like these.
3. Your comments have an increasingly disrespectful tone as the email chain moves forward. However, Ms. Rogers is consistently polite and respectful. I expect the same from parents who communicate with staff and remind you to keep the tone productive and civil. If you cannot, Admin. is required to suspend your ability to communicate directly with your child’s teacher and use Admin. as an intermediary. Such a situation is never good for the parent/teacher relationship, so please consider this in future communication.
4. Your suggestions about how Ms. Rogers conducts her classroom and your characterizing her interactions with her students as “abusive” are unacceptable. Ms. Rogers is the leader in her classroom, and how she chooses to conduct it will be supported by this administration as long as it remains within the confines of her professional training, School Board policy and the culture and climate of Hilburn Academy. To date she has been a model staff member.
5. Please give Ms. Rogers the benefit of the doubt when your 1st grader tells you what she said to him, the context, etc. We always give parents the benefit of the doubt when young children say things that parents do or say at home and recognize things may not entirely be accurate.
6. I can meet with you on Tuesday, October 1 at 2:00pm. I look forward to seeing you then. Our goal of the meeting will be to reiterate the points above and provide any clarification you need.
Thank you.
Most respectfully,
Gregory Ford
Principal
The area superintendent, superintendent, and BOE turned a deaf ear to this. They condone this type of behavior here in Wake County, NC.
When I started teaching many years ago, any professional that treated students or parents that way were shown the door. It has now become the norm and it is frankly disgusting.
I applaud any educator that stands visibly against the abuse of children.
Give that teacher the benefit of the doubt? No, absolutely not. There is no doubt about what you are describing. It is pervasive and the minute it is questioned or objected to, the threatening tone from the administration begins. You detail it here. What a heartbreak because it operates as a cult and this cult turns on parents, children and professional staff to destroy alternate/humanizing methods and points of view.
Thank you for sharing that Michelle and how traumatic for your son. It sounds like Hilburn Academy in Wake County NC has the same difficulty recognizing abuse in elementary schools as
Texas.
I would remove my child from this school immediately. The principal also shows the same disrespectful behavior. You will fight this all year without a satisfactual resolution.
Yes and I hate this kind of coercive manipulation ans social scientists undermine our country’s mental health. I have severe anxiety as a result of childhood abuse. The mental aspect was debilitating.
As a clinical social worker in an affluent suburb of Chicago, I see increasingly more psychiatric disorders in children, as a result of “teaching to the test.” I used to tell patients that personality disorders are rare, but I no longer do this as I see developing disorders in children, particularly anxiety disorders. Not practicing in Texas nor in a poor area, much of what Ms. Joyce Feilke writes about is much more subtle here, for parents would not allow Skinner-Nazi “management” to occur so blatantly. However, it does occur, albeit quietly.
I was recently interviewed by Paul Horton, a teacher at the Lab School at the University of Chicago, concerning the toll that Arne’s curriculum takes on public school teachers, many who I have treated; Paul’s paper was noticed by a PBS reporter in DC, and I spoke with the reporter (Mike Fritz) late last week.
Parenthetically, it should be noted that 4 hour blocks of “drills” is a grievous cognitive error, when there is ample research that one, of any age, has a peak level of concentration for 45-50 minutes.
My accolades to Ms. Feilke for taking her stand to protect the mental health of children.
Most TEXAS elementary school administrators not only bully students, but parents as well. My 3rd grade son brings home two hours of homework (test drill) almost every night. The schools have become so intrusive on family time. It’s time parents reigned them in and follow this counselor’s lead. Teach them about healthy boundaries. We should not be intimidated by school administrators. We need to advocate for our children and other children as well. We need to spend time in those classrooms watching how our children are treated and if they are actually being “inspired to love learning” ? We need to observe if they are given freedom to use their imagination for original thinking and creative thinking for learning higher thinking skills, Or, are they being programmed in a rigid environment like this for low level thinking rote memory and test performance only. We need to march to Austin and demand that STAAR be kicked out of elementary schools. It was designed by people who do not know how to measure healthy functioning in young children. It is measuring only data, which is not an indication of a healthy child or a measure of how successful a child will be. The best measure of a child’s future success is their social and emotional development. Systems like this in the article shut down their social and emotional functioning, and only focus on “performance” and appearance. Texas has the highest high school drop out rate in the nation. 50% of college students drop out and never complete a degree. Prison and juvenile crime are increasing. Texas spends more on prisons than education. Systems like this create those statistics via “institutional dependency” that keeps filling those prisons. Who will be the leader in Texas to make needed change?
Question: Who will be the leader in Texas to make needed change?
Answer: Wendy Davis
How could the current Texas politicians be expected to recognize psychological abuse in children. They are children!
This is proof that Texas school administration has regressed to the Middle Ages:
Cafeteria punishment = The Stocks
Friday Assessments = The Dungeon
This sounds like a child’s version of Abu Ghraib !
This and other recent postings hammer home a central feature of current education reform: the docility and obedience demanded of students is also expected of parents and community members.
This is not teaching young and old, in or out of school, what it means to live and be a part of a democracy.
This is literally training for being a member of quite a different sort of society.
And not one that the vast majority of people would want to be a part of.
Hasn’t the docility of the parents ALWAYS paid a crucial role in the structure of traditional public education? Students and their families are told where to send the students to school based on the imaginary lines drawn on a map by local politicians or courts.
Texas Education Agency has regressed to the Middle Ages. This article confirms it. The cafeteria punishment equals the STOCKS. The Friday Assessments equal the DUNGEON. Senator: We need the Enlightment!
To answer Cosmic Tinker’s comment of October 16th at 7:52 above, asking about the ACLU–reportedly, the ACLU in Nevada is involved in defending (parents’ side–TWO parents/one couple) against a uniform policy at a Reno, Nevada elementary school–the parents do not like the “Tomorrow’s Leaders–Roy Gomm Elementary School” on the uniform’s red shirts. So far, their lawsuit has “cost the Washoe County
SD over $100,000.”
THAT’S where the ACLU is!
However, in fairness, has the ACLU been contacted?
Fascist governments always have explicit, invariant, one-size-fits-all national education standards. They do not have competing standards voluntarily adopted by local officials based on their own evolving judgments.
It is entirely appropriate to speak of totalitarianism in connection to these national standards and tests because invariant national education standards are definitively totalitarian.
The author ought to edit the article again. The name of the school can be found in the last sentence paragraph before the first one to use the XXXXXXX.
Very interesting article.
“I had never heard of Common Core until recently. Now I see that the damage is coming from both political parties. The government is engaged in psychologically programming American children to accept and participate in a totalitarian state in which the government proclaims its respect for human rights while systematically violating the humanity of every individual! Parents are naively entrusting their children to a system that can only result in a nation controlled, not by free, self-governing, and moral individuals, but by the brute instincts of desensitized, emotionally sadistic enforcers. ”
I agree with this quote. I work in an elementary school and have observed it becoming more like a prison than a school. Thank you Diane!
Environments of chronic stress are not exclusive to Title I schools in Texas. My daughter attends 3rd grade an Exemplary school in a university area of highly educated and involved parents. We are beginning to observe the over emphasis on rewarding performance, fear of making mistakes, perfectionism, and a lack of nurturing social and emotional development. Work is mostly independent and repetitive rote memorization of math facts and vocabulary. In fact, there is very little social interaction among students and little attachment to teacher, who is very businesslike and impatient. My daughter has developed chronic anxiety and sleep problems, chronic stomach aches and constipation. Her teacher uses statements like, “Whoever does best on this practice test I will take it to show the principal?” If she doesn’t make perfect scores she worries. The principal’s STAAR goal this year is 100% on math, as if 98% last year wasn’t good enough. Would you like to be the student who causes this school to miss the mark?
We will not have healthy school environments in elementary school until we get rid of the statewide testing and measure children by healthy developmental standards.
As a 1st grade teacher with 28 students, I can empathize with the parents concerns;
however, we have been forced to become managers rather than teachers. The class is too large, there is little room to move around, the students must be kept working at all times in order to maintain control, and most of the work is repetitive and boring for them.
We do our best with what we have to work with. It is a challenge just to get up and go to work every day. This is my second year as a teacher which is long enough for me to see this is not my career of choice. I have creative and artistic talent that I cannot use and I am becoming desensitized to this job. I love working with children and I am sad to see how they are also being neglected by the system. I have just completed my online application for the Peace Corps.
Here in Denver, CO we also have 3 public Montessori schools. I heard on Tuesday night that at one of the 3 schools, the parents have gotten together to opt out of Benchmark testing = perhaps CCS will be the next to opt out of
“When a child is broken in spirit, when they have lost their self worth and confidence, that damage is not erased easily. When children hate school to the point that they attempt to avoid it at all costs, there will be no desire to be college or career ready.”
Thank you Anna Shah, I agree totally!
High stakes testing has serious ramifications. And our children are being made to suffer those consequences.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/24/a-brief-history-of-pearsons-problems-with-testing/
This obsession with testing is not “normal”. It is as if the administrators get pleasure from punishing children. This is deviant behavior. This article is just one example of how those who govern children have lost touch with reality. Our children are victims.
Children are not the only ones getting “bullied”. “We” have two hours of homework every night. “We” would rather be outdoors having green time and riding bikes. This
is very intrusive on family time, especially since the homework is lower level thinking rote memory test related more of the same work, which my 3rd grader does all day. I can see the connection to mind control or brainwashing. Son spends 7.5 hours of face time with his teacher, and four hours with this Dad, two hours of which is homework. Can anyone spell: Totalitarianism
Better spell it right too, or it’s the gulag for you!
To quote a respected principal here in Connecticut, weighing the cow does not make it fatter.
“Weighing the Cow does not make it better”
Same goes for The Pig..
Thanks..I love this quote!!!!!!
If the people who design, plan and execute these educational malpractices believe in hell, may they burn in it forever. If they believe in re-incarnation may they come back as a leach to be eaten by a fish, then re-incarnate as an amoeba to be eaten by a water flea to reincarnate ad infinitum to a lower level.
Perfect Quote: Thanks Diane S :
This obsession with testing is a mental health issue for those making school policy. Our children are victims of politicians who have delusional thinking, are unable to empathize with children, and who are too arrogant and self absorbed to listen to the experts.
This is an abuse of power and it is abuse to children who will suffer permanent damage.
Fear of high stakes tests leads to desperate actions by teachers and administrators. These abusive testing stakes contribute to sorting and segregating children not seen since Brown v BoEd. Check this out:
http://www.wsmv.com/story/23835141/la-vergne-students-separated?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9472631
“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
― Assata Shakur
Texas is a Mess! This article is a tragic example of how the scapegoating and abuse of children is being ignored by political leaders who are too self absorbed and corrupt to notice. The two state watchdog agencies that would have jurisdiction over this situation in the article would be Health & Human Services and the Texas Education Agency. Take a look at those:
The Chair of the Texas Health & Human Services in Texas is CEO of a Meat Packing Company. The Education Commissioner is the former Railroad Commissioner. Both of these appointments were political favors from Republican Governor, Rick Perry (duh? remember him), and neither of them have expertise for the job. So, in Texas, education and mental health of children relies on: Railroading and Meat Packing!
Jon Stewart, are you paying attention?
I know this school. Frightening.
My kids go to a school in Texas that isn’t remotely like this. Luckily. But I think the core of the matter is stated early on- this is a title 1, low income school. The parents may not have the power to advocate for their children, or to pull them out of school when they are unhappy. That is a deep shame. I can’t see a district getting away with this in a higher income area- course, they’d probably say they don’t “need to.”
My blood is boiling now- and I feel for that little girl who is doing her best- and getting bullied for it.
I want to know: what can we do about this? Who do we call or write to? What kind of pressure can be applied, and where, to let AISD know that tax payers in Austin will not stand for abuse of children in their care? We, as citizens, need to reform the reform. ANY ideas from anyone about organizing around this would be welcome.
Travis Co Taxpayers Union: don@donzimmerman.con
cloakinginequity.com
Look under Psychological Abuse
Shannon Brooks: Who can you call about this?
AISD District 1 Trustee: Ms Cheryl Bradley: 512-576-2762
Please post the results of your phone call.
Austin ISD released the following information on this matter Dec. 2 (read the full statement at http://www.austinisd.org/answers/response-allegations-blackshear-es):
Recently, Blackshear Elementary School has been responding to allegations of “child abuse” and “hostile work environment”. It matters not from whom the allegations come, but rather whether there is any truth in or to them. The District takes all such allegations seriously and so far has determined the following:
1) The principal, teachers, and staff members at Blackshear care about the academic performance and social emotional well-being of their students;
2) Students at Blackshear reported higher levels of adult fairness and respect, student engagement, and appreciation of their learning environment than the average of Austin ISD elementary schools (2012-2013 Student Climate Survey campus results);
3) While not the only indicator of school quality, once a struggling school, Blackshear is now experiencing notable academic success for its students, including exceptional academic performance by its English Language Learners.
4) No parents/guardians submitted any complaints related to the allegations;
5) A legal review of the matter, an investigation by Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, another investigation by an AISD Police Detective specializing in child treatment as recently as November 26, 2013, and other inquiries and campus visits have not produced any evidence to substantiate or to support the allegations; and
6) Neither Austin Partners in Education (APIE) nor other organizations with mentors on the Blackshear campus have reported, either last year or this, any concerns of which they or their mentors were or are aware.
We continue to investigate any allegations that come to our attention. To date, we have no concrete evidence to substantiate the allegations that have been made.
Letter in response to email from a concerned Austin ISD Board of Trustees Member:
Dear (Trustee Name Withheld)
Thank you for your continued concern about this situation. I trust that you will keep an open mind until we have an opportunity to discuss it in a more appropriate setting. I will send a copy of the report I gave to Senator Jane Nelson, and I will welcome the opportunity to meet with you or other board members after you have reviewed it. I appreciate your honest opinion and taking time to listen to the history of this story.
To clear up some confusion, my report described “methods” in the principal’s system that are punitive, and not “teachers” as your email stated. I have worked with most of the teachers for several years, and I recognize them to be hard workers who have been doing what is expected of them to the best of their ability. However, some of the methods and behaviors they have been expected to use are punitive. Accusations of he/said she/said will only deflect from the real issue. The real issue is to focus on this system that uses punitive methods and behaviors that are recognized through research and mental health experts to create an invalidating environment for children – an invalidating environment that is recognized to have potential for permanent psychological harm.
The focus of my report was based on a school where I have observed punitive methods and dysfunctional dynamics of an engineered system first hand, but there is now validation to show it has become pervasive throughout other schools in AISD. That is believed to be the cause of what appears to be AISD administration’s intense efforts to conceal this from the public. Blackshear is not singled out, since this is a district wide problem. As long as AISD continues to ignore and deny these punitive methods are being used and exploit employees by attempting to conceal it, those of us who recognize the potential for harm to children will continue to work to expose it and demand accountability.
My report was intended to be educational and show how an over emphasis on testing prep has created a toxic environment for children. What AISD’s investigation shows is that we need an awareness campaign for school administrators and teachers to recognize punitive methods and behaviors that cause an “invalidating” environment, and learn the skills to “validate” children. What we actually have looks like an ambivalent system that spent vast amounts of taxpayer dollars to out source SEL training from CASEL and promote it publicly; but, behind “closed doors” AISD has continued to train principals and teachers to use the punitive methods and behaviors in this regimented system that models negative behavior for children. Children are the helpless victims of this dysfunctional system and they are the ones who will suffer the most permanent damage, not the teachers who were involved.
Psychological erosion is a gradual process in children, just as it is gradual in the physical environment of nature. CPS is not equipped to observe this unless they set up residency for a period of time with experienced social workers in the school, and it is highly unlikely CPS was given an opportunity to observe the punitive methods described in my report while visiting the school. AISD is not capable of investigating their own systemic dysfunction, since their efforts appeared to focus more on protecting themselves, rather than examining the facts of my report, taking accountability, and making efforts to correct it.
Mental health professionals across the country are seeing an epidemic of disorders in younger children that continues to soar, especially anxiety and depression. My report brought this anxiety generating environment closer to home in AISD with specific details. Protecting children’s mental health was the purpose of my report, and it continues to be the purpose of my advocacy. My “agenda” was never to “damage teachers reputations,” and that premise may have been used to detract from the real issue. I would like to request that we focus on the real issue. The real issue is the invalidating environment created by the unnecessary over emphasis on performance and test prep in AISD elementary schools using punitive methods recognized to have potential for psychological damage to children.
I will look forward to an opportunity to visit with you in more detail about this report, as well as suggestions for mental health intervention and monitoring in schools using this system.
Respectfully,
Joyce Murdock Feilke
This letter is an expression of my professional opinion and does not reflect the opinions of my employer.
Those of us who have worked in AISD know how severe and abusive the bullying has become. The superintendent and her staff invest an enormous amount of time promoting themselves with media and PR; however, the teachers and children in Title I Schools are especially vulnerable to the abusive system since the parents in those areas are often intimidated by school authority. They are either afraid to speak up or unaware that the punitive methods are psychologically harmful to their children.
The children of the Title I Schools have been victims of psychological abuse that has been ongoing in AISD for at least the past 5 years. The New 3 R’s System that has been used is the direct link to the “pipeline to prison”. It is also called the “Skinner Nazi Management Style”. It uses punitive methods and dysfunctional dynamics that are recognized as psychologically harmful to children. We have confirmation from 6 schools that are currently using this system, and others that are recognized.
The parents and community of AISD’s Title I Schools are not satisfied with the deception and cover up that AISD called an investigation. We are now more determined to expose the punitive culture of AISD and the harm it is causing children.
The deception, misrepresentation, and lack of transparency from AISD about the use of these punitive methods behind “closed doors” is appalling. School administrators in AISD will be held accountable for this mistreatment to our children.
Gabbi Garza, Early Childhood Specialist
Kelleys Kids Preschool in The Colony TX. Owner was reported for abuse of 3 children in her possession between May and July 2012 for disciplining them with physical contact with no repercussion. Hitting kids should be punished. It’s ashamed that providers are not giving lie detector test and held responsible for what they do.
Thank you, Joyce, for having the courage to write this report. I taught under this regime and wish that I had done more to document what I experienced and observed during those years. There is no question in my mind that your report is an accurate portrayal of the educational environment that is created under the “New 3 R’s” program.
Get footage (preferably in-school footage, but if necessary, interviews with kids) to 60 Minutes or someone like that. School districts will hide what wrong they are doing that makes them look successful until they can’t any more.
Thanks!! I lived in the colony and have many friends who now have little ones about to enter daycare and preschool there! I will put this out there and someone should put this on Yelp and anywhere there’s a place to review, so they can at least be informed and look the owners name up. Even if she goes out of business, she will most likely still get a job working at a daycare and many don’t perform thorough backgrounds as people or they themselves think they do. I am looking to make a transition possibly to Austin and I really want to homeschool my son specifically because of this article. This doesn’t even cover the effects of children who have multiple issues and learning disabilities under this environment. After reading this, I believe I have some closure on why my 12 year old has developed very specific traits and behavior listed in this article starting from the age of 3 in day cares on up. He’s been in 8 different schools, not by choice, and will be in 7th this year. I have desperately tried to find a school with a decent special Ed program and have yet to find a school where he doesn’t suffer from severe depression, bullying, lies by kids, teachers, administrators, special education paras and teachers. My son’s well being emotionally, psychologically and physically have declined rapidly as of 1st grade after I begged his vp to evaluate him for sped and was told no, he’s passing all his classes. That was a flat out lie.. I moved him to a another elementary, same district and this vp was so sweet and listened, so she did find he was in need of special Ed resources academically and behaviorally, His first grade teacher was already applying alllllll the accommodations he would have gotten under sped and he needed a BIP, but without it, the vp at the school in 1st grade was able to torment my son and lie to me. His first suspension was after she held him in her office for half an hour until he admitted to having urinated on another student “intentionally”, her words and and didn’t explain what it meant. He saw two boys urinting in the same urinal and decided it looked fun and wanted to join in. He accidentally got some on another boy. My son is adhd, autistic and has integrated sensory disorder, which are only a few of his issues, and he is also a mimic and doesn’t understand cause and effect. When he hears and sees things, he will do them in attempts to appear normal. He was only 7 at the time and nothing I said changed the vp’s mind, as she’s been waiting for this day all year and the next day was their field day that he’d been looking forward to for weeks and we already paid for the shirt. I was so glad to be out of there and found out that the principal resigned and the vp was fired at the start of the new year. After that 2nd grade was ok, his grades slipped and his teacher wasn’t really understanding of any of his problems, but then we moved to lewisville Isd and that’s when I started having problems with his schools on a regular basis, everything he did he was punished for, even if caused by his disabilities like not finishing his homework or forgetting things, which he also has a short term memory impairment that’s pretty severe, and he has issues with understanding social norms and interactions. By 4th grade he made his first outcry of wanting to kill himself, I didn’t even know he knew what that was, and then they monitored everything and wasn’t just punished and it is done, no that’s too simple. He spent half the day in the office, had to listen to 6 children all tell him what he’s doing wrong and what he needs to do if he wants them to be friends with him, instigated and led by his vp, then 2 days of iss, loss of his fun Friday in his social skills class and endure the vp making faces and rolling her eyes, in front of, while he’s trying to tell her what happened when 6 kids he was playing with made him be a zombie and chase him, then chasing led to them wrestling and hitting him, but the teacher only saw my son holding the boy down with his arm across his chest as he was taught to do in karate as he was trying to get him to stop kicking him in the stomach, but said he had his hands around his throat. After that incident, he was never the same and it only became far worse, until I brought in the districts sped director who came down on their staff. My son begged me to move him, so I did, but the new school was not for the better and they like the last school followed the model of conditioning used above. He was one of the 5% white students that year and many of the kids didn’t let him forget it and if he even mentioned the word black, as in to say hand me the black folder, some of his classmates would shout out that he was being racist. He made some good friends for the first time there, but the school was atrocious, all cvs that year and a lot of fs, because of abuse by teachers, kids and one of the two vp’s at the school, who was an ass, and completely ignoring hie previous iep and BIP, reducing all his accommodations, assistance and positive reinforcements to next to nothing. FAPE was completely denied. One teacher who taught social studies and writing, both require reading and writing, his greatest learning disabilities, and they were his hardest classes. She was a big woman and I found out she was squeezing his arms as hard as she could Trying to get him up from carpet time, but he wouldn’t do it because he was upset about kids bullying him in front of her and she did nothing and would further embarrassed him in front of the whole class, as well as yelled at him, which causes him to shut down. He had her before lunch and when I got him there were marks and bruises on his arms or I’d see them when he took his uniform off. Administration didn’t tell me anything except they handled the situation. Now this year he was in 6th and it was the year from hell!! The article above thrown in with constant iss for anything they could him on camera doing, even if the kids were playing because of no tolerance policy that states any unwanted touch gets a kid iss. I had to hospitalize him by late January because his depression had gotten so bad he tried to cut his wrist at lunch with a school knife, because some older girl he met on Instagram was a cutter and laid all her problems on him. 3 teachers knew he had tried cutting his wrist and I didn’t find out until later that night by him and I was furious! None of them told the office or sent him to the counselor, which by law they have to, and he had right before Christmas made another suicide outcry because he was being bullied by a spec Ed teacher who made his life hell, 2 of his main teachers and at least 10 students. That wasn’t including the 6 hours of homework every night and the impossible amount of work, being given 2 days to learn and master algebraic equations and chemistry work that is high school level material and to top it off not one of his teachers was following his iep. I have arguments in writing from one and the rest acted like I’d they didn’t reduce his homework, I would have to choose, which doesn’t work, ever and leads to failed tests. This was a very rich school district and they fought me tooth and nail, refusing to give appropriate accommodations, assistive devices, OT and sessions with the school therapist that he’d been recieving up until the last school eliminated all of it and 2 schools in a row conveniently lost and didn’t send all of his records including only partials of his iep and BIP. Even though I provided paper copies. New schooI means we will only give you what already have and only if we have the room and don’t have to hire someone and buy assistive devices like an iPad he was using the last year. I can’t even begin to list all of what he’s endured from treatment in public schools in Texas that are far worse than what is in this article. I have seen the effects on the children this article outlines I’ve seen firsthand the teachers, admin and counselor behavior of working together or if you don’t we will make you quit through bullying, harassment and exclusion, or we will find a way to terminate you for some reason, I’ve seen the 3R system and others almost identical to it in 3 different schools, all in 3 different districts. This activity, system, school environment, this whole process and the results they list, and it is NOT just Austin. I believe the TEA, Texas state educational laws, dictation of mandatory amount of time spent in the classrooms being raised higher and higher till they’ve eliminated, PE, recess and art/music classes, the raised level of material to be learned by kids (like learning algebra, chemistry, writing and history that is high school and some college level in 6th grade!!!!) surpassing their skills and cognitive abilities to understand without having been given the fundamentals, being given only anywhere from 2 to 3 days to learn and master new content way above their mental capacity, ridiculous STARR testing goals and mandatory benchmark testing every few weeks and a few other assessments that stress these kids so much, it’s no wonder so many of them are on depression and anxiety mess. His last school has more special Ed kids than ever had before and they didn’t have enough teachers, aides, time in social skills classes to work one on one, a qualified sped teacher that had experience and no resources in class, just cookie cutter policies and ieps, but they did pass a 500 million dollar bond that has absolutely NO application to educational needs, but were rather for new walking tracks at all the schools and an indoor pool for the parents, pretty much is all for the parents, but nothing for the special education dept that is bs in a rich school district, or any help or resources to any of the kids that’s educational. So now I will attempt to homeschool my son or find a charter school for children with special needs, rather than spend money I don’t have for an attorney, and will attempt to find a job that I can do at home part time because I’m a single mom with no support. Thank you Texas for making it damn near impossible for parents and children when it comes to your education options.