Should we be giving children Ritalin 02 09 2012

Should we be giving children Ritalin? 02 09 2012

That was a topic on a message board so I decided to write about it from the point of view of my unique perspective.

Ritalin is indeed speed.  A street drug!  You cannot tell me that the drug companies did not look at speed and say how can we develop a market for this?  It appears to be reasonably safe, how can we sell this?

I believe that every child has the potential to have that moment in their life when they first learn how to concentrate think and learn for themselves.  That is how we should be spending our resources- how to unlock their potential earlier in life.  How to reach every child at an early age and foster this thinking for themselves.

We should not be giving them a crutch or depriving them from reaching this point in their lives by themselves.  They will bear that crutch all their lives. 

Should a teacher positively reinforce a student that is not at the head of the class when they learn something?  I believe this is true.  Also because not all students catch on at the same time a teacher should reinforce the skills a student has developed that are not directly academic.  Why?  Because that child has developed the foundation of art in its life!  And with that foundation the academic principals can be applied to that stream of skill or learning.  Indeed that child has a stronger basis in life than pure academic learning.  To put a child like that on Ritalin is a crime. A foundation of art in life is something that the purely academic child will never attain and will be jealous of in the child who does not show academic talent.  Later in life the pure academics covet the foundation of art more than anything else.  It is also another little known truth that those who are straight A students in academics are indeed dependent minded to another child in class.  I am not going to get into the aspect of distraction learning by the pure academics in life because I have written about this before- other than to say the dependent minded should not assume to be something they know they are truly not later in life.  In other words, we find out that later in life, a dependent minded person never really learned anything!  Why not because they do not embody the working knowledge in practice of such learning independent of the independent minded.

Now I cannot tell you how to get unruly children to behave in class and sit still and not bully others.  If a child is hurting others and a nun smacks that child it would seem about even.  If child is hurting others at the nun’s direction then we have the basis for the unwinding of society.

My point is why reward or try and develop the unruly child at all?  Why not just let them sit on the bench instead of being allowed to sit in class!  For what have we today?  Those who sat on the bench in sports are sitting on the bench in terms of who is in power in our country today!

Just look at the economics of it?  Million dollar athletes?  The middle class becoming poor?  It makes no sense.

Those children who do not do well in class need to experience that breakthrough moment of learning for themselves.  The great truth of the world that is never told is that many bullies and those good in athletics are indeed dependent minded to those who sit on the sports bench!  Why should the dependent minded be rewarded at the expense of the independent minded and indeed at the expense of freedom and democracy?  It is the worst impediment to health and progress we have ever known.  This is the evil undercurrent that was eroded our great nation.

You can’t push learning.  You can’t push drugs.  What you can do is create a pleasant environment conducive to learning by all.  And you can’t reform a bully child at any point in their life when they behave exactly like their parents do!

What do you do then?  Can you sit down with the parents and say, “Your child is an evil brat who terrorizes others.   He does not belong in this school and nor does he belong in any school you could pay to put him in- in this country!”   

The George Bush agenda was to assuage such children and give them preferential treatment at the expense of the fabric of our country.  No child left behind?  You have to be kidding me- most adult Republicans are still children and have the minds of children!!!

Any time a Republican voice’s a policy or the brief mention of a policy use these terms to ask yourself what is truly behind it.  You won’t be very far off at all.  You won’t be left behind.

Thomas Paul Murphy

Copyright 2012 Thomas Paul Murphy

Originally published on 02 09 2012 at: www.themilwaukeeandwisconsinnews.blogspot.com