Content Index

Since school is likely to be the first and most powerful socializing environment outside of the home that children in this society will face, it seems incomprehensible that more effort is not made in helping children with the adjustments that they need to make. Instead, the teaching and administrative staff tend to view the children who fail to adjust as ‘interlopers’, who need to be removed as quickly as possible so that the rest of the children can achieve academically.

This is an article about assessment. It is built upon three concepts: 1) that interactions between people create thoughts in the other person which may be helpful and/or harmful; 2) that this interrelatedness extends to all of the people who regularly populate an individual’s ecosystem; and 3) that these regular participants need to take responsibility for the whole, not simply draw attention to a part. These concepts might suggest that referral and assessment for professional clinical services may be ‘toxic’ as presently implemented.

The question of ethics in human services is unfortunately not always a priority consideration for the people involved. We cannot have failed our children so consistently over such a long period of time, and have considered very seriously or deeply the ethics of what we are doing. This article does not presume to present all of the ethical issues which might be considered in human services, but hopes to highlight the need for thought about ethics and how our decisions conscious or nonconscious impact our expectations, implementations and outcomes.

Social education is defined as learning the skills, techniques and competencies that enable one to form mutually satisfying and gratifying relationships. While it is true that “individuals with a wide range of physical, mental and behavioral differences – people with disabilities or unusual sexual preferences, criminals, substance abusers – regularly form close relationships with typical people”, it is also true that children with externalizing antisocial behaviors often find such relations to be the exception rather than the rule. Often rejected by their typical peers, they form relations with deviant peers who support and maintain the antisocial behaviors. In the process, the socialization process is skewed, since the opportunities for peer conformance experiences are limited.

Having read the report: The Current Status of Mental Health in Schools: A policy and Practice Analysis (3/2006), I find it difficult not to express concerns. The Center for Mental Health in Schools, authors of the report are good, caring and bright people. However, their thinking flawed, distorted by their perspective – and this is epitomized by it very name of the organization. The term ‘mental health’ is a euphemism that is a cohort of the euphemism ‘mental illness’.

Discipline has to do with standards, rather than simply procedures. Behavioral standards exist in any continuing social relationship. Appropriate behavior is a result of awareness of such standards, or in other words, the result of social consciousness. The objective of good discipline is to increase self-responsibility, social awareness and social responsibility.

The harmful effects of medical model interventions are significant and far outweigh any benefits such interventions may have. This is not simple opinion, but has been consistently documented by the failures of the last fifty years. Further, any study designed to specifically test this observation will verify these facts.