Drugging kids and school violence

Believe it or not, there are now over 5 million school kids in
America on psychotropic drugs, most of which are prescribed and
administered by the schools themselves. That's the report we get from
Kelly O'Meara, writing in Insight magazine on June 28. In addition,
according to Teacher Magazine of December 1996, there are four million
kids on Ritalin alone, one of the most powerful of the drugs now being
given routinely to children in American schools.

What is most disturbing, however, is the growing awareness that the
increased violence among school children may have more to do with the
drugs than with the guns they use to carry out their violence. Yet,
neither the president nor the Congress have addressed this aspect of the
problem. Instead of going after the manufacturers of guns, why don't
they go after the manufacturers of the drugs that are more than likely
causing violent behavior among children?

We know, for example, that Eric Harris, 18, who, with his friend
Dylan Klebold, murdered his fellow students at Columbine, had been
taking Luvox, one of the new antidepressant drugs approved in 1997 by
the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of obsessive-compulsive
disorder, or OCD, among children under 18.

We also know that T. J. Solomon, 15, who shot and wounded six
classmates at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., on May 20 was on
Ritalin for depression. Shawn Cooper, 15, who fired two shotgun rounds,
narrowly missing students and teachers at his high school in Notus,
Idaho, was also on Ritalin, for bipolar disorder.

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Kip Kinkel, 15, was on Ritalin and Prozac. He murdered his parents
and then went on to school where he fired on students in the cafeteria,
killing two and wounding 22. Also, we know that Mitchell Johnson, the
13-year-old student at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., who
mowed down several children and a teacher with his friend Andrew Golden,
11, was on some sort of medication since he was being treated by a
psychiatrist.

It is not easy getting medical information about these killers,
finding out what drugs they've been taking. In fact, it is virtually
impossible to find out what long-range effects Ritalin has had on the
millions of children who were taking it over a period of years. Ritalin
has been with us since 1955, when the FDA first approved it. It is now
used most commonly to treat a disorder known as ADD (Attention Deficit
Disorder) or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder).

What are the symptoms of this disorder that has afflicted millions of
American children? According to a Time cover story in July 1994, "ADHD
has three main hallmarks: extreme distractibility, and almost reckless
impulsiveness and, in some but not all cases, knee-jiggling, toe-tapping
hyperactivity that makes sitting still all but impossible." Ritalin is
supposed to alleviate the symptoms. It does not cure the disorder.

Indeed, according to Business Week (June 6, 1994), ADHD is "an
often-hereditary biochemical condition." And the Ladies Home Journal of
September 1993 reported that ADHD is "a neuro-chemical disorder in the
areas of the brain that regulate attention" as well as "a lifelong,
genetically based affliction."

Drs. Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey, authors of "Driven to
Distraction," write, "ADD lives in the biology of the brain and the
central nervous system. The exact mechanism underlying ADD remains
unknown." In other words, we are dealing with a neurological enigma
wrapped in a biological mystery. But is it possible that there is a
much simpler explanation for ADD, one that would put a lot of doctors
and drug manufacturers out of business? Indeed, is it not possible that
the school atmosphere itself is causing the extreme distractibility and
impulsive behavior that are the major symptoms of ADD?

Believe it or not, there was no such thing as ADD or ADHD when I was
going to school back in the 1930s and '40s. In fact, you couldn't
possibly have Attention Deficit Disorder in the kind of classrooms I was
in. First of all, all of the desks and seats were bolted to the floor.
You couldn't move them. Also, the walls were generally bare. Maybe a
picture of George Washington, or a map. Otherwise there was nothing on
the walls to distract anyone. The room was as clean and orderly as a
pin.

The room was also silent. You were not permitted to talk to your
fellow classmates during class. The teacher was the focus of
attention. She sat at her desk in front of the class and exercised a
benign, no-nonsense discipline on all of us. She taught us all the same
thing, from the blackboard or a textbook, and she used rational methods
of teaching, methods that had been proven over the centuries to produce
academic results. Our teachers were not interested in our feelings or
our sexuality or trying to change our values. Their concern was purely
academic, and we all knew that.

Thus, there was no ADD. Any impulsive behavior would have landed you
in the principal's office. But now, let's fast forward to 1999 and
enter a typical first-grade classroom in today's public school. The
kids are no longer seated in rows in desks bolted to the floor. They
are now seated around tables, interacting with each other, pestering
each other, chatting, interrupting. Each child is doing something
different. One may be writing, another reading, another drawing. One
child may be under a table reading a book; another may be sprawled on
the floor drawing a large picture. Several children may be working on a
project.

The walls are now covered with every conceivable kind of distraction:
dinosaurs, Mickey Mouse, bulletin boards, pictures of animals, travel
posters, you name it. Then there are fish tanks, gerbils, and rabbits
to grab one's attention. Mobiles hang from the ceiling, swaying in the
breeze. Anything and everything that could possibly distract a child is
there.

The teacher, of course, is no longer the focus of attention. She is
now a facilitator who wanders around the room, helping one child here,
chatting with another there. She is also using the most irrational
teaching methods ever devised by so-called educators: whole language,
invented spelling, the new new math, plus sensitivity training, values
clarification, transcendental meditation, cooperative learning, death
ed., sex ed., suicide ed. She's very much interested in your feelings,
your sexuality, your family, your thoughts about death, suicide,
abortion, feminism, homophobia, the environment, global warming, and
world citizenship. She is also practicing psychiatry without a license.

Is it any wonder that so many children suffer the equivalent of a
cognitive breakdown in American schools? The entire school
configuration is designed to cause distraction, inattention,
frustration, impulsiveness, hatred, anger, and violence. And the only
way that many children can be forced to endure that atmosphere is by
drugging them.

Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education,
including "NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education." His books are
available on Amazon.com.