Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable no-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed [Hardcover]

Chris Mercogliano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2004

We’ve all read the stories about medicating hyperactive (ADHD) kids. The controversy shows no signs of ending, as parents and doctors debate the merits of diagnosing and medicating children at younger and younger ages. Chris Mercogliano has a strong opinion on the matter, and he enters the debate as an educator. In Teaching the Restless, Mercogliano issues an urgent call for a shift in how our society perceives hyperactive children—away from theories of faulty brain chemistry and toward an understanding of children’s lives.

Mercogliano codirects the Albany Free School in Albany, New York. There, he and his faculty have developed numerous ways to help hyperactive children relax, focus, modulate emotional expression, make responsible choices, and forge lasting friendships—all prerequisites for learning—without assigning pathological labels to the children or resorting to the use of biopsychiatric drugs.

Teaching the Restless profiles a handful of Free School students, six boys and three girls. All were either labeled and drugged in their previous schools, or would have been had they not thrown in their lot with the Free School. While in Mercogliano’s mind there is no such thing as a “typical” child, these nine kids represent the legions of children across the country—estimates currently run as high as 6 million—that have been diagnosed with learning and behavioral disorders and prescribed corresponding drugs.

Speaking both to parents who worry that their kids cannot attend classes without drugs and to educators who wonder how to best teach these hyperactive kids, Teaching the Restless should bring new hope into an overcharged debate.

“TEACHING THE RESTLESS is a very important book for our time. That we continue to prescribe drugs to our children in such massive numbers is appalling. There are no historical precendents for a society perpetrating such a travesty on its offspring. Chris Mercogliano deserves a medal for his courage and insight, as well as his years of hard work on behalf of America’s children.”

—Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of MAGICAL CHILD

“Take a ride with master teacher Chris Mercogliano as he writes his way straight into your heart. This powerful tale reflects his work as a master educator and writer and gives us an up-close look at what is possible for America’s school children when we choose not to drug them into silence. The Albany Free School is a hermitage for children, a model to the nation of how a school environment built on love, honor, respect, and responsibility can effect profound changes in kids’ lives.”

—Yehudah Fine, family therapist and author of TIMES SQUARE RABBI: FINDING THE HOPE IN LOST KIDS’ LIVES

“TEACHING THE RESTLESS is a finely crafted moral commentary on a society that would rather “tranquilize our children than create a more tranquil world for them to grow up in.” Chris Mercogliano is a gifted writer as well as a superb observer of children’s lives. Here, he offers a rich blend of insights and observations based on his own extensive teaching experience. His stories of real kids struggling against the cultural constraints on their lives, including inappropriate labeling and drugging, are deeply moving and convincing.”

—Ron Miller, executive editor, Paths of Learning magazine, educational historian, author of WHAT ARE SCHOOLS FOR?

“God bless Chris Mercogliano. He has turned his lifelong commitment to the creation of free learning communities for children and families toward a passionate defense against the oppression of children by psychiatry and the schools. May his longstanding drug-free school zone in Albany extend throughout our country and the world.”

—John Breeding, clinical psychologist, author of THE WILDEST COLTS MAKE THE BEST HORSES

“A wonderful contribution to the growing literature on the sad practice of labeling and drugging America’s “free spirits.” Chris Mercogliano sees past the scientific jargon and deficit-rridden orientation of the ADD/ADHD paradigm, and reveals with great humanistic sensibility the passionate worlds of active kids who don't fit into the tight little boxes of most American classrooms.”

—Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., author of THE MYTH OF THE A.D.D. CHILD

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mercogliano (Making It Up As We Go Along) has 30 years of experience in a "privately funded, freedom-based inner-city" alternative school for children ages two to 14 in Albany, N.Y. Half of the 50 students have had behavioral problems in their previous schools, for which medications such as Ritalin have been prescribed or recommended. The Free School doesn't use drugs, asserting that every child is unique, and that the school must be run as a true community with the emotional health not the test scores of each child paramount. At the Free School, children choose what they want to learn and where in the school to spend their time. Freedom works: "kids learn faster and more easily when the motivation comes from inside them [and] behave better when they are expected to be responsible for themselves and for each other." This is especially true for children with a history of oppositional behavior. When a child disrupts a class or disrespects another student, anyone in the school community can convene a "Council Meeting" of the entire school to handle the problem. While teachers, parents and professionals work surreptitiously to address more fundamental problems e.g., absent parents, harsh disciplinary styles at home, etc. the school community teaches children that behavior has very real consequences. This laid-back approach to academics, where teachers wait for the right "mental weather" rather than push children to read or do math before they're ready, may be hard for some parents to accept, but Mercogliano makes a strong case against medicating these children into submission.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This book takes the controversial stance that medication is not necessarily the proper treatment for children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD). The author, an elementary-school teacher, is very clear about his own point of view: "Many of the children in this country labeled with ADHD have nothing wrong with them at all." Most cases of ADHD, Mercogliano notes, are diagnosed in schools, not doctors' offices, and most of those cases, he believes, are misdiagnosed. Taking his own school (the Albany Free School) as an example, Mercogliano focuses on several children who displayed behavior typically diagnosed as ADHD. These informal case studies support his contention that a healthy, supportive, challenging school environment--and plenty of patience--is all it takes to modify the behavior of students with ADHD-like symptoms. For readers who question the ever-increasing prevalence of ADHD diagnoses, the book will come as a validation of their own trepidations. For supporters of biopsychiatric medications like Ritalin, it's sure to be viewed as irresponsible and unfounded. A recommended purchase for libraries attempting to represent both sides of a controversial issue. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; 1 edition (January 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807032468
• ISBN-13: 978-0807032466
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad Science & Bad Logic with a Touch of Guilt, January 21, 2010

By 

Wendy E. Stallings "ummjasper" (Silver Spring, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable No-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed (Paperback)

Teaching the Restless tells about a wonderful school that offers an alternative to traditional education for ADHD kids, or Ritalin kids as the author calls them. The author, Chris Mercogliano, uses anecdotes about how his school is able to rescue individual children from their fate of being labeled ADHD and medicated in order to make them fit into a "normal" school. No matter what the cause of ADHD, I was thrilled to read that medication is not the only answer. The problem with this book is that Mr. Mercogliano doesn't just want to leave it at that. He also wants to tell us what causes (or doesn't cause) ADHD. His stance is that ADHD is not a true biochemical disorder and doesn't exist. Unfortunately, Mr. Mercogliano is neither a doctor nor a scientist and seems to want to ignore a growing body of scientific work that shows a strong genetic component to ADHD, and for many ADHD kids, a definite difference in their brain physiology and function. Instead, he continually emphasizes that each kid he "saves" comes from an unstable background which must have contributed to their restlessness. He trots out studies of dubious statistical significance that show that ADHD-like behaviors can be caused by poor mothering during infancy and beyond. In other words, he wants to go back to the "Refrigerator Mom" theory to explain aberrant behavior in children. Children who aren't breastfed apparently are at risk for being diagnosed with ADHD, as are those who watch a lot of TV. And woe to those moms who go back to work and submit their children to daycare too early. They are dooming their children to ADHD, too. But moms aren't solely to blame. There's plenty of guilt leftover for dads if you read further into the book.

I read this book because I have a son who struggles mightily to cope with the environment of a traditional school (not the academics - he's way ahead in reading and math). I would love to have access to a school like the Free School (which is not free) and I'd desperately like to educate my son without the use of Ritalin. But I wonder how Mr. Mercogliano would explain the ADHD behavior of a kid like my son. My "Ritalin" child refutes every theory proposed by the author as to what causes ADHD. My son comes from an intact, peaceful family; he suffered no trauma as an infant and was breastfed (for a year) and nurtured by a stay-at-home mom. He has always been well-cared for by two affectionate, present parents. We are neither overly controlling nor negligent pushovers. He has never watched more than a tiny amount of TV. From the time he could walk, we spent almost every day out somewhere, engaging in active play, getting exercise and experiencing the world of nature and culture. We have a second child raised in the exact same environment that shows no signs of ADHD or any other brain difference. My son was clearly restless from birth and his symptoms are clearly not a product of his upbringing. Mr. Mercogliano completely ignores any mention of children like my son, who don't fit his theories and for whom ADHD is mostly certainly a biochemical, genetic-based condition.

Mr. Mercogliano's last chapter, "Conclusion", is especially weak. Although his book was published in 2003, he sites findings from a 1998 NIH conference to back up his views. Essentially, he was not even using the most recent scientific data available at the time the book was published. Now it is 2010. In terms of brain research 1998 was eons ago. I would not trust any book on the subject unless it was written in the last few years. Mr. Mercogliano is proud to make his bias clear, but why does Mr. Mercogliano even stray into this territory to begin with? As a reader, if I were looking for information about the root causes of ADHD, I would much prefer a book that uses up-to-date scientific studies and does a more thorough job of researching the issue of whether ADHD is a valid medical diagnosis. If you want a well-balanced treatment of that subject, go find a better book. It should not have been included in this book. Mr. Mercogliano seems to think that stating his bias outright makes him more convincing. I think it better to get an unbiased overview and form my own opinion.

In any case, the label "ADHD", like Autism Spectrum Disorder, is sometimes used as shorthand for a collection of behaviors and symptoms. Mr. Mercogliano speaks the truth in saying that for many children who exhibit behaviors on the list, the cause may very well be the instability of their lives. But it is ludicrous to apply that to all children who exhibit these behaviors. ADHD, like depression, is not a disease in the sense of having one agent that causes it. Like depression, for some people the cause may be life events, whereas for others, the cause may be biochemical in nature. And like depression, some may respond to alternative therapies while others benefit solely from medication. And yes, for some, medication may not be appropriate at all. Most psychiatrists and neurologists will also tell you that a child who does not truly have ADHD (in the biochemical sense) will become worse, not better, when put on Ritalin. In a way, Mr. Mercogliano is correct in rejecting the ADHD label applied to the children he describes in his book, mainly because all of the children he describes are most likely emotionally disturbed, not ADHD, kids.

Whether ADHD is a biomedical condition or not is really irrelevant to the question of how we educate these children. All children deserve an education tailored to their individual needs, if only the resources were available for that. Sadly, the Free School is actually an exclusive school with a waiting list. It also reserves the right to expel students that it cannot handle. In chapter eight, we learn that one young subject, Damian, continues to be out of control to the point where the author wonders, "Do we continue trying to rein him in, or do we send him back to the kind of regulated, highly supervised environment from whence he came?" In other words, if your child's behavior is too challenging, the Free School has the right to give up on him and boot him out. Unfortunately, public schools do not. Mr. Mercogliano fails to address what happens to children who do not respond to the Free School's methods, or, for that matter, children who clearly cannot control their impulses no matter what the teaching methods.

In any case, ADHD is about brain immaturity. No matter what the reasons are for ADHD, Teaching the Restless is right on the money about not forcing children to learn academics before they are mature enough to handle it. Children who learn differently should have choices beyond the traditional school model. Mr. Mercogliano should have stuck to that theme.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very interesting read, February 27, 2005

By 

HP Fan (Columbus, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable no-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed (Hardcover)

I found this book to be a very compelling read. The author makes his case for not medicating kids through personal stories of several students at his school as well as siting some scientific research. He also gives his opinions, and clearly labels them as so. This book is not a how-to book to turn to if you are the parent or teacher of a restless child. However, it is a book that will give some insights surrounding the larger pictures of how we as a society educate some of our more difficult children.

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartwarming, October 22, 2008

By 

Sharon E. Forsmo "Art Instructor" (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable No-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed (Paperback)

This is a heart warming book. The author recounts the year with children at the Freedom School in a manner that is insightful and deeply moving. I could picture the children in my head. Teachers and parents will both benefit from this truly beautiful book, the dedication and patience of the teachers at the school, and also the struggles of both parents and students from the urban environment the school is located in. When I finished the book I was sad to let go of the children and their stories, and could not shake the nagging question, "if it works in a place like this, why not everywhere?" You may ask yourself the same thing.