David R. Cross, Ph.D. One of the campers who attended our summer camp, The Hope Connection, in the early 2000s was a lovely thirteen-year-old who had been adopted from an institution in Eastern Europe. She had been a sexual pet for the workers there and bore the deep emotional scars of chronic maltreatment. During the[…]
Schools that Matter™ Steve Van Bockern, EdD Let us put our minds together to see what kind of life we can build for our children. ~Lakota leader, Sitting Bull Many of us in the United States wonder what kind of life the new administration will build for our children. During the contentious 2016 Presidential campaign, education[…]
Thirteen-year-old Jimmy is a small, intelligent, and emotionally immature student in an alternative school program. He was the reason that I was asked to provide consultation to the staff and administrators in the school. With his constant verbal disruptions, threats to other students, and physical acting out, there were concerns that he may not be[…]
Research Jottings by Larry K. Brendtro, PhD We have become strangers to each other, not only avoiding but even warding off all forms of “unnecessary” physical contact, faceless figures in a crowded landscape, lonely and afraid of intimacy.[1] —Ashley Montagu As a teenager, Jabari risked his life, unaccompanied, to escape war-torn Africa to the United[…]
by Larry K. Brendtro The leading pioneer in research on developmental needs was Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Ironically, as a youth, he was deprived of positive support from his own parents, peers, and teachers. His father Samuel escaped from an unhappy home in Russia by sailing alone to America when only fourteen. Becoming a barrel maker[…]