Deep Brain Learning: Pathways to Potential with Challenging Youth

Deep Brain Learning: Pathways to Potential with Challenging Youth is an educator's guide seeking to reveal and share universally successful principles for teaching and helping children and youth, particularly those individuals who are troubled or pose particular challenges. Chapters draw upon the latest cutting-edge research on how the human brain and hormones work, and seek to apply this knowledge to matters concerning the development of children's social skills as well as their academic capabilities. A solid resource written by educators, for educators, in the hope of offering useful general principles that can be adopted into specific strategies to meet the needs of those children who need help the most, Deep Brain Learning deserves the highest possible recommendation and is an absolute "must-have" for teachers everywhere.

In the Introduction we read 'A century ago Ellen Key noted that enduring truths must be rediscovered by each new generation. Few are aware of the rich tradition of ideas put forth by early leaders in work with children in conflict. Nor are they able to sort out truth from trivia in the gut of publications that can even overwhelm the most serious scholar. More research does not necessarily lead to more truth. In 1800, there were but 1000 persons in the world who might be considered scientists.Two centuries later, millions are churning out mountains of research reports. Most are wrong, and even studies that are technically accurate seldom apply to real-world problems. It may help to get our bearings by revisiting enduring truth put forth by the earliest pioneers in this field. The first widely circulated scientific reports of work with troubled children date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Most prominent are the writings of Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi and French physician Jean Marc Itard.' Itard is of interest to me since he wrote The Wild Boy of Averyon, which was about a young child who had been dumped in the French Alps area and left to fend for himself. But Itard rescued him and with time, love and patience the boy learned to trust Itard, and as this book notes it may be the first example of an autistic child. Also found the authors discussion of Macho thinking in various cultures really interesting. Like the Aka tribe in central Africa where the authors note, father spend nearly half the day holding or within arms reach to infants. Where violence or corporal punishments so rare that if one parent should hit the infant its just cause of the other parent to seek a divorce. The role parents play in a child's life is discussed fully. Even if you aren't a professional dealing with children and youth, this book has profound value. I recommend it fully.

I had no idea before picking up this book that psychologists had offered so many brilliant observations about teenagers as long as 200 years ago. But they did, and I am extremely grateful to Larry Brendtro and his colleagues for reproducing those observations here --- along with stinging criticisms of the psychological and educational communities today that so often dominate work with troubled teenagers. The authors begin by citing Swiss educator Jonathan Pestalozzi, who in 1801 "created a stir across Europe" by demonstrating how to reclaim "cast-off children" orphaned by the Napoleonic wars --- and Jean Marc Itard, whose Wild Boy of Averyon, published the same year, recounted his rescue of a psychically abused youth abandoned to forage in the woods due to his complete language deficit, most probably the earliest documented case of autism. Both concluded that love, trust and gratitude "provided the key to success with challenging children." The book then continues to describe the ways in which modern psychology and psychiatry has obfuscated what should be the main purpose of working with such children --- healing, and helping them to resolve, their pain. Some years ago, I read Charles Appelstein's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid! Today, upon reading this work, I learned that the idea Appelstein outlines so well originated 96 years ago in the Creed of Starr Commonwealth, a non-profit organization working ever since with troubled youths. This book notes that often, even the diagnoses given to these kids carry negative connotations --- implying subtly (or not so subtly) that they're irreparable. That, however, is not in fact the case. The bottom line is that teachers, and schools, psychologists, doctors and all others working with children should never give up on them. There are, as this book suggests, "pathways to potential" for all emotionally challenged kids, whose behaviors are generally a reflection only of pain, not of "badness." And to struggling parents, the message here is one of strength. Do not give up hope. Never, Never give up hope. --Alyssa A. Lappen

Chapter 8 focuses on 25 principles that lead to transformational change in children, and the findings are essential to all those trying to understand at-risk, traumatized and challenged youth. I also like how the book incorporates not just clinical research and science, but real stories from real youth. When trying to determine what's best for children, we too often neglect to ask them first. The authors have blended their years of practical experience with neuroscience and anecdotal evidence to create solutions toward lasting positive change and growth. I highly recommend this book for all who work with youth in any setting - residential, outpatient, schools, therapy, etc.