The New School Nurse Is Nurse Ratched

theodp writes "In Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nurse Ratched maintained order in the mental institution by dispensing antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs to the patients. Fifty years later, the NY Times reports that some physicians are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money, not to treat ADHD, necessarily, but to boost their academic performance. 'We as a society have been unwilling to invest in very effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for these children and their families,' said Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, an expert in prescription drug use among low-income children. 'We are effectively forcing local community psychiatrists to use the only tool at their disposal, which is psychotropic medications.'"

Comments

We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[ohnocitizen]

We've gotten to a sick point as a society. We know what works when it comes to education, it is no great mystery. Smaller classes, highly qualified and motivated teachers, involved parents. Instruction that imparts a love of learning and cultivates the desire to investigate the world around us.

Instead of providing this, we drain schools of funding and treat teachers with hatred and distrust. Students in low income schools are subjected to draconian learning environments where their future is ruled by testable metrics and a discipline fetish.

So doctors - despite knowing the significant risks of drugs that alter brain chemistry (especially with children) - are using their own tools to step in and help. Either they are way out of line, or they have hit the nail on the head by classifying academic performance as central to a child's long term health. Either way: they wouldn't be in this mess if we just invested in schools with a fraction of the enthusiasm with which we invest in bailing out banks and fighting wars.

Re:We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Smaller classes, highly qualified and motivated teachers, involved parents.

And community values.

Ever wonder why Asian stiudents, no matter where they go to school, excel at academics while their American counter parts don't do as well?

Community values which includes lots of parental encouragement - not all good admittedly.

Asians as a whole value academics above sports and other activities.

We Americans value the football hero, the entertainer, and the bling and superficial.

Re:We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it's a money pit. We're spending $526 billion on primary education. Fire the administrators. Double the teaching staff. Eliminate tenure.

Re:We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[ColdWetDog]

You are over generalizing (on Slashdot? The Horror) and mixing up symptom and cause.

One of the several root causes for academic failure is social failure. The vast majority of human children need a consistent, controlled and supportive environment if they are to get as much as possible out of schooling. Chaos doesn't work well for most. Since we've not done such a good job with the society at large, especially for economically disadvantaged people, we now try to take it out on the schools which are forced to be in loco parentis for a while. That hasn't been working out well either.

So we turn to drugs. Simple. Easy. Better living through chemistry and all that.

Ought to be an interesting experiment.

If I were the DEA or persons of similar persuasion, I would be shaking in my combat boots. Another generation even more attuned to psychotropic medication than the last couple of generations - who were doing pretty good with just amateur status. How are you going to get these kids to try to make the artificial distinction between 'good' and 'bad' drugs. Especially since a lot of these are pretty 'bad' drugs - they can make you feel crummy, they have significant side effects. They work in the brain (natch) so somebody is going to actually like the way they make you feel and want to buy them off of you. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

(Complacently sips caffeinated beverage).

Re:We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

But as an Actual Asian Person, there's more to this story than that. Hang around Canal St. in New York sometime. Not all Asians have that hard grit academic drive.

What happened was, a lot of Asian American families are first or second generation immigrants who were already successful and higher status. So they had the strict Asian upbringing AND the tools to enable the hard work ethic.

It's a complicated matter, and I think you're grossly simplifying the scenario here.

Re:We've Given Up on Poor Kids

[colinrichardday]

If I were the DEA or persons of similar persuasion, I would be shaking in my combat boots.

What's in it for the DEA to actually end the use of illegal drugs?

Ever notice the drug commercials...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice the drug commercials? None of them address the underlying cause -- they address only the symptoms.

* Your dick doesn't work: Don't get exercise that could actually improve your blood flow. Don't eat right. Take this ridiculously expensive pill. Notice the age of the men on these commercials has dropped from what once was older mean, now the guys could be in their late 30s. WTF?

* Your cholesterol is thru the roof: Don't cut out fatty foods and fried goodies. Don't get exercise. Take this pill that has more side effects that the black plague.

It's all about the money -- and it should be illegal. America hates drugs? Start with big pharma. They kill more people every year than illegal drugs.

If I had my way, I would dictate all pharm companies become non-profit. All money goes to R&D and moderate salaries. Then and only then would the research perhaps be about people and not profit.

These commercials now about one kid in 110 being autistic. No fracking way is this possible. ADHD? Same thing. When I was a kid back in the 70s, kids were hyper. It's normal. Now? Drug the poor things until they comply. People think a pill can solve anything. Want to lose weight? Take in fewer calories than you burn. Make sure those calories are good calories like fruits, veggies, lean meats like fish, turkey. Actually exercise. Almost no one was fat when I was a kid. Fat people were rare. Now? Almost 40% of Americans are considered fat. Why? The crap that passes for our food should be illegal. We need to become like Europe and ban all the junk. When it's about profit, the people get screwed. What's next? Soylent Green?

THX1138

[kurt555gs]

Really! They made a movie about this.

You're looking at the very rich

[rsilvergun]

most Asian parents work. A lot. 6, 13 hour days is standard fare. I always here Asian parents trotted out as the example, but fact is there's no way to work those kind of hours and raise a kid. How do the majority do it? They let the government, specifically school teachers, who take a MUCH more active role in the students' life.

As for Asians valuing eduction, that's because in most places it's a dog eat dog hell hole due to their surplus population (that's surplus, no over, population. Over pop means there's not enough, surplus means there's enough to abuse). Americans value those things not because of a weak culture but because we're wealthy enough we can.
Put another way, I'm sick and tired of this weird cult of frantic, desperate, dog-eat dog work. The puritan work ethic is a scam that the Romney's of the world use to make excuses for their grotesque wealth.