Our "Turkey" of the month column, as you may recall from reading last month's issue, is reserved for words and phrases that have been invented to conceal or disguise a particular situation or condition. This month, we have some real gobblers! This month's turkeys are the "diagnostic" terms used by educators and school officials to conceal both the fact that schools are unhealthy and destructive places for children, and that children naturally resist being harmed. For example, children who resist being harmed have been labeled as inattentive, hyperactive, distracted, unmotivated, disruptive, disinterested and uncooperative-just to name a few.

Educators who use these terms refuse to see that they are asking children to sit passively in hard wooden chairs all day long, without relating or socializing in any natural way. They are demanding that children forego all their own natural interests, feelings, needs and wants in order to memorize subjects that have been ripped out of context and have no meaning in the children's lives. And if this were not reason enough to resist, educators demand all of this in an environment of extreme psychological duress, where children live in constant fear of punishment and public humiliation. Under these conditions, any normal, healthy adult would quickly become hyperactive, uncooperative, unmotivated, inattentive, distracted, disruptive, disinterested and maybe even violent. Yet, when children respond in a similarly healthy manner, they become "discipline problems" who require some form of "special attention."

Some children have been labeled as "learning disabled," "perceptually handicapped" or "learning impaired." These labels are used by educators to conceal the fact that young children between four and eight years of age, and sometimes older, are not ready for the kind of mental activity that is being forced on them in the classroom. Most children do not develop the mental apparatus required to engage in the mental activity of subjects such as reading, writing and math until they are at least eight-anda-half years old, or can tell time and responsibly handle a book of matches. It is obviously possible to force children to do mental things before they are ready, but this is never accomplished without permanent harm to the child.

Most children who are diagnosed as "learning disabled" are not disabled, impaired or handicapped in any way. They are not suffering from a neurological dysfunction or a physiological dysfunction of any kind. They are just too young to engage in the kinds of mental activity being forced upon them. These children are no more disabled than a three-month-old infant who cannot walk because he or she has not had time to develop the physical and mental apparatus required for walking. It is very interesting to see how many children in American society suddenly became "learning disabled" at the exact same time that the federal government decided to grant special funding to school systems to be used for "learning disabled" children. It is also interesting to note how many of these "learning disabled" or "learning impaired" children miraculously outgrow these problems after the age of eight or nine when their mental systems have had time to develop properly.

All healthy children naturally resist going to school. The kindergarten and first grade teachers are assigned the task of breaking down the children's resistance to the system. Teachers accomplish this through the use of psychological intimidation and public humiliation. In effect, children are given the choice of being mentally destroyed by engaging in mental activities before their mental systems are sufficiently developed or of being publicly humiliated. Most children choose to be destroyed because they are too vulnerable to withstand the public humiliation.

This system is not perfect, however, and a few brave, determined children always slip through and refuse to submit to the destruction. They are the children who refuse to stop struggling for their survival. These children know that they are being choked and are willing to fight to their last dying breath.

Educators call them underachievers, daydreamers, disabled, disinterested, distracted, uncooperative, unmotivated and hyperactive as a way of identifying the fact that these children are still struggling for their survival. Educators and school officials then employ various techniques in an attempt to force these children into submission. Some children are sent for psychological evaluation and counseling to see if they can be talked into submission by the school psychologist. Some children are medicated into submission with dangerous drugs such as ritalin, a solution that is becoming increasingly popular among American school officials because it requires so little effort, and the medicated child has no choice but to submit.

Some teachers and school officials try to get these children to submit by involving the parents. Their idea is that if the parents and teachers can gang up an the child and withdraw all adult support, the child will have to submit to mental destruction just for his or her own survival. Other teachers believe that, sooner or later, with enough psychological intimidation and public humiliation, any child can be forced into submission. These teachers single out the children who have refused to submit, and make it a point to humiliate them and berate them every day before the entire class. Day after day, year after year, these teachers work at breaking down the discipline problems, the underachievers, the disinterested and distracted children. Often, their efforts do not succeed at forcing these children into submission, although they are able to inflict permanent psychological harm on these children and every other child in the class who has sat in observation of this daily psychological torture.

It should be noted that when teachers attempt to break a child down through constant public humiliation, they destroy the character of every child in the classroom who is being forced to witness the daily humiliation and torture of another human being. Every child knows that it is wrong for a teacher to use his or her power to humiliate a child. Every child knows that any person with real character would stop the teacher from hurting that child. But the children themselves are too small and too vulnerable to stand up to the teacher and demonstrate that they are people of character. Each child in the class is left with the hurt of having witnessed the humiliation of another human being and the impression that he or she has no character, because a person with character would have stopped the teacher from harming the child.

Within a few months, teachers who consistently humiliate a student can strip the character out of an entire class. In a very short time, the children's natural inclination to stop one person from harming another is replaced with a feeling of extreme vulnerability and helplessness, which remains with children into their adult lives. Today, many adults in American society, having been stripped of their character under exactly these conditions, are unable to take a stand in situations where people are being hurt by other people or institutions or their own government. Many American adults sit passively, observing hurtful situations that should be stopped--including current educational practices. But stripped of their character, they feel too vulnerable and helpless to speak out.

It must be said that the "learning disabled," "undisciplined," "distracted," "inattentive" and "uncooperative" children of today have some interesting historical predecessors. Albert Einstein, often considered the greatest genius of modern times, had severe "learning disabilities." His father and his teachers considered him to be inattentive and disinterested, and they concluded that he was a loser who would never amount to anything. Isaac Newton was considered to be a dunce by his teachers. Niels Bohr, a Nobel Prize winner for his contribution to Atomic theory, was "slow" and "retarded" in his development. Leonardo Da Vinci, a great artist and inventor, was a slow learner who refused to cooperate in school.

Ansel Adams, a world renown photographer, was taken out of the classroom one day after bursting into hysterical laughter at what was being offered to him in school. He was taken home and never returned to a formal classroom. Noel Coward, who once bit his school mistress, landed his first acting job at eleven and never returned to school. Surely Adams and Coward should have been treated with ritalin and forced to remain in school.

Thomas Edison, inventor of the mimeograph, the phonograph and the light bulb, was diagnosed as "addled" by his school master, who believed that resistant children needed to be forced into submission with a leather strap-a practice that is still legal in many states today. Edison obviously needed psychological testing and counseling, which he would have received in any decent school system today. Clearly a "distracted" child, Edison would have required "special attention" if his mother had not removed him from school in order to teach him at home.

It has been said that Abraham Lincoln did not read until he was fifteen years old. Woodrow Wilson could not read until he was eleven. Do you think that these great statesmen were "disabled," "impaired" or "handicapped?" Do you think that if Abraham Lincoln were alive today and schooled in the American educational system he would have any hope of becoming President?

What about the Wright brothers. These young men who designed and flew the first airplane were high school dropouts. They were unmotivated underachievers with more interest in their work at the bicycle shop and woodworking hobbies, which included the use of their father's tools. What about Andrew Carnegie? He missed a few grades. He became such a resistant discipline problem when he started school at five years of age that his parents decided to take him out of school and keep him home a little longer. Carnegie clearly needed psychological help, which he also would have received in any "good" school system today.

Incidentally, many of these people were homeschoolers, as were Florence Nightingale, Agatha Christie and Benjamin Franklin. Most of them had a parent, or some other adult parent figure, who was interested in them as children and devoted him or herself in some way to their well-being. Most of these famous homeschoolers also had the opportunity to become directly involved in the physical world, where they could experiment in building and making things of practical value. With the support of an interested adult and access to direct involvement with physical world reality, these men and women were led to fulfill their own personal destinies. Had any of them been educated in the current system, it is doubtful whether they would have been able to accomplish what each one accomplished. When educated people do fulfill their destinies it is always in spite of their education, not because of it.

A word also needs to be said about the parents, especially the mothers, of all the great geniuses, artists and inventors, who somehow managed to parent these people in a way that kept all their natural gifts and talents preserved. How could Thomas Edison's mother have helped him become a great inventor without a master's degree in science? How did Orville and Wilbur's mother help them to accomplish their goals without a degree in aeronautical engineering? It has been said that she introduced her sons to the idea of drawing up a set of plans or blueprints before entering into a project. How could she possibly have done that without a degree? In fact, how could any of these women, these old female cows, have managed to produce such greatness in their children without college degrees?

In recent decades, very few new inventions have come forth that, like the phonograph, light bulb or airplane, could change the course of human development. The things that have been invented over the last thirty or forty years are generally offshoots of previous significant inventions and do not reflect new discoveries with the potential to change the course of human development. There are those who might argue with this and claim that humanity has produced many new discoveries. Influenced by the current educational system, humanity has produced nuclear power--the most expensive and dangerous form of energy on earth. Unfortunately, safe containment systems are yet to be discovered. How about the latest craze-superconductivity, a technology that may become more expensive than nuclear power? Or the Star Wars defense system--now there is an invention that educators can sink their teeth into!

The great works of art that people hold in high regard are not products of the educational system. Great works of art, like great inventions, are a function of individ ual talent, skills anti interest, which are either ignored or obliterated by educators today. Great works of art have been replaced with freakish, bizarre paintings and sculptures called modern art. These disturbed creations express the disassociation from reality and mental fragmentation that are a direct result of current educational practices.

So where have all the great artists, inventors and statesmen gone? Have they stopped being born? Or is the current educational system of manufacturing freeze-dried children so perfected that great artists, inventors and statesmen can no longer get through. How many of the children who succumbed to education in the first few months of school because they were overcome by the psychological intimidation sacrificed all hope of ever accomplishing their personal goals in life? How many children diagnosed as "learning disabled," "uncooperative," "mentally handicapped," "learning impaired," "inattentive," "unmotivated," "disruptive" and "distracted" are really just struggling for their survival? How many of them are desperately trying to preserve the resources they need to fulfill their own destinies? For all of the above reasons, we believe that these "diagnostic terms" are real turkeys and therefore deserve our turkey of the month award.