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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - July, 2005 Avoiding Institutions at Both Ends of Life – July
19, 2005 Although many things prevent my looking after her, I have been struggling mightily with this situation. For 30 years, I have been preaching against the institutionalization of both children and the elderly. I succeeded with my children, but I am feeling hypocritical regarding my mother’s situation. So I have begun looking for a home that is as un-institutional as possible. One with plants, animals, maybe even some children. One where they don’t use restraints to immobilize people for the convenience of staff. One where meals are served on china in a dining room. Where respect and dignity trump convenience. The search is making me feel useful and my hypocrisy-fed stress is abating. But more importantly, I am finding a few bright lights in the morass of green walls, antiseptic smells, under-paid staff and bleak surroundings. For instance, a few years ago, PBS did a piece on a project called The Eden Alternative and profiled a home in Utica, New York. (They also have Canadian and Australian projects linked from their website.) In the piece, Eden Alternative founder Bill Thomas says, “In long-term care, love matters. And the heart of the problem is, institutions can’t love. When we rethink our mass institutionalization of elders, when we do these things, we’re not just making a better life for the elderly, we’re making life better for everybody in every part of society.” Unfortunately, there are waiting lists and the
bureaucracy here doesn’t give families much control over placement.
But I guess advocacy for the elderly has just joined advocacy for the
young as part of my mission. Two-Tier Health and
Education – July 15, 2005 Now, I am most certainly in favor of public health care. (And I am currently experiencing it at perhaps its best as my 96-year-old mother becomes increasingly senile and requires around-the-clock care.) However, we already have a two-tier system, which I’ve also been using for years...not because I have more money than other people but because the type of services I want are not covered by the government health care system. Those who want to use most of the so-called “alternative” therapies must pay for them (or be fortunate enough to have them covered under private insurance plans). Here in Ontario last year, the province even delisted chiropractic treatment, ending more than 30 years of public funding for chiropractic services in the province. The health care controversy is similar to the arguments I often hear about public versus private education…that families whose kids learn outside the public school system are undermining that system, which is an important foundation of our society, etc. So in order to protect publicly funded health care and education, we’re supposed to be content with mediocre education and put up with the lowest common denominator of overcrowded hospitals, long waiting times, unhappy staff, etc. And all because our health and education industries are protecting their turf. Providing equal access is just so much rhetoric. So until public
health and education systems provide access to a wide open variety of
services, it’s not just the rich who will be looking elsewhere to fill
the gaps. No Einsteins Here – July 2, 2005 A bit of Google research uncovered many more such stories. A 2003 CNN piece described a court case in New Jersey where an 18-year-old (who happened to be the daughter of a state judge) asked a federal judge to intervene, saying that being forced to share the speech with students with lesser grades would detract from what she had accomplished. She filed notice to sue the school district claiming the dispute humiliated her. Interestingly enough for those who favor home-based learning, the school refused to make her sole valedictorian, in spite of her top marks, because she “had to” spend part of her day studying at home due to health issues. Similarly, a MSNBC piece from last month describes the plight of a Texas student who was refused the valedictorian honor in spite of having the best marks because she missed some school early in the term due to undergoing hospital treatment for anorexia. Huh? If we’re talking marks here, didn’t she earn the valedictory honor even more by being handicapped by an illness and lost school time? Talbot’s story in
The New Yorker cites some 1981 research by professors Terry Denny and
Karen Arnold, which studied the lives of 81 high school valedictorians
and led to Arnold’s 1995 book Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School
Valedictorians. The students continued to distinguish themselves
academically in the post-secondary environment. The group included lots
of lawyers, accountants, doctors and engineers, with many Ph.D.s and
master’s degrees. And they tended to stay married, exhibited few
addictions and were active in their communities. They were,
Arnold points out, skilled at conforming to the expectations of school and
chose careers that were likely to be socially and financially secure.
None of the serious athletes ever pursued sports occupations; most of
the high school musicians hung up their instruments after graduating.
None of them exhibited that “powerful early interest” that evolves
into “lifelong, intensive, even obsessive involvement” in an area of
special talent or passion. In short, there were no Einsteins in the
group. And that is not surprising. As Arnold notes, “Exceptional adult achievers often recall formal schooling as a
disliked distraction.” Return
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Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm Reading: Healing with Whole Foods -
Asian Traditions & Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford
(2002, North Atlantic Books) ~ What
I'm Listening To: The Living Room Tour
by Carole King (Concord Music) ~
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