Mental Health, Education and Social Control

MENTAL HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CONTROL
Part 32
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
June 26, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

In previous Parts of this series, I have referred to the TeenScreen program regarding mental health. On the TeenScreen website, one reads that "The Columbia University TeenScreen Program is committed to making the mental health of our youth a national priority and offering all parents the opportunity to have their teenagers receive a voluntary mental health screening....Today, the TeenScreen Program is active in more than 400 communities throughout the country." Thus far, TeenScreen has been administered to more than 150,000 children in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

Relevant to TeenScreen's past use of parents' "passive consent," Ken Kramer recently revealed that "newly obtained documents detail a milestone in the fight against TeenScreen. TeenScreen has been using 'passive consent' to bypass parents. If a parent did not return the passive consent form to the school, then TeenScreen considered that the parent consented. What about a child who loses the form or a parent who forgets? They consented!" To show that "passive" rather than "active" or written consent has been used to increase the number of students participating in the program, here is a link to a letter from a Florida high school.

Concerning education, American teachers over the last half century have been transformed into "social engineers." In the May 1949 edition of PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, American Education Fellowship president Kenneth Benne stated that "teachers and school administrators (should) come to see themselves as social engineers. They must equip themselves as 'change agents'." And four years later, Arthur C. Clarke in CHILDHOOD'S END (published in 1953, and described by THE NEW YORK TIMES as "a first-rate tour de force") wrote: "Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task is a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal---and power."

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