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25
PAWTUCKET TIMES July 7, 1977 by Bob Campbell Times Outlook Editor
HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN FALSELY ACCUSED?
A couple of years ago, we took all the Torrance Creativity
Tests we'd given up till then--about 250 of them--and put them through
a computer. Of the kids who scored in the top 20 per cent for creativ-
ity, almost everyone--nearly 100 per cent--was on prescription drugs
for being hyperactive or disruptive in school.
Jack Friedel
Marie Friedel of Warwick is executive director of an organization
called The National Foundation for Gifted and Creative Children.
She runs the Creative Growth Center in Lincoln on a shoestring,
with no paid staff and a dedication that is close to fanatical.
The Center (she doesn't like the word school, though the Center
has applied for state accreditation as a school) Is at 246 Front St..
on the second floor of the old Lincoln school administration building.
There are 29 children coming to the Center regularly, and a long
waiting list, says Mrs. Friedel. (Fire safety and zoning laws allow a
maximum of 30 children at the Center.) All of these children have had
problems, the cause of repeated class disruptions. Many were drugged.
Two had attempted suicide. I talked to many of them, and without ex-
ception they hated the schools they had attended.
The Center is a bit cluttered and messy, an informal and comfor-
table looking place. There are no typical classrooms. On one wall in
the "big room" are two dozen or so drawings by the children, mostly
in colored pencil or crayon. Some are so good I was startled.
But the most remarkable thing about the Center is the feeling of
warmth in the air. The children are gentle and affectionate with
each other, and there is no taunting. When a child shows his work to
another, it is always praised, even if it isn't very good.
"I can only learn when I am not learning."
As I talked to Mrs. Friedel and several mothers of children who
attend the Center, the children freely walked in and out of Mrs.
Friedel's office. They interrupted often, but politely and briefly.
These mothers have taken their children out of public schools, and
their stories are remarkably similar.
Mrs. Janet Playe of Pawtucket says her son, Raymond seven, has
always been "very artistic"...he reacts differently than other kids
do Her son's teacher in Pawtucket elementary school said he is
"very bright and creative, but extremely disruptive." One day Mrs.
Playe saw Marie Friedel on a TV show. After some months she had
Raymond tested at the Center. Finally she felt it was necessary to
take him out of school. She hopes to have him enrolled at the Center
in the fall.
Mrs. Nancy Dennen of Johnston withdrew Pamela, nine from an
elementary school in that town. She was in fourth grade. Pam is
bright, was working above her grade level in all subjects, but con-
stantly clashed with her fourth-grade teacher. Mrs. Friedel quotes
something Pam once said to her: "I can only learn when I'm not
learning."
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Pam explains: "My favorite teacher was a man who taught me in
third grade. Class was fun with him! Everybody had fun. And I learned
practically everything I know! Because I didn't feel I was learning.
But when I feel like I have to sit down and learn something, I can't."
Mrs. Eleanor Soucy of Cumberland talks freely about what led her
to withdraw her son Louis, 13 from that town's school system. Jane
Whitc?, 14, discusses the reasons why she didn't like Seekonk High
School -- or the Pawtucket school she attended before that.
I talked to most of these children. All seem at least average in
intelligence and some are clearly superior. They're all likeable, too.
So why couldn't they get along in school?
Mrs. Friedel says it's because they're gifted and creative. Such
children are different, she says, and their needs are not met in Rhode
Island schools.
The Center gives tests which are intended to measure creativity, but
as general guidelines, it lists 12 characteristics of "creatively gifted
children. Among them:
High sensitivity; excessive amounts of energy; easily bored and may
appear to have a short attention span; extremely independent-often called
stubborn; will resist authority if it is not democratically oriented; has
preferred ways of learning; particularly in reading and mathematics; learns
from an exploratory level and resists rote memorizing and just being a
listener.
Mrs. Friedel contends that many creative children are treated as emo-
tionally disturbed or hyperactive; some have been labeled as "brain dam-
aged."
"To love something completely, you must be able to let it be free."
She gives two tests to all these children to check for neurological
damage; out of more than a thousand children tested, she has found only
two or three borderline cases of neurological damage," she reports with
satisfaction. How valid is Mrs. Friedel's theory that these children are
gifted, and therein lies their problem in school? I don't know. The
tests the center uses to measure giftedness and creativity are reputable
enough as far as I know. But I find it hard to accept that such qualities
as "creativeness" can be measured at all.
"Sisters are for loving not hurting
And I can't help but suspect that "creatively gifted" is just
another label with an uncertain meaning. A much kinder and more con-
structive label than "hyperactive" or "disturbed", of course; but
perhaps no more accurate than these.
On a more practical level, is the Center actually educating these
kids? It's hard to tell, partly because the learning is so unstructured,
I couldn't tell who was learning what. And a volunteer at the Center told
me that many of these children are still too scarred from their exper-
iences in regular schools to approach learning without great fears.
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Also, the Center has only been opened since last November. If it
survives for five years, (it is running in the red), it should be
easier to make a judgement on how the Center is meeting the education-
al needs of these children. In spite of all these open questions it
would be a dead soul indeed who didn't admire and respect what Mr~.
Friedel is trying to do. Like some old Testament prophet, she keeps
crying out in the wilderness where troubled children live: The child
is not the problem; it is the school or the teacher or the parents, or
even the society the child is being brought up in; but basically, the
problem is NOT the child. The small amount of research that hasn't been
weighted in favor of drug therapy seems to back up Mrs. Friedel's views.
But I think the best argument is the children at the Creative Learn-
ing Center. Most of them have led miserable lives virtually from the
day they started school (and some before that). Many were drugged to
make them more manageable, and almost all of them were called "dis-
ruptive" or worse by their teachers. All have been taken off the behav-
ior-modifying drugs since they came to the Center. I saw none of them
disciplined in any way while I was there (for more than four hours).
And they were among the most well behaved, and certainly the most unphony,
considerate, gentle and affectionate group of children I've ever met.
It was a pleasure to spend time with them.
WHAT MAKES MARIE RUN? (same article)
Who is Mrs. Friedel and why is she say
-ing all those terrible things about our schools? Mrs. Friedel is a middle
aged Warwick woman whose credentials as an education expert were virtu-
ally nil until about 14 years ago. (Her enemies would say the qualifications
are still non-existent.) Her preoccupation with gifted children began
when her son Lance was young. He was very gifted, Mrs. Friedel says, and
she and her husband soon became convinced that RI schools couldn't give
him what he needed. Lance is 17 now, studying music at Barrington College
(he wants to be a conductor and doing fine). But his mother is still
buzzing irriratingly aroundk the RI educational establishment. She got
her master's in music-an unlikely area considering her current passion- a
good many years ago. Now she is a candidate for a doctorate in humanistic
psychology, and says she has completed all requirements except for her
thesis. Talking to her about the Center, I quoted a reporter who's spoken
to her only briefly:"it seems like she's made this foundation her whole
life." She agreed with a smile, "yes, I'm old, neurotic, vague and illogi-
cal and I spend almost all of my time on these children. And I can't seem
to take a vacation. My son said to me, "Relax. You'll never see the
changes you want in your lifetime." But I can't seem to stop. A withdrawn
boy who had been sitting silently nearby spoke: "You're going to be a
legend. They're going to have you in history books." She smiled again
touched his arm. "You say that because you love me." He seemed a
little embarrassed to admit it but he didn't disagree. Marie Friedel
was right, of course. The boy was indirectly showing his affection for
her. But it was clear that he meant what he said.
B.C.
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