deleted September 8, 2011

[Whooter]

Here is a program teacher staff list:

These are the teachers that ASR have on staff.

Ballou-Baldwin, Martha    Administrative Assistant .... Licensed Practical Nurse

Gutermuth, Brittany    Teacher......BA in Environmental Studies

Jasinski, Chris    Teacher.......  BA in Linguistics and Minor in French

LaForest, Jennifer    Teacher .........Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry & Philosophy

Lyons, Judith    Learning Specialist .......Masters in Education from Fitchburg State.

Misener, Melinda    Teacher    .......degree in Comparative Literature.

Tripler, Charles    Teacher ......no info

Wallender, John    Teacher ......  bachelor’s from State University of New York,

Wilcox, Dennis    Academic Registrar/Scheduler   .......majored in Mathematics

Williams, Greg    Teacher  ....BA in Biology from the Univ of Penn.

Winston, Jeff    Teacher .....  Temple University with a degree in Communications.



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[9403390]

Ive come to this pretty late. Whooter having a general degree is not enough for working directly with kids who can have complex problems. I got hired and I had a commerce degree with a marketing minor. But I was expected to help run group therapy sessions that were sometimes really emotionally intense. I had not even worked in my field yet. It is not like working at summer camp. You have to deal with situations that require real knowledge and a sophisticated level of expert skill. Lots of these kids are still young and if their issues are dealt with in expertly it can lead to making the problem a lot worse. I really did not know what to do when kids would tell the group that they had been sexually abused.
i should add that the guy who i had to work most closely with did not have any degree. He was straight from the army. The way he acted toward the kids did not calm them it actually sometimes provoked a more angry reaction. One time he used what they called a pain compliance technique that basically involved giving the kid chinese burns. I don't even remember what the kid was being difficult about.
 it was meant to make the kid quickly compliant but it lasted for like 20 minutes. This kid got more angry and ended up being asked to leave because he eventually took a swing at the guy. He was in for taking drugs like dope and had no prior history of violence. He had always been pretty mellow for most staff. He wasn't even a smart ass.

[Whooter]

Ive come to this pretty late. Whooter having a general degree is not enough for working directly with kids who can have complex problems. I got hired and I had a commerce degree with a marketing minor. But I was expected to help run group therapy sessions that were sometimes really emotionally intense. I had not even worked in my field yet. It is not like working at summer camp. You have to deal with situations that require real knowledge and a sophisticated level of expert skill. Lots of these kids are still young and if their issues are dealt with in expertly it can lead to making the problem a lot worse. I really did not know what to do when kids would tell the group that they had been sexually abused.
i should add that the guy who i had to work most closely with did not have any degree. He was straight from the army. The way he acted toward the kids did not calm them it actually sometimes provoked a more angry reaction. One time he used what they called a pain compliance technique that basically involved giving the kid chinese burns. I don't even remember what the kid was being difficult about.
 it was meant to make the kid quickly compliant but it lasted for like 20 minutes. This kid got more angry and ended up being asked to leave because he eventually took a swing at the guy. He was in for taking drugs like dope and had no prior history of violence. He had always been pretty mellow for most staff. He wasn't even a smart ass.

9403390, When my daughter attended they had a masters level licensed counselor who was assigned to each peer group (as they were called then) and she also saw a independent therapist who was not paid by the school.  Do they still do this?  They had a guy from the army but he was in the wilderness piece and was pretty tough on the kids and was expected to get them in shape for main campus.



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[9403390]

I worked in wilderness for aspen not the main school but nevertheless whether it is wilderness or a school my point is the same. If anything wilderness is even more stressful for all concerned so just employing some army guy or someone with a commerce degree to work with the kids often without any qualified supervision is worse. It concerned me that all the guys on your list taught but none had education degrees or diplomas. If I had a regular kid at a normal school i would want all the teachers to have the right qualifications. With the added issues that kids with various mental health issues have it seems to me twice as important that they are at least getting qualified teachers.

[Whooter]

I worked in wilderness for aspen not the main school but nevertheless whether it is wilderness or a school my point is the same. If anything wilderness is even more stressful for all concerned so just employing some army guy or someone with a commerce degree to work with the kids often without any qualified supervision is worse. It concerned me that all the guys on your list taught but none had education degrees or diplomas. If I had a regular kid at a normal school i would want all the teachers to have the right qualifications. With the added issues that kids with various mental health issues have it seems to me twice as important that they are at least getting qualified teachers.

9403390, I didnt include their complete bios.  Some had previous experience teaching and/ or teaching degrees I went through their bios quickly and posted their degrees to show that these programs hire people with an education (contrary to what the thread topic says).  I believe a few had masters degrees on top of the BAs that I posted.

But you also need to keep in mind that many of these kids dropped out of school and to get them into the classroom with dedicated teachers and open their books , get them back on track academically and study is a huge step.  They have a huge success rate of kids moving onto the college of their choice after graduation.  So academically they have been very successful.



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[Anne Bonney]

But you also need to keep in mind that many of these kids dropped out of school and to get them into the classroom with dedicated teachers and open their books , get them back on track academically and study is a huge step.

That's, almost word for word, what Newton said in his deposition regarding Lulu Corter.  Well, they weren't in school anyway so it's just fine to treat them like animals!  (Obviously paraphrasing that last part but the underlined part is exactly what he said.

[none-ya]

Back to original question asked by the gatekeeper
" Why does Aspen hire people with no education"?

The same reason the Jack Eckerd torture camp hired you!

[9403390]

But you also need to keep in mind that many of these kids dropped out of school and to get them into the classroom with dedicated teachers and open their books , get them back on track academically and study is a huge step.

That's, almost word for word, what Newton said in his deposition regarding Lulu Corter.  Well, they weren't in school anyway so it's just fine to treat them like animals!  (Obviously paraphrasing that last part but the underlined part is exactly what he said.

this is actually a good point ann. When I first signed on I actually questioned whether misbehavior should be rewarded with an outward bound type of trip whne all the other kids were stuck in the classroom. I didnt imagine that kids would be out of school for months at a time (In the case of wilderness) I did outward bound at home where it was pretty much an outdoor ed thing with all the guys at my school and it was great fun. Id heard about the cops also taking at risk kids on outward bound trips for a weekend or maybe up to about a fortnight and thought it was something like that. Year later when I read about that Aaron Bacon kid I saw that his mum expressed similar scepticsm about taking the kid out of school go camping and then obviously reading the rest of the story and just feeling terrible for her. Was lulu corter the kid who spent like ten years in a rehab?
I accept that some kids who are in trouble are skipping school a lot but it makes no logical sense to tell them that on one hand their education is important enough that they have to go to a boarding school that they dont want to go to but on the other hand to employ teachers that are not properly qualified. A lot of kids who are kind of wild at school actually have learning issues. Part of the reason for the bad behavior is because they feel embarrased to admit they are having trouble. Id imagine that teaching kids like this would be difficult and would take a pretty high level of expertese. All the more reason to employ high quality professionals

[9403390]

But you also need to keep in mind that many of these kids dropped out of school and to get them into the classroom with dedicated teachers and open their books , get them back on track academically and study is a huge step.

That's, almost word for word, what Newton said in his deposition regarding Lulu Corter.  Well, they weren't in school anyway so it's just fine to treat them like animals!  (Obviously paraphrasing that last part but the underlined part is exactly what he said.

this is actually a good point ann. When I first signed on I actually questioned whether misbehavior should be rewarded with an outward bound type of trip whne all the other kids were stuck in the classroom. I didnt imagine that kids would be out of school for months at a time (In the case of wilderness) I did outward bound at home where it was pretty much an outdoor ed thing with all the guys at my school and it was great fun. Id heard about the cops also taking at risk kids on outward bound trips for a weekend or maybe up to about a fortnight and thought it was something like that. Year later when I read about that Aaron Bacon kid I saw that his mum expressed similar scepticsm about taking the kid out of school go camping and then obviously reading the rest of the story and just feeling terrible for her. Was lulu corter the kid who spent like ten years in a rehab?
I accept that some kids who are in trouble are skipping school a lot but it makes no logical sense to tell them that on one hand their education is important enough that they have to go to a boarding school that they dont want to go to but on the other hand to employ teachers that are not properly qualified. A lot of kids who are kind of wild at school actually have learning issues. Part of the reason for the bad behavior is because they feel embarrased to admit they are having trouble. Id imagine that teaching kids like this would be difficult and would take a pretty high level of expertese. All the more reason to employ high quality professionals