Concerned Citizen

Are you a concerned citizen?

I went looking for a handy-dandy definition of that term this morning. Most of the ones I found leaned negative. Who knew? I suppose if you call yourself a concerned citizen you feel it to be a respectable label but if other folks call you one it may not be.

At any rate, here are a few things I’m concerned about. I won’t be writing any letters to the editor about them but they are on my mind.

A new business will be opening in Columbia which is a purveyor of ABA therapy, or Applied Behavior Analysis.

When I first started hearing about ABA some years ago, it was hailed as an almost miraculous intervention for children with autism. In the last several years I have seen a good deal of pushback from autistic adults and young adults that ABA is inherently harmful. Some examples from the linked article:

It removes and destroys autonomy
ABA addresses ‘symptoms’ not underlying causes
Many people who were subjected to ABA meet the PTSD diagnostic criteria
ABA teaches masking, which is a proven suicide risk

Autistic survivors of ABA liken it to torture and/or conversion therapy.

If you are a parent with an autistic child you want to do the absolute best for them. Early intervention is certainly valuable. But I’m not sure that an ABA program from 9 to 5 every day is the absolute best. It may look like it from the outside. But we may not be seeing the harm being caused on the inside.

Concern number two:

HoCo M4L is promoting a new education alternative called Apogee HoCo.

Apogee is a chain. Here’s a page from their website.

I did some looking around on their website and found it to be extremely concerning. There are plenty of buzzwords that clue you in to the Apogee mission. Initiatives like Apogee are working to disrupt and cause harm to the American public education system. And what on earth does “reseeding freedom” mean when you are taking away your child’s opportunities for meeting people who are different than they are and ideas they haven’t been exposed to?

Apogee appears to have been developed to cultivate certain kinds of students: young men. There’s no question that molding young men in a particular way was first and foremost in co-founder Matt Beadreau’s mind. Although Apogee has since expanded to encompass coeducation, the men-first focus runs pretty strong throughout. Overall their website reads more like a nondenominational mega church than an educational institution. They’ve got a program for everything.

Will the Apogee model sell in Howard County at a high enough rate to be economically viable? I don’t know. I do worry about the product they are selling.

*****

And now let’s finish with a palate cleanser: today’s the Grand Opening of Queen Takes Book. Doors open at ten am. Welcome to the neighborhood, Katie McNally and Tim Pinel!

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