How insightful of you to note that schools and hospitals are patterning themselves after prisons. When people don’t know what to do, it appears the fallback position is to “crack down.” But with folks like you and your husband out there willing to consider alternatives, I feel hope.

Jim S: thanks for sharing your experience. I too wonder how much the toxic body burden never acknowledged disrupts our sleep. For many kids, just a dose of B6 or zinc can really help, or even something as basic as calcium and magnesium.

My husband works in the juvenile justice system and he noted a new protection-from-abuse case in our county that involves a boy whose only “abuse or neglect” is that he doesn’t get enough sleep! The mother was turned in by the school, because as a student he’s always tired and irritable. The boy is 14. How I wish someone could just tell her about simple nutrients to take before bed! I hate to see this go to court and ruin lives.

Thank you both for supportive and perceptive comments,
Sue Westwind

I have seen studies showed that the amount of misbehavior in classrooms directly related to lead levels. I’m near Rochester, NY. The schools are loaded with poor people who live around places with high lead levels. We also have major behavior problems with a very low graduation rate.

One would suppose that there are many other chemicals besides lead that are causing school and society problems, at lease in subpopulations of sensitive individuals.

When I taught, noticed that many students with problems did not get much sleep. They were trying to function with a major sleep deficit all the time. They could never function unless there was movement involved in class activities. There are probably many things in the environment of students that really affect their performance in school.

Thanks for your insightful article.
Jim S

My husband teaches corrections and criminalistics at a local community college. He finds this quite interesting, and helpful, too. Would it be ok with you if he uses this piece in one of his classes (giving credit to you, of course)? Most current text books don’t come close to considering this, as you can imagine. I would like to share the stats, too. I worked in hospitals for the first half of my career, and schools for this half…(It occurs to me that schools and hospitals are becoming more like prisons, especially now.) Wishing the world contained many more such compassionate souls, as yourself, I love your closing statement:”There but for one more toxic exposure, go I..” so true!