In this landmark, bestselling assessment tracing the roots of America’s escalating crisis in education, Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., examines how television, video games, and other components of popular culture compromise our children’s ability to concentrate and to absorb and analyze information. Drawing on neuropsychological research and an analysis of current educational practices, Healy presents in clear, understandable language:
— How growing brains are physically shaped by experience
— Why television programs — even supposedly educational shows like Sesame Street — develop “habits of mind” that place children at a disadvantage in school
— Why increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder
— How parents and teachers can make a critical difference by making children good learners from the day they are born
Ruth Wallace knows she can only hide the scars on her arms for so long. Cutting herself doesn’t make her problems disappear, but at least it helps her cope. Ruth needs to find some way, “any” way, to heal her scars–the ones she hides and the ones she can’t–before something terrible happens. The seventh book in the TrueColors teen fiction series, “Blade Silver” deals with cutting, guilt, psychology, and healing. Includes discussion questions. 
Phineas Gage was truly a man with a hole in his head. Phineas, a railroad construction foreman, was blasting rock near Cavendish, Vermont, in 1848 when a thirteen-pound iron rod was shot through his brain. Miraculously, he survived to live another eleven years and become a textbook case in brain science.
