Committee for Clear Thinking

Robert E Kay MD, Director
Society Hill, Philadelphia


Unschooling (An Artifact Pictures Documentary)

"Unschooling" is a thoughtful, intriguing conversation with Bob Kay, Philadelphia psychiatrist and education advocate, about the human capacity and desire to learn, the history and limitations of the school system, and how we might better educate and inspire the next generations.

YouTube Video:  Excerpt 1 (3m54s)        Excerpt 2 (1m31s)
At 79, He Nibbles and Noshes His Way to Health

By Art Carey. Bob Kay was not planning to reform his diet. He was just lazy. Fourteen years ago, when a live-in relationship broke up, Kay became a full-fledged bachelor. ...

At Inquirer.com        Text Version
School is a Prison -- and Damaging Our Kids

By Peter Gray. Parents send their children to school with the best of intentions, believing that's what they need to become productive and happy adults. Many have qualms ...

At Salon.com        Text Version

The Handouts

If you like any of these PDFs enough, please print copies and pass 'em around!

How to Manhandle a Child

1) The brain takes 25-30 years to grow--we'll see immature behavior for a mighty long time! But with a half-decent upbringing most kids will turn out OK -- for we're BORN to become a ...

The Handout (PDF)
Dangerous Schools

More than 50 percent of children will eventually experience some level of physical or emotional maltreatment at school. Disciplinary measures, such as paddling, verbal assaults, ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
An Unschooled Future

"I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests. The library was open, unending, free." ~Ta-Nehisi Coates ...

The Handout (PDF)
An Unschooled Future (first version)

We need an educated citizenry but we don't need a schooled one. The patterns of conformity, obedience, and authoritarianism that are cultivated by mass schooling ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
Ten Basic Ideas for Raising Children

1. Growth is inevitable, however the brain may take over 20 years before it's fully developed. Until then, thinking, feeling, and behaving will be immature at times ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
Our Culture of Contempt

I live and work in Washington. But I'm not a politics junkie. To me, politics is like the weather--it changes a lot, people drone on about it constantly, and ...

The Handout (PDF)
How to Make Schools and Colleges into No-Failure Educational Institutions

Agree that our job is to help kids keep on learning with the confidence, curiosity, joy and effectiveness of every infant, rich or poor; i.e. without any active teaching ...

The Handout (PDF)
Simple Rules for Raising and/or Home/Unschooling All Children

1. Trust their inborn need to be/become curious, thinking, learning, cooperative, altruistic, independent and acquisitive beings. (The Continuum Concept ...

The Handout (PDF)
Our Education System

For Those In School: Never ask about homework--help if they ask for help. Never read their report card unless they offer it. Never, except in an emergency ...

The Handout (PDF)
Some Relevant Quotes

"I love to learn; I just hate being taught."--Winston Churchill
"The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school."--George Bernard Shaw ...

The Handout (PDF)
Wake Up, America

What we need in the Real World, as opposed to the Credential World, are the basic learning, thinking, exploring, communicating and cooperating skills we're all born to develop--given the average parent ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
How to Behave Like an Animal

Since we'd like to raise confident and clear-thinking children perhaps we could learn something from the chimpanzee; i.e., most of their young grow up to become well-integrated ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
An Open Letter

If I were a subversive seeking to undermine the United States: I would encourage America to get involved in various civil wars, knowing that very little good usually results ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
Ad Hoc Citizens' School Reform Commission

Just 28% of young people are qualified to join the armed services. 80% of preschoolers have a high self-esteem; just 5% of seniors feel good about themselves. Though she can help, Academia has never been needed. ...

The Handout (PDF)        The Links
The Tide of History Flows Left

One of my history-minded friends has a long-range political view summed up in three words: liberals always win. Complex social struggles may take centuries or decades, ...

The Tide of History
Dark Ages America

Each day in America, 32 men, women, and children are murdered with guns. Another 51 use guns to commit suicide. Hundreds more--from infants to teens, adults and seniors--are wounded daily by gunfire. ...

Dark Ages America
Education Is Getting A Failing Mark

Instead, Ravitch notes, we find ourselves quite possibly on the way toward "a paradoxical and terrible outcome: higher test scores and worse education" ...

Education Is Getting A Failing Mark
Options: Helping Kids Learn

1) Cuddle, respond, chit-chat, play, show, answer questions, give, stimulate ...
2) Continue, as in the first two years, to be a homeschooler--or unschooler! ...

Options: Helping Kids Learn
Toddlers Shot 23

Last week, a Milwaukee toddler fatally shot his mother after finding a handgun in the backseat of the car they were riding in. The case drew a lot of national attention given the unusual ...

Toddlers Shot 23
Is Diagnosis Necessary?

"At present, there is little evidence that most contemporary psychiatric diagnoses are valid, because they are still defined by syndromes that have not been demonstrated to have natural boundaries," ...

Is Diagnosis Necessary?
Life Is A Box

We know it is very hard to be a kid / because / Life Is A Box. / That is, you may be loved, but you're also stuck / inside the Box, / that is the Home Box, the School Box, the Church Box, and / the Neighborhood Box ...

Life Is A Box
Getting Through Kindergarten

It's important to understand what schools are all about so that you can get through as painlessly as possible--and with minimal damage to your thinking, confidence, sociability, curiosity, and creativity. ...

Getting Through Kindergarten
Choral Reading

The most important thing of all is that I will never put you on-the-spot to read out loud, all alone, because we know that's scary and inhibiting. So say the words with me, or right after me, or beat me to the word, ...

Choral Reading
Academic Reform References

What we need in The Real World, as opposed to The Credential World, are the basic thinking, learning, communicating, and cooperating skills we're born with, plus the 3Rs and computer stuff--maybe--and not ...

Academic Reform References
Getting Kids Through School

Though the system means well, many kids--in public, private or charter schools--are prone to a great deal of fear, anxiety, depression, boredom, confusion, failure, humiliation, ineffective learning, and rage. ...

Getting Kids Through School
How Children Fail

Most children in school fail. For a great many, this failure is avowed and absolute. Close to forty percent of those who begin high school drop out before they finish. For college, the figure is one in three. ...

How Children Fail

Committee for Clear Thinking, 210 Locust Street #15E, Philadelphia, PA 19106