Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable No-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed

The paperback edition of the powerful book that shows how restless kids can learn and thrive—without the use of Ritalin

Chris Mercogliano codirects the Albany Free School in Albany, New York. There, he and his faculty have developed numerous ways to help hyperactive children learn without assigning them labels or resorting to the use of drugs like Ritalin.

Teaching the Restless profiles a handful of Free School students, six boys and three girls. All were either labeled and drugged in their previous schools or would have been had they not thrown in their lot with the Free School. While in Mercogliano's mind there is no such thing as a "typical" child, these nine kids represent the legions of children across the country—estimates currently run as high as 6 million—that have been diagnosed with learning and behavioral disorders and prescribed corresponding drugs.

Speaking both to parents who worry that their kids cannot attend classes without drugs and to educators who wonder how best to teach these hyperactive kids, Teaching the Restless should bring new hope into an overcharged debate.

"Mercogliano makes a strong case against medicating these children into submission . . . While [he] is describing experiences at one particular school, parents all over will find his critique of contemporary education provocative."
—Publishers Weekly

"Teaching the Restless is a very important book for our time. Chris Mercogliano deserves a medal for his courage and insight, as well as his years of hard work on behalf of America's children."
—Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Magical Child