Everett Schools Slay Self-Esteem Dragon - Pending Lawsuit

EVERETT - Fire-breathing dragons usually keep their enemies at bay, but the mere shadow of a pending lawsuit is enough to send one storybook dragon named Pumsy into hiding.

Counselors at Cedar Wood and Monroe elementary schools this week decided to stop using a social-skills curriculum called "Pumsy in Pursuit of Excellence" because of a lawsuit filed against the Everett School District this summer.

Eight parents of children at Cedar Wood filed a suit in July asking the district to ban the use of Pumsy in all schools.

They say the material indiscriminately requires students to participate in group psychotherapy, hypnosis, meditation, guided imagery and repetitious use of statements such as "I am me" and "I am enough."

Challenges to the use of developmental guidance materials and programs in public schools have been increasing nationally over the past five years, according to People for the American Way, a civil-liberties organization and censorship watchdog.

Pumsy, used in more than 16,000 elementary schools in the United States, has been challenged 40 times in the past four years, but the case in Everett may be the first involving a lawsuit.

The Pumsy curriculum, intended for grade-school children, includes teaching manuals on how to lead discussions and exercises on thinking clearly, managing conflict, understanding consequences, being responsible and making good choices. Pumsy is the main character in related story books.

George Twente, chief of psychiatry at Decatur General Hospital in Alabama, is an outspoken critic of Pumsy and similar programs.

"Pumsy has some useful techniques in it, there's no question to that. But it's just like other psychotherapy; it should be suited to the problem, not given across the board to all students in a proactive way," said Twente, who has appeared on television talk shows and testified at school-board hearings.

He criticizes the material for encouraging elementary-age children to make decisions on their own instead of relying on the guidance of adults.

"Most of the slogans that are used such as, `I can choose how I feel,' `I am me, I am enough,' and `It's good to have a friend' are all introduced to the child in an altered state of consciousness or hypnotic state," he said.

That argument is absurd, said Oregon author Jill Anderson, a former teacher with a master's degree in special education. She created Pumsy five years ago.

"My goal was to write this simple little program to help kids," said Anderson, an advisory-board member of the National Council for Self-Esteem.

Bennett Leventhal, child and adolescent psychiatrist and chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Chicago, has also examined Pumsy and defended its use in public schools.

Leventhal argues: "The program itself does use visual imagery, or guided imagery, as one of the instructional tools. This fancy name is used to describe a child using his or her imagination to understand how they might think or feel in a given situation. It hardly smacks of anything dangerous.

"This is a device that children use normally and routinely. That adults have adopted it and named it for the purposes of instruction really does not change the fact that it is something children will use even if adults do not encourage them. It certainly in no way reflects any techniques that could be considered `mind-control' or would be in the least way dangerous."

The California Task Force on Self-Esteem selected Pumsy in 1990 as a model program.

Everett counselors and social workers at five elementary schools that used Pumsy last year, including Cedar Wood and Monroe, say children love the curriculum and can relate to Pumsy.

"I've never worked with a program for first- and second-graders that works as well, and I'm reluctant to give it up," said Joan Klorer, a social worker at Whittier Elementary who has worked with children for 16 years.

Anderson said she believes many of the challenges nationwide are an organized effort by Christian fundamentalists. Local critics say they are simply concerned parents and are not part of a larger organization. The local parents declined to be interviewed on advice of their attorney.

Though Anderson believes there is nothing wrong with her first edition, she revised it for parents who "may be drawn in because of fear or lack of information."

The revised edition better explains exercises, doesn't ask students to shut their eyes, uses more specific situations during visualization exercises, removes some repetitive group affirmations, and includes more stories in which Pumsy talks to her parents.

Counselors at Monroe and Cedar Wood say they plan to put Pumsy on hold at least until the lawsuit is settled, so as not to place students in the middle of a controversy.

How long that will be is unknown. The case has yet to be assigned a trial date in U.S. District Court.