Kenneth R. Rosen

Meh. I read it because our youngest is currently in a wilderness therapy program and will soon be moving to a therapeutic boarding school. I feel bad for the author for what he went through, but a lot has changed in the decade since he and the other teens about whom he writes were in their respective placements.

I also think that he over-generalizes. He complains that the success rates touted by these programs are just anecdotal; but so are his failure rates. Take a car--a Mercedes is an excellent car. Does that mean that people won't have horrible experiences with individual Mercedes? No. But does that mean Mercedes (or Lexus, or Honda or whatever) is a horrible brand? Also no.

I think a lot has changed. Most notably is the ability for current and prospective parents (and their children) to communicate on social media (for example, a number of different Facebook groups). Yes, it is true that some kids have bad experiences at particular placements. But these appear to be more one-offs (not to disparage the negative experience) and not reflective of the program. Unless, of course, scores of parents and their children have been lying to us. And I also think that the legal system (i.e. class action lawsuits etc) is doing a better job in 2020/2021 than it was in 2007-2009 to close down the truly bad places (using the car analogy, similar to what happened to the Pinto's with the exploding gas tank).

Anyhow, in sum, you have to read this book with a grain of salt. It is completely unreflective of our child's current experience in wilderness and the scores of conversations--oral and via text message--we've had with parents of children currently in, or recently graduated from, wilderness, residential treatment centers, or therapeutic boarding schools.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better before sending our child to the next placement...… (mais)

Tragic. Rosen uses case studies of four particular people and their experiences with wilderness re-education camps (and residential, boarding school style similar institutions) to paint a truly tragic picture. On an anecdotal basis, these camps seem horrifying in an Orange Is The New Black kind of way - an in depth look at the what really happens to some individuals. For what it is - these anecdotal experiences with a few claims backed up with the barest of bibliographies - it really is a strong read and a needed one. However, I would welcome a much more comprehensive, and cited, further examination along the lines of Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop or Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Because this particular topic, based on the strengths of these particular anecdotes, seems to warrant such an investigation. Very much recommended.… (mais)

3.5 I grew up on the Northwest side of Chicago, a neighborhood filled with many children my own age. Some of us, like myself went to Catholic School, others the public school. Discipline in Catholic school was maintained by a system of guilt, fear and corporal punishment. The public school threat was if one didn't behave, cut classes, they would be sent to Montifiore, a school for troubled children. This is my long winded way of explaining why I have no direct knowledge of the programs mentioned in this book.

Rose, who was once a participant in one such program, shares his own experience, but also the experience of four others. Wilderness programs, survival camps, last resort schools, are programs with little or no oversight, often coupled with untrained counselors. These places of last resort are extremely lucrative. The details shock, often I couldn't understand how the tactics they used are supposed to be effective and too often the scars they leave are permanent.

An eye opening book, personal stories and a look at a mostly unregulated industry. The desperation of parents of whom Rosen is not unsympathetic, but there has to be a better way. The cost is high both financially and in destructiveness, mentally hard to overcome. Heartbreaking really.… (mais)

Bulletproof Vest (Object Lessons) by Kenneth R Rosen is another volume in Bloomsbury Academic's Object Lessons series. Like the others I have read, this combines the personal with the broader understanding of the object under discussion.

As a war correspondent, Rosen had need of an actual physical bulletproof (or bullet resistant as he was informed) vest. It is in going into the history of personal protective equipment and especially Kevlar that we are also shown the limitations of such protection. When this factual aspect of product history meets up with his personal history of feeling safe, protected, and/or secure, we begin to reflect on what actually constitutes feeling protected as compared to actually being protected. While Rosen makes these contrasts explicit in the extreme circumstances of a war zone he also reflects on the more internal and personal types of insecurity and feeling unsafe.

I found these ideas, and the thoughts they generated in my mind, most interesting. When are we technically the most safe from any particular danger and does that always coincide with when we actually feel the safest? In my case, often not. As he mentions, it is often the company of others, the feeling of community, however temporary or fragile it might be, that provides the feeling of safety, even in the absence of whatever technology we might have that is designed to protect us.

I thought back to my time on subs. For the first period of time I felt neither safe nor unsafe, though as a submariner you know how close you always are to catastrophe. Yet when I went through the training to become a boat's diver I actually felt safer, even though on the whole my safety level hadn't changed and, in case of some types of accidents, my safety was what was jeopardized first. Yet the feeling of choice and having some small amount of control made me feel safer. I think Rosen's work will make many readers reflect on times or situations where what made them feel safe wasn't necessarily safer for them and was potentially less safe. But we could feel, even momentarily, "bulletproof." [Just for clarity, I was in the Navy in the 1970s and early 80s, there was no rating, as there is now, for Navy Diver (ND). Every sub had a couple of crew members who went through a grueling SEAL led course to become certified. So I was not a full-fledged Navy Diver like there is now. I was trained primarily so that if we needed to leave a disabled boat underwater through the escape hatch I could help lead such an operation.]

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)