Turning It Around

by


Formats

Softcover
$34.50
Softcover
$34.50

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 7/3/2005

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 336
ISBN : 9781553956297

About the Book

Root Causes, Real Solutions for Our Worst Social/Community and Personal Problems.

When people don't feel safe living in their homes and walking in their communities, taxes rise continually to pay for social services that fail. We put more police, courts and prisons in place to meet rising levels of crime and other unrest. More psychologists and therapists are needed to help troubled people who can't deal with the pressures and problems of their lives. While some kinds of crime may decrease, others take up the slack and demand ever more resources. Social programs at all levels of government cost more each year, yet the problems they were designed to address increase. Law abiding citizens become increasingly uncomfortable. Most of us live with some degree of fear. In Turning It Around, sociologist and educator Bill Allin explains the causes of this troubling downward spiral and provides solutions that address the sources rather than patching up the effects with prisons and therapists.

News broadcasts and newspapers daily tell us the extent of social problems in our communities. They show us children and adults who have ''fallen through the cracks'' of society. Those cracks never get filled, no matter how much more we pay in taxes.

Now, says Allin, the media can be the means of helping to fill those cracks by encouraging people to learn what they need to know. Children who fall through cracks in our education and social systems become the perpetrators and creators of social problems as they grow up. The majority suffers because the minority was ignored.

Parents and schools focus on the intellectual development of children, with little commitment given to physical development. Virtually no time is given in schools to the social and emotional development of children, which are equally important. Indeed, inadequate social and emotional development of children become core trouble areas whose consequences are personal and community problems later. When they become adults, professional help is available for both the victims of social problems and the perpetrators. That, according to Allin, is the equivalent of building a pyramid with only two sides. Anything that can be fixed after it is broken, says Allin, can be prevented from breaking in the first place. That is especially so with people, who should not have to break because of inadequate services and attention from parents and teachers.

The Pyramid of Living System Allin describes in Turning It Around shows what effects these missing parts of child development have on children as they reach adolescence. The book provides some relatively easy and inexpensive suggestions for changing the way we teach children. The program begins by teaching new parents how to provide for the social and emotional needs of their baby and the potential of the new life they have created.

Turning It Around gives suggested curriculum changes for the primary grades of school that will give kids the knowledge and coping skills they will need to function as competent and confident adults. Allin says that emotionally underdeveloped and socially unbalanced children comprise the small percentage of children who cause social problems that create fear and discomfort in the large majority of citizens.

Bill Allin will have other versions of Turning It Around specifically tailored for other continents and in other languages, as the original was designed for North America. Those interested in pursuing TIA programs or wanting more information about the book may contact the author directly at (705) 657-9468.

Read more about Turning It Around, including excerpts from the book, at www.billallin.com. See the web site for places to buy the book, different prices and more information.

Note to the media: Bill Allin will prepare news items or features to suit your needs.

Join TIA Internet community or read more aout TIA at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround

Read more of Bill Allin's thoughtwork at
http://tiabuilder.blogspot.com


About the Author

Even as a young news writer and broadcaster at a radio station in Owen Sound, Ontario, Bill Allin considered himself to be an educator. His mission was to teach his listeners what they needed to know about the news of the day. A few years later he continued this mission with children in elementary school classrooms, teaching them what they needed to know about life as adults and their future lives as older students. After teaching all levels of elementary school and some adult classes, Bill opened his own small business, one that emphasized thorough training of his employees as a prime objective. During his years in small business, he took on the role of consultant in the foodservice industry.

As he counselled people around the world, he made friends in many countries. Some of these encouraged him to put into book form the unique thoughts and proposals he put forward about how to relieve the stresses and fears that people everywhere have about social problems in their communities and their countries. Bill Allin holds a master's degree in Sociology of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto), a degree in sociology from York University and a diploma from Ryerson University in radio and television arts.

Turning It Around is his first book. Separate versions of the original book are planned for China and Southeast Asia, South Asia, Europe and South and Central America. Each of these will be translated into several languages. It has already been translated into Mandarin Chinese.

www.billallin.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround

http://tiabuilder.blogspot.com