A Greenhouse for the Mind

The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago is an acclaimed residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed children, which was featured in Bruno Bettelheim's 1950 book, Love Is Not Enough . The current director, a psychologist who has held the post since 1973, here updates the story, offering a reflective overview of recent adaptations of the Bettelheim vision as practiced at the school. The structure of a learning environment and healing world is presented in a treatise that will be of great interest to educators. The rationale of the school's approach is based on the premise that emotional disturbance is ``a variation on a normal theme,'' thus the specialness of the orthogenic school has applicability for parents as well. Conveyed with lively warmth, details of student-teacher interaction in classroom, at play and in the dorms are supported with vignettes of students in the process of overcoming their disabilities, illustrative of the school's hard-won and remarkable success. (May)