This is the true story of an elite Massachusetts boarding school that for years employed a ring of pedophiles in positions of power over boys ages 8 to 14. It is a true account of how these sexual predators singled out children to victimize, how they got away with it, and how the school could cover it up for decades. John Sweeney was one of the children violated at The Fessenden School and in the beginning he thought he was the only one. (Wrong.) When he called his mother to tell her about the first sexual assault she didn't believe him. When he ran to the headmaster's office his story was dismissed as the active imagination of a pubescent boy. Once a favored student with special privileges, Johnny then became a target for pedophile faculty living in his dorm and the damage done to his young psyche manifested itself for decades in otherwise inexplicable anxiety, shame, secrecy, self-hatred, guilt and depression. Like other sexually-abused children, John gravitated toward living on the edge, where sex, drugs and danger allowed him to forget. After decades of struggling with his childhood secret out of the blue one day in 2011 Fessenden admitted to the public that the school had for years employed a child molester as assistant headmaster and there was the possibility that misconduct may have occurred on school grounds. The named assistant headmaster, Arthur Preston Clarridge, had been Johnny's chief sexual and psychological torturer. The shock of the truth emerging from the school after all these years was almost harder for John to deal with than the original crimes. When his father begged John for his forgiveness--because he and Johnny's mother had not believed him when Clarridge first sexually assaulted him--he was faced with a choice: did he undergo years of intense therapy to address the trauma of what had happened at Fessenden and seek justice? Or did he just crawl away in shame and die like a classmate? At turns fascinating and horrific, cringe-worthy and laugh-out-loud funny, THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND by John Sweeney details the kinds of crimes that were committed at The Fessenden School and the kinds of damage they did to some of its students. So while the school continues to boast of famous alumni--General George S. Patton, Howard Hughes, Ted Kennedy--Fessenden can now also boast of giving birth to a movement to eradicate the sexual abuse of children from every school, led by one of its less-heralded students, former Green Beret John Sweeney.

Critical Pedagogy addresses the shortcomings of mainstream educational theory and practice and promotes the humanization of teacher and student. Where Critical Pedagogy is often treated as a discourse of academics in universities, this book explores the applications of Critical Pedagogy to actual classroom situations. Written in a straight-forward, concise, and lucid form by an American high school teacher, drawing examples from literature, film, and, above all, the everyday classroom, this book is meant to provoke thought in teachers, students and education activists as we transform our classrooms into democratic sites. From grading to testing, from content area disciplines to curriculum planning and instruction, from the social construction of knowledge to embodied cognition, this book takes the theories behind Critical Pedagogy and illustrates them at work in common classroom environments.

A volume of enlightening essays on how TV shows, movies, and music can change hearts and minds. Amid all its frenetic humor, the long-running animated hit The Simpsons has often questioned what is culturally acceptable, wading into controversial subjects like gay rights, the war on terror, religion, and animal rights. This subtle form of political analysis is effective in changing opinions and attitudes on a large scale. Homer Simpson Marches on Washington explores the transformative power that enables popular culture to influence political agendas, frame the consciousness of audiences, and create profound shifts in values and ideals. To investigate the full spectrum of popular culture in a democratic society, editors Timothy M. Dale and Joseph J. Foy gather a top-notch team of scholars who use television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, All in the Family, The View, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, as well as movies and popular music, to investigate contemporary issues in American popular culture.

When first published, Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.

From Carol Jago and the authors of The Language of Composition comes the first textbook designed specifically for the AP* Literature and Composition course. Arranged thematically to foster critical thinking, Literature & Composition: Reading • Writing • Thinking offers a wide variety of classic and contemporary literature, plus all of the support students need to analyze it carefully and thoughtfully. The book is divided into two parts: the first part of the text teaches students the skills they need for success in an AP Literature course, and the second part is a collection of thematic chapters of literature with extensive apparatus and special features to help students read, analyze, and respond to literature at the college level. Only Literature & Composition has been built from the ground up to give AP students and teachers the materials and support they need to enjoy a successful and challenging AP Literature course. Use the navigation menu on the left to learn more about the selections and features in Literature & Composition: Reading • Writing • Thinking. *AP and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board, which was not involved in the publication of and does not endorse this product.