Topher Field - Good People Break Bad Laws: Civil Disobedience in the Modern Age

Shownotes and Transcript

Delighted to have Barbie Rivera join us as she discusses her book "Enough is Enough," sharing her personal experience with her son being labelled as 'mentally handicapped' by the school system, despite no signs of it at home. She criticizes the pressure to medicate children in schools and highlights the education system's failure in supporting her son, leading to low self-esteem. Barbie advocates for home-schooling as a solution, sharing success stories of her own children thriving in a personalized environment. She calls for an individualized approach to education and envisions a future where home-schooling is a common option. Barbie aims to raise awareness about education system flaws, promote home-schooling, and revolutionize children's education for a brighter future

Barbie Rivera is an artist and mother of four. Painting her way to “fame and fortune” was her dream; however, in 1991 after a teacher told her that her six-year-old was “mentally handicapped” and in need of psychotropic medication, Barbie put her paintbrushes aside and began to start a school from her home. She found teaching to be just as creative, if not more so, than fine art. Within the first week of home-schooling, Barbie had seven additional students who were the children of friends, all learning to read, write and do math. No stress. No homework. No state-required tests. The word of mouth spread, creating such a demand that Barbie established a small private school, H.E.L.P. Miami.
Over the last 30-plus years, Barbie has encountered hundreds of children who, like her son, were told they could not learn. Many had been placed on multiple mind-altering medications before their baby teeth had fallen out. Barbie found that in addition to the medications being pushed, the textbooks and lesson plans were overly complicated and deliberately confusing, thus ruining a child’s natural love of learning.
Her new book Enough Is Enough! fully documents the destructive agendas and psychological manipulation that American children are subjected to in mainstream public, private and charter schools, which aims to “keep them drugged and keep them dumb.”

'Enough Is Enough!: Exposing the Education System After Their Failed Attempt to Label and Drug My Son' in paperback on Amazon https://a.co/d/gz00RPD

Connect with Barbie...
WEBSITE barbierivera.com
FACEBOOK facebook.com/barbieriveraeducator
X/TWITTER x.com/barbieeducator

Interview recorded 18.7.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
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WEBSITE heartsofoak.org/
PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect/
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Transcript

Hearts of Oak:

I'm delighted to be joined by a brand new guest. Thanks to the wonderful Sam Sorbo for connecting us. And that's Barbie Rivera. Barbie, thank you so much for your time today.

Barbie Rivera:

Thank you for having me.

Not at all. Whenever I hadn't come across your book and whenever Sam had sent it over, it was intriguing, fascinating subject on education and the battle and the fight that many of us are learning that we're having. And there is the picture there, Enough is Enough, exposing the education system after their failed attempt to label and drug my son. And we're going to get into your personal story, which is what the book, the personal story, and then looking at the education system. And then you end up on what you had to do, your actions on it. But you're the founder and principal of Help Miami, a K-12 private school, author of Enough is Enough. And we're going to go in there. And I saw the Red Epoch Times article, and they did a 16-page article about this in 2022. And the links will be in the description, whether people are watching or they're listening on any of the podcasting apps later on. But tell us right back to 1991.

You were brought into the school and your six-year-old was labeled as mentally handicapped by the school. So, yeah, tell us about that situation as a parent.

Barbie Rivera:

Okay, so I never let him get officially labeled, but that's what I was told he suffered from. And we're talking the second Friday of the school year. Like, the second Friday. And to be completely honest about my son, and I'm not one of these parents of my child does no wrong. He never tells a lie. I have eyes in the back of my head. I know my kids, right? But Damon was bilingual when he was six. I don't speak two languages. His grandfather is Cuban and they were bonded, you know, from birth, first grandson, very well behaved, like really easy going. He would, you know, very creative, like after dinner, put a blanket over the dining room table, make a tent would always draw was would play was would ask questions that were normal, like I understand these questions. So in sch...