Education Officer, Chesterfield
- Author:
STEAD, ph.D.(Lond.), M.sc.(B’ham.), f.c.p.
The re-organisation of a national system of education is a complex process and one which involves the consideration of a number of problems. In the solution of these, other problems, hitherto hidden or only suspected, are often brought to light and demand consideration. The re-organisation which has been undergone by the English Education System began in the experiments of a number of pioneers and was systematised by the reports of the Hadow Committees. It can be considered from a number of aspects. There has been a reorganisation and re-construction of buildings, a re-classification of children, a consideration of methods, and the use of new techniques. Of these, a number may be classified as physical re-organisation, while the others are more rightly termed psychological re-organisation. Generally speaking the former came prior to the latter and there is a very real danger that it may be considered as comprising the whole of what is meant by re-organisation. Its progress can be judged from statistics, while the latter is a factor which can be judged only by and through the spirit of those engaged in educational work and the atmosphere within the school.
Of the various problems which have been clarified by the progress of re-organisation, that of the educational provision for backward and retarded children is one of the most important. In the older type of all-age school, using in the main mass methods of instruction, little could be done for those children who could not keep up the normal pace. They hovered about the middle of the school and their welfare was neglected in the attention given to the promise of the entrants and the needs of those about to leave. Almost all they acquired was an inferiority complex which they took with them into the world when they became of leaving age.
But now the Heads of Senior Schools scrutinize carefully the product of the Junior School. And they find amongst them children who for one reason or another are backward. They have to find some method of dealing with! such children and the problem has been largely brought to a focus by the transfer at eleven plus, which has had the effect of making children of that age of real importance.
And one result is, or should be, a recognition of the small amount we really know about retardation and its real causes, and the need that exists for experimental and investigatory work. It is common to hear it stated ” He can’t even read “; it is much more rare to hear the reason for the inability given. Too often it is assumed that retardation is due to innate mental defect. This diagnosis serves the dual purpose of making it impossible for the teacher to do anything about fhe matter, and of placing the entire blame on the shoulders of the Creator.
Now retardation may be due to one or all of a number of factors. It is the duty of any Educational Authority which claims to have effected re-organisation to provide in the first place for sound investigation into, and diagnosis of, the causes of retardation amongst children under its control. This is obviously the first and most important step. Mere ” hit or miss ” remedies are as useless as quack medicines. Merely to know that a child is retarded will be useless unless the further step of discovering why he is retarded is taken. To place all retarded children in one class and term it either a ” special ” or a ” slow-moving ” class is a confession of weakness. The classification of these children must depend upon the reasons for their retardation, for only under these conditions can the appropriate remedial measures be taken.
This means that an Education Authority should have on its staff, or have access to the services of, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a social worker. From the information obtained by these, together with the school record, some attempt at accurate diagnosis can be made. It is perhaps an increasing recognition of this fact that has led recently to the movement towards setting up Child Guidance Clinics and Psychological Centres. There is undoubtedly a movement in favour of the development of such work?the first step towards a right treatment of the whole problem of retardation.
With investigation comes a realisation of the various kinds of factors which may affect the development of a child, and which, through faulty conditions of growth, may lead to retardation. Undoubtedly some retardation is due to innate mental defect, but some is due to physical defects, some to general debility and its resulting absence from school, some to emotional mal-adjustment, some to environmental conditions, etc. It is essential that the multi-sidedness of the problem should be realised. Again, we are still only possessed of very slight knowledge as to the manner in which physical and psychical factors react upon one another. And we are remote still from being able to set up a general children’s centre where all aspects of the growth and development of children can be co-ordinated. Some tentative steps towards such an ideal have, however, been taken and their development will be watched with real interest by all those interested in he welfare of children.
Upon the groundwork of the considerations set forth above it is possible to indicate in very vague outline what should be the educational provision for retarded children. There should be a central Children’s Psychological Centre or Child Guidance Clinic where all cases are thoroughly investigated and diagnosed. After diagnosis comes treatment. Some types of physical defects in which retardation has originated can be dealt with in groups?eye cases in one group, ear cases in another and so on. Those whose retardation is due to inherent mental defect again can be classed together, but require a different technique and curriculum to those applicable to physical defects. Again, those who are emotionally mal-adjusted require another kind of treatment, of which play therapy is an example. And here one value of this provision becomes obvious. The investigations of the centre should help to discover weak and wrong steps in present teaching method. By and through these investigations suggestions for an improved technique may be brought to light. It is this constant action and reaction between the schools and the centre which is the vital thing in this work. For the ultimate aim of the work is not to cure cases which have already developed wrongly. It is to attain such knowledge of the real laws of the development of the child and to set up such environmental conditions as will enable the children to groiv healthily and normally and to avoid all retardation due to remedial causes. It has to be realised that much retardation is due to the faulty methods employed in our schools. It is the duty of all connected with the educational system to strive, through sound investigation and experiment, to remove all such causes of retardation as are capable of being removed.
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