Backward Children in the Junior School
- Author:
BARONS,
Headmaster, Woodlands Park Junior School, Tottenham
Inasmuch as every large Junior School has general problems associated with dull, backward or maladjusted children, for the purposes of this article I have taken cases found in my present school as being typical of those met with universally. To begin with, this Junior School consists of some 350 boys from 7 plus to 11 plus and draws them from two rather distinct areas, one a respectable district with neatish villas, the other an old district that tends to crowded slums. Within these two different areas exist two Infants’ Schools which feed my school and in addition I receive many casual admissions, invariably from poorish London areas.
Organisation permits of A and B streams being run throughout the school in classes corresponding to the old Standards 2, 3, 4 and 5 though, in fact, they range numerically from Class 9 to Class 1, and are taught by nine fully-trained, certificated teachers. On an average, therefore, there are some 40 pupils per teacher, though actually a Special Class of 25 or so dull, backward and maladjusted children, officially known as Class 9, 5 or 2 as the case may be, has for some years now been in existence. Never does anything in the nature of nomenclature lead these backward pupils, or in fact the rest of the school’s pupils, to suspect that they are in any way different from normal pupils. Certainly their syllabuses of activities vary considerably and their Time Table and Curricula have a certain elasticity and catholicity of interests that are not found elsewhere, but at all times the backward children partake of the whole social life of the school.
A firm contention of mine is that every large Junior School should have at least two Special Classes for gross cases of backwardness, one towards the bottom of the school to take pupils from 7 plus to 9 plus, and the other towards the top to cater for those pupils from 9 plus to 11 plus. Generally speaking, a spread of age in the same class involving more than two years chronologically, is to be deprecated. Now this is not the time nor the place to argue whether the Special Class should be at the bottom, in the middle, or at the top of the Junior School, assuming that it is possible to organise only for one such class. Each relative position has its own particular merits. My own experience suggests that such a class should be towards the bottom of the school, and that is where my present one is found.
Children who are backward, for whatever reasons, most certainly should be sorted out as early as possible in school life, before their disability, like the rolling snowball, tends to produce a cumulative ill-effect. Here perhaps, it would be as well to state that so far as this article is concerned ” backwardness ” is inferred to mean, being behind in school achievements to a degree which is detrimental to a normal school-classification. The Special Class, therefore, includes gross cases of dullness, backwardness and maladjustment and naturally it behoves every Junior School to do something definite about such difficult cases. Most emphatically do I agree with Dr William Moodie that ” early and efficient teaching in the fundamental subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic is the corner-stone of mental hygiene in children
To sort out cases of backward children admitted from the Infants’ Schools is not at all difficult if achievements alone are considered. Records of promoted infant children give their relative outputs in, or approaches to reading, wrriting and number, as well as particulars of health, absences, character, conduct and so on. Indeed, these are valuable criteria on which to work, but they are only some of the aspects that need consideration. Certain cases of backwardness may be remediable in nature, e.g., those caused through absence or by change of school, those due to some minor defects which are accurately diagnosed and subsequently treated, etc. Unfortunately, another type of backwardness, i.e., dullness, may be totally permanent in character and, therefore, irremediable.
In every case, therefore, it is necessary to ascertain which case may be but temporary (probably remediable) backwardness, and which case is permanent (invariably irremediable) in nature. As a matter of fact, each child’s potentialities are measured in various ways. For example, for very young or dull children a Group Test of Intelligence (Non-Verbal) is set, their drawings of a man are carefully examined, their vocabularies estimated, their attitudes, temperaments. * Mental Hygiene; Preventive Measures in Childhood, 1935 difficulties, interests, achievements and so on assessed. In a practical way, the extreme cases are considered in the light of these broad categories :? Physical. Diagnosis of general defects or of particular minor ills is made by the Medical Officer. Audiometer Tests for hearing are given. The illeffects of malnutrition and fatigue, where found, are counteracted by the provision of meals, milk, chemical foods, Open-Air School, Convalescent Home, etc. Intellectual. Careful assessment of each child’s innate capacity is undertaken. Whether a child is generally backward or specifically backward is determined, or whether he is dull or backward, or dull and backward. Environmental. The effects of home and environment, i.e., the nurture of the child, are enquired into by interviews with parents. Such matters as the following are of extreme importance; malnutrition, fatigue, lack of sleep, rest, nourishment, clothing, play, discipline, control, natural interests, etc. Emotional (Personality). An estimation is attempted of the social adjustment of a child to school life, i.e., whether he is stable, maladjusted or unadjusted. It is useful, for example, to know whether a child, definitely, is in one of these rather well-defined groups :?
Delinquent?stealing, lying, dishonest, truant, etc.
Violent, cruel, aggressive, etc.
Unrepressed but nervous, fidgety, shy, sensitive, etc.
Repressed but timid, shy, apathetic, effortless, etc.
Needless to say, the information associated with the above categories cannot possibly be obtained merely from examining or questioning a child in school. The implications involved by his actions and reactions in all kinds of activities and situations, e.g., his games, companions, interests, out-of-school doings and so on, are fully studied or considered. Wherever possible, interviews are arranged with parents from whom vital facts on these points are secured :?Health and Past History (Age at walking, teething, talking, etc.)?Hospital or Clinic Treatment? Handedness and Sidedness?Change of Writing Hand?Stammering or Stuttering ?Temperamental Difficulties?Behaviour?Out-of-School Interests, Activities, Difficulties, etc.
It will be seen, then, that definite attempts are made to ascertain all the things that are woven together to form that complicated being, the backward child, i.e., 1. The child himself, as far as his physical state may be detrimental, is examined and treated.
2. The powers within the child are assessed, e.g., intelligence, emotions, personality.
3. The parents’ sympathetic and understanding interest is solicited, so that potent ill-effects of home and environment may, if possible, be tempered to assist in the child’s well-being and development.
Nor is this information found and then forgotten. Important matters are entered on the Pupil’s Record Card, which follows him throughout his school-life. Within the compass of this article, it is impossible to detail any but the most important approaches that are beneficial for the backward, but perhaps the principal factors are the teacher’s sympathetic understanding and the need for children to be usefully and happily employed in doing things from which they are able to derive satisfaction and success. Success engenders effort, especially when endeavour is linked to activities that prove of intrinsic interest. Equally valuable, however, are the Visual and Manual approaches. Dull children invariably learn better by seeing and doing, e.g., by seeing things, pictures, words as wholes, etc., and by the doing processes such as handling, making things, etc., than they do when matters in the abstract are considered.
This principle of seeing and doing should hold priority of place over all other school approaches directed to aid dull children, simply because in motor capacities these children more nearly approach an average standard than they do in their intelligences. After this somewhat lengthy, but necessary explanation, the activities given hereafter should be better understood, not because they are ideal but rather that they are the most satisfactory that can be devised under the limitations of present organisation.
Reading
Dull, backward or maladjusted children often enter the Junior School with grave reading disability. That is to be expected, naturally. Probably they have not yet reached that Mental Age when reading usually is undertaken with success. For a child say, below 5| years Mental Age as determined by reputed Intelligence Tests and the teacher’s considered estimation, it is unwise to attempt to drum any particular system of reading into him. Frequently, it is advisable to scrap all systems and to let the child forget about all reading methods, as such. Try to induce in him the desire to want to read, let him see and collect pictures and to talk about them, let him hear stories and illustrate them, or collect illustrations, cigarette cards, etc., and paste them in a book, or better still, on large sheets of brown paper. Such activities are not so much waste time?far from it. The joy in this kind of concentrated play which caters for children’s own interests frequently kindles or aids confidence in their efforts, and especially is this so for those who are short-weight in intelligence or stressed and emotionally disturbed. When the right attitude of mind has been secured, i.e., when a child himself wants to find out more about a bird, flower, motor, aeroplane, train, ship or whatnot, then it is time to consider methods of approach to reading for his particular case. Very readily may the previous methods employed at teaching him to read be ascertained, and even if only very slight progress in reading is being made, such prior methods should not be entirely ignored, but discreetly added to or developed. For the dull child the Visual approaches generally should predominate, rather than his meagre ability should be confused or confounded by attempts at associating sounds with letters. Some few dull children do, however, possess rather pronounced auditory powers of recognition, and it is useful to test all backward children for their relative Visual and Auditory spans of recognition For example, if figures are called out by the teacher, e.g., 1, 4, 5 (said ” one ” ?” four “?” five “) and progression is made to groups of 4, 5 and 6 figures, and children write down the figures that they hear, interesting results of their aural powers may be obtained. Likewise, if similar groups of large figures are exhibited on cards so that children may see them and then write them, their Visual powers can be tested. In such tests, I have found it useful to allow one second less than the total number of figures said or exhibited, e.g., four figures are said, or exhibited, for three seconds, and so on. The actual time taken in writing the figures does not much matter. From the examination of many tests given in this way, it is found that the normal child up to seven years or so, produces approximate scores both in Auditory and Visual spans of recognition. After this age, the Visual span increases, as for very obvious reasons it should. If however, any child shows pronounced superiority in Auditory scores it clearly indicates the method of approach for such a good-ear child. In short, he should be allowed to learn by saying things over to himself, i.e., by hearing them. At this moment I have in mind one particular boy who is learning to read by spelling the words to himself. He will look at a word and not recognise it, but after he has said the letters, he knows the word. Incidentally too, this treatment is that by which a word-blind boy attempts to read. For some years I have experimented with him and even made him change his writing hand from right to left, hoping against hope that it may induce a new speech centre to develop in his brain. Alas, my hopes, apparently, have not been realised.
Now when the recognition of common words becomes possible, projects should be planned around those interests that children display. For example, some time ago many children brought to school several ” Henry ” Cards (given away with a certain brand of cigarettes). Henry?the young imp?gets into all sorts of mischief, performs pranks and so on. Each of these cards was mounted on cardboard, and the teacher printed, in large words, a simple sentence under each picture. The children themselves gave the purport of this sentence and very often the actual wording of it. In this way, there grew up a large number of reading cards which provide splendid practice for exercises because the children’s interests are catered for, and actual words within their spoken vocabulary are employed.
Later, it becomes possible to give children the joy of matching words, titles or simple descriptions, with pictures and vice versa, or even of building up words from letters and arranging simple sentences in continuity. One particular pastime affords backward children infinite pleasure and is, in itself, excellent practice. On the Blackboard, certain common words are written or printed, and the exercise involves reading them, illustrating them and writing them. The words are not necessarily nouns, e.g., touch, rap, play, garden, go, ground, feel, sweet, etc. Each child executes a small sketch of what he understands by the word, he says the word to himself several times, and then writes or prints it under his illustration. This, in very helpful measure, caters for memorisation and representation of the picture, for the aural and visual forms of the word, and for the kinaesthetic sensations in writing the word.
In short, all three impressive ways of learning (1) Auditory, (2) Visual and (3) Kinaesthetic are employed. In addition, the teacher soon gains valuable information concerning a child’s degree of comprehension, and where this is faulty, individual help and treatment are given. On each page of a blank drawing book, a dozen or so words with their appropriately small sketches may be shown, and slowly, but certainly, a useful vocabulary of words with their meanings and spellings, becomes established. Furthermore, the inclusion of words dealt with in this way into suitable sentences, soon makes reading, as such, take on new and lively interests.
After a start has been made in these ways, i.e., by utilising interests and rekindling confidence, definite; progress is found to be then only a matter of practice. Merely to arm backward children with Infant Primers is frequently disastrous, because invariably such treatment only leads them to suspect their inferiority and most certainly fails to touch their interests, or to give them encouragement. Generally speaking, the market is almost devoid of the right kind of books for backward children, though it should be clearly recognised that no one but the actual teacher of particular backward children knows exactly what their wants are, and until some progress in the fundamentals of learning is made, no books, as such, can ever act as efficient substitutes for the teacher’s own approaches and treatment. But books can be written to cater for children’s interests, and even for backward children, too, if authors understand both psychological approaches and children.
Arithmetic
The suggestions given so far, apply in similar fashion to Arithmetic. Here too, the approaches to the subject should centre round activities, movements, games and interests that appeal to children. For the fundamentals of number, such things as these are invaluable?Ring-board, Dice Games, Dominoes, Marble Games, Playing Cards, and so on. There are innumerable games whose large numbers may be pasted over with slips showing small numbers, in order to allow practice in the Four Rules to ten and then to twenty, in amounts to 3d., then 6d. and 1/- and so on. Practical work is invaluable, e.g., weighing, measuring, shopping, buying and selling, giving change, estimations and checking of quantities, lengths, weights, etc. Especially do these activities appeal when they are realistic and not merely make-believe. Children?even dull children?dislike being treated as babies, for in many ways other than in academic abilities, they can most certainly hold their own.
Generally speaking, the whole curriculum for backward children should be based on broad lines and should be visual, interesting and concrete in character. In short, things that live and move, or have their being should provide the main topics for children’s activities and interests. Gardens or even window-boxes can be of inestimable value and consideration of pets, birds, insects, flowers, and living things, in general, prove of special worth. Models made with pulp (soaked newspaper) and paste prove a real delight if big brushes are used in the colouring of them. Indeed, while fluency of movement in the muscular vehicles is being secured, certain sections of the playground walls might be utilised for children’s efforts in writing and drawing. Various walks and local excursions in and around the neighbourhood should train children to look with seeing eyes, and signs, notices, directions, warnings, etc., be a regular gazeteer of information. If backward children are given plenty of scope and opportunity, there is no doubt that development and progress along the right lines will ensue.
Discipline
Nevertheless, dull, backward and maladjusted children differ between themselves enormously, and during their passage through the Junior School, and specially at the commencement of their school life, problems of discipline questions of freedom, and matters of conduct and behaviour must necessarily arise. For the harmonious development of the backward, a free discipline is essential, for some of the backward group may be highly-strung, or nervous, some may exhibit signs of delinquency, a few may have minor ills, while others may be maladjusted or out of gear generally.
By a free discipline is meant freedom of movements and activities rather than freedom to do just what occurs to mind. For example, children should be encouraged to talk quietly, to discuss and compare their efforts, to go to the cupboard for materials, and so on. Freedom of discipline does not involve licence; a child has need of control and order equally as much as he has need of play, freedom and affection. The free atmosphere is one which is stable, where consideration for others plays an important part, where real effort is demanded and secured, where practical approaches predominate, but where toleration and understanding exist all the time. Every large school, doubtless, is faced with problems that arise particularly among its backward children, e.g., truancy, pilfering, rebellion, lying and cheating, on the one hand, and acute shyness, fear, or distress on the other. What school is there where these are not? For a few of the dull or maladjusted to steal or truant, lie or cheat, is in a way understandable, because some o? them have unsuitable homes or vicious environments, or acute disability or a degree of emotional stress to combat. Such children’s standards of right and wrong are not fixed, settled, or decided, primarily because their inadequate up-bringing, training or environment has been unsatisfactory. Resultant strains or stresses induced by such unsuitable conditions or even by wrong school treatment and lack of understanding may occasion a child to steal or lie, truant or rebel. To punish a child for such display of conduct does not get to the root of the problem, for that outward sign as manifest in delinquent conduct, is only a part of a trouble that exists within the child. For example, many young children steal because they come from homes where want exists, or where the general atmosphere encourages them ” to knock things off Indeed, these are the actual words that some children use in relating their activities. To their minds ” to knock things off ” is not to steal. It is on a par with soldiers ” scrounging” in war-time days; many of us know what that was like.
Of course, many a trivial object must appeal strongly to certain children whose standards of right and wrong are definitely unsettled. On the other hand, shy or nervous children sometimes steal in order to show off their belongings to a crowd of admiring youngsters. Yet again, some few children appear to have almost an unconscious urge to take things that do not belong to them. Stealing from a baker’s cart and a laundry van are examples that I have recently encountered, though in these cases the culprits were out of gear in many respects, inside school. They were backward or maladjusted, or quiet and restrained within school, yet outside its .precincts asserting themselves and spilling over. Merely to punish such cases does not really get to the bottom of the difficulty, for the majority will still steal again, only the next time perhaps more artfully, and then they will lie and wriggle or even blame others in order to evade punishment or censure. Intelligent children can usually be made to see the folly of such misdemeanours as stealing, and invariably a private heart-to-heart talk, combined with suitable supervision, will ameliorate their undesirable propensity. For some of the backward group, in which most of these traits are manifest, there seems to be but one satisfactory solution which the school can offer, and that is to cater for each child’s ability by a provision of the right kinds of work and interests that are not too hard, too easy or uncongenial. In order to decide how much effort any child can reasonably exert and apply, it is necessary to assess the amount and nature of his innate capacity. An overload of work is just as detrimental as an underload; there must be a just apportionment of visual and manual activities to extend children beyond their own immediate grasps.
To sum up, the treatment of the dull and backward should consist of matters within their world. The world should be brought into the classroom, and if possible, all knowledge should be linked with practical situations which touch their lives as children, or will touch them as citizens to be. Give children lessons on their world?their roads and streets?parks and open spaces?fields and moors ?rivers and seas?ships and aeroplanes?motors and machines?birds and insects?animals and Man. Man and his doings make for lessons of prime importance. Much of the material for these lessons can be seen or investigated by children themselves, in fact, it is essential to work on children’s interests, to listen to their ambitions, to dispel their misgivings, to restore their confidence, and to encourage them to talk and talk. For the dull child, invariably, the spoken word will be the chief means of expression, and if the school fulfils its prime function of preparing for life, it must attempt to develop his meagre capacities to secure for him confidence that he can be of useful service to himself, his school, his home and his community.
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