Modern Educational Experiments V
” Opportunity ” Pupils in a Senior Boys’ School We arc indebted to Mr. Ernest Healey, Head Master of the Spurley Hey Central School, Rotherham, for the following account of methods used for dealing with retarded boys.
In a non-selective Central School, built, equipped, and run on modern lines, it not only falls to the lot of the Head Teacher to make provision for the normal percentage of dull and backward children in a school population of more than 500, but it is also possible, given the requisite equipment, to do something really worth while for them.
What may we expect from our ‘ opportunity ‘ pupils at the end of a wisely planned school career ? Possibly all do not attain the ends we envisage, but that is not due to any defect in conception or organisation of the school curriculum ; it is in all cases of failure, due to abnormally low initial ability or to loss of school time through illness.
We expect firstly that they shall attend school regularly and punctually; that they shall be quite clean in body and clothing and in personal habits.
Before any instructional work may proceed these must be attended to; the child must be taught to appear normal as it makes a difference to his own self-esteem when other scholars and adults treat him as such. On the issue of cleanliness, it is necessary that all boys in school should strip and our boys wear knickers and pumps only for their daily physical training period. These boys, under the care of a very skilful teacher, are encouraged to become health and body conscious and the first year sees a remarkable improvement in physique, strength, posture, organisation of muscle groups, and in the command over every part of the body which shows itself in good agility work. Some general and special remedial treatment for postural defect can also be given to great advantage. Much of the success of this work is due to the master in charge of the Physical Training who is a skilful coach for games and can exercise a quasi-hypnotic suggestive influence. The boys ‘ feel’ that they are benefiting and are eager to co-operate. They are also told why this and any other activity is prescribed. It is a very encouraging sign to see the dumb repressed pupil growing to strength, becoming more vocal, and even having the self-confidence to be a little cheeky. On the recreative side, we expect that most boys will learn to walk, to run, to carry through with distinction a table of physical exercises appropriate to their age, to box, to swim, to plav games and to find enjoyment in the zest of games. Provision should also be made for Scouting and Camping in the school. Many of these activities or perhaps even one activity may save an after-school life from aimless shipwreck by providing a dominant interest for one whose interests, like his intelligence, may be only subnormal.
Craft and Garden activities also offer much scope in the education of the backward pupil. Unfortunately, the inferiority shown in academic subjects also shows itself in crafts and it has been necessary to plan out a course of special craft work involving the use of tools and timber or metal for the backward boys on different lines from the more normal boys. Many restrictions in the use of edged tools and in the provision of prepared timber and lath work have rendered this special course necessary.
The children take very readily to work in the school garden. They dig and follow their own plot and assist in the various communal activities of the garden as a whole and in the work of the greenhouse.
Much can be done in such class subjects as History and Geography to extend their horizons through time and space by treating the subject descriptively and by enlisting the aid of the cinema projector and epidiascope. We have had some very encouraging results from visual methods and have been emboldened to make a school film, two 400 feet lengths, portraying school activities. It has been quite an education to take part in the production of this film and it is merely the forerunner of many more to come.*
The backward boy needs to be taught self-reliance. The form committee with its responsibility for care of school equipment, furniture and garden, and also the share it gives in disciplinary responsibility all have a valuable developmental effect.
We hope, in a subsequent issue, to publish a further note front Mr. Healey, dealing specially
?with this experiment,?Ed,
In terms of performance then, all children and most particularly the backward child, can be taught and should be taught to walk, run, speak, play games, keep themselves tidy and clean, work to a time-table, to swim, to read and write, to use the common tools of the craft room or the garden. They can also be taught (given the facilities) to make cement paths, build with bricks and mortar, to solder, to use a lathe, to do simple electrical wiring. They may be taught to organise themselves, they may be taught to sing, and they may be taught to pray.
Surely we need not despair of the success of the all-too-brief life in the Senior School (rather more than two years on the average) if we have made a eood start on these lines ?
” Follow-up ” Visits to Teachers of Retarded Children During the last few weeks a series of visits has been paid by the C.A.M.W.’s Educational Psychologists, to teachers who took the Long Courses held by the Association in 1935, 1936 and 1937.
The following interim report of the visits made up to date clearly demonstrates the practical value of special training for this particular branch of leaching:?
The results, in the majority of case.s, have been encouraging. Although by no means all of the teachers visited have facilities necessary to the formation of clas.ses for specially selected children, many of them are modifying their curricula to meet more adequately the individual needs of children at present in their ordinary classe.s.
These visits, which have been made so far to teachers in the service of over 18 different Authorities in England and Wales, have shown clearly that: (1) Most of these Authorities are ready to offer encouragement to all teachers who can show that they are capable of undertaking this special work.
(2) The attitude of Head Teacher.s plays an even more important part in the progress of the Schemes. Where, for instance, there is insistence that the usual terminal examination shall continue in spite of the fact that the term’s work has been along individually adapted lines for children of widely differing capacities and levels of attainment, much excellent work on the part of the teacher may be wrecked and her enthusiasm clouded.
(3) On the other hand, it is equally obvious that initiative and ingenuity in the teacher are pre-requisites for the necessary flexibility of method and adaptation of such materials as are at hand. It should, however, be mentioned that in some instances there were indications that a little more elasticity in the matter of requisitions would overcome what appeared to be a stumbling block in the path of the teacher who was planning a different approach to her work.
It has been noticed with considerable interest, that some of the finest demonstrations of what can be done with backward and retarded children lie in the really excellent classes that have been seen recently in rural?and in some cases even remote rural?areas.
In one or two cases where it was found that teachers had not yet embarked upon reorganisation of their curricula, it was interesting and significant to hear their Head Teachers report that, since attending the Course, the outlook of these teachers had undergone a change which was reflected in themselves, in their relations with their colleagues, and not least in their attitude to their classes. A
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