Our Responsibility for Retardation
- Author:
Cakkie R. Squire, Ph.D.,
Principal of Training Dept., State Normal School, Superior, Wis.
That there is waste, terrific waste in our public schools through retardation has been proven beyond a doubt by the studies of Ayres. and Thorndike. Ayres estimates that the cost of the repeater in 55 of our largest cities is equal to 14 per cent of the cost of maintenance for whole system. Yet the financial loss to the community is small in comparison with the loss in time, in vigorous mental development, and in will to succeed in the children who repeat. The dumping of such a large percentage of confessed failures upon the community is a loss that cannot be estimated in dollars.
Who is responsible ? The valuable statistical studies of Thorndike and Ayres give us tlie broad general outline of the situation. They give us facts. But special studies, such as A. E. Wagner’s “Retardation and Elimination in Schools of Mauch Chunk Township,”1 by persons who are familiar with the children, their home and school environment, will give so far as they go a truer answer as to the real causes underlying retardation.
The school of which I am principal?the training department of a State Normal?presents an excellent field for such an intimate study. We know each other pretty thoroughly, children, parents and teachers.
Our pupils represent three general classes. There are those whose parents have sought the most hygienic school environment in the community from the beginning of the school life of their children. Then there are children who have failed in the public schools. Their parents, weary of ineffectual prodding, have followed some neighbor’s prescription and sent them to the Normal to be cured. Finally there is a small class of boys and girls who have shown tendencies that have interfered with the harmony of a system planned to handle masses of children. These are the socalled unmanageable boys and girls. These are, with scarcely an exception, children who are strongly individualized and respond in a perfectly normal and wholesome way to individual treatment. The last two classes represent the children who would soon 1The Psychological Clinic, Vol. Ill, No. 6, November 15, 1909, p. 164. be eliminated were they compelled to attend a public school. It has been our policy to accept these children when they apply if there is a vacant seat. We, therefore, undoubtedly show a greater proportion of retardation than the average public school. Our school accommodates 200 pupils through the first eight grades. In this study I have omitted the kindergarten. Our pupils were asked to fill out the following questionaire:
Name.
Nationality of parents.
Where were you born ?
Date of your birth?
How long have you attended the Normal ?
What other schools have you attended ?
Why did you change ?
8. Have you ever been out of school for a term ? How long have you been out 1 Why ? 9. What studies do you like best ? 10. Why do you like them ? 11. Are there any studies you do not like? 12. Why did you not like them? 13. Have you ever had any teachers you did not like? 14. Why did you not like them ? 15. Have you ever repeated the work of any grade ? If so, which grade? 16. Why were you obliged to repeat? 17. Have you ever had a double promotion? If so in what grades?
The answers were thoroughly frank. The children felt that I was interested to know their whole school history and in many cases volunteered additional data after they had talked with their parents. Their replies were supplemented by knowledge which I had previously obtained in conversation with the parents and data on file in the office.
The answers to questions 9, 10, 11, and 12 were so suggestive and took us so far afield that I have reserved them for another paper and will only refer to them incidentally.
The results of the inquiry bear us out in the presumption that we have our full share of retarded children. Taking six years as the standard age for the first grade we find 76 retarded children; this is 38 per cent of our total enrolment. The following table shows the amount of retardation: Retarded. Total number. 1 year 36 2 years 25 3 years 8 4 years 7
It will be seen at a glance that there are only fifteen cases which looked at superficially would cause apprehension. When we come to the consideration of the individual cases with the causes for the retardation, we find the problematic cases are even fewer than this table would indicate. That retardation is not necessarily an indication of inferior mental ability is shown by the following table. I have taken the average standings of the retarded children in all their school work, using the terms excellent, very good, good, fair, poor and very poor in their usual significance. These standings are compared with the number of years or retardation.
Standing. Retardation in Years. 1 2.3 4 Total No. Excellent 11 6 .. .. 17 Very good 6 5 .. .. 12 Good 10 10 3 1 24 Fair 8 1 2 2 13 Poor 1 3 1 2 7 Very poor .. 2 1 3
With special classes for the weak and special classes for the exceptionally strong who may be able to go faster than the average of the class, with daily physical training in a thoroughly equipped gymnasium, with considerable emphasis upon the manual arts, together with an attempt to bring both material and method of instruction into accord with the children’s needs and aptitudes, we have succeeded in securing a very fair standard of achievement in the formal work of the grades. All but ten of the retarded children carry the formal work of their grades with an average of seventy-five or above. Only four of these ten cases are discouraging. Three of these four are entered as very poor in the table. None of the three has been with us a full year. One entered but a month ago. This is a child of ten who has attended school regularly since he was six years of age. His ability to read and write is scarcely equal to that of our first grade pupils. He is listless and inert, yet there is no trace of physical defect other than a slight defect of vision which has been corrected by glasses. In fact he seems rather above the average child of ten in physical development. Until within a week ago we were inclined to beRESPONSIBILITY FOR RETARDATION. 49 lieve that he was defective mentally, although we had made no special tests. He is now showing signs of a mental awakening and has lately made considerable progress under individual instruction. Every success has become an added spur to effort. This case bids fair to prove merely another instance of what a school may do in the case of a normal but rather slow child to deaden interest, impede mental growth and blight the future. Another of the failures is a young lad who entered our eighth grade. After a few weeks’ trial it was found necessary to place him in the seventh grade. Even here his average standing is very poor. He has bad habits, is indifferent to all appeals that a school can make. We are certain that the difficulty here is moral, though, rather than mental.
The third case is that of a girl who has a bad heredity and a poor home environment. The report of her teachers is uniformly that when she wills to apply herself she is capable of good work. There is no mental defect here, but a defect of will which may prove even more fatal in its consequences. The fourth case which I have cited as discouraging is a child in our first grade. She is the only pupil in the grade who is a repeater. This child has been graded poor. While she has learned to read and will undoubtedly be able to do regular school work within certain limits, she shows signs of mental defect, chiefly in flighty attention, poor motor control and general perversity of conduct. Referring to the table above, it is apparent at once that the best work is done by children who are not retarded more than two years. There is one case in which a girl who is retarded four years has yet received a standing of very good. This girl is a member of our seventh grade. She came to us because she dreaded being classed with younger children in an ordinary public school. In maturity of judgment and ability to express herself, this girl would rank well if classed with those of her own age. The years of school lost have not meant any real arrest of development. There is another case of four years’ retardation in our seventh grade with an average standing of good. The history is very similar to the preceding one. A young girl was kept out of school on account of her own illness and that of her mother until she found her former schoolmates far beyond her.
Another fact is brought out strongly in this table. Twentynine of our very best pupils belong to the retarded class. Sixtysix of those whose work ranks considerably above passable, evi50 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. dencing power to grapple with school problems, are retarded. In other words, about eighty-seven per cent of our retarded pupils possess considerable ability when given an opportunity for individual expression and initiative. If we follow Cornell’s classifition of the defective children in the public schools, these eightyseven per cent would necessarily fall in his first class as children who have not reached their own best development because of poor general health and other disabling factors. The rest, with the exception of the one child, would fall into his second class. These he calls the dull children who are slow mentally and in school work, though intelligent in behavior and ordinary conversation. He finds about ten per cent of the younger school children belong to this class. We have only one pupil who could be placed in his third class of backward children and none who would belong to his fourth group of feeble minded.
Retardation, so far as this study goes, cannot be taken as an index of inferior mental ability. It is much more likely to be due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances in which society as it is represented in the home and the average school seems to have conspired with other factors, as ill health, to hinder progress.
If it were possible to get at individual histories in other studies of retardation, we would undoubtedly find similar results. Classifying causes of retardation after a detailed study of individual histories, we find the following factors operative: 1. Late entrance into school. 2. An additional grade called the connecting class inserted between the kindergarten and first grade, now abolished in our school. 3. A change in school with imperfect adjustment at time of change. 4. Inefficient schools. This is necessarily a general term which includes several specific causes as, overcrowded classes, poor systems of promotion, lack of sympathy with and comprehension of the pupils on part of teacher, poor methods of instruction, and matter poorly adapted to children’s needs and interests. 5. Illness. This includes cases of prolonged illness as well as those of a briefer term, resulting in irregular and interrupted attendance. 6. Physical defects which were imperfectly remedied and thus present constant sources of loss. 7. Language difficulties due to use of a foreign language in the home and consequent imperfect mastery of English. RESPONSIBILITY FOR RETARDATION. 51 8. Slow mental development. The following table shows these factors as they appeared, so far as we could estimate, according to years of retardation. ?s ? ? !. ?1 ell ? -a* a-s J-s sg M ?i l a 5 ? ^ -S”? So Sfio <8? ?? g ?<3 ^ 12 ?= -flu cu a-5 <s5 .2 >-3^3 -<JC Ocq i-hcQ w<J &hQ hP cc 1 12 9 8 3 2 2.. 1 2 14 5 10 7 10 2 3 41.. 251323 43.. 1 531 1 3 Total 30 14 21 20 16 8 3 10 Several factors may and did enter into a number of the cases of retardation. Irregular attendance is undoubtedly as Ayres has shown a very potent cause of retardation. We have no histories of irregular attendance, however, that are’ not included under the categories of irregularity from illness and change of school. All of the children who have physical defects have been treated by competent physicians. Two of the children have undergone operations during the last year. In the three cases where the language of the home is foreign, it has proven a great handicap. It has been responsible for at least one year’s retardation out of the two and three occurring.
Late entrance seems to be the largest factor in causing retardation among our pupils. Final results may demonstrate the wisdom of parents who thus retard the children’s progress in school. However, with healthy children the natural stimulation of a well organized school should be beneficial. The fourteen children who lost a year because of the connecting class between the kindergarten and first grade are children who have been in the training department since they began school. We found when taking charge of the school that the children from the connecting class could do no better work and, in fact, were not as keen as the children coming directly from the kindergarten. Thereupon both groups were classed as first grades. Subdivisions of the first grade were then based on the ability of the children and not upon the length of time they had been out of the kindergarten. In several instances we have found the prolongation of the kindergarten period distinctly detrimental. One pupil, a bright child, keener intellectually than the average, was retained in the kindergarten an extra year at the request of her parents. The child has gone noticeably backward, has contracted dreamy habits, is silly and inattentive. Had she been promoted and received the stimulation suited to her phase of development, I feel certain she would never have manifested her present tendencies. In reviewing the answers of the children to reasons for changes of schools, and also their summaries of studies and characteristics of teachers disliked, it seems as though the table underestimates rather than over-estimates the part played by the inefficient school and teacher in retarding children’s normal progress. The following are characteristic answers to reasons for their change of school: “The school was too crowded.” “I changed on account of my health.” “I was not learning.” “I was seated in a basement.” “The doctor advised it.” “Air better; I was sick at the other school.” “Did not like the teacher.” “I came for gymnasium and swimming.” “I wanted to come to the Normal and be cleaner.” “I needed more exercise and gymnasium work.” “Because I would feel more comfortable.” “Didn’t get along.” The gymnasium is mentioned repeatedly as a cause for change, as also the crowded and unsanitary conditions of other schools. The unsympathetic teacher also seemed to play a leading role in the cause for change. Some of these teachers were vividly recollected. “She hit us hard with a ruler if we didn’t sit up straight.” Another child complains that “She made you write ‘whispering’ four hundred times.” Another piteous complaint from a timid little soul is, “I could not understand her. She was cross.” What a picture of a child seeking to establish sympathetic and harmonious relations between himself and his teacher to no avail! Of such is the kingdom of school teachers too frequently composed. The individual child does not count with them. He must move with the procession or get out of the way. As Swift has said, “School boys many times recognize ability in an associate where the teacher has missed it. Native tendencies have never counted for much in the : schools. Principals and superintendents can make better ones to order in the office.” My experience in dealing with the children who are sent to t us after they have been pronounced failures in the public schools is in agreement with that of Dr Jones. “It is my opinion that the great majority of such children are not at all abnormal but are regarded as defective because the character of the teaching has not been adapted to their individual physical and mental needs.”
The results of our special classes again conform to Dr J ones’ statement that “The record of the supposedly defective boy under individual training is about as good as that of the normal child under class instruction.” The teacher must arouse the child’s interests and enter into his activities sympathetically. She must individualize her pupils. That the majority of the public school teachers have failed to’ do this, and have fallen to the level of wage earners is not entirely their fault. The social conditions which have created the unprofessional teacher are the real offenders. Those who have followed the discussion in the World’s Work since “The Confession of a School Teacher,” appeared in the November issue of last year, will realize that teachers of this type, undeserving of our sympathy as they may appear, often began their professional life with high ideals, only to lose them under the grind of a system. As Swift says, “Men and women of independence and power will not continue in a position in which individuality must be submerged in obedience.”
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