How Detroit Cares for her Backward Children
- Author:
Martindale,
The Psychological Clinic Copyright 1912, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. /Vol. VI. ]STo. 5. October 15, 1912. s
Superintendent of Public Schools, Detroit, Mich. While much has been said concerning the advisability of placing backward children in special classes, and the examination to be given to such children upon entrance, little if anything has been said concerning the method of procedure to be followed before a child can be transferred from a regular room to one of the special classes.
In Detroit a systematic plan has been worked out which has been in effective operation for the past two years, and is well worth consideration. Special education for backward children has been carried on in Detroit for the past ten years. Work was begun in 1901, with the opening of one room, and since that time, eight additional rooms have been opened. From the beginning, it was found that a great many low grade children were placed in these rooms who were purely institutional cases. To eliminate these children, without giving offense to the parents, has been a long and serious problem.
From its introduction the work has been in charge of a Child Study Committee, organized by Superintendent Martindale. This committee is made up of the President of the Board of Education, who acts as president; the Superintendent of Schools, who is a member ex officio; the Director of Kindergartens; Supervisor of Ungraded Kooms; Supervisor of Primary Grades; Principal of the School for the Deaf, and the General Supervisor, who acts as secretary of the committee. The committee assumes the entire responsibility for every pupil’s admission to or exclusion from the special rooms, and that the work has been carried on in a wise and judicious manner is proven by the fact that few, if any,parents have ever objected to the rulings of the committee. In the fall of 1910 the Department of Special Education was organized and the nine special rooms, the school for cripples and schools for stammerers were placed under the direct supervi(125) sion of the General Supervisor. She plans and directs the work of the special rooms, and assists the teachers by her helpful suggestions and sympathetic aid. For the past two years the Binet-Simon tests for intelligence have been used as a basis to determine the mentality of backward children. When a principal or teacher arrives at the conclusion that a child is backward, a blank form called “Notice to parent” is filled out and sent to the parent asking him to consult his family physician concerning the child. If no results follow, the school principal then calls upon the regular school physician to make a physical examination of the child in order to ascertain if his backwardness is due to defective vision, defective hearing, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, or nervousness. The principal reports the result of this examination to the parent. If the parent is unable to provide proper medical attention the principal then reports the case to the Child Study Committee. This committee is able to provide free medical assistance to all needy children through the voluntary service of the best specialists of Detroit. These specialists upon receipt of a note from the secretary of the Child Study Committee, examine free of charge any children who are brought to them, and if it is necessary to perform an operation for adenoids or enlarged tonsils, they will arrange that this be done. Where children cannot afford glasses, these too are provided without cost from a fund set aside by the Detroit Teachers’ Association. Since September, 1911, two hundred and fifteen pupils have been treated for defective vision and provided with glasses. A large number of cases of adenoids and enlarged tonsils have been operated upon and treatment given for nervousness, deafness, defective teeth, and infantile paralysis.
After the child’s physical defects have been remedied, if his mental condition still remains unchanged the case is again talked over carefully by the parent and the principal. The latter explains to the parent just what has been the result of the investigation so far with regard to the child and the effect of his mental or physical disability upon his work in school. The principal then proceeds to question the parent regarding the ancestry of the child, his home peculiarities, any illnesses that he may have had and any hereditary diseases which might have been transmitted to him. The teacher fills out the school history of the child, together with his personal characteristics. This report is then sent to the office of the Child Study Committee in duplicate. The Binet examiner, appointed by the Board of Education, then visits the school which the child attends and gives him the Binet test. Within a day or two the special physician appointed by the Board of Health to work under the direction of the Board of Education in its work of caring for the backward children, visits the school and makes a physical examination of the child. The statement of the parent as given in the report sent to the secretary of the Child Study Committee by the principal, together with the child’s school history, reports of the Binet examiner and of the school physician, are then passed upon by the Child Study Committee.
In the cases of low grade children whom the committee thinks it advisable to exclude, a second examination is made of the child by one of the mental specialists of the Child Study Committee consultation staff. If he classes the child in the low grade group the case is again brought to the Child Study Committee and usually results in the exclusion of the child. This is done by sending a notice to the parent stating that his child has been excluded. The report and the notice of exclusion are signed by the Child Study Committee.
No definite rule can be made to decide what children shall be admitted to a special room, as every child’s case is unlike that of any other child. In general, children above the Third Grade are not admitted to Detroit special rooms, and no pupil under nine years, unless he is two years behind grade, or over nine years, unless he is three years behind grade.
While this is the guiding principle, still it is by no means closely adhered to, as the condition of the child frequently shows that he should be placed in a special room, even though his classification indicates otherwise. After it has been decided to send a child to the special room, the principal of the school to which he belongs is notified. The principal in turn notifies the parent, and if there is no objection on the part of the parent, the child is transferred. If, on the contrary, the parent does object on account of the distance or for any other reason, the case is dropped temporarily. Since September, 1911, 488 cases have been examined. The committee has recommended 190 of this number to the special rooms. Out of this number, the parents of only sixteen have refused to allow their children to attend. Thirty-five children, who have been examined, have been unable to attend because there was no special room accessible to them. Car fare is provided by the Board of Education in all cases where it is thought necessary by the principal, but it is not deemed advisable to send children to a special room unless they can reach it by a direct car line.
Two years ago the new classification, which includes in the feebleminded group three classes of children, the moron, imbecile and idiot, each of which is sub-divided into three grades, high, middle and low, was adopted by the Child Study Committee. It was decided to exclude from the Detroit public schools, all children in the idiot group and also those in the middle and low grade imbecile groups. This rule has been rigidly adhered to, as it is considered a waste of public funds to attempt to teach children of these classes, who are regarded by all specialists as unteachable. This feature of the work is very important; it means the thrusting upon the streets of numbers of children who have no other place to go, because in Michigan, as in every other state, provision for the feebleminded is far from satisfactory. It is hoped through these severe measures to secure the establishment of a Home for Feebleminded Children, located in the vicinity of Detroit, the necessity for which can be shown in no better way than through letting the public know the number of children who are in the middle and low grade imbecile and idiot group. A recent mental and physical examination of all the pupils in the special rooms has just been completed and some interesting facts disclosed. While no child has ever been placed in a special room without a physician’s examination, this was the first time that a mental examination had been made of pupils who were in special rooms before the introduction of the Binet tests, two years ago. The Department of Special Education has been kept so busy examining applicants for the special rooms since the introduction of the new system that it had not been able before to make an examination of pupils already in the rooms.
Of the 120 children examined, 1G were found to be of such low grade that they have been excluded permanently from the public schools; 57 were found who, while they can profit to a certain degree by continued attendance in these rooms, have no prospects of ever leaving the special room; 47 of the pupils have prospects at some time within five months or a year of being returned to their regular classes.
The work of the Detroit special rooms might be said to be three-fold:
1. It acts as a clearing house to eliminate low grade children from the schools.
2. It provides a place where middle grade feebleminded children may be given the advantage of some slight educational training combined with a large amount of hand work, which is selected with a view toward its providing them with some means of livelihood later on.
3. It provides a place where children who are merely backward for various reasons may be placed for a length of time, varying from one year to two, in order that special assistance may be given them to make up grade work.
We are looking forward to the time when rooms will be established where the children who are now excluded, may attend for perhaps half a day and receive attention in hand work and games which will vary the monotony of their lives. It is possible that in the near future we shall also again divide these rooms and have those children that are merely backward in one class of rooms, while those for whom there is no hope of ever being returned to a regular grade shall remain in rooms by themselves. The present method, however, has its advantages in that there is less opposition to the segregation of feebleminded children where all are classed as backward, than there would be if these unfortunate children were placed in a room known to be maintained for- the express purpose for caring for mentally defective children. For the same reason special rooms in Detroit have not been centralized, but one room is set aside in each of nine different buildings. These children therefore come into contact with normal children on their way to and from school and at recess time, which is no doubt of much benefit to them, and at the same time it makes the special rooms of much easier access to the children who are enrolled there. The teaching corps is composed of some of the strongest and most progressive teachers in our teaching body. Three of the nine special teachers have had special courses at the Vineland Training School and University of Pennsylvania, and two others intend to take up work at these institutions the coming summer.1 The General Supervisor in charge of the work has also had advantage of a special course at Vineland, jN”. J.
Concerning the work of the children who will probably never be promoted from the backward room, very little is required of them in the line of reading and especially of number work. They are taught the ordinary school subjects individually, but their, life is not made miserable by trying to teach them something which we believe would be for them a physical and mental impossibility. For them great stress is placed upon the hand work which occupies practically all the time when they are not engaged in recitation work with the teacher.
1 This article was written in the spring of 1912. The backward children who are in the special room because they have fallen behind their class on account of illness or of some cause other than a physical or mental defect, are given special assistance in order to bring them up to grade, and while they do some hand work their time is mostly occupied in doing the tasks assigned pupils of regular classes. Children who have prospects of promotion are also sent to recite in one or more of the classes of the regular grade to which they belong. Here they are kept in touch with normal children and have the advantage of hearing the recitations. They are sent to the regular rooms for language and geography recitations, but in the preparation of the lessons are assisted in their own room by the special teacher. The privilege of attending manual training classes is given to all pupils of the special rooms, irrespective of their age and grade. Through this arrangement the pupils have the advantage of the guidance of a trained teacher, and in the three hours a week, which some of the boys spend in a carpenter shop, much’ profitable work is done. While a number of the older girls have successfully attended the cooking classes, the work which is given them by the sewing teacher is, perhaps, on the whole more beneficial, and as a result, many of these girls may in time become efficient seamstresses.
Basketry has grown to be such an important feature that it can no longer be regarded as anything less than an industry in the special rooms of Detroit. Both reed and raffia baskets of all sizes, shapes and styles are made by the deft fingers of these boys and girls during a regular basketry lesson, as well as in all the spare minutes when they cannot profitably be employed upon ordinary school work.
A new impetus has been given this work through the Board of Education having granted permission for the pupils to sell the products of their work done in school and to retain all of the selling price less the cost of the material. This plan has been the means of retaining the interest of a number of the older pupils in the work of the special room during the period when they become restive, after having been in the room for a length of time, and their parents wish them to leave school and go to work. While it is indeed a difficult matter to keep some of the older pupils in the special rooms, still the great good that will be done by keeping the border-line cases in school as long as possible, and t rough hand work, nature work and good literature fitting them to become self-sustaining and self-respecting citizens cannot be over-estimated.
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