The School Psychologist
- Author:
Hutt, M.A.,
Psychologist for Montgomery School for Boys.
The function of a Psychologist in a school containing subnormal children is fairly well understood. Segregation and special training have been practiced rather widely during the past decade. In a school for normal children, however, the function may not be so clear, unless it be to safeguard the interests of the differing degrees of normality by prevention of pace-setting by either the dullard or the exceptionally gifted group. The definition of the word normal, as used above, must be expressed in terms of educability. A line which occurs in the English Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 should suffice as a satisfactory definition:?”Persons”?who do not “appear to be permanently incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools.” (Quoted and abridged from Tredgold’s “Mental Deficiency,” page 91.) It is evident that all children who conform to the above definition are not necessarily of equal competency or proficiency. It is also obvious that there may be temporary and remedial incapacities. If the school does not set an arbitrary standard of normality for itself and demand that all of its pupils conform to that standard or else withdraw, it must note the individual handicaps and endeavor to correct or meet them. The latter plan demands a flexibility of teaching methods and of curriculum. It also demands the services of the Psychologist. The detection and correction of these temporary and remedial incapacities and the educational guidance of those so handicapped, is the function of the Psychologist in the school for normal children. There are bound to be children in every school who fail to conform to the ordinary school norms or standards of scholarship and deportment. Usually the superficial causes are apparent. Gross lack of interest, of prerequisite training, of adequate health, and of concurring parental discipline stand out as such causes which most educators can readily detect and meet. But these arc not always gross and, besides, there may be underlying causes which are more elusive, and the ready application of the terms “can’t “and “won’t” are frequently productive of injustice. It used to be considered that the indolent boy needed the rod. Nowadays an injection of beneficent colon bacilli has been found more effectual in many cases. Children are occasionally excluded from school for scholastic or deportmental reasons because the school has failed to understand the individual problem and to solve it. This injustice, the Psychologist may prevent. He may find that the “can’t” and “won’t” should be resolved into the term “doesn’t,” and that the child both can and will if the case is properly approached.
When the author undertook the work of Psychologist in a private school for boys, he made a complete analytic diagnosis of every boy in the lower grades to fix the school norm. Random cases from the upper grades were similarly examined as a check on the established estimate. The tests varied according to the ages and the difficulty of individual cases. For the lower grades the following sufficed: Witmer Form Board, Witmer Cylinders, Auditory Memory Span for Digits and Syllables, and selected parts of the Binet-Simon Tests. As the ages increased or when the solution of the problem was complicated, Healy Construction A and B, Knox Triangular and Moron, Dearborn Construction and the Design Block Tests were used. In some cases the Courtis Tests were used as were sample lessons from the school textbooks in those subjects which gave the child particular difficulty. In several cases Diagnostic Teaching was resorted to as a check. The School Physician and the Scholastic record were always consulted in cases of doubtful nature.
With a tentative norm once established, the intensive study of referred cases began. Masters reported cases of non-conformity and the Psychologist analyzed the case. In every case considered to date, the application of the Psychologist’s recommendations has resulted in some degree of improvement. The following abridged reports will indicate the varying sorts of cases which must be met by schools endeavoring to educate the individual boy.
“H” was considered feebleminded by the faculty. Apparently H’s parents feared the same. He is an overgrown boy of sensitive nature, slow in all of his reactions and easily given to discouragement. His was a history of ill health necessitating frequent prolonged absence from school. Upon examination the suspicion of feeblemindedness was laid to rest. His course of study was so altered as to enable him to have a larger share of study time. He was given and is still receiving special training in his poorest subject, mathematics, and he is now producing satisfactory results. The type of problems he is now solving were utterly impossible for him a year ago. What appeared to be a judgment deficiency was largely due to lack of adequate training because he was too slow to profit by class instruction where the pace has been set by more brilliant students. “A” failed in his studies and was a perfect nuisance in the classroom. He was a frequent visitor in the office of the headmaster where sundry punitive methods were applied. His seemed a hopeless case. His mother asked that he be given a psychological examination because she felt that something must be wrong. She suggested that he suffered from an “inferiority complex.” In fact, the boy was convinced that he could not do better. The head of the school he had previously attended was inclined to agree that the boy had the right solution. It took less than two hours to find a cure for “A.” After a period of directed study and encouragement, he was convinced that he could concentrate his attention on the task in hand and that he could do what was expected of him. He found a real interest in his work and had no time for mischief. He learned to like success. Imagine the surprise of one of his teachers when the class pest of old asked permission to do extra work in order to erase the record of failure. In his last examinations, a year after the “cure,” he received three grades of eighty and above. Occasions for discipline are decidedly few.
“R” could not spell. Work done in class was abominable. Examination papers could not be deciphered. However, work done at home was perfect. There is no doubt that R has the competency to do the work required of him. He also had the ability to persuade his father to give him such a large measure of assistance at home that, as the father himself suggested, after a conference with me, “It seems that I should be credited with the home work grades.” Perhaps this case should not have been reported until change could be noted, which prolonged absence has made impossible, but I offer it as an example of how, by the process of elimination, the Psychologist was able to trace the trouble to its source. Where no work was done, no improvement in spelling could be expected.
“E” failed in every one of his examinations last December. Inasmuch as his class work had been fair, no one had foreseen the possibility of such a disaster. Naturally, his parents wanted an explanation. “E” showed splendid mentality and this complete failure seemed like a reflection upon the school. Upon examination it was demonstrated that “E” was good for real work in small doses and that an hour of consecutive work?a half hour of consecutive work was out of the question. He was found to have a serious stomach disorder which resulted in deficient energy for sustained effort and he has been withdrawn from school until well enough to carry on a normal amount of work. He had managed to keep up his class work only at the expense of sleeping time which practice had not helped his physical condition.
M’ failed to do satisfactory work when transferred from the lower to the upper school. The trouble was that a tutor had guided all of “M’s” study while in the lower school and the boy did not THE SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST. 51 know how to dig for himself. A little transitional training has solved the difficulty and “M” is going along splendidly. And so the cases go. Simple in their solution when the facts are known but baffling when it is not clear that it is not a case of “can’t” or “won’t.” Sometimes an inadvisable promotion in earlier years leaving essential groundwork unlearned; sometimes new outside interests encroaching upon study time; sometimes plain discouragement because the child is left to flounder in waters which are too deep when a little help would carry him through?these things may be the deep underlying causes which defy detection by means of superficial observation and, even, of careful study unless all doubt as to competency is first cleared away. Thus the school master, ‘though he feels that the boy is lazy or distracted or what not, cannot act with such measure of assurance as would be his were he certain of the facts. A mistake might do irreparable harm. When the facts are known, however, there is no need of uncertainty and, when the proper methods are applied correct orientation results and, instead of an unhappy failure, we have a boy radiant with the flush of success.
It is the function of the Psychologist to discover the facts of mentality in the individual and to explain the deviations of behavior. It is his function to find and, occasionally, to apply the cure.
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