Special school

“ But, in the course of study in the common school, it is proper and necessary that the human interest should always be kept somewhat in advance of the physical. This is simply a statement of the fact, admitted by all, that professional training in the special school is the application, in a restricted field, of principles which should be applied in every field and in all studies, whether those characteristic of a profession or those which constitute divisions of a broad, liberal and cultural education. ”

“ In some cases it would be found that the child was altogether unable to undertake this work, and measures should be taken to remedy the defect before the child enters upon the school course. Lastly, it is now realised that more attention must be paid to the differences that exist between individual children, and that in the case of children with a low degree of intelligence it is much better both for themselves and for the school generally to institute special classes or special schools for their education. ”

“ Article 46 A special school shall, in due course, request the steering committee for special education to assess the performance of juvenile students receiving special education each semester. If, after the assessment, a juvenile student is suitable to be transferred back to an ordinary school, the steering committee for special education shall make a written proposal to the original decision-making organ, and the original decision-making organ shall decide whether to transfer the juvenile student back to the ordinary school. ”

“ We ought to be convinced from such evidence of the necessity of special schools for deficients, wholly separated from the elementary schools, and where medical care combined with a specially adapted pedagogic treatment may transform the school into a true "home of health and education." ”

“ The special school is to be regarded as a training-centre for such feeble-minded children as are expected as a result of the training received there to be fitted to take a place in the community and to perform useful work under adequate supervision. There is a danger of filling the special schools with children whose poor mental endowment renders them incapable of receiving benefit at all commensurate with the energy and expense devoted to them. ”

“ Take the special student problem. When a college or university is founded, it needs students: they are the life-blood of the institution. Really all that is needed to make a college is a teacher and some students: buildings are not indispensable, but students the school must have. Thus it is apt to keep its bars down and its entrance requirements flexible. Special students, often mature men and women, who are not prepared to pass the freshman examinations, are admitted on the recommendation of heads of d epartments, to special courses they are well fitted to take. ”

“ The tendency of the school is in many cases to rub off the edges and corners of individuality. But it is impossible to approve of the extent to which, in the public elementary school of to-day, the children’s individuality is repressed. Our present elementary schools do not individualise enough. Their principal aim is, not so much to provide a sound education, as to force all the pupils through the same rigid curriculum, without making any allowance for their various special aptitudes. ”

“ One could imagine a school, and there are some of the kind, which only cares about producing graduates, without thinking of what will become of them in life, even if they go to the dogs. Every class, every school, for defectives ought to aim at rendering its pupils socially useful. It is not a question of enriching their minds, but of giving them the means of working for their living. This is an important question. Upon this depends our complete and final judgment of the utility of special education. ”

“ The future masters for the different lyceums and colleges are all educated in a special school known as the École Normale, founded under the First Republic, and where, according to the government order calling it into existence, the students have not only to receive instruction, but to be taught the art of imparting it. ”

“ Work in both sorts of special school has its own particular difficulties. One great drawback is the impossibility of adequate classification. In a small three-class centre, there will be children from five years old up to sixteen years. ”

“ The special day school may be co-ordinated with, or made a part of, the state's educational system, standing on a level with its other schools. Deaf children here come to feel their place in the normal world, while [196] people in general become more ready to regard them in a proper manner. These children at the same time are not made strangers to their own family circles and communities; and certain ones, by a school nearer home and consequently more acceptable to their parents, may be reached who would otherwise possibly never enter an institution. ”

“ Has the school met the legitimate demand for a suitable education of the adolescent? The answer is that the school has been slow in meeting this situation. The archaic form of school organization which attached the seventh and eighth grades to the elementary school has hindered greatly a proper recognition of the special needs of adolescence. The child of twelve or thirteen does not need a review of the elementary work so much as a preparation for the active life of adulthood. The adolescent needs to be given an insight into the organization of society. ”

“ The true teacher will always hold the highest ideals before the pupils, will guide them in the path of general education, until that education becomes what is called liberal. The broad-minded men who conduct schools for special education are strong advocates of the highest degree of general training as a foundation.
Four years of college life, with the methods of to-day, more than quadruple the capital of the graduate of the secondary school. They broaden the field of knowledge, and enlarge the capacity for doing. The world is full of demands for men of knowledge and power. ”

“ It is still required in most public schools, though, that pupils in any group should be kept quite close together in their educational progress, even when they show marked differences in ability in particular subjects or in the entire work of the school. But the pressure is becoming constantly greater to arrange school programs so that pupils may go forward as rapidly as their abilities, either general or special, will enable them to do, while those who are deficient may receive help according to their needs. ”

“ From this we may conclude in a general way that it is essential that the special schools and classes should bring more than half of their defective pupils to the level of the intermediate course, and improve more than half of the ill-balanced, if they are to render public services superior to those of the ordinary schools. ”

“ If discipline, school discipline, counts for anything, these professions should be full of city-bred men. But they are not, except at the bottom—way down at the bottom. City schools graduate an immense number of young men who enter seminaries and especially departments of colleges, to gain a special education, but somehow these are not the men who are prominent in the new blood of their respective professions. ”

“ Such a plan of curriculum enrichment as ours fits best into the 8B setup, for such a program cannot be supervised if the pupils are scattered and the situation made subject to the transition from 6B to junior high school. In the metropolitan situation it is not feasible to take the pupils for special classes until they are at least 7 years old. The infrequency of their occurrence makes it necessary to assemble them from several districts, and they are not mature enough to come from a distance when they are 6 years of age. Parents cannot assume the burden of accompanying them twice a day. ”

“ This humanising process will be introduced into the schools, when scholars are no longer regarded as classes, but each individual for himself. The schools will then commence to fulfil one of the many conditions necessary to give young people real nourishment and so develop them and make them happy.
Such a school life will make its first aim to discover in early years uncommon talent, to direct such talent to special studies. ”

“ A Call for Inclusive Schools, Report to the National Association of State Boards of Education by Study Group on Special Education (October 1992) . While "inclusion" may be a more precise term, we will nonetheless use the term "mainstreaming" because it is currently the common parlance. Moreover, as we discuss below, "mainstreaming" as required under IDEA does not mean simply the placement of a child with disabilities in a regular classroom or school program. ”

“ What is not envisioned is that the appropriate educational programming and related services will result in an educational benefit being conferred. Special education can no more ensure good results than can regular education. ”

“ School doors have been unlocked to Down's syndrome children, and special education classes within mainstream school programs have been developed. Vocational training in preparation for gainful employment and independent living has become available. ”

“ In the old schools the number was too small to form an attractive social center and to justify the employment of special teachers, but the new school is fast becoming the center of all social activities of this larger community, employs special teachers in music and expression, and has in the faculty teachers qualified to give instruction in practical agriculture and domestic science. ”

“ When the defect is a serious one, such children should on no account be brought up in the family circle, or educated in ordinary schools; it is absolutely necessary to provide special schools and institutions for each class of such defectives—blind schools, deaf-mute schools, cripple schools, &c. ”

“ Another method is to teach only the exceptional children individually, while the others are taught as before in classes. Still another plan that is now being adopted extensively in large cities, is that of having special schools or classes for each type of exceptional child, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the epileptic, the incorrigible, etc. ”

“ Whatever adjustment the school may be able to make in terms of providing special classes for those who are mentally or physically deficient, or for those who are especially capable, there will always be found in any given group a wide variation in achievement and in capacity. Group teaching and individual instruction will always be required of teachers who would adapt their work to the varying capacities of children. ”

“ Under the prevailing policy, subject to the assessment and recommendation of the specialists and with parents' consent, children with more severe or multiple disabilities are placed in special schools for intensive support. ”

“ Article 47 Special schools shall conduct education and correction of juveniles receiving special education in different hierarchies and categories, provide targeted moral education, rule of law education, and mental health education, and provide vocational education in light of the actual circumstances; and guarantee that juveniles who have not finished compulsory education continue to receive compulsory education. ”

“ We ask that all intelligent initiative should be accepted and encouraged, and that the teachers in special schools should frequently meet together in order that they may compare their experience. In short, we should give to the schools and classes for defectives such freedom and elasticity that the kind of education best adapted for such children would be able to evolve and perfect itself like a living organism. ”

“ The training should be largely manual and industrial and as practical as possible. As the number of classes in any school district increases, the classification will sift out those who are merely backward and a little coaching and special attention will return them to the grades. The others—the morons—will remain and as long as they are not dangerous to society (sexually or otherwise) they may live at home and attend the special classes. As they grow older they will be transferred to proper custodial institutions. ”

“ In the last few years special schools have been opened for these children, and they are trained until they are sixteen years of age. At that age they are turned out into the world. A few are able to look after themselves. ”

“ They could show the teachers what is implied in knowledge, introduce books of wider views, and they could visit the children’s homes, arrange for their holidays, and see to their pleasures. Much more important is it that the schools under the nation’s control should be good than that special schools should be started to achieve certain results. In connection, too, with the Board it is possible to have night classes, which should be in reality classes in higher education, and means both of promoting friendship and gaining knowledge. ”

“ It is only within 60 or 70 years that much attention has been given to their education, but in special schools in this country and in Europe the majority become self-supporting—particularly the deaf and the brighter ones of the feeble-minded. ”

“ In precisely similar fashion, our daily associations cannot be trusted to make clear to the young the part played in our activities by remote physical energies, and by invisible structures. Hence a special mode of social intercourse is instituted, the school, to care for such matters. ”

“ And while our common schools are thus moving onward, it is no less a sign of national devotion to education that schools of higher grades are springing up everywhere. Special and charitable schools for the deaf and dumb, for the weak-minded, industrial training schools, etc., all of them upheld by the same national spirit. Nor to be forgotten are the schools for all classes at home, where by correspondence and concert of work, results which none can measure are attained. ”