Common Features in High-School Programs In all of the high-school programs cited there are certain common features and objectives. Briefly stated they are as follows: The high school is willing to accept the retarded pupil at his own level and to plan for specialized instruction in terms of his own ability to achieve. The retarded pupil is assimilated into the regular high-school student-body in all activities in which he can profitably participate. In every possible way the retarded pupil is made to feel his own personal worth, both students and faculty regarding him as an accepted and acceptable member of the student body. Emphasis is placed upon practical learnings, as contrasted with theoretical knowledge, and upon experiences that are closely related to home life, community civics, health and sanitation, leisure-time activities, associations with other people, and a definite job objective. In the selection of pupils to be promoted to such a high-school program, emphasis is placed upon a reasonable amount of physical and social maturity, even in the presence of serious intellectual deficiency. One more thing needs to be said regarding this last point. There is no suggestion in this chapter that children with serious social incompetence and physical stigmata plus intellectual deficiency should be admitted into the secondary school. For some of these, institutional care may be necessary; for others special occupational centers under public-school auspices, but not connected with a regular secondary school, have been provided. But for those whose deficiency is primarily intellectual, even though it be serious (as measured by intelligence tests), the secondary school has a major responsibility. What the high schools are trying to do in some localities may be an incentive to other school systems to explore the possibilities of action. Summary 1. All adolescents with serious intellectual deficiency are not feebleminded. Many of them are socially competent to a reasonable extent and can take care of their own affairs provided they have the proper guidance and educational opportunities. 2. The secondary school has begun to recognize its responsibility for serving all youth. 3. Adjustment of the curriculum in the junior high school, the 4-year high school, and the senior high school can be achieved for one or two pupils, or for an entire class. Such adjustment can develop the potentialities of retarded young people for personal growth and for occupational achievement. 4. There are examples of successful high-school programs under way, in which special teachers who are prepared to teach the mentally retarded take the major responsibility, coordinating their work with the efforts of other teachers to whom individual pupils may be assigned. 5. In such programs the physical development and social maturity of the pupils have been factors of major consideration in their placement. The opportunity afforded them for high-school experiences, despite a low intellectual standing, helps them make better social and vocational adjustment in the community. 6. Only when every retarded adolescent has the opportunity to realize his greatest possibilities personally, socially, and occupationally, can it be said that the schools have met the challenge of educating all American youth. Special Problems of the Residential School THE PLACE in which a child is being educated does not affect the general philosophy and objectives underlying his education. His own nature, his probable destiny, and the social environment in which he is to play his part are rather the determining factors. Hence, what has been said in the foregoing chapters concerning curriculum adjustment applies to mentally retarded children everywhere. The fact of retardation is common to them all, whether they are enrolled in day schools or in residential schools; in public schools or in private schools. And the fact of retardation must be met by an adjustment of curriculum which is common to all, subject only to those variations which arise as the result of the successive levels of chronological, mental, and social development. Some school people have been prone to emphasize the differences between so-called institutional schools and day schools and to forget their similarities. The child of 60 I. Q. who, because of some environmental complication, leaves the home community to enter a residential school does not by reason of that change of residence alter his intellectual status or his educational needs and abilities. Other factors have entered the picture which reveal the need for continuous supervision on the basis. of a 24-hour day and a 365-day year, but his capacity for learning remains the same. What is good educational content for him in one place should be satisfactory in the other. The method that is successful in one place should be successful in the other. As the special problems of the residential school are considered in this chapter, they should not be permitted to overshadow the problems that are the same for all schools and classes for retarded children. It should be recognized that not all inmates of many State or private institutions for the feeble-minded attend the school sessions conducted as part of the institutional life. Those children who are too mentally deficient to profit by school instruction are not included in the consideration of this bulletin; neither should it apply to those who are physically adults of middle age or beyond, but who are mentally still children. Some of the latter have been taught to perform useful tasks about the institution which represent the realization of their maximum capacity. But they are not in the daily attendance upon the school program, and they are not children within the age groups being considered here. Educable children between the ages of 6 and 16 or 18 are the theme of this study, and theirs is the right of regular systematic instruction wherever they are. In most institutions for the feeble-minded this is effected through the organization of a daily school program for them under the guidance of trained teachers. That some special problems do exist in residential schools is obvious. The very nature of the institution is bound to produce situations not known in the day schools, but these do not necessarily militate against the application of sound principles of curriculum adjustment. In fact, some of them promote rather than hinder the program. Continuous Supervision and Control The control of the residential school over its pupils extends through 24 hours of the day and 365 days of the year. The continuous supervision that is practiced there cannot be exercised in day schools because of the limitations of time. Therefore the possibilities in a residential school of an integrated program in which educational and social values are combined go far beyond the limits achieved by the day school. Through the use of units of experience, classroom activities can be coordinated with activities carried on in the cottage, in the kitchen, in the dining room, and in other phases of institutional life. Experiences during out-of-school hours can become the subject matter of reading, writing, numbers, and language, to an extent not known in the day school. Cottage life gives the best possible opportunity to develop desirable personal and social habits which in turn can become the theme of discussion in the classroom. Social, industrial, academic, and physical development of the child can proceed hand in hand with one another through a complete practical integration of his experience during a 24-hour day and during every season of the year. Selection of Group The pupils of a residential school are a selected group. Because of environmental situations, extreme mental deficiency, or social conflict, they have not succeeded in making adjustment to community life. Many-if not the majority of them are truly feeble-minded, being both socially and intellectually incompetent. The curriculum must therefore be organized to meet the peculiar needs of the respective types. Those who have been assigned to the residential school because of undesirable home or community environment can, if they are persons of sufficient intelligence to accept needed training, be prepared to return to the community later under more favorable environmental conditions. Those who are too deficient ever to return to the community must be prepared to take their places in institutional life. Those who are in the institution because of the addition of behavior complications to low intelligence must be carefully studied with reference to their possibilities for satisfactory social adjustment. Some will be able to go back to the community. Others will need to remain in the institution indefinitely and will need to be trained accordingly. This training for institutional life involves preparation for usefulness in line with the activities necessary for the maintenance of the institution. Thus the content of the manual and prevocational experiences offered to children during their school years will logically depend upon the opportunities that will later be available for their application. In the larger institutions girls will be able to render their services in the household, in the hairdressing shop, and in the dining room. Boys will contribute to the maintenance of the institution through simple carpentry, shoe cobbling, painting, barbering, printing, gardening, and farm work. In every case the probable future of the child as a permanent resident of the institution will color the training he receives in industrial activities. Psychotics and Defective Delinquents Most serious among behavior problems found in the residential school are those characterizing the psychotic and the delinquent. Mentally deficient |