2 research outputs found
Investigation of the causes of backwardness at the qualifying stage, with particular reference to the percentage of children scholastically retarded owing to unsuitability of curriculum. Non-scholastic tests - mechanical aptitude tests, technical information tests and a practical test - for "backwardâ pupils
Although the utmost care was taken}in discovering
the various causes of retardation for the 400 subjects, the
25.5% of cases suffering from unsuitability of curriculum
and the 5.75% of cases, the cause of whose retardation was
undiscovered, may be a somewhat rough estimate. The nonscholastic
tests are not deemed anything but crude instruments^
and their results accordingly will lack in reliability. Many
other scholastic tests may have been required.When this investigation was carried out in Edinburgh
schools by the Method of Sampling}the results were strikingly
similar to those obtained above. Roughly one quarter were
found to be mal-adjusted to their existing curriculum. By
other methods^ the Fife Education Authority reach the same
conclusion. The results obtained are sufficiently reliable, at least,
to indicate that there is a big proportion of scholastically
retarded cases which form a serious problem waiting for us to
solve. We have, by these results, a big number of children
with talents and abilities lying dormant in school^ and we are
not offering them work suitable^ or intrinsically interesting.
The result is that they are liable to degenerate^and this
degeneration may take the form of laziness^or may show itself
in mischief making and waywardness. To leave children of good
enough capacity in classes where they do poor school work ,
through lack of interest, is to tend to inculcate in them
habits of laziness and discontent}and, by sheer neglect, wrong
attitudes towards work which will later be a problem for us
to solve. The school by failing to discover and help those
backwardâchildrenâwho-are-notâbackwardâinâintelligence, is
failing to start them on their life's career as workers and
useful citizens, who have learnt though young, the joy, the
culture, and the dignity of work.Just as it is a notorious, though true, fact, that
the class teacher objects to the loss of her brightest pupils
by extra promotion^and feels the promise of clever children
from the class below ,but an insufficient compensation, so
is it the case that we are sometimes blind to existing abilities
in children?and to account for poor educational work^suppose
a retardation in general intelligence, where it does not exist.
It is a great comfort to delude ourselves that, because a child
is poor at reading and counting^he was born inferior mentally,
and will never make much headway^in spite of our efforts.
But to see that child outside, alive, full of energy and keen
vivid,, eager interest in what goes on around him^or to startle
him in school by some chance remark, into giving some unexpected, unusual information unknown to other boys, gives one food for
thought.the whole problem of scholastic backwardness^ as
distinct from mental defect ,is becoming a centre of very great interest. Educational Journals offer interesting information on
the subject and holiday courses for teachers
frequently advertise training for teachers of backward pupils
as well as for teachers of mentally defectives. In many schools I have
been in, the Headmasters are carefully considering each case
of definite educational retardation^and are recording the causes
in the book shown opposite. They realise the very great
complexity of the problem, the many types of backwardnass^and
in this area, indeed, there is a request for new terms to express
the various degrees of backwardness and the various types.With regard to ordinary educational backwardness, with an innate retardation not sufficiently acute to have the
pupils sent to a special school, we are beginning to make progress in this area. More of our schools are being given an extra
teacher to tutor the children and here and there an infant
teacher is free in the afternoons to devote her time to
coaching pupils. Again, in one small 4-teacher infant school
in this area we have re-classified the children. How, instead
of having 4 infant classes we have three infant classes, and
a smaller tutorial class. Also since the younger children
now get home for good at 1 p.m., the teacher free after her
lunch hour, tutors the children in the other two infant classes, who require extra help. This is an experiment, although no
opportunity was given to carry it out scientifically^with a
control group. Even if a school has no extra room, or teacher
or special provision for backward children the names of such
are entered on the record book shown above. Mental Testing
and Educational Testing is done, and suggestions about
apparatus and material is given, if any school applies to the
Executive Officer.Professor Burt, who is our chief inspiration, states
as a warning to these who think individual teaching alone
is sufficient - (1) "Yet even for the backward, individual
teaching may be no less wasteful - it will indeed be more
wasteful than class teaching, unless it follow the appropriate
method; and the appropriate method can only be discovered by
an intensive study of the special needs of each particular
child". With regard to the problem of the Mentally Defective
we are beginning to see that he should not be sent to a Special
School because of his inability to do the work of a normal
class but because of his inability to make satisfactory progress
in a backward, tutorial or adjustment class, after a fair trial
period.
/ / (1). Mental & Schol. Tests. P.268.To return to backwardness of the type with which
this
investigation is chiefly concerned, it has been found
that, as a result of a careful individual examination of all
alleged mentally defectives in the whole County, are children
of normal intelligence,but suffering from unsuitability of
curriculum!' A very important aspect of the problem, again,
is that Burt tells us in the chapters on "Intellectual
Conditions" in the"Young Delinquent" that young delinquents
are found to be educationally backward far more often than
they are estimated as M.D., .and one of the most notable points he makes is, that even temporary ill health, by resulting in backwardness in school may help to bring about a state of disheartenment,
and discontent which facilitates crime. This warning of the
serious, far-reaching effects of educational retardation is
surely sufficient to causee us to pay attention to the proportion
of our pupils who are suffering from unsuitability of curriculum.In the past school work has not taken sufficient
account of practical, mechanical and technical subjects^and
while this is immaterial for the normal child, in dealing with
the problem child, mainly interested in these matters, this
type of work cannot, with justice be ignored