Stullken, Edward H.

English

Northwestern University Illinois, School of Law: Scholarly Commons

Journal of Criminal Law and CriminologyVolume 26Issue 2 July-August Article 8Summer 1935How the Montefiore School Prevents CrimeEdward H. StullkenFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclcPart of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and CriminalJustice CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.Recommended CitationEdward H. Stullken, How the Montefiore School Prevents Crime, 26 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 228 (1935-1936)HOW TUE MONTE FORE SCHOOL PREVENTSCRIMEEDWARD H. STULLKEN*Every school system has many individual pupils who becauseof their behavior test the patience and ingenuity of teachers, prin-cipals, and other school authorities. Childhood should be an age ofhappiness, and yet many children are being blighted by nervous dis-ease, by psychopathic difficulties or by problems of truancy and in-corrigibility. Many others are out of adjustment to society to a lessdegree, but are none the less unhappy in school life. Too oftenthrough ignorance or lack of understanding these children are des-tined to discouragement, unhappiness and failure. School peoplecannot fail to reflect upon how inadequate is their knowledge andtreatment of the behavior of these pupils.One of the latest additions to the various services offered by theChicago Board of Education to care for boys with such problems isthe work of the two new special schools for truant and problemboys. The first of these, the Montefiore School, was opened Sep-tember, 1929, and cares for the underprivileged and unadjusted boysof the north and west sections of Chicago. The school enrolls ap-proximately 510 boys and is designed for those who need specialattention educationally, psychologically and medically. The boys ofthe Montefiore School are from 10 to 17 years of age and in additionto school adjustment many need medical and dental attention. Trans-fers are arranged through the school authorities and boys are notcommitted to the school by court action. It is the intention to keepboys out of court if possible.The Montefiore School is unique in that it combines many of theadvantages of a child guidance clinic with those of a special school.The classes in the school are small, averaging not over 25 boys perclass. With small classes and additional equipment the teacher is ableto give the problem boy the individual attention he needs. Teachersare specially selected because of training and experience which fitthem for intelligent work with problem cases.The Chicago Board of Health furnishes the school with medicaland dental services. A competent physician and nurse give every*Principal of the Montefiore School, Chicago.[228]THE MONTEFIORE SCHOOLboy a complete examination in order to discover any physical im-pediments to his progress in school. The examining physician andnurse also confer with parents, visiting teachers, and others to rec-ommend procedures and remedies in order to correct defects. Anoral hygiene team examines the teeth of the boys in the school and adentist furnished by the health department works in a well equippedoffice provided in the building. The Board of Education furnishes apsychiatrist part time who handles all the severe cases of behaviordifficulty.A full time psychologist is assigned to the school by the Bureauof Child Study of the Board of Education. The psychologist deter-mines the mental equipment, detects any mental handicap, and at-tempts to discover the special aptitudes of each boy so that he maybe most advantageously placed in the various types of work offeredby the school. A special speech teacher works at the school cor-recting the speech of those with defects. Individual work is alsodone with groups of boys having pronounced reading and arithmeticdisabilities. These have all been given diagnostic tests to determinetheir particular difficulties. The director of personnel work and thetruant officers do the social work and secure the confidence and co-operation of the boy and his parents in order to make the home,the school, and the various interested social agencies mutually helpfulto the solution of the problems. Special teachers are provided forrecreational work in order that the boys may be taught how to playas well as how to work.A manual training shop, an electrical and metal shop, a reed-weaving and rug-making room, all supplemented by work in mechan-ical and free-hand drawing, interest boys to work with hands andmachines. A science room, a library, a music room and a specialroom for particular problems also furnish activities in addition tothe work done in the academic classrooms. Books for the library arefurnished in part by the Chicago Public Library. A shower andbathroom, with a matron in charge, makes it possible to bathe fouror five boys every 30 minutes of the day. In addition to a smallgymnasium, a gameroom has been installed and has much the atmos-phere of a boys' club.Work along several lines is being stressed. The staff is attempt-ing to teach courtesy in word, action, and deed; cleanliness of body,mind, and speech; the fundamentals of an education; and the cor-rection of physical and dental defects. The school is in session sixand one-half hours daily five days a week and is open for all 12months of the year. Every effort is being made to overcome re-230 EDWARD H. STULLKENtardation, to remedy defects, and to bring all boys back to their nor-mal grade placement. The small classes, the individual attention,the additional equipment, and the special services of medical, dental,psychological, psychiatric, and social workers make this possible. Inthe two and one half years that the school has been in operation ithas served as a laboratory where the behavior of problem boys canbe studied. The results have justified the school's existence.The attendance of the pupils in the Montefiore School has beenover 89% in spite of the fact that 65% of the boys were habitualtruants before being sent there. Less than 18% of all boys enrolledhave had to be taken into the Juvenile Court. Over 84%. of thosereturned to regular schools have made good. There is no longer awaiting list for cases coming before the Juvenile Court. Approxi-mately 500 boys have been saved from a court experience, and 350boys have been saved from a parental school or institutional expe-rience for each of the past five years that the school has been 'inoperation. In this time 528 boys have been graduated from the 8thgrade and have left school with a feeling of success rather than asense of failure. This feeling of satisfaction is an important itemwhen working with problem children.Careful study by teachers and psychologist discloses that boys inthe school make much greater progress than is ordinarily expected.All of the school subjects show improvement and when measured onthe basis of the school as a whole, improvement in the school subjectsis 132 per cent. Individual cases of boys having almost a totalreading disability when they came show as much as three and fouryears progress in one year.These facts seem to indicate that special education and specialattention will prevent truancy and delinquency. Possibly the out-standing accomplishment of the school is the improvement in pupilconduct and in development of character. The school is more im-portant in the lives of these problem children than in that of ordinarychildren because it is not only an educative force, but also often theonly agency giving them an opportunity to adjust to the world inwhich they live.One of the lessons learned in working with problem boys in thisschool indicates that the education of the past, which has frequentlybeen concerned with a narrow, intellectual development, has failedto take into account that problem children need adjustments-such asdeveloping their personalities, securing emotional stability, develop-ing a sense of security-more than mere intellectual development.The mental hygiene movement has done a great deal toward de-THE MONTEFIORE SCHOOL 231veloping this broader viewpoint of education. It has resulted indeflecting the emphasis of the teachers' work from the routine ofintellectual discipline and drill to the more important task of trainingthe child to meet the real problems of life. One of the psychiatriccontributions to education has been the creation in the school of amental hygiene viewpoint on the part of teachers, principal and othersrather than in keeping psychiatry as an external and clumsy cor-rective to all that is unpsychiatric in the school's activities. It ismuch more important that teachers view the behavior of their pupilsin an intelligent way so that they may prevent their becoming prob-lems than that they secure expert clinical services for them afterthey have developed into behavior problem cases. Furthermore, theteacher is the person who eventually must apply any treatment carriedout by the school.The need for a psychiatric point of view in the special schoolfor problem children is self-evident. Behavior, either good or bad,has usually a purposive value for the individual, and behavior thatappears pathological or abnormal may be found to be quite logicaland normal when the sequence of causes is known and when theentire history of the child's behavior has been studied.From the study of behavior difficulties in these boys it is quiteevident that by The application of mental hygiene principles to class-room problems the teacher in any school can go a long way towardclearing up all behavior difficulties that may interfere with the in-dividual child's development. Truancy, misbehavior, and petty delin-quencies must be viewed as symptoms of something wrong in thelife of the child in relation to society rather than as abnormalities ofhis nature. So called behavior difficulties among children are thesymptom-picture of underlying conditions, the roots of which may befound in the flmily life, the economic and social environment of thechild, the school situation, or in the biological and psychological as-pects of the personality of the individual child. The MontefioreSchool in its work with problem boys tries to be careful that defectsof environment are distinguished from constitutional factors. Thetruant, the child who misbehaves, the child who doesn't get on wellwith his fellows is considered as a case for special study rather thanas an object for punishment.It has been found that an important means of treating behaviordifficulties is to readjust educationally the pupils presenting such diffi-culties and to prevent maladjustment in school learning. Many chil-dren become problems because they are mentally retarded and be-cause the regular school work does not meet their particular needs.232 EDWARD H. STULLKENThe mentally defective child learns with difficulty, but it is even moredifficult for him to unlearn, and consequently bad habits once formedare almost impossible to reform. Mental adjustment consists in abalance between the energy capacity of the individual and his oppor-tunities for spending that energy. In the case of the adult if hisenergies are blocked in one direction he can turn elsewhere for out-lets or if he is bored or surfeited he may seek new experiences. Thechild in school, however, can usually take no such liberties. Histasks are set and his outlets rigidly prescribed, consequently, mal-adjustment may be expected and behavior difficulties may arise unlessthe routine of school work is made more elastic and offers moregenerous and varied curricula to give opportunity for the child toexpress himself in other channels than through ways that are anti-social to the school group. The work of the teacher in charge of thespecial room for subnormals in the Montefiore School indicates thatnew methods, new curriculum materials and progressive ideas inhandling this type of problem case will succeed where older methodsand meager materials have failed. Mental capacity cannot be sup-plied, but these unfortunate children can be given a real sense ofsecurity and with understanding treatment will develop into self-respecting, useful and reliable citizens.Special subject difficulties, uneven development of children con-stitute other factors, which if not cared for, lead to behavior diffi-culties. Approximately ten per cent of the boys enrolled in theMontefiore School as problem cases were found to be almost totalreading disability cases. They were not necessarily boys of low in-telligence, but boys who because of faulty teaching, neurological de-fects or other reasons have failed to respond to regular instructionin reading. Most of them suffer from an inferiority complex whichdiscouraged them when working in regular classes ar~l developed inthem a decided distaste for ordinary school work. Others havebecome problems in school because of similar difficulties in arith-metic. In either case when given special help and when their par-ticular difficulties have been overcome, they cease to be school prob-lems, cease to play truant and make satisfactory adjustments to schooland home environment,Another result of the work with this group of problem boys hasbeen the recognition that the selection and diagnosis of cases of be-havior difficulty is a baffling problem with an almost hopeless inter-relating of causes and effects. Generalized statements applied to be-havior cases in groups are difficult to formulate and of very doubtfulvalue when applied to individuals. Cases of behavior problem diffi-culty may be selected by one of two groups; first by staffs of expertsTHE MONTEFIORE SCHOOL 233consisting of psychologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychiatricsocial workers, etc., or secondly by teachers, principals, parents andothers. The types of cases considered to be those with behavior prob-lem difficulties when selected by one group differ radically from thoseselected by the other. For example, pupils who disturb the teacherand disrupt the discipline of an entire schoolroom may be found bythe experts to offer no fundamental psychological or psychiatricproblem. Nevertheless, such cases may be real problems to a teacherand to a school. On the other hand, the child who is quiet and ofretiring personality may be a serious potential case in the opinion ofthe psychiatrist and yet by reason of causing no disturbance in schoolwill be considered a model child by his teacher. Educators must bewilling to be guided by the suggestions of specialists in the matterof handling behavior problem cases. On the other hand a staff ofexperts, even though their scientific examination may disclose nobasis for diagnosis or study, must be willing to set up a general pre-ventive program in practical terms which teachers and lay educatorsmay be able to use in overcoming difficulties that face the harassedclassroom teacher. The Montefiore School can make no greater con-tribution than to bring about a mutual understanding on the part ofteachers and psychiatrists in the recognition of cases for special study.The work in the Montefiore School also indicates that the diag-nosis and treatment of the case should often be carried out simul-taneously. In the Montefiore School treatment is started when theboy enrolls, his confidence is gained and he is given an interestingprogram which may be changed from time to time as conditions in-dicate. The fact that the school has many of the advantages of aclinic, these features being an integral part of the whole school pro-gram, makes it possible to do this. Furthermore, it has been foundthat many a problem case recovers without the luxury of an expensivediagnosis by a psychiatric child guidance clinic. It is much more im-portant to make a friend of the problem boy than to question himconcerning his failures and it may even be a mistake to search tooclosely for the cause of his troubles. The school should deal withthe assets of the child's life rather than dwell upon his liabilities.The relation of physical defect to behavior difficulties is in gen-eral not well defined. In the case of the more common physical de-fects, the causal relation is easy of belief because of their veryfrequent association with behavior difficulties. In the MontefioreSchool the examining physician found an average of more than fourphysical defects per boy, and 937o were in need of dental care. Com-paring these figures with those of a control group examined in aEDWARD H. STULLKENregular school, the problem group showed an average of more thanone physical defect per boy more than those found in the regularschool. This array of physical defects in a group of problem chil-dren infers a relation of contributing cause at least. Reaction tophysical discomfort as to any other unpleasant condition or situation.is conditioned by the type of individual. Even though the physicaldefects may not have initiated the misbehavior, there is little ques-tion but that they exaggerate and are a factor in its persistence. Anaggregate of four physical defects can induce a handsome aggre-gate of irritations in a naturally irritable individual.It should be pointed out that any program to prevent crime inour large cities will be faced with the problems arising out of theheterogeneous population, the struggle for existence among thepoorer classes and the complicated life for all children which intensi-fies the problem of rearing and educating them successfully. Thissituation is aggravated by the tendency in many cities to have theschools in the poorest regions most overcrowded and of providingthe most meager school facilities in the very place where conditionsare the hardest. An examination of the homes of the 438 problemboys in the Montefiore School showed a total of 331 poor familysituations, 175 being entirely dependent upon charities for existence,184 needing some help from outside sources while only 75 were self-sustaining and only 4 were characterized as being in very comfortablecircumstances. The school, therefore, when it attempts to deal withproblem children must make compensations for such poor home sur-roundings. While it is in general true that behavior patterns of thechild are shaped in the child's early experiences of the homie andmay even be well established before his *chool life is begun, yet theschool has the child for approximately twelve years during which itmay use every opportunity for reconditioning and reeducating him.All conditions which tend to increase the peace, satisfaction, eco-nomic and social status of the people and to develop justice, honesty,industry and good citizenship in the community atmosphere fit .intoa program of crime prevention. Its influence must reach far intothe field of parental education and into a proper understanding andguidance of the emotional life of the child.In brief such a program will involve the application of goodpsychology and good common sense; it will involve a return to manyof the truths formerly taught by the Church and its religious teach-ers; it will involve practicing the mental therapeutics often used bythe old family physician; all of which will bring a peace of heartthat must precede any achievement of the mind.

How the Montefiore School Prevents Crime

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How the Montefiore School Prevents Crime

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