Children with severe mental retardation are becoming an integral part of public education, and spending increasing amounts of time in regular classrooms. Teachers and teacher educators are being confronted with the complex educational, social, medical, and psychological needs of these young children. In reviewing the current practices of classroom activities, it is constructive for teacher educators to reflect on mental retardation as it relates to the concept of educability. One operational example of educability is presented in the story of Helen Keller.
The Lesson of Helen Keller
When introduced to the story of Helen Keller and the paradox about her relationship with Anne Sullivan, student teachers once debated whether Helen Keller did or did not have mental retardation. Blatt (1987) contends that as a young child she did have mental retardation–severe retardation. She groveled on the floor for her food, made animalistic sounds, tore her clothes off, wasn’t toilet trained and apparently had no civilized attributes. In her words, I was an animal. Then she met her teacher, Anne Sullivan.
The concept of educability implies change. The textbooks always write about the amazing feat of Anne Sullivan in teaching Helen Keller, deaf and blind, to read, write and communicate. Of course, it was a miracle; but the real miracle was not necessarily the result of divine intervention, but one of appropriate education and instruction in the face of unfavorable odds. If there had been an educational plan for Helens instruction and an expectation that she would meet those objectives; if the power of Caption and Mrs. Kellers advocacy and participation in their childs education were valued and drawn upon, there never would have been the miracle of Helen Keller. There would have been the appropriate education of Helen Keller. Anne Sullivan did not take on the responsibility of Helen Kellers education because she expected her to go to Radcliffe College. She did it because she believed that every human being is entitled to an opportunity to learn and develop. The miracle then, was simply the changes brought about by appropriate instruction, which contrasted vividly against the best practices of the day. Helen was able to take advantage of the talents and confidence of an educator, and she was empowered to achieve through instruction.
Never before in history had a person who was deaf and blind been able to attend a university much less become a great writer, a famous personality, and impact and inspire so many with her life work.
The concept of educability implies change; capability is a function of practice and training. Helen Keller was a brilliant person, but at one time she had mental retardation, only a change in the definition of mental retardation, which was effected in 1956, gave the educational community the opportunity to consider Helen Keller in terms of an evolving person. At that time, the definition was changed from one which emphasized a constitutional insult to the central nervous system which is incurable and irremediable, to one which emphasizes a disorder of learning, maturation, social adjustment and adaptive behavior. Thus, after the 1950s, teacher educators and student teachers could think about Helen Keller as having once had mental retardation.
Since 1956, the definition of mental retardation changed again and as even more current revision is underway. In 1973 psychometric retardation was defined as occurring in those with IQs two standard deviations below the mean or a score of 70 or less. Prior to that, mental retardation was defined as occurring in those with IQs lower than 85 or one standard deviation below the mean (theoretically about 16% of the population). So, with the stroke of a pen the percentage of person labelled as having mental retardation was reduced from 16% to 2%. The change in definition also encouraged the concept of remediation or cure, and incidentally, cured more people with mental retardation than all of the professionals have done since the beginning of time. This had nothing to do with science or research. This could not be done with a real condition like pregnancy. The gynecological society would not attempt to change the definition of pregnancy.
Philosophy or Empirical Reality?
So many movements in education are based on deeply felt beliefs with minimal scientific support. Forty years ago every university special education program, every public school teacher, every good thinking, altruistic, humanistic person involved in education believed deeply in the inalienable rights of every child with mental retardation to be segregated in the name of best practice. Then the momentum began to swing away from self-contained settings. This change in Zeitgeist was not empirically based, data was not considered. The impetus for change evolved from a belief in peoples entitlement and was embodied in the separate but equal philosophy. This philosophy manifested itself in such practices as mainstreaming and deinstitutionalization. Study after study has demonstrated there is no grounding in empirical research for the development of instructional activities, in fact, there has yet to be, in all of education, any method, any curriculum, any administrative design where one procedure can be shown to be empirically superior. The only time one seems to encounter significant results with a special procedure is when the creator of the procedure applies it (Blatt, 1981).
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