Burton Blatt

Public Policy and the Education of Children with Special Needs.

This paper reviews several programs for children with special needs, from historical perspectives, current involvements, and one particular orientation, railed the “child development model.” With respect to programs based on the child development model, it is recommended that each state consider planning toward the eventual organization of a child development agency, responsible for all children with special needs, irrespective of their characteristics, educational attainments, and prognoses. Further, it is recommended that, to the degree programs encourage and support the maintenance of children in community environments, they should be reworded in both specific and general ways: and for purposes of better guaranteeing human rights and due process, citizen advisory and other advocacy groups should be organized throughout a state and given such support as would be needed to make these groups active and responsive grass roots partners in policy and decision making.

Head Start for the Handicapped: Congressional Mandate Audit:

The 1972 Amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act mandated that not less than 10% of the Head Start enrollment nationwide be made available to handicapped children. This article reports research evaluating the effect of the mandate during the first year of its implementation. The findings indicate reasonable progress in meeting the needs of the handicapped; however, labeling appears to have increased and serious problems remain in accommodating youngsters with severe disabilities. Recommendations for the enhancement of Head Start efforts on behalf of the handicapped are including a suggestion for reducing societys inclination to segregate or exclude children with major differences in development.

Educating intelligence: Determinants of school behavior of disadvantaged children.

This report discusses the effects of a two year intervention on preschool disadvantaged children, as found in a one year follow up. Research and experimental variables of a more or less controllable nature tend to obscure any clear cut conclusion as to the extent and quality of change in these children. It is certainly questionable whether existing standardized tests are appropriate with regard to either the intervention or the socioeconomic status of the children involved.

Hail the Conquering Dolphin: Reflections on the Pre-service Preparation of Special Class Teachers

The problem of the pre-service preparation of special class teachers is not suffering from a scarcity of people writing and talking about it. However, in spite of the diligence being brought to bear on this area of concern, one finds it difficult to substantiate the notion that teachers are being prepared today in ways that are clearly distinctive in contrast with preparation practices twenty or more years ago. In this same regard, one must contrive in order to explicate differences in pedagogical practices with children between that period and the present one.To be sure, there are exciting—if equivocal—suggestions that cause us to hope that American Education is now on the periphery of a great unprecedented era of excellence. It has been predicted that programmed instruction will reshape the schools, will reinvigorate education for all of our children, and will restandardize the model of the American Teacher. Such recent innovations as the ungraded school, team teaching, and specialized programs for children with special needs lend compelling support to the prediction of a Golden Era. For those who have been concerned with teacher preparation for five or more years, it is somewhat startling to realize that, within our schools of education, we now have a variety of psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. Although it is not possible to speak with certainty on this matter, one has the notion that professional educators had some responsibility for the alliance with this new breed of “education professor” as well as for the introduction of more liberal and broadening curricula offerings in schools of education. Notwithstanding our considerable accomplishments and the promise of far more important ones, it does not appear inconsistent to mention that we have implied far more than we have proven, or even tested. There is, I believe, a rather serious discrepancy in quality between the carefully reported work of a few and the application of these research findings in both our public schools and our college preparing centers. Specifically, although we have introduced some interesting ideas into our public school curriculum and our schools of education are somewhat different from the model we were familiar with as students, things appear more the same today than they are different; interestingly, in matters of greatest importance, both things and times have changed very little.We continue to graduate and certify teachers who have spent four passive years presenting themselves to their professors as more or less ignorant people asking to be told the facts and theories associated with their lives and their teaching. They have not been presented—with sufficient regularity—with an environment that forces them to ask the question, “What do I know?”They have not been given frequent opportunity to develop skills in observing phenomena around them and in making distinctions between what one sees and what one infers.They have not been able to discover how much they can do for themselves, what they can teach themselves, and what they do know. Similarly, when these students enter the teaching profession, they often assume one of two positions: (1) I admire the type of education I received and will, therefore, educate the children in my class in the same manner; or (2) I must guarantee that children in my class will never experience the horrible education foisted upon me. In either case, the teacher must rely, unfortunately, almost solely upon his own educational experiences in order to develop whatever pedagogical principles he wishes to stand for. It is this superficially comprehended phenomenon that has delayed development of modern resources in education. This paper represents some personal convictions relating to ways we may help university students appreciate the power of their gifts as human beings and the awesomeness of their responsibilities as teachers.

Public Education and the University1

This paper summarizes briefly the historical and tenuous relationship between the public schools and the university. It presents several assumptions concerning what teacher education is and what it might become. Its central conclusion is that teacher preparation should be, foremost, concerned with the development and reinforcement of ones humanistic concerns; secondly, because the process of teaching requires a kind of pedagogical artistry that may be stifled by the drudgery of thoughtless or boring experiences, teachers should be given opportunities to explore and evaluate the basic pedagogical premises, theories, methodologies, and techniques that the literature and clinical experiences make available. That is, for example, curriculum should be studied from an historical rather than a prescriptive perspective. Lastly, basic to this preparation should be deep and continuous clinical involvement which permits the teacher to develop skills as an observer and interpreter of human behavior.

The Politics of Human Welfare

An examination of the Interim Emergency Report of the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children (May 6, 1969) and the continuous flow of federal documents and bulletins issued by professional societies concerned with the education and care of handicapped children cannot help but make one uncomfortable with the serious discrepancy between the needs such children have and the resources available to fulfill these needs. At the outset, I want to make clear that only an exquisite denial of reality-or an unhinged mind-could permit one to be anything but painfully uncomfortable with the share of the public treasure now assigned for programs, services, and facilities on behalf of handicapped children and their families. Having said this-and enjoining all readers of this journal to examine, for themselves, the seriousness of the above statement and, especially, to devote particular attention to the Council for Exceptional Children document that follows this paper. (See Table I, Comments on the Politics of Human Welfare) I invite your attention to, for want of a more precise term, political problems that go beyond legislation, buildings, that go beyond fiscal commitments. Again, it is not that I wish to depreciate the critical importance of laws and resources toward the attainment of appropriate programs and services for the handicapped. Rather, I am certain that we have consensus concerning their importance and that, possibly, our concentration on those matters have caused us to neglect or misunderstand other-equally important-political considerations. Putting the above another way, I believe that too many of us-this writer included-have confused legislation, buildings, and new resources with progress. We have confused activity-doing something for the sake of doing something-with progress. We have confused new labels and new programs and new categories as necessarily being concomitant with progress. It is certain that there is a great deal more activity today than ever before in the fields concerned with the education, treatment, and care of the handicapped. There is a sea of legislative programs, much of which is positive and facilitating and some of which is alarming. There are many new buildings, institutions, and mental health centers in opera-