Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SOCIALLY COMPETENT Classes For The Blind There are two kinds of classes for the blind. One is for children totally blind and the other for children frequently called semi-blind. There are three classes of each type. A class is in session for six hours a day in a regular school building. The...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SOCIALLY COMPETENT Classes For The Blind There are two kinds of classes for the blind. One is for children totally blind and the other for children frequently called semi-blind. There are three classes of each type. A class is in session for six hours a day in a regular school building. The instruction follows closely that of the regular grades, each blind child being supposed to cover the same work as the normal child. As much as possible the blind are taught in classes with seeing children. The special teachers of the blind are tutors for the group rather than class teachers. Their function is to assist the blind child in those subjects in which he is unable to make progress as rapidly as the seeing child with the same amount of instruction. This arrangement of having the blind taught in the classes with seeing children has been called the Cleveland plan. It is one of the several instances in which this city is a pioneer. In adult life the blind and the semi-blind will not be segregated in institutions but will spend their lives in association with normal people. They are prepared for participationin normal social intercourse by education, as far as possible, in classes with seeing children. Precisely this principle leads us to recommend similar treatment for all other socially competent but exceptional children. A note of warning must be sounded. The time that the regular teacher of the grade spends upon blind children should be relatively no greater than she spends on normal children. It is not fair to the seeing child that a greater proportion of the teacher's time should be given to those who are in the class only for the lesson period. The advantages which the blind receive must not be at the expense of the normal children. There is a limit to...