THE EFFECTIVE SCHOOL (ASSISTING THE MALADJUSTED CHILD)



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	THE EFFECTIVE SCHOOL (ASSISTING THE MALADJUSTED CHILD) Othmar Wurth, FSC The common, tuition-free parish school, in which for the most part De La Salle and the early teachers worked, soon developed an environment, a taken-for-granted, orderly way of operating, within which maladjusted children found security and help. From his writings we can easily infer the characteristics which De La Salle believed such a school should possess if it is to be effective. These characteristics, brought to fruition by dedicated teachers, virtually of themselves provided the special environment from which educationally handicapped children benefited. The Effective School is Well Organized As we have seen, the well-organized school as De La Salle perceived it included a program which was integrated, informed, practical, and orderly, and which provided for student participation. The particular emphasis which De La Salle placed on assisting the students individually is reflected in the thorough admissions and promotion procedures the teachers used. These procedures contributed significantly to the proper organization of the school. The teacher responsible for admission of new students was required to enter detailed information about the family in the Register of Admissions. Information was also recorded on the habits or qualities of the child. This practice assisted the Director in properly placing new students in classes. Improper placement in class, De La Salle said, “could place the child in a position of being unable to learn and in danger of being ignorant the rest of his life.” He also warned about keeping a child too long in the same level, “a situation distasteful to the teacher, the child, and his parents.” This initial admissions information was supplemented by observations made by the teacher. The teacher kept a file called Register of the Good and Bad Qualities of the Students. Another file was kept for strictly scholastic evaluations. At the end of each school year, the teacher assembled all these entries in a report on each of the students. This report was submitted to the Director of the school, who in turn passed it on to the new teacher of the student if there was to be a change of class. In this way the teacher would “come to know his students and the way he ought to act toward them.” In order to have a personal understanding of the character of each student, the Director of the school kept all these reports and compared carefully “those of past years with those of the following years, and those of one teacher with those of another of the same class with the same students,” to determine their degree of similarity and difference. It was this personal knowledge of each student rather than mere grades that was the basis for a student’s advancement through the school’s program. De La Salle knew that it was important to have the family accept the organization of the school and to collaborate in the task of educating the children. To accomplish this goal, he made the admission of the student contingent on his family’s support of the educational philosophy of the school, and he urged the teachers to try to change the cultural resistance of some parents to the whole process of education. He suggested that the teachers speak with parents who neglected to send their children to school, because he wanted parents to understand their duty toward their children and to realize the harm absenteeism did. For the remiss parent De La Salle proposed a rather drastic remedy. “Since these poor parents are generally those on alms, it is necessary to involve the parish priest . . . so as not to provide any alms until they send their children to school.” He required parents to have their children take breakfast and lunch in school so that the children could learn how to eat politely and “in a Christian atmosphere, and to be sure the children were fed properly.” Parents were to be sure that their child was diligent at schoolwork, that he not gossip about anything that took place in school, that he not associate with reckless companions, that he come to school properly dressed, that his hair be well combed and “free of lice,” and that he not sleep with his parents. De La Salle also advised parents not to listen to the complaints of their child against the teacher, but rather to speak with the teacher when their child was not present. These warnings suggest situations De La Salle felt were at the root of many serious maladjustments. De La Salle reminded teachers that they too had the grave responsibility of making school attractive. He pointed out that if the children were learning and liked their classes, they themselves would put pressure on their parents to keep them in school. This would often be successful, he said, because “parents desire only what their children desire, so it will be enough that the children desire to come to school for their parents to be satisfied to send them there.” The Effective School is Staffed by Competent and Dedicated Teachers De La Salle was not satisfied simply to prepare the teachers for the practical work of the classroom, nor did he limit himself to urging the teachers to have a good understanding of their students. He wanted the teachers to love their students, for he was aware of the educational power of affection, particularly for the troubled child. He also wanted the teacher to win the reciprocal love of the students. In one of his meditations he asks, “Do you take advantage of the love students have for you, to lead them to God?” He even wanted the teacher “to make (the students) love the school.” De La Salle insisted on the importance of the teacher’s good example. According to him, this example makes a much greater impression on the minds and hearts of children than do words, because children are not yet sufficiently “capable of reflection” and “ordinarily model themselves on what they see.” He went on to say that children are drawn to do “what they see done, more than by what they hear said.” Indeed, it was the example of the teacher which, he believed, would most help the maladjusted child. At the same time De La Salle recognized that the teacher must exercise an appropriate firmness. He wished the teacher to couple the tenderness of a mother with the firmness of a father. But De La Salle knew that preparation, conviction, and affection on the part of the teachers were not enough to make the school effective. The teachers themselves had to be effective in the realities of the classroom. This was particularly important with the maladjusted child, for whom all too often learning difficulties were the root of his maladjustment. He showed much affection for students with limited ability, and it can be said that he treated these students with extreme sensitivity. De La Salle gave many pedagogical and practical guidelines to his teachers for dealing with the slow student: “If it happens that a student is so slow that he cannot even repeat an answer that several others have recited one after another, the teacher will help him remember by having the answer repeated four or five times alternatively by a student who knows it well and then by the one who does not know it, in order to make it very easy for him to learn it.” He urges the teacher to show a practical concern for the slow learner or the child frightened by schooling or ill-adjusted to it. Take things slowly, he recommended. “Help the children to read exactly, not skipping syllables.” Slower students should be questioned often, helped by repetition, whether by themselves or by others, but not required to do what they obviously cannot. Many maladjusted students, of course, found it difficult to maintain attention and to concentrate in the teacher’s classes. In the Conduct of Schools De La Salle alluded to this problem. In order to keep students, especially slow students, attentive and prevent them from becoming bored, De La Salle offered several specific suggestions. The teacher should: Avoid talking too much and avoid speaking in a boring manner and in a way that is uninteresting. Frequently ask questions, especially of those who are slow. Make the questions short and use a simple vocabulary. Avoid belittling and embarrassing students, either by word or in some other way when they cannot answer well. Involve the students and help them to say what they have difficulty remembering. Give rewards to the slowest when they have tried their best to learn. Sometimes question a student unexpectedly to see if he is attentive. From time to time, ask those students to read who do not like to follow the reading, but have them read only a little each time. De La Salle was not satisfied with having a good relationship established between teacher and student. Aware of the detrimental effect of the lack of a good role model, De La Salle also was aware of the rehabilitative effect students could have on one another. The quality of interaction among students in matters of learning and discipline was important, and De La Salle wanted to take every opportunity to foster it. Even classroom seating became significant in this regard. The Conduct of Schools lists some interesting ways of grouping students. De La Salle recommended that students be seated according to a strategic plan, so that “a thoughtless and flighty student is placed between two sensible and self-controlled students; a reckless student, alone or between two who are of stable character; a talkative student between two who are quiet and very attentive,” and so on. A student was even to be assigned the task of taking from his classmates objects that might disturb the lesson. In the seating arrangement the teacher was also to take scholastic factors into account. He was to seat a student who was beginning in the writing section next to one who was perfect in his skill in writing, or one who was in the next upper section; a student who was having difficulty making a stroke, next to one who made the stroke with ease; a student who had a problem holding his body or his pen, next to one who did both well; and so with the rest, so that they would be able to learn from others. To develop accountability and mutual support among the students, De La Salle also established the office of “visitor of those absent.” In each class, two or three students were made responsible for checking up on the absent classmates who lived in their respective neighborhoods. These visitors of the absent were chosen from those “most attached to and most diligent at school.” They visited the parents of the absentee in order to learn the cause of his absence and then reported to their teacher on the situation. The Effective School Maintains a Well-Defined and Appropriate Discipline For De La Salle the effective school was itself a discipline, in the very best sense of the word. Its purposeful, individualized program, its attention to detail, its competent and dedicated teachers all provided the direction, order, sense of value and achievement which children need, the environment which is particularly important in the special education required by maladjusted children. But De La Salle and the teachers were also well aware that there were times and circumstances in which a more specific and active disciplinary approach was required. Vigilance Discipline was to be rooted in the teacher’s vigilance, that is, in the total presence of the teacher as a person whose authority was established by competence and dedication, who was prepared to anticipate and forestall disruption in the class, and who acted as a model of firmness and consistency. Vigilant teachers, De La Salle said, “will watch over their students, will observe them to learn their characters and dispositions.” He urged the teachers to cultivate the affection of their pupils. The good teacher will also promote good discipline by exercising vigilance over the companionships and friendships developed among this pupils, even to the point of assigning students to travel together to and from school. Because the presence of the vigilant teacher reduced the likelihood of disturbances, it also reduced the frequency of corrections and punishment. This itself contributed to discipline. “Frequent correction,” De La Salle said, “is a great disorder in the school, . . . and to reduce the need for (correction) is one of the best ways to maintain good order.” Correction and Punishment To achieve its purpose, all correction was to conform to a number of conditions. De La Salle reminded the teachers that they must at all costs avoid demeaning the student, for this embittered him and provoked a dislike for school. He pointed out that a child’s feelings of revenge and ill-will following a punishment administered in anger sometimes continued a long time and aggravated an already disturbed student. In such circumstances the correction did not accomplish its immediate purpose, which was the improvement of the student, nor the long-range purpose, which was to awaken in him the desire to resemble his teacher. This was why De La Salle prescribed moderation in punishment. Proper motivation when administering punishment, he said in one of the meditations, is “one of the best means of touching and winning the hearts of those who have committed some fault and of helping them to improve themselves.” In some instances, De La Salle recommended reproving students privately rather than in class. In all cases, he wished that the correction be individualized, that is, be appropriate to the personality of the student in view of the offense. Since De La Salle saw frequent punishment as a very great disorder in a school, he urged that the teacher act with skill and diligence to maintain the students in good order “almost without using any corrections at all.” He added, “It is silence, vigilance, and the self-control of the teacher that establish good order in a school, not severity or beatings.” De La Salle placed great emphasis upon school attendance and urged that everything be done to determine the causes of absences so as to prevent them. Children who are truant, he felt, “are usually already inclined to evil, and bad behavior follows waywardness.” De La Salle believed that interesting the child in school was the best remedy for absences, and even proposed rewarding with responsibilities those inclined to truancy, in the hope of giving them a liking for school and perhaps making them a source of good example. Expulsion It would be naive to believe that De La Salle and the teachers always managed to win over a maladjusted student. On the contrary, there were students who were actually impossible to deal with, since they presented serious problems by their misbehavior and did not benefit from the instruction and the correction. Feeling as he did about the importance of the Christian School as a way of escaping the oppression and degradation of the poverty and the moral dangers in which many of the pupils lived, De La Salle was very reluctant to dismiss any of them. Nonetheless, he and the teachers quickly learned that they would have failures at times no matter how organized, how highly motivated, or how devoted they were. There would always be students whose conduct posed serious problems and created an environment in the school damaging to others, students who simply would not or could not benefit from an education. The only recourse even in those days was expulsion. De La Salle insisted: “It must be an extraordinary thing to dismiss a student from school,” and this was to be done only after consultation with the Director and only upon his order, after consultation with the parents. “If the means taken to prevent or remedy their faults accomplish nothing, it may be better to dismiss them than to correct them, unless after speaking with the parents, it is found to be good to correct them.” De La Salle believed that prevention consisted in keeping the students from acquiring bad habits and becoming dissolute. To achieve this, the teacher was to maintain a constant vigilance over the students and instill in their minds in a firm manner the truths of the faith. It was, however, the creation of a healthy environment that constituted the best means to prevent delinquency and the best remedy for the inadequacies of the family and of society. The key figure in this educational environment was the person of the teacher. The teacher’s actions promoted the full development of the student. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION De La Salle’s schools developed an environment within which the special needs of students were met. How is your school meeting the needs of these special students? Is your school like these early Lasallian schools? Well integrated? Informed? Practical? Orderly? Student participation? Is your classroom, as well as your school, well organized and orderly? Attractive and inviting? How are you meeting the needs of the “maladjusted student” in your classroom? In what practical ways are you accomplishing this? Do you love your students? Are you aware of the educational power of this affection, particularly for the troubled student? How is this demonstrated? Are you able to balance affection with firmness? What is the motivation for correction and punishment in your school? Do you demean your students or do you help them to understand the reasons for their correction and punishment? Is your authority as a teacher established by competence and dedication and rooted in vigilance? De La Salle said that frequent correction is a great disorder in a school. Do you agree with this?