A federal case II #16 Room 324
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This is a federal case from Washington D.C. the
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National Educational radio network brings you an examination of current issues
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facing our nation and its capital city.
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Who then is that you say use of my name. A good.
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Thing here.
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Oh I know you don't even say anything. You
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know. My name. I have my name.
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I love my mom. My mom.
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How are you my man.
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I am. I love is a word to say that Nicole.
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I was. Very. Funny a
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rabbit. And.
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My name is a Public Information
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Center report retarded children. Or are they.
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All right.
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You can tell me what to do.
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Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
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These children are classified by our psychologist real
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child guidance with this title and before this title is
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hunted down and I use the word hung in its proper perspective. Really
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hung like a big car he said you know I am stupid and I think
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they're giving a complete psychological why clinical psychologists. So what's
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it's made to be very formal It's almost an institutionalized kind of home out
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to it. It's done by the book it's done by all the right methods everything else.
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And kids are kind of with IQ below 75 I believe are classified as mentally retarded.
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Dr. Seymour gangs superintendent of schools and I have to let me just close some
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facts things into your computer that
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perhaps started in 1962 when I
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took over a public school only to the principal. I
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have 17 kids who were classified
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mentally retarded. We organized a class because these
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kids were waiting for a class and the class had been organized to hang up on a whole section of the class.
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After four years maybe three years but after four years that
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class was faced out of existence because the kids were
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in either one of the Jena High School or some went back to the regular classes
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and for the following three years out of a population of
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fifteen hundred each year some of the same kids but the lesser of two hundred each year.
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There wasn't one single child who was even
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suggested for testing for mental retardation. What I'm
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saying to you is that if in three years out of a population of 15 hundred children
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per year that we didn't even have one kid who was to be tested for
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mental retardation in his class. My God
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what are we doing to these thousands of thousands of kids who are dropping into these classes without even a
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blink of an eye in the public schools.
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As you very well know I have been labeled retarded and many of them if not most
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of them are not retiring. They've been labeled by virtue of being
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tested on IQ tests by some colleagues who really weren't even competent
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doctor Mamie Phipps Clark director of the Northside clinic for child development.
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You your teacher makes that decision
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you know. It's that lame part shall we do here is.
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Just wage war on the public schools every day to test children and we find that they're not
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retarded and we go to school just about how to get them back.
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Where they should be in class placement on get them to school to the
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school.
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That they should be you know who are educators.
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Sit back look at the psychological and that gives us our Safir of conscience.
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A scientist do you want to measure or rule for example the temperature of the room. He would take it from the top and
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the bottom and all the heat rises if not a top of the room would have to be rather than the bottom of the room and he
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wouldn't he wouldn't average but he would take his reading maybe 10 times over just to be certain.
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But no we in education in psychology are so damn sure of us that we can go in there
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give a kid a staffer Benaiah or works the WISC tests and say
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that's normal only this kid is mentally retarded and I think this is a crime.
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I think there's a great element of criminal negligence and malfeasance upon we
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were educators who dump kids into these kinds of classes let me tell you
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probably the most dramatic example that I know of my experience with this kind of injustice was done
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I had a young man whose name was Loffredo pay God.
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He was in the mentally retarded class. He tested out about
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71 IQ all the other
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requirements again in quotation marks were met. He was one of those
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17 children originally in a mentally retarded class but the second year when
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he was in that class we began to form a school orchestra.
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We had some professor from one of the universities come in to teach our kids how to play them
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we had a string that we cannot organize a string orchestra is perfessor didn't know the kids
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and nearly sent a letter to all the teachers police and any child down was interested to the auditorium for
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a screening and by some act of God I
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guess. I don't know who Fredo happened to get into that. I
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want to throw him when the kids were being screened. The person from the
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university not knowing the Fredo was mentally retarded you know just
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took refrain as a kid who was just part of the school. I'm sure even
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our own teachers and they were the greatest fact in the world you know would have looked that afraid of if was going to be one of
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my teachers and you know I thought well how can this mentally retarded kid play the violin.
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I would have probably rejected him without even as much as a as a trial the festa didn't
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because he didn't know him. So a photo passes
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this greeting another route quite knows you know what's going on for
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suddenly we all become aware of the fact that we're afraid o is in the orchestra playing the violin.
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I guess it was a miracle because as my friend began playing the violin
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afraid ols whole demeanor began to change.
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He began to do academic work in class we had to make special vision for him. He
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began to even dress differently.
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He was socially suddenly socially mature and become I
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obviously say the morning Doctor guy I was like a morning afraid oh we have a you know really
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fantastic kind of wrapping session there. And to the point where
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we had a fight with BCG to get the kid retested because BCG is a bureau
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of Child Guidance by the way. Who puts the kids into the class.
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The point was that they said no you carry test me at number x number years haven't gone by.
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So we finally got to retested and he was to be put back into the regular
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class. I think every human being has something that unlocks him. You know there is a
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mechanism there is a button there is a trigger and this orchestra
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unlocked are afraid of that the confidence in himself. He got the
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assurance of is own ability to succeed at something. And he had some latent kind of musical skills
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because he was able to play the violin and no child who was mentally
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retarded. It would take would even it wouldn't take a psychologist to make this statement.
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But no child who is mentally retarded can possibly use the kind of fine finger skills and
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mental skills to play the violin. So obviously afraid I was not mentally retarded.
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And yet he was in the class. And you know he was really fulfilling
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prophecy of mental retardation. And that's what this is where the terrible thing comes in.
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The kids are put into these classes. Even with testing and if you want to
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accept the ability of the testing and as much as kids who fulfill a
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prophecy of success which I believe in a self-fulfilling prophecy it works both ways. And when
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you put kids into these classes and they're together as a group with this
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kind of prophetic this functioning then I think you really
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do mean these kids for the rest of their lives.
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I have to tell you. Frankly I think it's a racist thing. I think these teachers are
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prejudiced they don't think you. Can learn. Black and Puerto Rican children as
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being the racism the vicious form of racism.
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I don't know why you.
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Have a pencil in your hand. I mean I don't know why you have a pencil. Is that the
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way to get something into your head.
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All right. Put on. Your hats what else.
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Can. My.
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My. My. My.
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My. My. My. My.
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Very good might be little me. Mate.
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I'm. A.
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Man very.
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Much. My.
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Muscles. May.
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Be a.
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Lady lady with this and.
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The sound of.
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And. What you do with your lips.
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When you say lady.
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You can.
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Lay me closing it right now
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it's opening it very smart something with an come on.
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I'm on. The match you I want you to sing. Think of something that starts with.
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Them.
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Very early. In my. Life.
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This. Man.
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Again standing. Big with. The.
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Right. Hand. Man.
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And. These closing in on the young man
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with. A.
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Gun and then.
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We.
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Get. The. Point.
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Man Standing. Near. The. Ring.
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Ring.
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I think of people of the events that black and Puerto Rican children don't know doesn't matter what
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incentives you devise or what process you put the kids you
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want to come play. I know what
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the answer is to it. What we try to do here is to make the parents away and what
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their rights are in the schools in regard to the children. You know for example if your child is dead
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tested you have a right to know the results of that test in the school board if
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your child isn't reading or isn't learning you have a right to have
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that principal or that teacher call you in the beginning to let you know and not to wait
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you know three four years before telling you that your child is not there or you have the right to
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go to school and serve your child in the classroom. You have that right. So
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I guess our approach is one of trying to get the parents into the school to open up the
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school. And to have the parent really be the end.
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To me the Sunni's timelessness we who are supposed to be working in education
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don't know what learning is because we don't really know. We have
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some. Rough. Kinds of.
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Standards. Even IQ tests or
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intelligence tests which measure these children. If you take the whole
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purpose of testing the purpose of testing was not to see
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where the risk in the IQ test really was predicted to go back to the Stanford
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damnations what the child would do with academic work
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in school. Therefore that assumes that everything else is quite
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valid in other words the curriculum is quite valid. Ryan went to the school is quite valid
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the what the teacher brings to this classroom is quite valid when the child brings to the class was
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quite valid. You predicting the outcomes of something which you don't know anything
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about. I mean that's just about where it is. That's only
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one part of the of the coin. The other part of the coin is that
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because we don't know. And never had the guts to say we don't know.
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We have invented this system and the system is education. Let
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me use that dirty word education establishment. OK. And we have
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set up schools and set of edges schools of education even get
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degrees out in education the methodology and so forth. Based on this whole thing of really not
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knowing what learning is we have ideas what may help a child remember that when learning is
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and then we set up a structure of classes. For example a 5 year old
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goes into the first grade of a six year old well you know it's not there but he is asked why he. Had a very
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simple answer if you really want to know it because it's the easiest way we can keep a count of kids that's the answer.
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Grade A primary is what we're trying to unlock. The old one house one room
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schoolhouse was really another grade of primary we had to tailor make individual programs for every kid.
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But in large urban centers and throughout the country now we restructure the kids into our
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preconceived notion of what we can best handle. So we
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structured this evil fossilised this kind of thing into a structure and then we had to make
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the kids how to fit into our structure almost like a like a mailman with those big
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boxes you know in the rail cars you see the old western movies need putting mail letters into these as
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we do with kids was put into our structure. That's all a structure because when we
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don't know and too we have created what is easiest way for
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us not for the kids. Therefore when you have a group
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of kids who test out on a predictive scale that they will not succeed in
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in school what do you do. You set up a program for them which
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will unlock them. Hit that pagan button that I spoke about with a young
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child a violent No. All right these kids must go into a special class that's the easiest way for us to
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handle them. So we then invent the. Classes for the mentally retarded
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kids. And this is where it becomes so prophetic.
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The reason why children don't learn is they're not taught by the teachers. They
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really found the children are handicapped in the wrist nothing is innate.
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In the children. Oh which one. Put their family if they were exposed to a
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good teacher.
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Ninety five percent of the Kurds. In Iraq today classified as
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mentally retarded don't log these kinds of classes.
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What are we doing to those kids by putting them in those classes.
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You're killing them you've got your side of the garbage heap many children are judged to be
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returned because I don't speak up and don't talk much on the quiet.
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Just any flimsy kind of reason can be given to cause a child to be lazy or
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retiring and it's amazing how the children do blossom and brighten up
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when they know that that label doesn't put them in that just the knowledge that that
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is enough to bring a child. And when that child knows that he can learn or he
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sees that he can master a sense. By reading.
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It really opens up the real world for.
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What happens to the kid. When many thousands if not perhaps over a million kids in this
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country. Who are branded retarded. Who are not. And who are not told by
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someone like you are a member of your staff that he or she is not retarded. What happens to that
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blossoming this will fall down the drain.
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They really do. Their chances for making a decent livelihood for gaining
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a satisfying job will go on and they really just follow
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the dream man if you go running around then you certainly do. While in the
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street you see them you know the people sitting on the stoops with nothing to
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do really look at the people who. Just.
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Don't know. And these kids are going to have kids you know their kids are going to have
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kids it isn't just you know the world I won I won it's won with a geometric
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progression. And by and large the way kids are
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raised either way they raise their kids of us I'm stronger than any force.
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Every time the federal government talks about improving education in the United States it
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seems to be by design or by accident. I'd like to mention these kids.
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Why is that I don't know. You're right
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and I never ever thought I just don't know I think I've been dealing with this problem that he kind
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of level. But you're quite right. The
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government has the right of this issue. I think
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it's one of the basic ways you can place it.
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For the most part the majority of teachers who as you well know white.
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Just don't cling to children can learn and they don't teach them they really
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don't teach them they have a hundred times a different special projects and
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special programs for the disadvantaged and they don't need all that. You know when you look at
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these programs what do you find is that those ones that are
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affected are the ones in which you have simple teaching you this is what the people are
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doing it's not really anything special or added or enriching it's just
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teaching so that the whole system is geared to the fact that the children
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assume disadvantaged somehow has something within them that prevents them from learning.
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And this is where you start from in the city you don't start from the point of this job will learn
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if I teach it. To children here can learn just like any other children anyplace else
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and if you take children all across the United States you would have a very
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small percentage of children who are not American by virtually the same
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physical handicap or some kind of mental retardation a very small
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percentage.
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I think the only kids who are really on this level are kids who are
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organically deficient brain damage.
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I'm afraid that. This city in the state in this country we have doomed so many thousands and
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thousands and thousands of thousands of kids into these classes. We have been guilty of the worst sort of
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criminal. Acts. We.
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See.
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The.
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Kids now they're isolated. The kids know all that they are called and called stupid or the dumb
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class. So this it's a kind of it's a kind of syndrome
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which we have developed as a society very well you try to shove them into a
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background so they don't exist like in a bed. So you go into a
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school you find some room there with nine or 10 kids by themselves and
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why you say they should be integrated in the regular curriculum the school should be going to the gym with the
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kids or assembly programs or if a kid has a special skill he can go up there isn't that much
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give and take that pretty much leading isolated lives. And
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it's probably the way that anyone can accept it because it's
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like you know not going to the hospital to visit a sick friend but you don't you don't see you don't have to you know
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integrate in your own mind. Psyche. I think what we're doing
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is basically isolating the kids and just doing them to go ahead and
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fulfill what we have said will be the fulfillment of the words of life that's
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tragically untrained to be lived. Whose fault is
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that. It's just the educators. We have made the mold. We
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have prescribed. Watch out baby we have using our spins to
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rationalize our legitimatize all acts and
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it's our fault. But this interesting thing is that everyone is safe the kids fault after all he
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came to us to put him to us dumber. You know he didn't have the right genes or he didn't have the right
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background or going to whole bed but it's awful and I'm saying
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is I haven't the answers by the way. What I'm saying is that the first time I got there
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was a minute so awful that we honestly face I won't go through this admission that
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we can perhaps talk to some place and see if you know how do we overcome this.
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How do we really meet the needs of these children and then the very end of the day and say you mind
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a good. Day.
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I know you think I'm you know. A. Retarded
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kid.
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All right that. Room 324. A special report. Produced by
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the Public Information Center in Washington D.C. music by Michael Baldwin and Richard Land.
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This is Jeff Cayman speaking.
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You've been listening to a federal case weekly examination of a national issue
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from the perspective of our nation's capital. This is the national
[24:39 - 24:40]
educational radio network.
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