School District 33 offers as much, if not more, in the way of special education than other districts.
Dr. a.s. Arneil, 1972.
Once again it is important to remember in this time period the conception and understanding of certain labels was limited. Learning disabled in this context can be boiled down to two categories: dyslexic and hyperactive. So although there are a vast number of learning disabilities in our current understanding, these were grouped in as one.
Just like the last section on physically handicapped children, I will be looking at the learning disabled children through a timeline of significant occurrences in a timeline approach.
– In 1974 District 33 welcomed the consultation of Dr. Oscar Christensen, a counselling psychologist from the University of Arizona, at a two day workshop sponsored by the district’s special education department and the Chilliwack Association for Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities. Dr. Christensen had a number of valuable key points surrounding the treatment of children. There was a stress on having a relationship between adults and children built on mutual respect. This way the adult could give helpful feedback to the child that would be taken in a positive way and not seen as a criticism, and would lead to children being able to self-regulate discipline. He also stressed the fact that positive reinforcement needed to be earned and used as an incentive. The example used was “If Johnny tries to make his bed and does not do a very good job a parent should not rush up and say ‘Johnny it’s wonderful.’ Johnny no longer has any encouragement to improve. Things are good enough the way they are. But if the parent were to approach it as ‘Johnny it’s wonderful that you tried.’ The child has received praise in a manner that will encourage him to keep on trying. The same thing applies in schools.” Another key point made by Dr. Christensen was that labels needed to be used sparingly as to “Never lose sight of the child because of the label.” Although he did say labels were necessary in certain situations. On this topic he discussed the labelling of children in their family dynamics as a way to deeper understand the child’s way of thinking. Statistically speaking first born children were placed in the category of competitive and one-upmanship because they had to constantly take back the attention, second born or middle children were also in this category, however they were also labelled as the “try hard” because they had more competition on both ends, and the youngest born was labelled as the “con-artist because they were seen as inferior to their older siblings. The overall emphasis was to make sure children were seen and treated as an individual and special person. Dr. Christensen questions a random selection of secondary students on how they would react to difficult students having outbursts, and was very pleased with the answers being alternative to direct punishments. He commended the Chilliwack school district on their teaching strategies because these students only had their own teachers as examples of how to treat students based on how they themselves had been treated. He went back to his point about the mutual respect with children, where you receive what you give. It was estimated that there were around 270 people in attendance at each one of the 11 sessions, and each session was video-taped to use as a resource in the future.
– In 1977 as mentioned in the previous section, the summer school program ran to prevent regression and continue learning for children with learning disabilities and physical handicaps. Another significant event was a meeting, open to the public, of the Association of Parents of Children with Learning Problems. They had a guest speaker, Mrs. Dolly Pocock, come in who was a specialist on the subject of hyperactivity. Mrs. Pocock was an associate of Dr. Marcel Kinsborne who was also a leading specialist and researcher in the area of children with hyperactivity. They often presented workshops together and both were published writers on the topic as well.
– In 1978 Chilliwack’s Watson Elementary School had a guest speaker come in on a professional day to talk to the teaching staff. The guest speaker was Dr. Peggy Koopman, an education psychologist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) associate professor in the department of special education. Her reason for the presentation was to address the attention learning disabilities were receiving in the school system. She discussed the identification process of learning disabilities as more complex than one might see on the surface. Young children could be screened for learning disabilities but if the specialist does not know what they are looking for then they can miss signs of these learning disabilities or they can mistake certain behaviours or traits as a learning disability when there is not one currently present. Dr. Koopman went on to say a learning disability is not just a problem with reading or math equations, “The disability is within the learning processes,” “That is, the student is not able to learn the material in the first place. How he or she deals with it is another question.” She also noted that a learning disability does not equate to a lesser intelligence, and told a story of a boy who had a learning disability but was clever enough to mask it and not be properly diagnosed. The young boy was asked to draw a square but due to a problem with perception he was not able to do this, so instead he told his teacher he would draw a “surprise” that was better than a square. He ended up drawing a rectangle, and after looking at it drew a little circle to the side of it and called it a door. The moral of her story was learning disabilities come in all shapes and sizes, for all ages, and did not define the student’s intelligence.
– In 1978, similarly to the story previously mentioned about the boy with the perception problem, a story broke about a 15 year old dyslexic student named Larry Pemble. He was a student from Abbotsford that was labelled as functionally illiterate. He was an intelligent young man, however he could not learn how to read. This was a detriment to his career aspirations of becoming a mechanic because it meant he could not take the mechanic’s exam with his third grade reading level, although he was perfectly capable of switching the engine or transmission of a car. Originally Larry only had a first grade reading level even after spending seven years at Sumas Elementary School in Abbotsford. His mother became understandably frustrated with the school for not properly giving assistance to her son so she took him out of school and enrolled him in an intensive three month reading course with his aunt who was a retired teacher, then re-enrolled him back at Sumas Elementary School where he ended up with his third grade reading level. Larry was moved to Abbotsford Junior Secondary School where he once again left the public school system because of a lack of support. While at the Abbotsford Junior Secondary School he was left alone by school staff to figure out his own learning and resources. Once again his mother was frustrated by the failure on behalf of the school district so she petitioned Chilliwack’s school district to allow her son to join their special education program because of the highly regarded reputation for special education support. Another option Mrs. Pemble looked into in the Chilliwack district was the Fraser Valley College. They had a program called “basic training and skills development” or BTSD to help people with reading problems, however unfortunately it had a very lengthy waitlist, as it was a much desired special education program, and it did not admit anyone with a grade 9 education. The other learning disability that was understood at this time was hyperactivity, however there was not a timeline record of it, nor was there very much information on exactly how it was conceptualized during the 1970’s. It was understood to be a learning disability that affected approximately 4% to 5% of the population, and there were no physical characteristic differences to be observed. Ritalin was a very popular way to treat hyperactivity, however it was seen to keep children awake and diminish their appetites which lead to weight loss. It was also noted that the effectiveness of Ritalin began to wear off on children at around the age of 12. Still it was used to medicate hyperactive children so they could still learn at a young age and hopefully build upon those skills as they got older. There were programs, however, like summer camps to try increasing attention span little by little even if it was by 30 seconds.
