Discovering Individual Differences (1953)

this is Janet Peterson new student teacher she's been with us fifth grade class for just a few days it's a Friday afternoon the end of another school week several weeks after that first day when Miss Smith the regular teacher greeted the children for the first time since the first of the school year Miss Smith has come to know each of her children as an individual this has resulted not only in a relaxed and friendly classroom atmosphere but also in more effective teaching friendly and sociable rude much more cheerful now and Mark right and alert Elizabeth wants to stay in the health after school Miss Smith thanks her butt explains there's nothing to help with this afternoon John still unresponsive and withdrawn sit down shall we how do you do it how do i do how do you get to know the children so well which child all right how did you find out about Robert begin by using your eyes and ears you see him for instance in the reading circles struggling with material that others read easily of all the readers Robert is one of the poorest before the class begins but no one expects to be watched you watch you find a few of the children isolating you more talking in pairs and then a cluster of the really popular children and it is here that you discover Robert Robert is popular with his peers and this is something you look to Robert's communal of record file he'll normal grade level achievement in reading very low all his academic performance both as you had observed in class his educational age is low but then so is his IQ as you might expect Robert plays games well physically and with his hands Robert shows up better than he does in more formal aspects at school to remember another child's remarked that Robert is good with tools academic tests never reveal a complete picture of the child's potentialities Robert with his limited powers of intellectual achievement nevertheless has much to contribute to a unit on transportation you see the confidence and pleasure of a young Pattison Robert is not a mechanical genius but he can work better with concrete materials than with symbols here is our pattern and we build on strength and move how did you approach Ruth well first of all you look at Ruth as you would look at any human being and your eyes tell you quite a good deal her clothes faded and worn movie her pale face the eyes were very apathetic look her listlessness and then you find things out from other teachers you pool information with these teachers you compare notes on brothers and sisters from the same family the same child whom other teachers have had before you know roots mother is dead but you know little else about her family you discover that mrs. Ellingwood who had moved last year as visited Ruth's home she describes the poor neighborhood in the rundown condition of the little house the Ruth's lives with her father and baby brother she discovered that Ruth had entire responsibility for running the household and caring for her baby brother after school hours you look up the records on route by mater IQ is normal but our academic progress considerably below that of other pupils with comparable intelligence after noting her poor attendance in previous years you check the health records and find indications of illness and frail physical health so you make a date to visit the school nurse to consult with her about Ruth with a cooperation of the nurse you arranged through the PTA for Ruth to receive a healthful meal at noon time in the school cafeteria and then you do something else which is a kind of observation but under controlled conditions you keep Ruth after school a couple of minutes one day on some pretext you dig into your desk drawer and pull out a hair ribbon you tell her that you just found the ribbon last night and you thought of her that it would go nicely with her complexion you tell her how pretty she looks and then move by using your eyes and your head and your heart together you've begun to get somewhere with this child you know that she knows that she has a friend and that's the beginning mark mark you remember an arithmetic test you gave the class not so very long ago everyone settled down it seemed that they had just gotten well into it why mark that's very flattering may I have it I'd like to add this to my collection and now young man I assume you're finished with your arithmetic paper may I please have it thank you and you discover that your assumption was correct mark is finished and without an error right there was the nub of your trouble with mark he was 7 jumps ahead of the rest of the class and sometimes a jumper too ahead of his teacher all his classwork is flawless for the quality of DS about that which is amazing you've consulted the records on mark but they only confirm when you have gathered without them you look at mark as you have looked at Robert Andrew and you see that mark is a very popular child so popular in fact that his influence over others is not always desirable something happened a couple of weeks ago which brought this out you had noted it down in the behavior journey jerry who is quite shy and withdrawn as a rule offered a suggestion on something which a committee was considering mark rudely brushed off Jerry suggestion it wasn't too practical and ideas you happen to overhear but Jer I deserve better treatment you could see the effect on Jerry and so there was only one thing to do eat her up mark and check his roots you do as we can to get a fair hearing for Jerry suggestion then you resolve to speak to Marc privately at the first opportunity afterward mark had begun to use a social status and his unusual intelligence in a way that harmed another child without his realizing the arithmetic test had been typical also it finished so far ahead of the others that he had had time to bother and distract them you made an appointment to talk with his mother and father you had to reassure them that you had not come because mark was doing poorly or because he had been bad you explained the problems of creating a challenge for mark school was too easy for him he showed them samples of his written work especially in arithmetic he could do schoolwork now at an eighth grade level mark you explained was an unusually gifted and intelligent boy he would not challenge him there was no end of the amount of mischief in which he could involve himself your continual problem was to keep him occupied and interested but you talked his parents out of the idea of it mark should skip a grade that would create more problems than it would solve and of any grave the problem would remain essentially the same things had to be found which challenged mark Mark's father who was an engineer told you about marks interest and activity and photography together they had built a darkroom and together they had learned the many steps involved in making a photograph each picture was theirs the product of a joint project he also told you but recently he and market started building a telescope this had aroused in the boy a considerable interest in astronomy you grabbed at this information the Astronomy particularly who explained would need a need of the moment in connection with social studies the children were studying the exploration of the new world which in turn was arousing an interest in ships and navigation the idea of navigation was proving too difficult for most of the children but Mark understood it and can make a real contribution and this was a way of enriching Mark's program thing that would have to be done on many occasions it had been a pleasant and successful tongue because the basic ingredients were all there a good home intelligent and sensitive parents and a child with a tremendous capacity through cooperation and teamwork we had found a promising approach she brought her rubbers this morning and now she's forgotten Oh tell me about it Elizabeth you remember today how downcast she was when I told her she couldn't stay in help well one afternoon in the beginning of the year I made up my mind I was going to pierce that solemn resentfulness of hers I had made no headway with a child and so on this particular afternoon I made up an excuse and asked her to stay to help me with something and it worked little by little you got her to talk to you and you began to understand just a bit of why Elizabeth behaved the way she did Elizabeth volunteer at several times afterward to stay in health perhaps it was not so much that you had succeeded with her as that Elizabeth had found an excuse for not going home but now when you looked at Elizabeth the same way you have looked at Robert and booth with mark to get a feeling of why there was the flowers the hostility in my isolation there was one day that Elizabeth did not make a very good committee manner anger with sudden explosiveness you could see no reason at first why she did it then you remembered the fat morning Elizabeth and told you that her parents have been fighting a teacher is limited in dealing with such influences I'd like to speak to you about a little bit how about day after tomorrow would the day after that be possible it's really very important no it isn't as simple as that why don't you name a time next week anytime after school in the afternoon or in the evening I'm afraid we couldn't discuss with adequately over the phone very well you had tried to see her mother before it was no use you decided that this problem was too complicated to handle alone and that you needed special help and advice now tell me about John he remembered when you saw John that first day of school he was so small you thought he had wandered into the wrong room Oh eating the class best John Cooper of all the children Littlejohn is one of the biggest problems there was always the feeling of something missing from the pieces of the puzzle you look at John as you have looked at the others and you feel his isolation from his classmates he has as much difficulty with school as Robert but the differences between the two boys are striking in athletics and physical activity for instance records they were interesting and revealing educational ages Lois Roberts but significantly his IQ is not Aloha and then something written into John's health record not by the school doctor or the nurse but the dentist markedly dentition what did all these things mean further clues emerged as you talked with other teachers when he first came to kindergarten his mother had to take him home again after a short time it had been decided he wasn't ready yet for kindergarten his first-grade teacher remembered finding him away from his fellow first graders playing with kindergarten children certainly not typical behavior only yesterday you had gone to a staff conference you had requested it the principal mr. Jones resided it was devoted exclusively to the problem of John each of us had his say with varying guesses and in sir