Education

The education of people with intellectual disabilities goes back two hundred years - although the people involved didn't know it at the time.

Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron

In 1800, a young boy, about 12 years old, was captured living in the forests of Aveyron, a region of France. He was small and thin, and had a scar on his neck where he had been cut. Some people thought that maybe someone had tried to kill him when he was young, and that he had escaped into the woods. He was sent to Paris, because many people were curious to find out what he was like and how he could live alone in the forest.

It is difficult to know what the boy thought of all the attention he was being given. He did not like being captured, though - he had escaped to the forests twice before being caught for good and sent to Paris.

The boy could not talk, so many people in Paris were disappointed. The most famous psychologist of the day, Philippe Pinel, labelled the boy an "idiot," and said he should be sent to the Bicetre, the largest asylum in Paris.

However, a young doctor, Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, disagreed. Itard wanted to try using some new teaching techniques that were being used with Deaf people. He convinced the authorities to let him take charge of the boy, whom he named Victor.

So Victor began to live with Itard. Victor seemed to like Itard, who took him to the School for Deaf-Mutes to teach him there. However, sometimes he felt sad that he couldn't do everything that Itard wanted him to do. At least, this is what Itard's diary seems to say. But still, Victor wanted to go back to the forest. He ran away again when living with Itard, although usually he didn't get very far.

Once he ran away and was lost for three days. When he was found, he was especially happy to see Madame Guerin, Itard's housekeeper, whom he liked very much. He was worried that Itard would be angry with him, though.

Madame Guerin seemed to find ways of treating Victor that made him feel comfortable, safe and loved. Victor liked Itard too, but often found the school lessons difficult and unpleasant. But he was happy when he did well and made Itard happy.

Itard hoped that Victor would be able to speak, and then tell about life in the forest, without language. Itard was testing ideas by philosophers like John Locke and the Abbé de Condillac, who though that people's ideas had their beginnings in their physical feelings. Itard taught Victor about hot and cold, and pain and pleasure, in order to help him have ideas. You can see why Victor was sometimes worried about being with Itard.

Eventually, Itard stopped giving Victor lessons. He gave up because he thought Victor wasn't really learning, because he hadn't learned to talk. Victor had learned a lot, but not in the way Itard expected. He could look after himself quite well, and was friends with Madame Guerin.

Itard wrote two reports, in 1801 and in 1805, describing his work with Victor. Victor lived into his forties with Madame Guerin before he died in 1828. Itard died ten years later, in 1838.

Edouard Seguin

Just before Itard died, a young teacher, Edouard Seguin, came to him because he had read the reports of Itard's lessons with Victor. Seguin hoped that Itard could help him teach some children labelled as "idiots."

Seguin was influenced by the Count de Saint-Simon, a utopian socialist who believed that, with the help of science and technology, society could be open to everyone. He believed that all people deserved freedom and happiness. He also believed that educating people labelled as "idiots" was one step toward building a more perfect society that would include everybody.

Seguin believed that "idiocy" was a result of untrained will-power. He made up a set of physical exercises that still form the basis of much of today's "special education," as well as the Montessori method. Seguin proved that people labelled as "idiots" could be taught and could learn to be useful members of society.

Seguin's successes led him to form special classes at the Bicetre, the largest institution in Paris, for people labelled as "idiots," and people came from all around Europe to visit his classes. Seguin founded his first school, probably for about 30 students, in 1847.

The first school especially for people labelled as "idiots," though, was set up in 1842 at Abendbergin the Swiss alps, by Johann Jakob Guggenbühl. This school, and Seguin's classes, influenced other people in Britain and North America to set up their own schools.

During the 1848 revolution in France, Seguin supported the revolutionary government. When this government fell, he was afraid he could not find any more work in France. He left for the United States, where he continued to work and influence people.

Educational Asylums: Institutions for Learning?

The first school in England was small; it was the Rock Hall Houses School, opened by the White sisters in 1846, with just four students. But in 1847, the National Asylum for Idiots (also known as the Highgate Asylum) opened, and in 1855 the Earlswood Asylum opened. These institutions held thousands of people.

These institutions were originally meant to be boarding schools where students would stay for up to five years, learning skills that they could then take back to their communities. Like Seguin, their founders wanted to make a society that would include everyone, even people who had been labelled. However, the schools soon became long-term institutions.

The same thing happened in the United States. In 1848, Samuel Gridley Howe, who was famous for starting a school for blind children, founded the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded. Howe's school was supposed to teach people how to live in their communities. However, when he was trying to get money from the state assembly to begin the school, he argued that people labelled as idiots needed to be segregated from society. He knew that the state would give money for this reason, but was less likely to give money for education. In the end, American institutions also isolated people with disabilities.

The number of people sent to asylums grew in Britain after 1870, when the law was changed to say that everyone should receive an education. Many students had a difficult time working in the strict classrooms of the era and so they were sent to asylums.

Binet's IQ Test

In 1905, the French educator Alfred Binet developed a test which was supposed to tell if students would benefit from regular classroom instruction. This test became known as the IQ test. When the American psychologist Lewis Terman adapted a North American version in 19XX, it was called the Stanford-Binet test (see also Science and Medicine). The makers of these IQ tests believed that intelligence was easy to define. They thought it could be measured, like water. In fact, psychologists, scientists, educators and others still have not been able to define "intelligence."

The Twentieth Century

In the past century, institutions became the centre of education for people labelled as having intellectual disabilities.

Special Education

As the community living movement began to move people out of institutions, special schools were also set up. Teachers were trained especially to work with students who had been labelled. More recently, in Britain and North America, special schools have been replaced by special classrooms within regular schools. Complete integration in the regular classroom has not yet been achieved. But many new approaches to education people with learning difficulties have been developed. These approaches are being used both on people labelled as having an intellectual disability and on "unlabelled" people. In fact, many ways of teaching that began in "special education" have become common in mainstream education as well.

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