Don’t Accept Me as I am: Helping “Retarded” People to Excel

329 Pages·1988·15.13 MB·English

by  Reuven Feuerstein

DON'T ACCEPT ME
ASIAM
Helping "Retarded" People
to Excel
DON'T ACCEPT ME
ASIAM
Helping "Retarded" People
to Excel
Reuven Feuerstein
Yaacov Rand
and
John E. Rynders
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Feuerstein, Reuven.
Don't accept me as I am: helping "retarded" people to excel I Reuven Feuerstein,
Yaacov Rand, and John E. Rynders.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Mentally handicapped children-Education-Psychological aspects. 2. Teacher·
student relationships. 3. Mentally handicapped children-Rehabilitation. I. Rand,
Yaacov. II. Rynders, John E. III. Title.
LC4602.F47 1988 88-17618
371.92'8-dc19 CIP
ISBN 978-0-306-42964-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-6128-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-6128-0
© 1988 Reuven Feuerstein, Yaacov Rand, and John E. Rynders
Originally published by Plenum US in 1988.
SI ftcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1988
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
To our wives:
Berta Feuerstein
Bilha Rand
Barbara Rynders
whose love, support, and wisdom
inspire and sustain us
Preface
We believe that the educator-parent, teacher, coach-should be,
and often is, the most powerful force in a child's education. Some
times, however, the educator has been cast into a role that de-empha
sizes dynamic, strong educator-child interaction.
We contend that a dynamic type of interaction, which we call
mediated learning, is essential for all children, at least at certain times.
And, for those children who are neglected or disadvantaged or are
termed mentally retarded, mediation is absolutely essential.
Consistent with our belief in the power of good mediation is our
preference for the term retarded performers rather than the term retarded
persons. The former implies, as it should, that a person's performance
rarely reflects that person's potential.
Sincerely hoping that this book will be a source of hope, an
agenda for action, and an outline for intervention, we stand commit
ted to the proposition that intelligence and competence are much
more modifiable than we often give them credit for being.
REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
YAACOV RAND
JOHN E. RYNDERS
Jerusalem and Minneapolis
vii
Foreword
The Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar once noted that natural scien
tists come in several varieties, including collectors, classifiers, and
compulsive tidiers-up; detectives and explorers; artists and artisans;
poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists; and even mystic-scien
tists. Unfortunately, no similar attempt has been made to label behav
ioral scientists according to the kinds of people they are or even to
speculate on how their professional judgments and commitments
may be flavored by the social values they embrace.
In this precious and highly readable book, Feuerstein, Rand, and
Rynders take an important step toward filling the void. They dis
tinguish clearly between passive acceptors and active modifiers, who
deal with learning handicaps in strikingly different ways. People who
are passive acceptors lovingly accept low-functioning children as they
are; those who are active modifiers lovingly modify low-functioning
children to realize what they can become. The passive-acceptant ap
proach is basically fatalistic and patronizing. Those who advocate it
are confident in their ability to assess learning capacities; they are
prepared to help low-functioning children cope as best they can with
in their assumed limitations; and they are determined to protect these
children from being victimized by a world that exploits individual
weaknesses. The active-modificational orientation, on the other
hand, is far more optimistic about children's potentialities than con
ventional measures would suggest, and it allows for enormous efforts
to stretch seemingly stunted minds to unpredictable limits.
The authors describe the contrasting belief systems in detail and
provide many examples of how educational policies and practices are
affected by these differences. They also go a step further by implying
that a sharp split exists even within the ranks of active modifiers.
There are those who operate primarily with confidence and dedica-
ix
x FOREWORD
tion, which they imbue in the children, thus creating a learning atmo
sphere in which teacher and pupil are both determined to do their
best. In this instance, it is mostly heart that counts, rather than educa
tional techniques, and some are persuaded that their success is inev
itable because their hearts are in the right place. Others take the
opposite view by opting for cold skill in place of warm good will and
by expecting the special methods of assessment and instruction advo
cated in this book to make the big difference. They are scrupulous
about keeping their science pure because for them science and faith
do not mix.
But they have to mix, as the authors make so abundantly clear.
Otherwise, we may be left to choose between some variant of faith
healing and what may be described lugubriously as faithless healing,
either of which leads to mediocre mediation, no matter how sincere
the faith is in the first approach or how technically correct the healing
efforts are in the second. Low-functioning children lack both self
confidence and clear pathways to learning, and the only way their
needs can be met is if the two deficits are addressed simultaneously
without splitting hairs on the question of how much each contributes
to failure. Such pondering is as inane as wondering whether the left
or right hand creates louder applause when it is obvious that neither
hand, working alone, can produce the clapping sound at all. No
wonder that the book stresses motivation no less than teach
ing/learning processes. The authors repeatedly insist that under
standing the basic theory of mediated learning experiences and
knowing how to apply it skillfully are necessary but not sufficient
conditions for success in helping low-functioning children to outdo
themselves. There is also a need for the teacher to be convinced that
children's potentialities are indeed modifiable, and to be able to con
vince children of that fact as well.
The upbeat views of human capabilities expressed by Feuerstein,
Rand, and Rynders might have struck the uninitiated reader as mere
Pollyannaism if it weren't for the authors' own success in mediating
children's learning experiences. To instill optimism in the reader,
they cite poignant case histories of children who have benefited from
such treatments, with special emphasis on persons who have Down
syndrome. But the sober side of their message is that progress can be
made not simply by a quick-fix, magical formula, but rather by huge
investments of time, effort, skill, patience, commitment, and old
fashioned boundless love for children.
What makes the investment worthwhile derives from the au-
FOREWORD xi
thors' unconventional way of interpreting children's potentialities on
the basis of past performance. Traditional measurem~nt techniques
seek to establish a baseline-or a level at which the child can perform
repeatedly without mediation-as the best indicator of how well he
or she can and will achieve eventually. In other words, only the
successes that are sustained over several testings predict future perfor
mance, whereas one-time or even sporadic mastery is dismissed as
simply a flash in the pan. Feuerstein, Rand, and Rynders acknowl
edge that the kind of problems children can solve over and over again
today are the best forecasters of the kinds they can solve tomorrow.
What troubles them, though, is that such a prophecy is self-fulfilling,
since it applies only where the learning environments of today and
tomorrow are unmediated or poorly mediated. Under mediational
testing, the examiner is not particularly interested in baseline perfor
mance. Instead, he or she follows the "principle of the possible"; that
is, whatever the child can be motivated and educated to do success
fully just once-not necessarily again and again-becomes the level
of reasonable expectation for the future. And even that level is not
fixed, since the examiner is a participant observer, not an objective
monitor, in the examining process, always providing the child with
keys to learning and encouragement to improve performance in order
to reach new heights of achievement that were never before deemed
likely.
The "principle of the possible," in which a person's capacity is
judged by his or her best effort-regardless of how rarely it is re
vealed-applies to all ability levels, even to genius. If an Einstein can
posit a theory of relativity, that once-in-a-lifetime feat is the measure
of his intellect, not his everyday problem-solving successes. Thus, the
thesis comes full circle. The first impression it creates is one of faith
driven optimism about the psyche'S plasticity and the power of
human beings to effect dramatic changes in other hum~n beings. Out
of this conviction there grows a profound resolve to redevelop the
potentialities of low-functioning children with Down syndrome. But
in the last analysis, faith and hope are fortified by rationality, for the
"principle of the possible" adds reasonableness to the theory of medi
ated learning experiences, while the success stories reported here
lend vital supportive evidence.
J.
ABRAHAM TANNENBAUM
Teachers College
Columbia University
New York, New York
Acknowledgments
Writing this book would not have been possible without the as
sistance and advice of many friends, staff members, and colleagues.
First of all, we wish to express our appreciation to our families,
particularly to our wives: Berta Feuerstein, Bilha Rand, and Barbara
Rynders, to whom this book is dedicated. This book could not have
been written without their continuing support!
This book is also dedicated to the hundreds of children who have
come to us for assessment and intervention. Some of them are de
scribed here. All of them were a powerful source of inspiration and
learning for us. As one of the sages says:
From all those who taught us-we become enlightened
But from those whom we taught-even more so.
We acknowledge also the valuable assistance of a number of
friends and staff members of the Hadassah-WIZO-Canada Research
Institute and the Hasbro Paradigmatic Clinic for Down Syndrome in
Jerusalem, Israel, for their special contributions to this book:
• Eitan Wig, graphic artist of the institute, for his inventive ways
of translating ideas into graphics.
• Noa Schwartz, for her photographic talents and contributions,
particularly the cover photo for the book.
• Ami Shitrit, for his photographic contributions and logistic
efficiency.
• Yael Mintzker, M.A., coordinator of the Testing and Advisory
Services at the institute, for her intensive work with children in
need, particularly children with Down syndrome, as well as for
her follow-up studies with persons who underwent recon
structive plastic surgery.
• MaIka Hoffman, professor, for her critical comments, editorial
advice, and insightful contributions.
xiii