Hinshelwood

From the research, Hinshelwood makes some points that are still valid today in the field of Special Education, “[T]he individual was often blame, bullied, laughed at, for a defect which was not his fault but his misfortune.” One of the most famous Hip-Hop artists of the 1990s,“Special ED” would rap/sing about his experiences in special education in Brooklyn schools. His lyrics have been etched into popular culture educating the masses on the misconception of students with learning disabilities. In an interview he said “I hope my lyrics would stop the hurt and bullying of students with LD.” If you ask a random person on the street what they think of special education, you will get responses like “mental retardation.” Some famous comedians make a living making fun of students in special education and LD. For example Jim Florentine, a member of Comedy Central, a popular television channel has an endless array of jokes on the subject of social education. In 1895 LD students would be the joke of the town, but in 2009 with mass media LD students is the joke of the world. Unfortunately much of what is misunderstood has not changed much since the age of Hinshelwood.

“It is a matter of highest importance to recognize as early as possible the true nature of this defect, when it is met with in a child. It may prevent much waste of valuable time and may save the child from suffering and cruel treatment.” This statement was made in 1902, but if you read this today you would assume it comes from the latest research. A new and very effective way to help identify students at risk for LD and students who are lagging behind to help ensure their educational success, RTI has been very successful. Hinshelwood perhaps had the concept of RTI over a hundred years ago. Look at Cattie, our case study that shows how her reading recovery helped her by recognizing the problems early and addressing them, that will prevent other social problems.

Hinshelwood specifically uses the words “stupidity and laziness;” perhaps no other words come up more in the misconception of LD from the 1800s to modern times. This misconception is timeless for one major reason; it is innate in humans to understand others from our own life experiences and worldviews. I myself in high school, by special education teachers, have been called lazy. As an undergraduate student I procrastinated on papers several times, the work was easy but something was blocking me like a bottleneck. To this day I have not come up with a hypothesis. In my case I could not write what the professors required, but I can sit down for hours doing my own personal writing on complex subjects that have nothing to do with my school work. I have been reading a book by Dr. Levine who carries on in the tradition of Hinshelwood, Levine writes, “identifies seven other neurodevelopment areas where output failure can occur: weak production control, social distractibility, low mental energy, disorganization, language delays, impoverished ideation, and insufficient memory.” This simplistic view that students with LD are lazy is from the same ignorant historical view that African American men are lazy.

“The sooner the true nature of the defect is recognized, the better are chances of the child’s improvement…” Hinshelwood published this over a hundred years ago, and it seems like schools systems all across America, are finding this information out now. Schools want to know the true nature of students learning problems, so they are using the RTI method which is related to Hinshelwood’s writings over a century ago.