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Intelligence - Teaching and Parenting
What Makes A Difference?
By Robert Moon, Ph.D.
Observing Makes a Difference (Part 4)
Revised and Copyright 2002
Sometimes it isn’t enough to just encourage a student and use our best instructional or
motivational methods. Sometimes, unless we understand what the problem is, we fail to choose the key that unlocks the door to success. The case studies in this section
illustrate the importance of making careful observations of the students we work with and following through on what those observations may suggest.
Olaf. Olaf was a blond boy from Norway who was having difficulty in school. It didn’t
seem to be because of his language, for though he spoke with an accent, he could communicate clearly and appeared to understand everything that people were saying.
Because of his difficulty, I was asked to give Olaf an intelligence test.
The administration of an individualized intelligence test not only provides information
about the student’s intellectual strengths and weaknesses, but also gives opportunity to observe and talk to the student between the administration of various subtests.
Such questions frequently asked are, What do you like best in school? Is there anything that bothers you about school? In response to the latter question, Olaf
mentioned that it was very difficult for him to read all of the material that he had in English and in his other subjects. He also indicated that in physical education they
made him attempt to do tumbling even though he told them it made him sick in the stomach, and in fact, he’d even thrown up once. He said the teacher suggested that it
was all in his head and if he really made up his mind to do it that he could do it, and there would be no exceptions made for him.
As I observed Olaf, I noticed something that I have seen in only one other student. His
eyes seemed to almost flutter, moving very rapidly from left to right. This is symptomatic of a genetic defect where the eye has no center of focus, but the genetic
information which tells the eye to look for a center of focus as though it exists causes the eye to continually attempt to find the center of focus. Because this center of
focus is not there, the eye rapidly flutters back and forth.
Further discussions revealed that he was unaware of this problem and that his family
also had no knowledge of what might cause the fluttering. An examination confirmed the fact that Olaf did have the suspected problem. I contacted a doctor who was a
friend and asked him if this condition could cause nausea when an individual was attempting to regain their balance while tumbling, and he confirmed that there was a
reasonable possibility this could happen. This condition also made it very difficult to read, since while the image was sharp at the back of the eye, there was no
concentration of rods and cones where the detail necessary for normal reading could be received. The image that Olaf was receiving was much like trying to read small letter on
a TV screen. Unless he magnified the print or got close enough to the print so that the image was larger on the back of the eye, he could not observe sufficient detail to read
and when he did increase the size of the image the field was sufficiently restricted that it made reading tedious and slow.
As the results of the observation and the discussion wit his school, modifications were
made in the curriculum for Olaf which required that only the most essential reading be done and alternate physical activities be provided which did not make him nauseated.
With these changes, Olaf made normal progress in school and became much more positive toward the entire program.
Jane Sat in the Back of the Room.
Just before John did directed teaching, he had
several lectures concerning the type of observations a regular classroom teacher might make of a student who is having difficulty, and the types of exceptionalities that might
correspond to some of the things the teacher could see. Shortly after he began practice teaching he noticed that Jane sat in the back of the room and seemed to be
uninvolved. The first quiz that he gave confirmed the fact that Jane had apparently gotten nothing from what he was doing in class. John found an opportunity to meet
with Jane outside of class to talk to her about what was happening. As he talked to her, he discovered that he had to repeat himself and sometimes increase the volume of
his voice before Jane responded in a meaningful way. John related this to the regular classroom teacher and indicated that he suspected that Jane might have a partial
hearing loss. The school arranged for Jane to have a reading test which confirmed that her loss of hearing was such that she would get little from what was being said in
class. After Jane was provided with a hearing aid and place in the front of the room her performance in class improved dramatically. No only did her performance improve in
that class, but her general academic performance in school also improved. Apparently the majority of what Jane got from her classes she got through her outside reading or
what was written on the blackboard, and in classes where much of the information was given verbally, she did very poorly.
Charles, the 18-Year-Old. Bill had been provided with the same information about
exceptional children and classroom teacher observations as John. When Bill arrived on a boarding school campus to do practice teaching, he spent the first week observing
the students in the English classes he would be teaching. He was surprised to see an 18-year-old boy in a lower track freshman English class. When he asked the teacher
about Charles, he was told that Charles just didn’t have it, that his parents had sent him to the parochial school primarily for the association and the religious training, and
would be happy with whatever he achieved academically. Bill got a similar story from other teachers, and was told that the thing to do was just to give him a D- so that he
would pass. As Bill continued to observe and talk with Charles it seemed his general intelligence was inconsistent with his lack of reading and writing ability. Bill decided to
try something which had been suggested for students who have very low reading ability and may have a specific learning disability. He indicated to Charles that he should pay
as much attention in class as he could and that any test items that he did not understand because he could not read, that Bill would read to him. Bill lived in the
dormitory in a room across from Charles, and spent fifteen minutes every evening in oral instruction concerning what had been covered during the day. During the six weeks
that Bill was teaching, Charles moved from the bottom of the class to the point where he got the highest test score on the last test. At the end of the grading period,
Charles’ combined scores indicated that he had earned a B.
Just before Bill left, he sat down with Charles and asked him, “Do you know what you
got on the last test?” Charles said, “No, I probably didn’t do too well.” When he was told that he got the highest score, he could hardly believe it. Then Bill told him, “You
know, you earned a B in my class. While you have difficulty in reading, you’re not dumb; and in fact, I don’t want you to let anyone ever tell you you’re dumb, or you
can’t do it again, because you can.” Charles broke down and cried, and said, “Nobody ever told me before that I could. They always told me that I couldn’t, and that I was dumb.”
Bill worked through the school and the parents to help Charles obtain additional
screening which confirmed he had a specific learning disability. As Charles has obtained the appropriate kind of instruction, he has continued to make academic progress. A
statement that Charles’ mother made in a letter she wrote Bill is both revealing and sad. She thanked Bill for the interest that he had taken, and went on to comment,
“There just doesn’t seem to be a place for the Charles’s of this world.” Bill later discovered that Charles was adopted and that his adopted parents had been told by
the doctor that there had been a difficult delivery and there might be brain damage. As a result, they had accepted Charles’ difficulty as retardation, what they thought were
the normal results of brain damage, and until Charles met Bill, he functioned in a way that confirmed their expectations.
He Only Does the First Few Lines. A student was referred to a psychologist because
he was doing very poorly in school. One thing that the teacher showed the psychologist was the students workbooks. He had never done more than the first
several problems or lines on a page. The psychologist was surprised at the referral because she had known this student when he was younger and it was always her impression that he was quite bright.
Testing confirmed that her initial impression was correct and that the boy was
gifted. While discussing his school program, she pointed out that he had only done the first few lines of each workbook page and asked why he didn’t complete the activities.
He looked at her and said, “Isn’t the idea to learn how to do something? When I’ve completed the first several problems or lines, I know I can do the rest. Why bother?”
Teachers Make the Difference
Many of the above stories not only show how success, observations, and caring make a
difference, but also how teachers make a difference. This last case study illustrates the responsibility and opportunity teachers have, both in a negative and positive way.
A Change to That Helped Tommy. Tommy was just completing his first semester of
his first grade. His favorite color was black. He was waking up in the middle of the night crying. He hated school, he felt that his little sister was better than he was and
could do things that he couldn’t do, and stated he wished he were dead. This was entirely different from the Tommy I first met when he was visiting in our home in
Maryland. He was excited and looking forward to going to school. He appeared to be a very bright and very active normal six-year-old, and indeed later observations and
testing confirmed that he was bright. Because of my early experiences with Tommy, I was very surprised to hear how he was acting now.
Fortunately for Tommy, his father had a doctorate in education which included a
background in psychology and sociology. He removed Tommy from the first school and placed him in a school where the program was much more open. The first grade he
attended during the second semester had learning centers, there was a balance between structure and movement and a variety of exciting instructional activities.
Tommy’s emotional problems began to rapidly disappear. And, where it was felt that in the other situation he would have to be retained because he was “too immature” for
the first grade, he completed the first grade at the top of his class and enjoyed school.
After discussing Tommy with his father, I looked into the situation at the first school
and found that the first grade teacher there had been teaching in the same school for 25 years. In each of the recent years, three or four of the students had been retained
because they were “too immature”. The program was highly structured and for many students may have been very adequate. Unfortunately for Tommy, the high degree of
structure with minimal physical movement was inappropriate for his particular level of development.
Circle What’s Right A frustrated elementary teacher came to a psychologist who was
also a master teacher, asking help for a student who had deplorable handwriting. In this case, the problem did not seem to be related to a specific learning disability. The
teacher indicated that she had done everything that she knew how to help the student and that she spent considerable time circling the worst parts of his sloppy writing so
that the student could know what was wrong. The psychologist suggested, “Why don’t you try circling what’s right? Then you will be showing him the kind of writing you
expect and he’ll want to have more circled.” The teacher followed the advice and the student’s handwriting steadily improved until everything could be circled.
Conclusion
Many more illustrations could be given that suggest, What Makes a Difference? Many
of the illustrations that have been given could be classified under a number of reasons why a difference occurred. The approaches/factors can be helpful to parents,
teachers , and others who receive joy from helping children and youth develop in ways the that maximize their abilities and motivation to function effectively and become
contributing adults. It is exciting and rewarding to become aware of the many factors that can make a difference and to use this knowledge in planning and implementing
activities which bring success to our children and pupils.
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