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# 2024-10-21 - A Circle of Children by Mary MacCracken | |
Several past friends of mine were involved one way or another with | |
an intentional community outside of Eugene, Oregon named Circle of | |
Children. Recently i found a book by the same title on sale in a | |
used book store, and i bought it for $1. It is an autobiographical | |
book written by a "special ed" teacher and published in 1973. I | |
enjoyed the quick pace and i also enjoyed reading her stories of | |
absurd and unusual situations. I like how she was ever evaluating | |
and on the lookout for "master teachers" to imitate and learn from. | |
I recognize a certain kind of brilliance and excellence in the | |
author, and appreciate her bold, brave style. | |
The Lost Children is a newer version of this book. | |
Below are excerpts with my notes in square brackets. | |
# Chapter 2 | |
She had a rare quality of being alive, involved in, excited by, her | |
world. | |
It was not that she always had an admirable response or even a proper | |
one. She did not. She was no saint. But the one thing was, she did | |
respond! She was alive, she was human, she cared, and she showed us | |
that she did. There were no pretenses to Helga. What she felt, she | |
communicated, and because there was no veneer it came through | |
straight and clear. | |
Body language is the first language--the way the mother speaks to the | |
child long before he can understand her words. ... So, too, Helga | |
spoke to her seriously emotionally disturbed children, many of whom | |
had rejected verbal communication, and they listened to this body | |
language. Most of her touching was light and firm and quick. She | |
used it to communicate affection, support, pride in the child... She | |
also used another kind of touching. It was really more holding. It | |
said in effect, "I am here. We will survive." | |
Never, however, did she use this body language to express her own | |
anger or irritation. Striking a child may cause him to become | |
fearful of your touch and this is too valuable a tool to lose, too | |
high a price to pay for momentary frustration. Instead, Helga swore. | |
She cursed as I had never heard a woman do before, and it seemed to | |
harm the children not at all. | |
# Chapter 3 | |
Various authorities different on cause and treatment, but most | |
writers and educators seemed to agree on the prime characteristics of | |
the emotionally disturbed child. | |
First of all, he has a lack of awareness of his own identity. His | |
concept of his own body image is very small. He seldom speaks | |
properly; sometimes he may not speak at all. Certainly this was true | |
at our school; over two thirds of the children had severe language | |
problems. | |
The seriously emotionally disturbed child resists change, often | |
becomes preoccupied with a particular object, and is filled with | |
excessive anxiety. His emotional relationships with family, peers, | |
and teachers are severely impaired. He does not care; he is turned | |
in upon himself. Although he may appear to be retarded because of | |
these things, still he may often have flashes of brilliance in | |
contrast to the even performance of the retarded child. | |
The books said this and I believed it: still, it was a conglomerate | |
[generalization], whereas to me each child was unique, an individual. | |
The more i read, the more certain I became of one fact: the screening | |
and certifying of teachers of emotionally disturbed children should | |
not depend solely upon graduation and completion of required courses; | |
the screening should be different for this field. The art of | |
communication is just that--an art--and there must be a talent before | |
the craftsmanship can be developed, or you will have only | |
technicians, not gifted teachers. You can instill a hundred | |
techniques into a teacher, have her memorize thousands of technical | |
terms; but if she cannot make contact with the children they are | |
useless. | |
# Chapter 4 | |
[Renée's] theory of permissiveness, she explained, was one that was | |
used with great success in Canada. She felt that all emotional | |
disturbance stemmed from the same source: the fact that the child had | |
never been accepted by his parents. So before he could grow up, he | |
must be allowed to be a baby and do the things e wanted to do. | |
I was not happy working in that room. All day long the children | |
destroyed things. "They are getting the hate out of their systems," | |
Renée would say; but if they were, they did not seem any happier for | |
it. | |
... Joyce, one of the new teachers, had been in a bad automobile | |
accident... Could I take her class during that [recovery] time at | |
substitute's salary? | |
The thing I wanted so badly had happened; the job I had hoped for had | |
been offered to me. | |
"I'll be speaking to my family," I said, "and call you this evening." | |
Again I was surprised how small a thing it seemed to them. | |
When I told Larry that I had been asked to teach, he barely looked up | |
from the television set. I lingered uncertainly, feeling in some way | |
that I should warn him that this would change me. I was not sure | |
how, but if the days as a volunteer with Helga had influenced me as | |
much as they had, surely a full-time job would do more. But the | |
commercial came on and he watched even that with concentration. | |
# Chapter 7 | |
It was like singing, more like singing than talking, really--like the | |
songs I used to sing to Elizabeth and Rick when they were small and | |
ill with measles or chicken pox and would wake whimpering in the | |
night. I would sit on the end of their beds and sing all the songs I | |
could remember, the songs my mother had sung to me, camp songs, | |
college songs, love songs; the content did not matter, nor the fact | |
that my voice was funny and off-key. It was a way of telling them | |
that I was there, so that they could relax and sleep again and not | |
need to keep opening their eyes or cry or ask questions they didn't | |
want answered. As long as they could hear my voice, there was no need | |
to check. | |
# Chapter 8 | |
My thoughts turned back to Mrs. O'Connell. Foolish, foolish I was to | |
be annoyed by her. I must learn more patience. It was a windfall, | |
really, to have her here. I should take advantage of the fact, use | |
it, find out more. I needed her as an ally. I could not keep | |
children from the institution by myself; I needed help. And what | |
better help than from the parents? | |
She says it to me, blunt and clear. "That's what he eats. That's all | |
he eats. That's what he's eaten since he was four." [From age 4 | |
through 8 her son ate only saltines and instant chocolate milk drink.] | |
# Chapter 9 | |
I needed advice. This was a medical problem, and I was out of my | |
depth. Could a child live on only saltines and chocolate milk? It | |
seemed unlikely to me, but to get Brian to eat anything else would be | |
a major problem and I might alienate him altogether. | |
"We'll leave it up to you, Mary," added the Director. "You can keep | |
us filled in." | |
How can you leave it up to me when I know nothing? Nothing. | |
Frustration and weariness pile upon me. Five experts in the room, at | |
approximately thirty dollars an hour. We sit around this table, at | |
this meeting, for two hours--sixty dollars times five means three | |
hundred dollars for our problems this afternoon--and they decide to | |
leave it up to me. [I am guessing this happened in the late 1960's, | |
which would make it about $3,000 in 2024 dollars.] | |
What we seem to have here is do-it-yourself therapy. All the books | |
I've studied warn the teachers against playing psychiatrist. Good. | |
Right. But suppose nobody else will play? | |
# Chapter 11 | |
He was right. I had thought that the trip we had gone on to weeks | |
before was going to be too difficult. We had walked four miles | |
around a lake on a narrow path, hiking single file, the six boys | |
between us--Dan going first, breaking off branches that grew across | |
the trail, calling to warn us of rocks and holes. I brought up the | |
rear, carrying discarded sweaters as the day grew warmer and the boys | |
hotter. | |
But they had loved it. No one had ever done this kind of thing with | |
these children before. The Director in her fund-raising speeches | |
often referred to them as "attic children," meaning that many of the | |
parents had kept the children secluded at home, never taking them | |
out, hiding them, unable to cope with them in the outside world. | |
But Dan took them out, opening the world to them, expecting them to | |
be able to cope with it. And they did. They adored him and followed | |
where he led. In the following, their legs and backs got | |
stronger--they grew. I followed, too--I had met another master | |
teacher. | |
# Chapter 12 | |
This was one of the few things we disagreed about: the Director. I | |
felt an increasing respect for this woman who had managed to found | |
the school and keep it operating for thirteen years. And her dream | |
was coming closer. ... Dan... disliked the way she said one thing one | |
day, another the next, agreeing with the psychologist during staff | |
meetings, disagreeing with him after he left. | |
To me--she survived. And kept us all surviving with her. The | |
pressures upon her were incredible. She could not remain rigid or | |
she would be felled. | |
Dan was not concerned with some future dream: he was young, he was | |
interested in now. | |
Dan's other complaint was that Doris did not visit the classrooms | |
enough, was not in close enough touch with the children, the | |
teachers. She was not, he said, aware of what we were doing and | |
trying to do. Consequently, Dan, like a child himself, felt that if | |
she didn't care enough to find out, he had no obligation to inform | |
her. | |
But again the fact remained: we did survive, and more than that, we | |
grew. | |
# Chapter 13 | |
I went to the marriage counselor alone. I tried to persuade Larry to | |
come with me, but he said it was ridiculous because there was nothing | |
wrong. I thought perhaps it was true--it might be ridiculous, but | |
for the opposite reason: everything was wrong it could not be put | |
right. | |
# Chapter 15 | |
Helga taught me first to begin where the child is. Never | |
assume--always find out. In more academic language this means | |
diagnose, teach, diagnose, teach. Never go blindly on from lesson | |
plan to lesson plan, as they seemed to suggest at college. With so | |
much talk of lesson plans, unit teaching, curriculum planning. | |
My job, as I saw it, was to teach the children how to live within | |
homes and communities. If what I taught contributed to that, good; | |
if not, it was a waste. The children obviously had to learn | |
self-help and certain social skills. They had to learn how to adapt | |
their behavior so that it would be accepted to the society in which | |
they lived. | |
This aspect of teaching is first and foremost. We must first reach | |
the children, reach through the rage and fear and hate, before we can | |
teach. | |
For me, it was communication: the give-and-take between | |
people--spoken, written, however it came--and I wanted to give my | |
children the chance to learn these things. They deserved to be | |
allowed to learn the techniques of communication. | |
# Chapter 17 | |
I was gradually learning as a teacher why teachers' colleges were | |
wrong to spend so much time on planning. The most important thing to | |
learn was to be able to throw the plan away, whatever it was. What | |
was necessary was to listen, to follow each minute to its peak, | |
learning as you went. And this is difficult. It takes experience | |
and self-confidence and courage. | |
If you have spent much time and energy in preparation, it is natural | |
to want to cling to your plan, preserve all you have prepared. If I | |
were ever to teach a college class, I would teach that a lesson plan | |
should never be more than five lines long. A teacher should know | |
where she is going, what her goals are, but a five-line plan can be | |
easily discarded or postponed. | |
Instead of so much training in plan preparation, we should have | |
training in reaction, role play with the unexpected. I would also | |
insist on tremendous amounts of background reading in learning | |
theories, psychology, all fields of education. The goal would be to | |
have the information so absorbed and internalized that what was most | |
pertinent would be used at the right time. | |
# Chapter 18 | |
It was a lonely, even dangerous thing for one teacher to take | |
disturbed children in a car or in a crowded place. Explosion was | |
never far away. But now both Dan and I found that all the children | |
knew each of us well enough so that one could handle seven while the | |
other took care of an emergency. | |
Because we were a private school and because the Director also | |
believed in our trips, and most of all because the parents were | |
tremendously enthusiastic, there was little red tape. Things were | |
kept simple. | |
# Chapter 19 | |
I shiver in the seat beside Dan and turn away from him for a minute, | |
trying to erase the specter of an institution. The one in our state | |
is huge and bleak and monstrous. Dan and I had visited it together | |
one day, and we had come back more determined than ever to work | |
harder with the children, be more patient with the parents, to find | |
or create some other alternative. | |
# Chapter 20 | |
Now I realize what a unique position we were in. Where a child | |
psychiatrist could see a child once, twice, three times a week for an | |
our at a time in a specialized setting, we saw our children five | |
hours a day, five days a week. We learned with them, we played with | |
them, we ate with them. We lacked psychiatric knowledge, but we had | |
a deep and special knowledge of the child. | |
# Chapter 21 | |
Not only should there be loving, there must be loving, in our | |
schools. Tough, strong, responsible loving by people who can accept | |
other people's weaknesses and ignorance--and their own as well. They | |
must accept and then attempt and act, taking responsibility for the | |
consequences the actions bring. Because there is no real loving | |
without action and responsibility. | |
The loving to which I refer must be better than what we ordinarily | |
mean by loving. | |
author: MacCracken, Mary | |
LOC: LC4165 .M32 | |
tags: biography,book,non-fiction | |
title: A Circle of Children | |
# Tags | |
biography | |
book | |
non-fiction | |