participating in such activities as social studies and health education with the other children in school. As a rule the special-class group will be in the regular-grade classes for all work not requiring close use of the eyes. They also engage in other school activities. Under this plan, they retain the advantages of association with the children in regular classes.

In junior and senior high school sight-saving classes, partially seeing pupils may attend all of their classes with the regular-grade pupils in the school. This is possible because of the help and guidance given by the sight-saving teacher. She helps the partially seeing pupils to choose programs which do not involve too much close eye work. In general, sightsaving pupils avoid such classes as sewing and mechanical drawing. As sight-saving pupils advance through school, many can make satisfactory progress if they have the help of a teacher qualified to work with the visually handicapped.

THE TEACHER

A qualified teacher helps pupils in many specific ways. She adapts the curriculum to the individual pupils. She emphasizes oral work and provides periods of eye rest. She prepares special instructional materials, such as reading material and sets of questions which she prepares in large type. She secures equipment such as Talking Books and records. She works with vocational rehabilitation agencies in guiding young people toward life adjustment.

The sight-saving teacher, regardless of the grade she teaches, should be a regularly qualified and certificated teacher. She should also be specially trained in order to understand the types of eye difficulties and their effects on the individual children. She should know about proper lighting and have the technical knowledge to understand proper use of special equip ment and materials. In addition to helping to keep the room a model of good seeing conditions, she should be prepared to give other teachers in her building information or advice on seating and lighting and on proper eye hygiene.

The sight-saving class teacher (the home-room teacher), whether in an elementary or secondary school, has a responsibility which extends into many parts of the school. She has special guidance functions to perform. Most of her children will be going into regular classrooms to spend part of the day with the regular teachers who have had little or no training in the field of the visually handicapped. It will be one of the functions of the special teachers to make sure that the regular classroom teachers working with these pupils understand the individual physical disability of each partially seeing child. She will also be the person to explain the meaning of such a limitation in a school situation. An understading of the nature of the eye con dition is basic to planning of reading material, play activities, hobbies, and

other materials and activities. It is also basic to good understanding of both child and parental attitudes.

While the teacher is providing these special services, she must also keep her eye on the general goal of the school program. The wise teacher is continuously concerned with the need for normal growth and development of each child. She should plan carefully for the preparation and presentation of materials in order to give each child a true sense of achievement. This is one of the principal needs of exceptional children because they, like all other children, should experience feelings of success.

Usual child activities are experienced in a class for partially seeing INSTRUCTION

Most of the classes for the partially seeing include children of a wide grade and age range. For example, there may be one 6-year-old and one 17-year-old in a group otherwise composed of 8- to 12-year-olds. When this is true, it is very important for the sight-saving teacher to look for ways of unifying the special class as well as for ways of identifying the children with the regular pupils in the school.

Projects of interest to children of all ages and levels of development are excellent devices. The importance of a well-organized program allowing

for group enterprises cannot be overemphasized. It is largely through such a program that the handicapped child establishes his social status. Group projects, such as the making of a newspaper, the raising of pets, or the cultivation of plants. allow pupils at all levels of maturity to contribute. An illustration of such an enterprise is the project resulting in the SightSaving Lamplighter, published by the pupils of the intermediate sightsaving class in Erie, Pa. This paper is prepared and issued at regular intervals. It contains news, poems, articles, and drawings. It is circulated in the Erie school system, and sample copies have also gone to many cities in the United States and to a few cities in foreign countries. Through a concrete enterprise of this kind, the morale of a class can be considerably heightened. Such a publication to which each child contributes acts as a powerful incentive to learning. It, furthermore, gives him social and emotional satisfaction and affords a situation for genuine recognition.

The school situation demands more of the visually handicapped child than it does of a so-called normal child. A visually handicapped child. for example, divides his time between the regular and the special class. As a result, it is possible for such a special-class child to have little sense of belonging to either the special or the regular group. The sight-saving teaching usually carries the main responsibility for overcoming these problems.

The Partially Seeing Child in the Regular Classroom

Special features, such as intensified medical care, proper classroom lighting and seating, as well as individual guidance, are essentials in special classes. These are also needed to some extent by visually handicapped children who are in regular classes of the public schools. Handicapped children who are in the regular classes are usually those with the milder disabilities. On the whole, they need less individual attention than those in the special classes. However, where there are no special classes, if supervision is available, adjustments, can be made in regular schools to aid some children who have fairly serious defects.

Through conferences with State or regional education consultants, doctors. and nurses, and through written reports, the teacher of the regular class can learn something about the disabilities of the handicapped children in her class. She can seek the aid of agencies working for visually handicapped children. She can bring into the regular classroom some of the special features, such as large-type books and typewriters.

The regular teacher, furthermore, has a rich opportunity to influence the attitudes of the other children in the class so that they will be willing to accept the handicapped child and so that they will come to think of him as an individual who is like them in all respects, except that he happens

to have a physical deviation. As a member of a team concerned with the welfare of the handicapped, the teacher can work with parents and help them to secure authentic factual information regarding the condition of their child and encourage them to secure reliable professional advice and constructive guidance.

For those teachers who are in States not providing consultants or directors in the education of visually handicapped children, the following suggestions from The Illinois Plan for Special Education of Exceptional Children, The Visually Defective," may be helpful:

1. Place seats and desks in the position which will give the best illumination on the children's work and protect them from glare. If seats are placed at an angle of 30 degrees from the windows, no child faces the light or sits in his own shadow. Left-handed children should have light from their right.

2. Give careful attention to both natural and artificial illumination. All light, whether natural or artificial, should be adequate for the type of work undertaken. Good classroom lighting is well diffused, evenly distributed throughout the room and free from glare, objectionable shadows, and strong contrasts. . . .

3. Keep shades adjusted to permit the best natural light without glare.

4. Do not sit or stand between the children and the window. Such a position requires the children to face the light when looking at the teacher.

5. Seat the visually handicapped child in the best lighted place in the room. Since he has poorer vision than any other member of the class, he should be placed in a position in which he can have sufficient light, see the blackboard, see the face of the teacher, or any other person who might be talking to the class, and avoid the glare from shiny surfaces or exposed light.

6. See that he as very black lead pencils, dull unglazed paper, and books with as large clear type as possible. . . .

...

7. Prepare copies of tests and other materials for him in large clear script or manuscript, rather than have him strain his eyes copying from the board. Copy work is especially hard for a person with a severe visual handicap.

8. Place all board work on the best lighted portion of the board in large clear writing or manuscript, using large, soft, white or yellow chalk.

9. Permit the visually handicapped child to write larger than average, and if manuscript is easier for him, he should be encouraged to use it. If a typewriter is available, the use of it will save him untold eye strain.

State of Illinois, Department of Public Instruction. The Illinois Plan for Special Education of Exceptional Children, The Visually Defective. Springfield, Ill., pp. 38 and 39. (Circular Series D, No. 12.)

10. Appoint a pupil reader for him, preferably a child in the same class who reads well, and who is capable of discussing materials he reads with the visually handicapped child. This helper can releive the teacher much time-consuming work and the handicapped chid of much eyestrain caused by lengthy reading assignments. Reading should be considered a tool for the visually handicapped child, rather than a leisure-time activity.

11. Eliminate as much home work as possible. Encourage use of the ear rather than the eye as the organ of learning. The discriminate use of the radio is particularly encouraged for both home and school as a tool for learning.

12. Discuss the pupils eye condition with te parent and doctor, and follow the doctor's recommendation concerning use of the eyes. Encourage regular visitation to the doctor.

13. Teach eye hygiene as a definite part of classroom work. Help the visually handicapped child develop a sane attitude toward his handicap and adapt himself to it.

14. Make every effort possible to get him in a sight-saving class. Perhaps a thorough screening program in the local and nearby communities will reveal ufficient number of cases to estabish a sight-saving class.

Educational Programs for Blind Children

For the most part, the education of blind children goes on either in a residential school for the blind or in a Braille day-school class for the blind. The reason for this is that the blind child needs to learn Braille (see p. 35 for description of Braille) and have other technical training to prepare him for adjustment in a sighted world. The blind child must learn through other senses than sight-especially through touch and hearing.

Residential schools serve by far the larger number of blind children in this country. Every State either maintains a residential school for the blind or makes some arrangement for its children to have access to one. The day-school classes (Braille) for the blind, however, are organized as a part of the public-school system, and their organization is similar to that of the sight-saving classes discussed in the preceding pages. It, therefore, seems logical to give attention first to the Braille classes in day schools.

Day classes for the blind in public schools (Braille classes) are conducted, of necessity, only in the larger population centers. Several cities have developed extensive day-school programs for children who are blind, as well as for those who are partially seeing. Such programs have been especially successful when the schools have employed supervisors who devoted their time to the needs and problems of visually handicapped children and worked with the parents of such children.