ELLIS, Jason – A Class by Themselves? The Origins of Special Education in Toronto and Beyond. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. Pp. 364. Jason Ellis’s new monograph on the history of special education in Toronto is a welcome addition to the slim historiography on this topic. With its origins in a doctoral dissertation at York University (with Paul Axelrod as supervisor), the book version should stand as an incentive to every graduate student who plans to tackle the process of turning a thesis into a book. As I argue later, I believe that Ellis’s book has much utility for graduate students generally, as well as for academics interested in this subject, and very importantly, for former special education students, who will find the topic and their experiences treated with sensitivity and respect. A Class by Themselves? is a model on several levels. Ellis’s argument is clearly presented and ably referenced by a range of research sources. He begins his survey in 1910, when the Toronto Board of Education (TBE) established four “auxiliary” classes in different schools for “mentally defective” children. He credits several motives for this initiative: eugenics, which caused many citizens to be genuinely afraid of children judged to be subnormal, a drive for bureaucratic efficiency in educational systems, and the charitable impulse of “child savers.” In that same decade, classes were established for children who were “merely backward” rather than defective, “pre-tuberculous,” sickly, and malnourished children and for those who did not know English or Canadian norms. By the 1920s, auxiliary education was entrenched in urban schooling. With the popularity and enormous confidence placed in IQ testing, streaming was reinforced, with auxiliary classes one of its expressions. Further, the science of IQ created the deterministic assumption that learning problems were caused by low intelligence, and that one’s IQ was fixed and impervious to much change, even with the influence of excellent teaching. By 1920, the Ontario Government had raised the school leaving age to 16 from 14. This factor, as well as prevailing notions about fixed IQ, shaped adolescent vocational guidance presented in schools. Toronto’s gendersegregated Junior Vocational and Handicraft schools adopted progressive curricular notions of instruction that prevailed through the 1930s. Ellis also examines the “rehabilitation” wing of special education, grounded in the belief that education could indeed help some people advance beyond their handicaps. Sight-saving classes, oralist day school classes—where lip-reading was taught to the totally deaf and speech-correction to the hard-of-hearing—as well as orthopaedic classes for children with physical disabilities were all offered in selected regular schools. By 1930, the era (some might say, the tyranny) of IQ testing was eased, with the rise of international authorities on brain injury, psychologists, and remedial education experts. The “theory of special-subject disability” argued that children with normal intelligence could possess a disability in one or more individual subject areas, such as reading or arithmetic, and that such disabilities were fully amenable to correction through careful diagnostic testing, special learning materials, and remedial teaching techniques. Finally, Ellis considers the effects on auxiliary education of the mental hygiene movement, psychological theories about personality adjustment, and child-guidance clinics. These environmentalist forces all encouraged auxiliary educators to recognize the potential for change through targeted and appropriate educational strategies, but also the need for children to adapt to their circumstances, which often resulted in scaled-back expectations by children, parents, and educators. I noted earlier in this brief review that I regularly thought of my graduate students as I read Jason Ellis’s work and noted various sections that I thought would particularly benefit this group, although anyone will learn much in reading this book. I have already commented on the clarity of the structure of the book and of the argument presented. The writing is accessible and lively, offering a model that most historians, not just students, would do well to emulate. The research documentary base permits the author to personalize his account, always to be recommended, and essential in a study of auxiliary or special education. As one source, for instance, Ellis uses the pupil record cards of more than 1,300 auxiliary students from...
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May 23, 2024
Sarah Stopforth + 2
Open Access
