Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Research on Campus (1949) [PAGE 23]

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{> Working Together And Living in Groups

T H E PICTURE ABOVE is a miniature of one of the most

Education for All O

of in mois

Child ren

common problems in the world today — people trying to work together under difficult conditions. I n this particular case, too many cooks are spoiling the broth. T h e girls have been assigned a structure to build, but the pieces and holes are of different diameters and will only fit together in one way, which is difficult to find. Psychologists are observing the laboratory situation, noting how the girls organize to do the job, and how they select leaders. This is part of a study of group behavior, which is important not only because it may help us to get better performance and happier relationships out of groups as different as a community, an office staff, and a football team, but also because national behavior is a form of group behavior, and a deeper knowledge of national behavior would help us toward world peace. Illinois psychologists are constantly studying individual as well as group behavior. T h e process of learning, the basis of personality, the psychology of vision, and the nature of normal and abnormal speech are among the problems now being attacked.

STAFF members in the College of Education are studying what the State of Illinois needs in the way of buildings, teachers, curricula, and money to give it an ideal school system. They are studying also the more individual b u t no less urgent problems of Illinois' handicapped children — how to avoid this h u m a n waste a n d how to help such children live as nearly a normal life as possible. A nursery school for mentally handicapped children was inaugurated this year. Work with the deaf has gone on for several years. Above right is a deaf boy learning to speak. H e is watching the movements of his teacher's mouth, feeling the sounds of speech on her throat and jaw, looking at the ball and trying to say the word "ball." Powerful acoustical amplification in his earphones is making use of what little hearing he has left. The children below have never heard before coming to school. Now, for the first time, through amplifiers and earphones, they are listening to the "Night Before Christmas." T h e teacher is stopping to point out words. These children eventually will be able to speak quite intelligibly, a n d to appreciate language.

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