Exploring the child's world; School problem

The child is father to the man as we hope for a world of men of good will. We must look to the conditions of the child's world to achieve it. So we search for the laws ways and means the sources of the capable spontaneously whole adult. It is not strange that the world of the disturbed child throws light on childhood in general. Although Father Francis Duffy chairman of the Department of Sociology at Duquesne University was not at first looking for this light when he started working with the disturbed child. He found however that it is not that the disturbed a delinquent child is completely removed from society. Rather that his position is more extreme and so its obviousness offers us a sharper clearer insight into the world of children to share the fruit of his research funded duffing into Cain University presents a series of recorded interviews with delinquent children followed by a short discussion in which the child and his problems are explored for insight. Here is Father Duffy to preview the problems of this child who speaks in exploring the

child's world. Father Duffy. We have spoken about a child who was upset and disturbed tending to over trust strangers. In the interview that follows We will hear Carole a 14 year old white girl she's Catholic of German American ancestry. She has a great deal of difficulty in school and appears to be using her mother's sickness as an escape from the legal consequences of quitting school altogether. Carol has considerable trouble with her older sister. There appears to be little family unity and little give and take in the home. Absolutely no humor. The child stayed in a boy's car for four nights when the police began to close in on her as she fled. She then met Tommy who kind of tricked her into giving herself up to the police without knowing it. This child is indeed fortunate to have escaped serious involvement possibly even death. Had she fall into the hands of some roving mixed up uninhibited male adult on the prowl. Her

story illustrates some of the dangers that make good parents toss worriedly in their sleep waiting for the phone call it spells tragedy. Cameras trouble seem to revolve around two areas one is peer groups. By that we mean her equals and her school situation. She appears to be using her mother as an excuse for quitting school and she may well use the job as an excuse for quitting the mother and then marriage may come along and provide the reason for quitting all of them. Let's listen as we examine this girl's visions in exploring the child's world. What is your name Kara and how old are you Carol. Fourteen. When did you come to juvenile court. Fifteen days ago. I've been in two weeks. I see. And what's the trouble. How did you happen to come here. But when you're away from home which is the first runaway third Well are you running away from something

or running to something or are you just running. Well that's why I want to talk to you to see if we couldn't discover something about about this why you do these things and what they are. Do you think you might have school trouble or family trouble. I know I didn't get along with school. Let's start with that. Do the teachers give you a hard time. Reese who worked too hard. Aren't you very smart one. First it was just that when I first started high everybody else was playing hooky. So I decided to try to you know just try and how long ago was it that was the first time I was at here before Christmas. And you'd been going to a different high school was a public private. It wasn't it wasn't a Procul high school it was elementary.

Oh did you graduate from that. Yeah I did make good marks but I still graduated and after that after you get in trouble once you're a peer and everybody knows about it and everybody whispers behind your back. And that guy down there and the truant officer at school he gets on your back and he told a couple girls that were loafing around with me. Yeah. They said you told them not to live with me because my mother didn't want to have anything to do with me because I played hook and everything. So I just quit going all together. I never did get everything real good when I was growing up. I mean I could but I studied in high path when I went to parochial school I got a C average which wasn't then wasn't good wasn't it. But then when I start coming down here I was getting all the right thing you know. That was just last year when you and the girls you go with a

really nice nice girl. Well you can get in with when you first start down there you can get in with a real good group because they've been down there for a long time and they are worth around together. They play hooking that to you just like the rest of them. They never get caught and how do you get along home. Because you make up for what they do to you it's cool what happens at school or is your home pretty bad too. There's nothing wrong with my hood I see. I mean we have little arguments and stuff but everybody does that. How many children and where do you fit in in the family. About the middle. I'm third from the top. Well I think you know that you're fine to talk with me on the evening who seems to be quite fond of you and I don't know whether he can figure you out or not right. You know my father very well. You think it's your brother your mother then.

My mother too but my mother's been sick recently. She's confined to bed. Whatever happened at home you felt that you had to get away. But then as soon as you are gone you begin to think about home again and you kind of wish you could go back. That's right you know you can help to get any anything by running you from by running away in your case didn't really show many of your problems you know. Not really. Do you get away with it then. I mean I wasn't in school. That's what did it. Because because I just been up here for a year two weeks before for playing hook after playing hook. I knew I got caught. So I ran away from him because I knew they'd send me up here. So after I got caught they sent me up here anyway and they let me go home. That was the second time.

So I went back back to school for a couple of days and then I started playing hooky again. Did they teach you in school make fun of you call you names. You know not actually but you know when someone is talking about you behind your back going to hear whispers and hear things people say. The other children talk about you then behind your back and you hear this and it makes you pretty mad. You don't actually meet me man. It's makes me feel like crying a horse and I never want to go back to that school and went when you ran away this time. Where'd you go anyway. Declaring you had someplace to go there someplace to stay. You know I was staying with some friends. That's what I meant you know I wasn't staying in a house. There was a kid if you let me sleep in his car.

About his boy how long were you with this boy in the car. Was gone four nights. You stayed in the car all night. Not in the house or hotel. You know I didn't stay in the house or hotel just in the car. Now do you feel it's kind of irregular for a young girl that this is the kind of thing that might cause suspicion and give the children girl some reason for further talk. They really can talk now because you did something and they probably know about it. Do you know that you know nothing we know nothing at all but I think again you realize that almost every girl who comes here would say the same thing and I don't want you guys here and I want one on this so who gives it away if they are really talking with say you. What you mean in that is and that is if somebody has a name she might as well have the

game. You felt that you'd show them you'd really give them something to talk about your real target was at it you know. You know and actually what was it actually because I do you think I ever get caught. I don't tend to get caught. Did you ever intend to come back you know. This is the style that you were with. Did he ever imagine marriage. Any time you know we were just friends. Half the time he wasn't even sleeping in the car because it was if his mother ever found out I was out there she'd probably have had a fit or something. You don't think it kind of dangerous for a young girl to sleep in a car in the street when you thought of that. There wasn't many people around you Prue worried about what's going to happen to you. I haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen to me. First of all they said they were sending me to state training school not being taking girls in that place.

And that's kind of fortunate for you again that well if they're going to send me through what you said you seem to like it pretty well at home and you seem to have a good fight I think from what I saw your mother you like they seem to be fond of you and yet you're away. But I knew it was wrong with me I would go my own way all the time. I mean I would've been running away in the first time or the second time it appears and what you're saying is that you feel that you knew something is wrong with you but you don't quite know what it is. There has to be. Where would be you mind your imagination your emotions I was telling you the reason why I ran away the last time that I was in here before and they had me on probation for nine o'clock

say I have to be in the house at 9:00. So I saw you go out that night at 8 o'clock I went with a girlfriend and she was allowed out but I was sort of mad because I had to get nine. I said there was nothing to do that night at the jail. I want to commit 9 o'clock on a Friday night. So I went down to the pizza shop and go down there for a while talking and going in Pepsi's and eating pizza and that you find I looked at the clock it was 10 o'clock. So I knew my dad was reporting it to the probation officer. So I thought well if I come in again like he's going to report me anyhow and sure I knew she'd bring me up here for a third time to come in late so I was worried about that. So when I seen this kid I know I just told him I want to go home. He told me I should go home and I said no and then

I asked if I could sleep in his car that night. I says until I decide what I'm going to do because I told him I was afraid to go home because they'd bring me up here to detention. He was sitting there and I are nine and a half. Try and talk me into going home and he didn't try to drive you home and we were right on my house. But I told him not to bring you from the door because if he did I was going to jump out and go anyhow. I told him I'd sleep on the steps or something so he would say let me sleep in its car. So finally he says all right but he says I'm going home tomorrow. He says I don't care what you say. So the next day when it was that time for me to go home I started crying and everything. So they wouldn't take me home. So in Take Me Home and I was just going to get him for four days. I told him I was going to go instead. This girl's house.

And during this four day period when where or how the why didn't the boy is he School boy is he mad working or was he married. Phase out of school. How old. Nineteen twenty I think so to this boy. Take me back to Clinton. I can stay a year because my bro's been here looking for me. You might come back. So you took me from Jan's house back to Clinton. The next night he brought me back again and I asked him to take me and I was there with her because I was tired of sleeping in their old car. So we went every day and since she wasn't home she's not a friend she's married. So the next night he brought me back over again. The name was in so I asked if I could stay with her for a while and she said she told me place I'd been looking for me. She told me to stay with her. She says stay here

but tell him to leave and you stay here. There has been Harry he went out the car and told them boys to go and they told me to go and take a shower no that when they called his mother and they were going to take me over to see our priest were arranged to go I said. And then I got scared. We went to go outside to the car and I was ready to get in. I ran away again and say nothing to them. I walked around all that night. So about six o'clock the next morning I walked over the south side and I saw this hospital now into the ladies room and I stayed there till about 7:00 and I went down this gas station where a kid I knew works. I asked to see him. I asked him if he would he would take me to Cairo and because Jan told me if anything happened. See I was to come back instead of just loafing around the streets said Tommy would take me

out. Then he says he wasn't getting into any trouble. So finally I got him to promise he would take me a chance. He he took me out near Carrick he parked a car anyway for a while. So then I started getting scared and I was going to get out. But then pretty soon he started walking down the street and he got in. He turned the car around and I said hey where you go and he said I have to say a friend of mine the man. Who just say says as he pulls a car in the driveway of the police station and I said goodbye and I start to get in a car. And there was this policeman waiting right there for me. They took me in the play station who they called Number Two employee who brought me here. I see. And behind us you feel as if school trouble there's really isn't too much at home to get you angry with me and my sister don't get too well she don't get along with nobody and

doesn't see. What do you get along. Yeah like most people you think you says to my need to help. Yeah she's just like that kind of vibe. Yeah not odd. She was naturally crabby. She's highs but no locks and cow would know somebody that you know must be using her clothes. Yeah I do. I mean she takes it she's crazy crazy dancer and she can she cries when you wear her clothes. Yeah but she wears mine too. I see where she goes and put locks on our cupboards and drawers and everything. People come in your bedrooms he locks all of this stuff thinks someone is crack and out but you share the room with her. In this case it's pretty hard to avoid her here. Do you ever talk to any of these things ever with her.

Yeah it's alright but then when she wakes me up in the middle of nights and starts yelling and screaming at me and want me sleep it gets pretty then she's older than you I take it. Yeah but she doing other peculiar things in her room my oldest sister to allow either she can get on with anything. She yells at everybody. She's always going to leave her. She says she's leaving all the time. This has some influence on you. Well I never tell people I'm leaving him. I get too scared to tell him that you find and that you can't communicate very well with here or at least on a friendly basis. What about her. Her looks with this you'd like. She's pretty she has a boyfriend. Based on usually go for cracked crack bigger and to me he's a nice kid to ride and I can't see how you can stand it if you're not there might be

some jealousy here that she's young How could she be jealous of me. How could she how could she know she's she's 19 she's way you know you have a job you don't have a boyfriend you know I mean men going out much since I got into this place it's been missed and I think Paris is Christmas and you feel you you could trace returning to school and preferences have been put away into institutions. Well that's cool. Could you go back through your schools and grind. Yeah but that there's a problem about the money too you know. But you do have to go to school to 16. Well I was supposed to be able to quit last September say or the next September I'll be 15 because of my mother being there. See my sister was taking care of us but now she's expecting and there won't be anybody home.

My other sister is married and then when I don't get along with works I see. So returning officer was supposed to let me it was best let me quit next year. I think he's going to let me do it now. He's at my hearing for sure I won't get out of this. Well that's one of the things you will see when the hearing comes I hope it never comes. And now joining from Gadhafi to discuss the features of this child's world is his guest Professor Chester Ager's AKh of the Sociology Department of Education University here are Father Duffy And Professor Jerzy back. Today we welcome back Professor jersey back of the Sociology Department to discuss the case of Carroll a 14 year old white child who has gotten into rather serious difficulty running away but I always feel that behind the runaway thereon is always some other problem involved. I magine you

got the same idea to when this when and where would you finger of the problem behind a runaway here is that the sick mother is at the home is it the fighting with his sister or is it something that hasn't occurred to me. Well. I think there probably we made a point once before that while we may center our attention in these cases on one thing you do know the Lincolns is probably a result of multiple types of conditions but I think in the case of Carroll she might be a dramatic example of a school problem and we might want to discuss the school's role in delinquency because I think the evidence there is strong if you listen to the case as we have done. She constantly mentions the a situation of playing hooky. She doesn't get along in school. She doesn't want to go back to school. She has trouble with her truant officer. So I think that while there are other problems in her history I think that today we might want to devote

some time to the school's role in delinquency. And I'm just thinking of some of the research that has been done by. Is it cooperation in his books I think he's had several. He seems to publish out of Washington I think. I don't know what group it is but it must be some educational group that he's with. And if any of our listeners wish to have this problem explored further I'm sure by looking up his work. They would explore a great deal but I would like to suggest maybe a slightly different turn by taking such things as a kind of run learning a problem maybe at this point on the screw while I'm not saying that the total problem is the school but in today's program since we are very limited in time I think what let's unroll the problem to school and maybe Let's discuss such things as What about curriculum and what about personality of teachers and what about truancy offers in their approach and. And what about readiness for for boys. I wonder if these

factors are important and whether our administrators and school officials and teachers and even parents should be aware of this kind of thing despite the fact that maybe the problem is on the other side the delinquent herself or himself. Well what do you think of curriculum father do you think that adequate for all kinds of children today. I don't think it is adequate I don't think it makes enough spread of appeal to the types of people that we have in of course the only way you can find out what types we have missed to make a study of this. I think there are some children who simply don't have the talent for school. I don't think they have the ability for the kind of school that we have in vision here. With this a new emphasis on pushing the talent of the gifted child getting more science and so forth. This is fine but it is not democratic in a sense that we cannot imposes on all our children. I think we have to gear our program with another thing in mind the achievement of the child. How has he done. Up to now. Does he have special needs it must go sideways of course educators have been

interested in this for a long period of time and they I am sure that they have done a great deal at least at the planning level and some experimental work. I felt that it was interesting too that so many of these children have asked what do you think school is for what you think education is for. And the answer they give you is I dont like it. So they never really clearly see why theyre supposed to go to school other than its one of those battle turn it is go to school or go to jail or go to the armed service or go to jail. And while you were there voluntarily. You are only there to escape the penalties involved and school for them is sort of a pain in the neck approach and that they simply are in there until they can get old enough to get a job and get legally released. Well wait a second thing that I mentioned as the personality of the teacher I think very often we don't like to talk about this because the presumption is that a professional teacher has not only the training but also is approved

personality wise because I understand schools of education have the right to oust a student dismiss a student on personality characteristics. But sometimes sense personality factors are so complex. Maybe we don't spot them too well. Well remember that in these days of needs for teachers we often have to hire substandard personnel. And this is something that our listeners might want to reflect on. The need for good teachers not only in being trained but having a personality for teaching children because I think that a teacher with the wrong personality characteristics can be as disturbing as the teacher who let's say is inadequate in the information or in the area in which he's supposed to be teaching. What about truancy. Do you find many comments by the children as having difficulty with truant officers father. They do. Of course the old type of truant officer is out of the picture to be the heavy man the

police type. And we now have his successor a male or female who is the home and school visitor. And these are I must say professional people they know what they're doing. They know children very well and they are prepared with all the academic and professional skills required to handle these but there is still the same old antagonism towards them that there was to their predecessors. I always think truancy is the child's first form of aggression against adult society and against adult societies organizations in the form of a school. This summarizes then the case that we have dealt with today of a young white girl who is pretty badly mixed up who is highly resentful of her sister whose mother is an invalid and this always takes its toll on a child just as a sickness of a child always shows up in later life. Presenting other problems of the child we hope is going to be released from school to take

care of the mother and eventually and we hope that this will start up some sentiments in her where she will be prepared to lead a better life. And now and prepare herself for being a. Somewhat wholesome and happy wife and mother in time to come. I like to thank Professor Jersey for being with us today to help us further explore the child's world. You have been listening to exploring the child's world of a program in which the child speaks from the French a stuffy chairman of the sociology department at UK university has conducted the interview with the child and to find the outlines of this word in the discussion with his guest Professor Chester agers act. Also the Department of Sociology at Duquesne and was.

This has been a production of the radio services of decaying university technical direction by Frederick Williams your announcer has been a hero to many. Listen again next week for another in the series exploring the childs world. And the God. The interview heard on this program was a recreation exploring the child's world is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end I ybe Radio Network.