Library Collections: Document: Full Text


The Origin And Nature Of Our Institutional Models

From: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded
Creator: Wolf Wolfensberger (author)
Date: January 10, 1969
Publisher: President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C.
Source: Available at selected libraries

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 13:

151  

The Convenience of the Architect. Some buildings are designed for the convenience of the architectural agent. Such buildings may have required the least imagination, planning, and work from the architect or engineer, while perhaps resulting in the largest profit to him. Many ill-designed, ill-constructed buildings and building complexes bespeak an utter disregard for the prospective resident. However, the building as a monument to the architect, though perhaps well-designed for external beauty and effect, may also fall into the "convenience of the architect" category if resident welfare is neglected.

152  

The Convenience of the Community. The location of a large proportion of institutions in the United States was determined by economic considerations. Institutions were often placed in areas where jobs were needed, and placement became a very political matter. In many instances, institutions were located by the accident of land donations by job-hungry communities. Locations of this nature were not only ill-advised as far as the retardate was concerned, but also inconvenient to retardates' families. Furthermore, they resulted in professional and scientific isolation of the staff.

153  

To locate any human service agency with the needs of the server rather than the served in mind is analogous to requiring people to eat in order to provide employment to cooks.

154  

The Convenience of the Staff. Many buildings, when entered, leave little doubt that staff convenience was paramount in the designer's mind. Characteristic elements may include the following:

155  

(1) Caretaker stations providing maximal visual control over resident areas, while minimizing staff involvement; the glass-enclosed nursing station is a classical example.

156  

(2) "Segregated" staff lounges to which caretakers withdraw for meals, coffee, rest, etc.

157  

(3) Air conditioning for staff, but not for resident areas.

158  

(4) Services such as classrooms, beauty shops, barber shops, and therapy areas that are located in the living units, saving staff the effort of dressing residents or escorting them to other buildings.

159  

The Convenience of the Resident. If built for the welfare and convenience of residents, the location, size, type, and internal arrangement of most buildings and institutions in the United States would have been radically different from what they typically have been and are. Again, private facilities appear to have been more apt to be structured with the convenience of residents in mind.

160  

The Evolution of Institutional Models in the United States

161  

Having discussed certain architectural considerations, and having defined a number of models implicit in various management approaches to retardates in general and to their residential management specifically, I will now try to trace the residential service models that have been most prominently with us today.

162  

There is a riddle that holds a moral: if fish were intelligent creatures and had scientists and thinkers among them, what would be one of the last things they would probably discover? The answer to the riddle is supposed to be "water." After all, man discovered air only about 300 years ago.

163  

Why do we have institutions at all? Why were they built, and why are they the way they are, and not some other way? Like fish, we have grown up with the fact that institutions exist and that they are places where retarded people are sent. Taking institutions for granted, we have perhaps failed to consider that there are societies that do not have them, or have them in quite a different form than we know.

164  

The last major attempt to interpret rather than merely recount the history of institutions for the retarded in the United States appears to have been made by Davies (1930). (3) His interpretations have been accepted essentially intact by subsequent workers and writers in the field. However, we must consider that as elegant as his interpretations were, they were very close to many historical events he tried to interpret. With another 40 years of perspective behind us, it now seems appropriate to take a fresh look at history, and I will propose some new interpretations or elaborations in an attempt to gain further insight into the nature and origins of our institutional models. Particularly, I will try to demonstrate that attitudes toward deviance generally have had much to do with the original rise of institutions for the retarded in the United States, and with the way the more common residential models were shaped.


(3) Sloan (1963) brilliantly related the relevance of social movements to the history of mental retardation. However, his essay was not specifically concerned with institutions.

165  

Making the Deviant Undeviant

166  

Around 1850, institutions for a number of deviant groups in the United States were founded for the purpose of making the deviant less deviant. The main means whereby this was to be accomplished was education. In effect, the argument was that deviants had to be congregated in one place so that expert and intensive attention could be concentrated on them. I must take issue with the now prevailing notion that the aim of the founding figures in our field was to erase retardation in a child. From reading primary sources, I conclude that the goal was a combination of diminishing the intellectual impairment and increasing adaptive and compensatory skills of the pupil so that he would be able to function at least minimally in society.

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48    All Pages