Shanne Excerpt 1.pdf

![Im0] He has designed more than a dozen computer applications and holds two U.S. patents.

ISBN-10: 1-68125-515-4 90000

UNSILENCED

A Teacher’s Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing

Lessons at Belchertown State School

by Howard C. Shane, Ph.D. Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts Boston Children’s Hospital Massachusetts

Baltimore • London • Sydney

Excerpted from UNSILENCED: A Teacher’s Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing Lessons at Belchertown State School by Howard C. Shane, Ph.D. 9781681255156_FM.indd 1 8/20/21 10:31 AM

Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Post Office Box 10624 Baltimore, Maryland 21285-0624 USA www.brookespublishing.com Copyright © 2022 by Howard C. Shane. All rights reserved. For rights inquiries, contact [email protected]. “Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.” is a registered trademark of Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. Typeset by Lumina Datamatics, Inc., Norwell, Massachusetts. Manufactured in the United States of America by Versa Press, Inc., East Peoria, Illinois. The events that inspired this book took place decades ago in the late 1960s. The author relied on memory, supplemented by journals, audio recordings, photographs, and newspaper accounts when writing this book. While the information in this book is based on actual events in the author’s life, names and identifying details of certain individuals have been changed to protect their privacy. When needed, actual names and identifying details were used with permission. Events, places, and conversations in this memoir have been recreated from and inspired by the author’s memories. Selected historical accountings that document conditions at Belchertown State School were also referenced. The chronology of some events has been compressed and altered. The author and publisher have referred to numerous historical accounts, newspaper stories, and other published books, in addition to the author’s own records, in preparing this accounting of life at Belchertown in 1969−1970. The story of Unsilenced is not told to disparage any one individual or institution, but to inform today’s readers and future generations so that a better life and more opportunity can be ensured for all people, with and without disabilities. If a reader feels there may be an error in a statement made in this book, please contact Brookes Publishing Co. at [email protected] to share that information. Purchasers of Unsilenced: A Teacher’s Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing Lessons at Belchertown State School are granted permission to download, print, and photocopy the Additional Resources document and Discussion Questions for educational, professional, and/or personal purposes. These questions may not be reproduced to generate revenue for any program or individual.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shane, Howard C., author. Title: Unsilenced : a teacher’s year of battles, breakthroughs, and life-changing lessons at Belchertown State School / Howard C. Shane, Ph.D. Description: Baltimore, Maryland : Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., [2021] Identifiers: LCCN 2021023551 (print) | LCCN 2021023552 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681255156 (paperback) | ISBN 9781681255163 (epub) | ISBN 9781681255170 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Belchertown State School—History. | Belchertown State School—Faculty—History. | Children with mental disabilities—Education—Massachusetts—Belchertown—History. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Educators | EDUCATION / Special Education / General Classification: LCC HV897.M4 B47 2022 (print) | LCC HV897.M4 (ebook) | DDC 371.9209744/23—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023551 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023552 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available from the British Library. 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Excerpted from UNSILENCED: A Teacher’s Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing Lessons at Belchertown State School by Howard C. Shane, Ph.D. 9781681255156_FM.indd 2 8/20/21 10:31 AM

Howard C. Shane, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Otology & Otolaryngology at the Harvard Medical School and Director of the Autism Language Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. He has designed more than a dozen computer applications used widely by persons with disabilities and holds two U.S. patents. Dr. Shane has received Honors of the Association Distinction and is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing of the American Speech-Language-Hearing ![Im0] Association. He is the 2019 recipient of the Frank R. Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award. Dr. Shane received the Goldenson Award for Innovations in Technology from the United Cerebral Palsy Association and has authored numerous papers and chapters on severe speech impairment, lectured throughout the world on the topic, and produced numerous computer-based innovations enjoyed by persons with

I glanced quickly in my rearview mirror. My vintage car was beginning to fall apart, and I needed to extend the life of the turn signal required by the state to pass inspection. Spotting no cars behind me, I made a sharp right turn without signaling off Route 21 and onto the grounds of Belchertown State School. It was an early September afternoon in 1969. I had graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, that spring with a major in sociology and a minor in education. I was a typical college kid, moving from one step to the next without much forethought. After a congenital neck condition—exacerbated by an old football injury—delivered me from the Vietnam draft, I decided to find a teaching job. One of my fraternity brothers heard about a teaching position in this institution for people with physical and cognitive disabilities just ten miles outside Amherst, and after a mail-in application and a telephone interview, I’d landed the job. I would later learn that teachers actually seeking work at Belchertown Schools. I knew almost nothing about teaching or about people with disabilities, but I was glad to have a job and eager to get started.

This institution, and ones like it throughout North America, existed because separation and segregation were the norm at the time for people with disabilities. The birth of a child with a disability was often greeted with social stigma, and confused parents were typically advised to put their children away in the care of a state or private institution and forget about them. I came to learn that the parents who made this decision were mostly not uncaring people, but were themselves victims with little information and few options. The challenges of raising a child with a disability.

I drove slowly along a paved roadway surrounded by well-kept lawns and a scattering of large maple and oak trees. The gently rolling terrain was typical of rural, Western Massachusetts. There wasn’t much difference between these grounds and those of any beautiful college campus or country club, but I felt an unusual awareness of the space, a prickling in my neck, despite the lovely setting. I’d given myself plenty of time to make mistakes in the unfamiliar drive, and now I was early for my appointment with the institution’s academic director. I turned off my radio and stopped near a groundskeeper who was down on one knee trimming grass, his blue work shirt thrown on the lawn in the late summer heat.

“How ya doin’?” I yelled out. “Can you tell me where to find the school building?”

The fellow stood up slowly and exchanged the clippers in his hands for his long-sleeved shirt. With the radio off, I thought I heard distant calliope music as he approached my car, but I dismissed it because it seemed so out of place. “Drive straight ahead, and don’t take either of the right or left side roads you come to. When the road begins to curve to your left, you look to your right, and the big brick building with the stone steps will be the one.”

“Must be fun for the kids,” I said. As I drove forward, I could see one wooden horse after another through the large opening at the front of the building facing the meadow. Children sat on the brightly painted mares and stallions, some bobbing up and down and others sitting stationary.

Still half an hour early, I parked my car alongside the road and started.

CHAPTER 1

of over a dozen women were advancing up the knoll on their way to the carousel, dressed in mismatched and ill-fitting clothes. Most sported an identical hairstyle, a bowl cut just below the ears with Dutch-boy bangs sliced straight across the forehead. Rather than walking along with swinging arms, they each marched with one arm extended forward and the other back, touching or nearly touching the person in front and behind. From my vantage point, they looked like a string of paper dolls being propelled through the field by a gentle breeze.

I realized I had misjudged who was riding the merry-go-round. The people who appeared to be children when viewed from a distance were actually adult men. They looked a bit disheveled because their clothes were wrinkled and mismatched, but their faces revealed a definite look of contentment. There was something unnerving about the sight of adults—regardless of their intellectual abilities—being entertained with a ride intended for children, but I knew as a neophyte and outsider I had a great deal to learn.

I walked back to my car and drove on according to the groundskeeper’s instructions, but my mind lingered on the peculiar image of adults gleefully riding a merry-go-round with no actual children in sight. Finding the gravel lot next to the two-story brick school building, I parked and then climbed the wide granite steps that led up to a landing at the front entrance. From there I turned and looked back across the grounds. It really was a beautiful day, with a nearly cloudless sky. The bright afternoon sun was warm but not uncomfortable. And yet… something was wrong. People… where were the people? The only living creatures I had seen were the groundskeeper and the handful of adults at the carousel. I knew that nearly two thousand people lived at Belchertown, but the place looked mostly deserted. The setting was orderly but empty. I was beginning to feel like I

“Hey—can you tell me where I can find Mrs. Sharp’s office?” I asked him. He looked up and cupped his hand over his eyebrows to shield his blue eyes from the sunlight. “You Mrs. Sharp! You Mrs. Sharp!” he loudly blurted out.

I looked at him more closely. He wore an ordinary white t-shirt and loose jeans that partially covered a pair of black patent leather shoes. His hairstyle alone should have been a dead giveaway that he was not a worker taking a break but rather a resident just killing time. His dirty-blond hair was cut at one length just above his ears, the rest cropped closely to his scalp—similar to the hairstyles of the women I’d seen parading toward the carousel.

“Leo, what are you doing here?” snapped a sharp female voice. “You know you’re supposed to be in your building!” A matronly woman strode out onto the landing. She wore a brown flowered dress and heavy black leather shoes, and her face was pinched into a scowl. At her words, Leo jumped up, scurried down the steps, and darted off around the building. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said to me smoothly, and then turned and hurried back into the school building, yelling, “Alert security! Leo’s on the loose again!” I heard the striking of her leather soles on hardwood and the echoing of her shouts as she disappeared down the long hallway. When she was out of sight, I decided to try to track down Leo myself. As I came around the corner, I caught a glimpse of his white shirt as he slid behind a huge oak tree. He was mostly hidden at the angle from which I approached, but as I circled around, I saw he was

I was curious how the security guard knew with such precision where Leo tried to hide. I had only to turn and look up at the school building for an explanation. There I spied the matronly woman from the steps staring down from a large first-floor window. The moment our eyes met, she drew back and vanished. I started back toward the school building for my appointment with Mrs. Sharp, feeling pretty confident that we had actually just met. As she opened the main door to the building, she introduced herself as Mrs. Dorothy Sharp, Academic Director for Belchertown State School. “Now, that made for a rather inauspicious beginning to your tenure with us,

then marched him back toward the school. “Son, this needs to stop,” the panting guard said. “I’m getting tired of chasing after you.”

“What’s the story with him?” I asked, recalling Leo being led away. “He looked pretty scared. He won’t be punished or anything, will he?”

“Leo?” she said, then paused. “He’s not in your class, so he’s not your student, and if he’s not your student, then he’s not your concern,” she responded with finality as we entered her office. Slipping behind her desk and sitting down, she continued: “Belchertown State School operates efficiently because everyone follows rules, without which there’d be chaos. We need to operate as a rule-based, fine-tuned machine for the safety of all the residents.” She looked at me for a moment. “Now, on to why you’re here. You have to keep in mind that while we run a school, this institution is also a lifelong residence for everyone who lives here. That is why you’ll see adults as well as children who live and are educated here. I’m proud to say that our educational program is a model for the entire state school system. You will be working with both ‘trainables’ and ‘educables.’ Many of them are crippled, as well.” She gazed at me with such intensity I squirmed in my seat.

“What has been your experience working with crippled children?”

“Very little, actually, but I’m looking forward to learning,” I said. At this point, I was just relieved that I didn’t have to admit I had no experience with “trainables” and “educables,” whatever they might be. I’d had a semester of student teaching in history at Amherst High School during college, but that was the extent of my teaching experience. I’d learned nothing in school about working with children with disabilities, and other than a few visits to a family friend with Down syndrome, I’d never spent any time around people with disabilities. I knew what Mrs. Sharp meant by “crippled,” but I hadn’t thought the word was used anymore. I could guess, of course, what the other labels meant. I cringed at how dehumanizing they sounded. The word “demeaning” came to mind. I had to school my expres

“School officially starts next Monday, so you will have a few days to get oriented. Most of our classrooms are in the school building, but you have been assigned to teach in the infirmary. We’ll take a tour of that building next.”