論特殊教育「學」成立之可能

ON THE BECOMING OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

This article tries to justify the assumption and possibility that special pedagogy or the orthopedagogy (1), a branch of educational sciences dealing with the treatment of exceptional children and youths, could be developed into an independent and integrated science. Measured by the qualities set forth by a behavioral science, the pedagogy, in its present stage of development, is still far from the criterion as a mature and autonomous science. The author points out the fact that the educational sciences thus far are dependent. so much upon their related sciences, mainly psychology and sociology, as to lose their own ''individuality'' (or style) that an independent science should own. Moreover, having examined a number of educational crises growing out of the modern life, the author assumes that the pedagogy will be able to overcome these challenges on condition that it sharps itself up as a behavioral science. Upon the establishment of the special pedagogy as an independent branch of educational science, it may play an important role in helping the latter to leave their present state of subordination, because its potentiality promises to flourish the educational sciences. Although the special pedagogy had its beginning in the psychotherapy and the medical sciences and its roots lie deep in the psychology of adjustment, its ideas are not recent; so far the educators have taken care of the maladjusted children and since a long time the therapeutic qualities of educational action. ns have been recognized. Paralleled to the medical sciences, the special education consists of the prevention, the diagnosis, the therapy and the after-care of the handicap (socio-emotional, physical and intellectual), nevertheless all these actions are carried out through the educational processes. The author, a disciple of the subjective psychology as defined by Ansbacher (2), particularly takes interests in the relation between the self-concept and the adaptability concerning the exceptional children and youth. This must be the theoretical background from which the conception of this article originate.