HOW CHILDREN FAIL: Fear and Failure.
A woman who has spent many years working with children with severe learning blocks, children whom conventional schools, even in slow sections, could not deal with at all, told a class of teachers the other day that early investigators of children who could not read coined the term "word-blindness" to describe what they saw. There has been much talk about "word-blindness" since. The experts of the moment seem to believe that the cause is neurological, that there is in a certain percentage of children something in the organization and structure of the brain which makes word recognition difficult or impossible.Perhaps this is the cause of some reading problems, but that it is the only or the most frequent cause is open to grave doubt. My own belief is that blindness to patterns or symbols, such as words, is in most instances emotional and psychological, rather than neurological. It is a neurotic reaction to too great stress. I have often experienced it myself.
The most severe case came during a flute lesson. I describe it in some detail because the kind of tensions that are needed to bring about this loss of the ability to see meaningfully are such that, except in time of war or extreme danger, most adults are not likely to experience them. The lesson was in the late afternoon. I had had a difficult and discouraging day in class, followed by a tense and unpleasant committee meeting. I was late in leaving, was delayed by heavy traffic, and arrived late for my lesson, with no chance to warm up. My teacher had also had a trying day, and was not his usual patient self. He was exasperated that I had made so little progress since the previous lesson, and began, as exasperated teachers do, to try by brute will power to force me to play the assigned passage as fast as he thought I should be able to play it.
The pace was much too fast; I began to make mistakes; I wanted to stop, but, cowed by his determination, hesitated to make the suggestion. A feeling of physical pressure built up in my head. It felt as if something inside were trying to burst it open, but also as if something outside were pressing it in. Some kind of noise, other than my miserable playing, was in my ears. Suddenly I became totally noteblind. The written music before me lost all meaning. All meaning. It is hard to describe what I felt. It lasted no more than a second or two, only as long as it took me to stop playing and look away from the music. I could see the notes, but it was as if I could not see them. It is said of such moments that everything becomes a blur. This may have been true; when to go on seeing clearly becomes unbearably painful, the eyes may well refuse to focus. There was also an impression that the notes were moving and shifting on the page. But above all else was the impression that, whatever I was seeing, it was as if I had never seen such things before, never heard of them, never imagined them. Any and all associations they might have had for me were, for that instant, destroyed. They were completely disconnected from all my previous experience.
These sensations were indescribably frightening and unpleasant. After a second or two, I put down my flute and turned away from the music. My teacher sensed that I had been driven over the edge of something, and after a short rest, we went on at a more relaxed pace. But suppose I had been a child? Suppose I had not been free, or felt free, to tum away? Suppose my teacher had felt that it would be good for my character to force the pace harder than ever?