The School for Human Development
We began by creating what would become the first Human Development course. It was typical of my father to create something way, way ahead of its time. Its origins came from his experience in the military. When he was in Officers’ Candidate School, there was a grueling obstacle course that the candidates had to do over and over again. The result was that they became fitter and fitter and better prepared for battle. My father told me to create a circuit of activities. Our students with brain injuries would start at a certain point and proceed through the circuit until they got back to where they began, and hence had completed the entire course.
My father told me which activities to include in the course. These included crawling on the tummy, creeping on hands and knees, and brachiation. Brachiation means to travel with the hands and arms down an overhead ladder with one’s feet off the ground. In American playgrounds, this is called doing the monkey bars. This activity for children with light bodies can be relatively easy. But for adults, it can be very physically challenging. My father complained that in the army, it was always difficult for him. The brachiation ladders were across streams so if you let go of the ladder, you would fall in the stream and get soaked. My father said this happened to him over and over.
In addition, we incorporated our breathing enhancement program into the course. This program involves inhaling and exhaling in a specialized mask. It improves the rate and depth of respiration. In addition, one is rebreathing one’s own carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a vasodilator. When the mask is removed, one is breathing deeply and supplying oxygen to dilated veins and the result is more oxygen to the brain and body.
The Reading Program was also a part of the circuit. The students would run from one activity to another (thus creating more deep breathing). They would stop and read a set of reading words in categories. For example, three to five words in a category of animals which are all mammals. Then they would do another Breathing Enhancement mask, and then go on to another activity. All the students had problems with reading and could not read at age level.
Balance Development activities such as log rolls, forward rolls, and backward rolls were all part of the circuit. Up until this time, parents on the Doman Method Program had always been given time lengths for each activity the child did at home such as five minutes of creeping or five minutes for forward rolls. This would not work in the School for Developmental Education. The physical ability due to neurological problems and the level of physical fitness varied hugely between the students, who were young men and women. One person’s five minutes of creeping could be only 20% of another student’s five minutes. Each activity was determined by distance, not time. This turned out to be fortuitous and led to physical program innovations and very significant improvements in mobility for little children who were immobile or only able to crawl or creep. This will be discussed in future blog posts.
In time, many other activities were added to this course. Like my father and his class in Officers’ Candidate School, our students and staff did this course daily. The result was our students with brain injuries improved dramatically physically and their physical fitness became impressive. The course was designed to take three to four hours. After some months, the students could complete the course in two to three hours. This meant we could add more activities to the course in order to expand it back to the original three to four hours programmed.
We added laterality activities to the course. As a result of their brain injuries, many of the students had not developed neurologically to the point where they were completely left- or right-handed. My father and his early team had begun to understand the significance of this in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, they had developed programs so that children could become completely left or right sided. It is ideal that neurologically, we should be completely left- or right-sided. This means not only being right-handed, but also right-eyed, right-eared, and right-footed. The brain is correctly organized when a child becomes completely left-or right-sided. In average children, this occurs by age six. For many children with brain injuries, laterality does not happen or is incomplete.
My father developed visual, auditory, manual, and footed activities to help the brain develop properly and be organized. Children who have laterality problems may have symptoms such as problems with reading and language. They may reverse letters within words such as “was” and “saw”. This could happen with reading or writing. Or they may say “was” when they really mean “saw”. Stuttering, being disorganized, and inability to make decisions can be other symptoms of laterality problems. These were all issues that many of our students in the school had to overcome.
All during this time, I was going to my father with questions, and he was providing me with answers and solutions. He added a social component to the Human Development course. The students would form teams. The most capable student would be the team leader. The second most capable student would be the assistant team leader. One or two other students would be team members. It was the objective of the team leader to be promoted to be a senior team leader. Senior team leaders would be responsible for two or three teams. The goal of the assistant team leader would be to become a team leader, thus having their own team. Team members worked to become assistant team leaders. For the young men and women of the school, they had never led anything in their lives. If they were lucky, in a neighborhood ball game, they would be the last to be chosen when sides were being made. Also, they had never had the opportunity to rise to a higher level of responsibility or be “promoted”. This was a new experience that greatly motivated virtually every student to improve daily.
Team leaders were proud when their teams were among the first to finish each day. They worked to train the assistant team leader because they knew they could not rise to a higher position unless the assistant team leader could take their place. The assistant team leader had the same challenge with the team members. They could not become a team leader unless one of the team members had improved and could become an assistant team leader. Through the years, as this social component grew, the students improved their neurological problems, they became senior team leaders, and finally, could become staff.
In 1974, when my father was creating the neurological program in the school, I would have lost a $10,000 bet (I didn’t even have $1,000) if one had bet me that in a few years some of my students would be joining the staff of the school. The first indication that this might happen was in physical development. When they entered the school, the best students might have been considered physically awkward, no better. As a result of the gradually increasing intensity of the Human Development Course, a number of the students, males and females, became way fitter than average young people their age. Cardiovascularly, in strength, speed of movement, and flexibility, they were superior. Their weight became perfect, and it became obvious they were in great shape.
The social program built into the school and Human Development Course was very successful. Students who acted slovenly and were introverted due to their years of social failure realized they were strong and healthy. The team leaders were motivated to set an example for their team members. The assistant team leaders were motivated to improve in order to become team leaders and have their own team. But best of all, the self-esteem of the students improved dramatically. For the first time in their lives, they were not preoccupied by their own failures but instead were concerned with the success of their own team members. Helping and serving others was totally new to them and they became happier and more successful in their own eyes.
As the school evolved and improved from year to year it was clear that some of the students had become socially excellent. Part of the social program was to expose the students to a wide variety of social events. This worked in conjunction with their cognitive program. For example, they visited Independence Hall in historic Philadelphia. They would learn about the site in advance of their visit and tour by the National Park rangers. They also attended concerts, historic sites, theater, art, and museums of all kinds. During these events, they would be wearing their school uniforms. These consisted of gray flannel slacks or skirts, white shirts, school ties or scarves, and their varied colored blazers.
The freshman class wore light blue blazers, the sophomore class wore red blazers, the junior class wore dark green blazers, and the senior class wore dark blue blazers. Each color represented a high human trait that each class strove to follow. For example, dark blue for the seniors represented integrity. This was all part of the gradually developing social program. A number of the students, particularly the senior team leaders, were physically and socially, significantly above average compared to their peers. Sometimes during social events at Philadelphia’s famous universities, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, and Temple, students at the university would ask, “Where is your group from? Are they a sports team?” Once, one of the students at the school where we visited thought that we were an Olympic team.
This was amazing that students who had failed in regular school or had not succeeded in special education and had no social life were now being mistaken for elite teams. This was hugely gratifying to the school staff, the clinical staff of the Institutes, and of course, my father who had provided all the important ideas for the physical, social, and cognitive programs.
In 1977, my father called the physical staff into his office. In 1976, the staff of the School for Human Development went into training with my father to learn and teach the physical programs for the little children with brain injuries in the Children’s Center. This was the main purpose of my father’s institute. By 1977, parents were coming from all over the world with their children with brain injuries in order to learn the home program of my father’s institute. At that point, parents had come from more than fifty countries and six continents and virtually every state of the United States.
As a result of the success of the School for Human Development, of which I was the director, we also were in super physical shape. We had to set the example for the students. That meant that 24/7, we had to be physically, socially, and cognitively excellent. It became a way of life for all of us. My father’s idea was that, because we had done the physical program on ourselves, and had the very difficult and challenging job of motivating some of the students to do their neurological program, we were perfect candidates to teach the parents of children with brain injuries how to do and motivate their children to do the physical program successfully.
Written by: Douglas Doman