Guide Retarded Children
Students Find Reward in Work
By Howard Pankratz
Guiding retarded children back to an accepted place in society is currently the job of two KU graduate students in social work, Jim Trast and Larry Woodward, working at the Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI) in Topeka.
Their work requires complete trust of both the parents and child. They decide, among other things, when a child is ready to enter the center, if the child's parents should have visiting privileges, and when the child can leave. To determine this, they must know the child and parents well. This is accomplished by long periods of frank discussion which are successful only if trust and confidence has been gained.
"Emotional involvement is part of it, I don't think anyone can avoid it, at least I can't. These people give of themselves and we must give in return," said Trast.
PARENTAL FEELINGS range from shame that they have a child in an institution to guilt about bearing a mentally retarded child. The men must also uncover the child's feelings toward his mom, dad, and his retardation. Comparisons are made between the parents' reports of the child's trip home and the child's report. They are often dissimilar.
Woodward added, "Of course, a professional detachment is necessary and every morning I go with that in mind, but at night I find myself thinking about my cases."
The two students find the work satisfying because of the responsibility involved. Unlike some kinds of work, the final goal is not reached within a short time; their goal being the return of the retarded adolescents to a society where they can be both accepted and useful. But the fact that these young men to a large extent determine by themselves the steps to the goal and at what speed these can be taken is satisfying.
'Batty Days Students Enthralled With New TV Show
"It's wild!" "It's Camp!" No. It's Batman and his sidekick, Boy Wonder Robin--the newest objects of mass campus attention.
When they zoomed onto TV screens for the premiere of their weekly two segmented television shows, hundreds of KU students were crammed around resident hall sets waiting.
A loud cheer went up from the students when Batman and Robin raced onto the tube in their atomic-powered Batmobile. The chase was on to trap Batman's arch-enemy, The Riddler ("How many sides does a circle have?" "Two, the inside and the outside.")
The rush for chairs had started an hour before the program was scheduled. When the chairs were filled, trash cans, tables and boxes were used. In Templin Hall, 113 men crowded around one set and 93 around another. Similar scenes took place in most of the resident halls.
It may be term paper and exam time, but the students seem to be able to find the time to watch that legendary nemesis of evil, the Caped Crusader whose very name strikes fear into the hearts of villainous villages everywhere.
As one student commented,
"We need a half hour break now
and then and Batman is just
great." Another student said, "I
enjoy the puns; they're stupid,
but that's why it's funny."
No matter what their reasons, it is generally agreed that Batman, who was created by Bob Kane in 1939, is the new student hero, ZOCK! BOW! BOOM!
"We ARE ON OUR OWN with the child and his parents. We conduct the interviews with them and do it without our supervisors. If our supervisors were involved, the spontaneity and trust built up would be lost," said Trast.
Their reports are checked with great care and usually contain more questions from their supervisors than the most scrupulously graded English theme. They are graded by the same method as
"Those sessions leave you limp," Woodward said. "Anything goes. I find myself rewriting my report which has to include everything that was said and done over-and-over to convey my own impressions."
Get an Oily Bath
If you're thinking of swimming at La Playa de Miramar in Tampico, Mexico, forget it. The water there is full of oil from nearby refineries. Rags, soaked in kerosene, are given bathers to remove tar from their bodies after a swim in the Caribbean.
other KU students—the A, B, C method.
"I HAVEN'T SEEN too many of that first kind, although I did hear of one about a week ago." Woodward laughed.
Grades, however, are secondary to Trast and Woodward; they want to see their cases back in the world in a situation where they can be accepted and contribute. That is of primary importance.
KU Presents Aborigine Art
Daily Kansan Friday, January 14, 1966
An unusual collection of primitive paintings will be on exhibition next April in the Museum of Art.
The collection will include 30 or 40 paintings by Australian aborigines, who used to paint on tree bark. Although this art is considered as a very primitive one, many experts have said that the work has a great similarity with Paul Klee's paintings. Klee is a contemporary Swiss painter.
THE COLLECTION will be loaned to the Museum of Art by Ed Ruhe, who will be a professor at the English Department next semester. Ruhe collected the pieces while teaching at the University of Adelaide.
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The Australian display will follow the exhibition of the works done by the winners of the Annual Contest organized by the American Drawing Society, which is now touring the country.
Loafer.
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