Creative Recreation for the Mentally Retarded
Amary
1975
I pulled this book from an academic library. The library in question had a large education program and this type of material would be appropriate from an academic perspective. Obviously, the use of “retarded” is inappropriate for a modern publication. Academic collections have different criteria since the use is primarily for scholarship and not for actual consumption. Different use requires different standards for weeding.
Special education students were largely ignored by most public schools until 1975 with the passage of Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The 1970s and 1980s saw huge changes in the laws and education of special needs children. In a public library setting in 2022, the title is disrespectful and smacks of “otherness.”
To researchers, this book may have value. To parents and educators dealing with special needs education issues, this book is all wrong. Weeding isn’t just re-purposing or recycling. It is about finding the right place for a title.
All seriousness aside, what is the deal with these illustrations?
Mary
The illustrator missed their calling and Mike Judge stole the idea to create Beavis and Butthead…..or did he?…….!?!?!?!
By the Way, Beavis and Butthead are blamed for several deaths because children copied the antics, but no they didn’t: courts found that the people didn’t have cable tv for the children to watch the shows on MTV in the first place. All this makes me think of all those Old Merry Melodies cartoons that are so undeniably racist and are always diffused on broadcast tv and no one blames them or even censors them for racism, but I think guns have been edited out. Cartoons are not meant for children unless they’re on PBS.
But Merrie Melodies *has* been censored for racism. They even have a list of cartoons called “The Censored Eleven”, which have been withheld from syndication in the US. Not that it’s really changed people’s racist and stereotypical feelings one bit.
I watched those old ‘toons when I was that age – probably kept me from getting some bad ideas my parents would have had to explain against.
Just as bad as when you featured it 13 years ago! 😀
I can’t decide what is worse – the “camel fight’ from this set of illustrations, or the old cover with “do a wheelie in your wheelchair to kick the trash can over.”
Those games look suitable for kids of many ages and IQ levels, frankly, although the camel one is just asking for injuries regardless of the people involved.
Yes, nothing will brighten up the day-to-day existence of anyone like wandering around boring minimalist replicas of every day buildings. Take them to a real damn ice cream parlor.
Even in an academic library, I question the value of this book, except to show how bad things were back then — which we already knew.
Wow… I think most of these “activities” are bad ideas for anybody!
What is the “symbol of leadership” on the title page? I can’t figure it out.
Darned if I know. Looks like it might be a person with a wing-like cape stretched out to the sides, but it’s so abstract I can’t be sure. My boss was a university professor and he had chapters in books by this publisher, so I’ve seen it before
It’s “The Bannerstone”. I’m even more confused after reading the publisher’s descriptive poem about it: http://www.mys1cloud.com/cct/Bannerstonepoem.pdf
This poem deserves its very own WTF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bannerstone
has the details.
It’s a Native American artifact they swiped for their own use. Gosh, cultural appropriation, what a surprise.
I guess when you have a publishing company you can do whatever you want…?
Batman?
Thanks, @paulslaughter and @lurkertype
The title not so much “disrespectful” as it was the term for the time. The intended audience knew this term and what it meant. Historians (which, like it or not, you can be classified as) should work harder at understanding that era and not judging it. We, of course, would not use that term now but there are a dozen terms you use regularly that will get you banned for life by future, more “enlightened” generations.