view raw text
1 EQUIPMENT FOR SIGHT SAVING i Classrooms in Chicago Schools Help Handicapped Children. Newest Scientific Equipment Installed to Conserve and Protect Vision Below the Normal Standard. Dr. William H. Johnson, superintendent of schools in Chicago, states that it is no longer necessary for the partially-sighted child to be handicapped in his school work in any of the classes in the Chicago public : schools. The growth and development of sight-saving ways and means has been one of the most outstanding developments of the educational system in Chicago. Children handicapped in this manner are grouped into sight-saving classes in rooms which have the newest of scientific equipment for the conservation and protection of vision below the normal standard. Walls in these rooms have been redecorated in a sea foam green with white ceilings in a dull finish to combat glare. Illumination consists of silvered mirror glass reflectors, which use a new 750- to 1,000-watt i tubular lamp. This amount of light is an i increase of from three to five times the j necessary lighting in a regular classroom. BRIGHTLY COLORED. Maps, globes and charts are more brightly colored and heavily outlined, and textbooks used by the normal visioned child are reprinted in 24-point clear type on buff, un-glazed paper. For writing at the blackboard, chalk one .inch in diameter is used. Work of a concentrative type is limited to twenty-minute periods, after -which a short period of rest for the eyes is given with games or activities expressly designed to give the maximum in mental effort with no corresponding eye strain. The work in sight-saving was inaugurated in 1919 in Chicago and has grown to such 1 proportions with the beginning of the present school term that there are thirty-seven of these classes now with an enrollment of over 400 pupils in the elementary grades alone.
