History of social education

INTRODUCTION

Special education is the practice of educating students in a way that addresses their individual differences and needs. The concept of disability has changed and varied across history and across cultures. It has come a long way from rejecting and destroying people with disabilities to respecting their human rights and their interaction in society.
Viewed through history, the development of special education can be traced through an examination of society’s attitudes toward people with disabilities. Such persons were first viewed from a pre-scientific and religious point of view. And then, through a scientific approach, there was a perception of disability from a modern point of view. That was initiated by individuals with disabilities through their struggle and fight for their human rights and to be involved in modern day-to-day life.
People with disabilities were often placed in hospitals, asylums, or other institutions that provided little, if any, help, education or rehabilitation. Special education is relatively new, but the history of people with disabilities in Europe as well as in the world is very long.

1. PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN ANCIENT GREECE

People with disabilities were seen in ancient Greece only through their disabilities, and the preserved capacities of persons were completely neglected. This led to the attitude towards persons with disabilities to be negative, inhuman and ruthless.

1.1 DISABILITY IN ATHENS

People with disabilities were treated as completely incompetent and useless in society, which made it perfectly normal to even justify the destruction (killing) people with disabilities. During this period, handicapped children were eliminated from the society in the most brutal and the worst ways. Potentially disabled or deformed children were often abandoned or killed because congenital physical deviations were considered as a “punishment of the gods”. An Athenian father had ten days to decide if he wanted to raise the infant or not. Plato and Aristotle call for infanticide if the child has any type of deformity that is visual. Infants were left in the woods to die, drown in the water, thrown off cliffs…
Deaf and blind children had a little more chance, because their disabilities were not visual, they are not noticeable and they were less disturbing to society.
Aristotle believed that women were actually deformed males, but physical disabilities did not preclude them from fulfilling their most important task: childbearing. Plato claimed that a deformed spouse may make life unbearable, but such marriages clearly did take place. All the marriageable women were gathered in one place and were auctioned off to the men, they were called the “misshapen ones”. To entice the groom, these “deformed” women received dowries from the proceeds raised from the sale of the beautiful women.