Coming to meet you today I feel I am coming home. Education and administration were daily parts of my life thirty years ago. At that time I was President of the Chicago Board of Education. For five years, I almost lived in high schools, elementary schools, junior colleges, and teacher colleges. We had them all...from kindergarten through college. I loved those days, those principals, those teachers, and even those problems!
I am especially happy to be talking to you with the knowledge and approval of experts like Dr. Michael Timpaine, President of Teachers College at Columbia University, Dr. William Kirby, Commissioner of Education for the state of Texas, Dr. Randolph Crew, Deputy Superintendent in California, Dr. Ann Turnbull, Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas, and many others who are recognized experts in your most important work -- Special Education itself.
These experts, and officials of the U.S. Census Bureau, tell us there are about seven million persons with mental retardation in America. Special Olympics has helped more than a million of them acquire the skills to be productive members of society. Given good sports training and sufficient opportunities to practice and showcase their skills, one million of our fellow citizens have shown the world what they can do. They have earned a place in society. Today they are good neighbors, good friends, good teammates, and good workers.
We have about a million U.S. citizens with mental retardation active in our program right now. Yet millions are not being given the opportunity to train for a sport, to be a member of a team, to travel, to feel good about themselves, to have the pride and respect of their families and neighbors. Yet we are so convinced of the good that comes through Special Olympics that we have launched a major Outreach campaign to bring Special Olympics to many more of the 7 million children and adults with mental retardation in this country. We would like you to be a big part of this effort. We want you to be our partner in this magical movement which has swept from the USA to 75 countries.
That’s why I have come here today, happily accepting your invitation to speak to the leaders of Special Education in America. You provide the leadership to thousands of public and private schools in all the states in our great country, and in all the territories.
You are certainly among the most valuable citizens of our country. Without education and educators such as yourselves, I never could have created and succeeded with the “Peace Corps”. I could never have started “Head Start”, or the “Job Corps”, or “Upward Bound”, or “VISTA”, or “Neighborhood Health Centers” for the poor, or “Neighborhood Legal Services for the Poor”. In all of those programs, from “Parent and Child Centers” for 3-5 year old children, up to our “Foster Grandparents” program for 60-70-80 year old people, education, and especially Special Educators, played a crucial role.
Once again, as in those by-gone days, I have a challenge to place before you...as big as the Peace Corps, or bigger; as challenging as “Head Start”, more mysterious, more magical, more transformative of people and society than any secular activity I’ve ever seen or heard of.
In the early part of this decade, my wife established three goals for the ‘80s. The three goals for Special Olympics were quality; outreach; and individualization. “Quality” of training, “Quality” of Games, and “Quality” of life for the individual with mental retardation. Outreach to provide more training and competition opportunities to more athletes with mental retardation. And individualization in providing the appropriate Special Olympics experience for every person with mental retardation.
Quality has been our focus for the first two-thirds of this decade, and look how far we have come. This year we staged the greatest international amateur athletic events in the world: --- 4,793 athletes from seventy countries competed in 11,493 events in South Bend, Indiana. That’s ten times the total number of events at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984!
Over 25 million people watched the prime-time TV broadcast of our Opening. Ceremonies and the “Wide World of Sports” coverage of these Special Olympics Games. Twenty-five million people watched athletes with mental retardation perform on the playing fields with skill and sportsmanship. These athletes were not just the cream of the crop. They were chosen at random from tens of thousands who had won Gold Medals in local Games all over the world. We were not showing off our best. We were showing off “the world of Special Olympics” -- old and young; fast and slow; fat and lean; mildly and severely handicapped; rich and poor; famous and unknown; white and black and yellow and brown; capitalist and communist. Marvelous to report, the world of normal people fell in love with the world of Special Olympics. Sixteen American and foreign cities are now competing to host our next International Summer Games. But let me not go too fast...More good news comes later!
No doubt -- We have raised the consciousness of millions, including the twenty-five million who watched the TV shows. No doubt, we have focused public attention on what people with mental retardation can do. No doubt, we have erased many fears and. prejudices about mental retardation.
But we ask ourselves, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this effect on many more people? Wouldn’t it be right -- not just pleasant -- to have many more of the seven million people with mental retardation in the USA experience the joy that comes from Special Olympics? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wipe out the excuses, rationalizations and biases so every eligible person could have the opportunity to train for a sport, to be a member of a team, to travel, to have the pride and respect of their families, and erase the fears and prejudices of all 238 million people in the United States? That is our vision! To accomplish it we need to create a Special Olympics/Special Education “Partnership” with elementary and secondary school teachers and administrators and a Special Olympics/varsity sports partnership in every high school in America.
That’s our “Special Olympics” vision, our dream. And I am here asking you to join it. But, first, let’s explore the scope of this magical program, and see how it fits so nicely into the framework of Special Education.
Special Olympics and Special Education make a good marriage. Your pursuit of free, appropriate, public education for all children with handicaps, enabling them to pursue a fuller life in the mainstream of America is a goal we share.
There is a lot of evidence that many children and youth with disabilities have low self-esteem, lack personal and achievement motivation, and display little self-confidence in themselves and in their schoolwork. There is even more evidence that these feelings are related to less than satisfactory success in social situations, academic environments and in independent living. Some people think these feelings are due to the disability itself, to the student’s scorecard of success and failure, or to the student’s lack of opportunities to fully experience all life’s situations.
Well, we know that mental retardation itself does not induce feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. We know that the lessons learned in Special Olympics promote the physical, social, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual qualities of the participants. Special Olympians are given opportunities to try, to fail and to succeed without judgmental huffing and puffing by anyone. Their patient teachers and coaches give them the self-confidence and emotional support needed to help them venture further and further into the mainstream of sports and of society.
Because Special Olympics offers sports training and competitive opportunities that mirror those offered to athletes without handicapping conditions, we are a means to an end. We provide the extra training and competition opportunities needed for anyone to learn and properly play a sport. Athletes can then carry these skills and knowledge into all programs in their schools and communities. We have encouraged and actively facilitated many Special Olympians to participate in major and local programs like the Marine Corps Mini-Marathon, Athletic Congress Championships, United States Sports Festivals, recreation programs, community swim teams, and many others.
Just as your schools offer a continuum of educational placements suited to the academic needs of students with handicapping conditions, Special Olympics offers a continuum of sports training and competition alternatives based on the social and physical needs of each individual. Our continuum involves motor skill training for athletes with motor abilities so low they cannot play team sports or even perform individual athletic movements successfully. Our continuum progresses through four different levels of team and individual activities. Our own unique rules have gained the approval of all the international sports federations and the national sports governing bodies. Our continuum of training and competition accommodates the widest range of sport abilities for athletes with mental retardation.
One of our unique and most important features is our divisioning of participants into “ability groups”. Educational systems are required to group students for instruction according to age and academic performances. Similarly, Special Olympics groups athletes according to age, gender, and sport performance regardless of causes or severities of mental retardation. The primary purpose of ability grouping is to provide opportunities for success for our athletes. Athletes compete against other athletes with approximately the same competence.
But often for students with handicapping conditions who cannot participate in interscholastic sports because of insufficient physical or sport skills, or an inability to comprehend intricate rules and games strategy, there are no alternatives. Special Olympics has concentrated its efforts, not in replacing existing sports programs, but in providing a continuum of sports training and competition levels so as to fill the void in the school and community sports programs.
Although Special Olympics excludes persons without handicapping conditions, it does not segregate its participants. To the contrary, Special Olympics believes our success with people who have mental retardation is due in part to the variety of ways we promote integration.
We provide one-on-one interaction with coaches and volunteers who are not handicapped in anyway. In truth, our coaches and teachers are super people. They inspire their “students” to surpass their handicaps.
We encourage parents and our athletes to make their own decisions about participation and belonging to a team.
We utilize community and neighborhood sport and recreation facilities where and when persons without handicapping conditions are present and active.
We develop independence by giving our athletes choices and opportunities they never had before. What a marvelous, magical effect that has on the parents. Often they weep with joy to see their children treated with care, competence, and compassion...
We prepare individuals for success. How? By patiently developing athletic skills and social habits which lead to participation in more complex activities, in sports programs for individuals without handicapping conditions, in competitive employment, and in independent living!
We create a positive public image by demonstrating unequivocally what people with mental retardation can do! Ordinary citizens are frequently dumbfounded, almost speechless, unbelieving.
We arouse in parents and family members a sense of pride in their children, an emotion which arouses in their hearts almost an ecstasy of joy. They often exclaim, “Can these athletes be mentally retarded?”
We expose persons with mental retardation and their coaches, parents and friends to other cultures, ethnic groups, religions, and races through travel and participation at local, state, national and international events!
What an education for all of these human beings! Historically, they have been embarrassed, ridiculed, exploited, and humiliated. Now they are extolled!
Special Olympics and school systems have similar and complimentary interests, practices, and resources. Both want to help people grow in their mental abilities, self-esteem, their physical and social skills. Both foster normalization and provide instruction in least restrictive environments. Special Olympics and Special Education are complimentary in the continuum of levels of achievement and challenge they offer to students. When joined together, these resources can provide a wide variety of life skills, services, and opportunities.
Special Olympics is in the business of education. We have developed excellent curriculum materials for use in adapted physical education programs. Our handbooks or training manuals have been analyzed and approved by all the relevant and authorized authorities. These books are available for your inspection. Moreover, they are available in Spanish, French and many other languages: -- Arabic, Polish, Chinese, and Japanese to mention a few. You won’t see our books reviewed in “The New York Times” or the “Phoenix Gazette”, but they are best sellers! We can’t print them fast enough, and we can hardly keep them in stock. These books can be the foundation for a truly special program in Special Education, a program which empowers you to reach, touch, and change thousands of your students.
We offer twenty-two, official Special Olympics, Sports Guides for winter as well as summer sports. They are already being used by Special Ed teachers as well as by coaches, by parents as well as high school volunteer students. They are ready and approved for use by secondary schools. For children and adults with retardation, these books open a whole new world of activities, where they meet other people and make friends, where they learn skills, and enjoy success. And for people without handicaps, these books open eyes and hearts to experiences rarely before enjoyed by most human beings.
Let me explain: --
Thirty years ago, as you all well know, an overwhelming majority of the “experts” said people with mental retardation weren’t coordinated; they couldn’t follow directions; they could not learn the rules of a game, or participate in team sports. They’ll get hurt, we were told, playing hockey, or basketball, or soccer, or skiing. They’re not coordinated enough to figure skate or do gymnastics. They can’t run 400 yards, let alone a mile!
I heard all those statements myself! But we have learned by trial and error that all those “expert opinions” were wrong!!
We learned that people with retardation: -
- Could not only run 400 yards, but even the mile and 2 mile races;
- Could not only swim 50 meters, they could swim 400 and 800 meters and participate in relay races;
- Could not only play floor hockey six to a side, but soccer with full teams, and basketball and softball;
- Could not only run, swim and jump, but they could perform gymnastic routines; ski down hill; figure skate; jump dance, give speeches, and take on full-time jobs in parks and Recreation Departments;
- And we found out that old age was no barrier for them...women and men in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s showed us they, too, could run 400 yard races, swim, and enjoy themselves in sports.
Most of all we found out that they are pure amateurs. There’s no money under the table in Special Olympics. There’s no proselytizing, no alumni interference, and no drugs. In fact, Special Olympics may be the only drug-free, non-political, non-racist, non-sexist, non-ageist, non-greedy international sports program in the world!
All this is only a little bit of what we have learned from our athletes and from Special Olympics. I haven’t even mentioned “Our Marvelous Moments”, as we call them at Special Olympics Headquarters:
- The day the phone rang and Loretta Claiborne’s coach told us the unbelievable news that Loretta, a Special Olympics runner from York, Pennsylvania, had just finished the Boston Marathon ahead of 350 other women!!!
- OR
- The evening in Dublin, Ireland when the Irish athletes from Northern Ireland marched past the reviewing stand in front of the President of Ireland to receive a standing ovation from all the Southern Irish in attendance at our European Games. Special Olympics is the only public activity the Northern and Southern Irish do together these days. They march together under our flag, not their own.
- OR
- The letter from the Crown Prince of Jordan telling us that his country was going to send a young, single, sports expert to our country to study athletics for people with retardation. As he said, she will be one of the first, if not the very first, single, female teacher to have ventured from Jordan for specialized training, at Government expense!!
Are people with retardation helping to unite the world and free us all from ignorance, superstition, fear, envy? I’ll guarantee you they are! I say that, loud and clear because I was myself one of the ignorant and fearful thirty-five years ago. I thought that morons, imbeciles, and idiots, as we used to call them, had pointed heads or eyes in the middle of their foreheads. I thought they might attack me or vomit on me. I had seen photos of them huddled in the corners of huge institutional fortresses walled off from society, sitting in their own filth and urine. When I first visited a state institution for persons with mental retardation, I saw those photos were true. Human beings with mental retardation were treated almost like animals. I myself heard famous, expensive, pediatricians advise parents to “put away” their retarded babies, “forget them” because nothing could be done to remedy their hopeless plight. “Get on with your life” was the slogan. Neither regret nor condemn nor criticize yourself or others for the fickle finger of fate.
Today what a difference!
The core of the Special Olympics program is “year-round training”, developing greater levels of physical fitness, and social adaptability. Specific sports skills, that’s what we would like to see in the official offerings of more and more American school systems.
1.5 million athletes take part in Special Olympics, in over 70 nations around the world.
And we can’t even put a number on those we’ve “graduated” from Special Olympics programs into regular school and community athletics.
We offer sports training to any person with retardation, age 8, and up, regardless of the extent of their disability.
20,000 communities in the United States have Special Olympics programs.
We’re sanctioned by the United States Olympics Committee, to use the name “Olympics”! Ten other nations also officially sanction our use of the world “Olympics”.
The National Governing Bodies of every sport recognize “Special Olympics”.
We’ve got half a million volunteers -- coaches, chaperones, publicists, fundraisers, families -- that run Special Olympics -the largest, sustained continuously serving volunteer movement in the world.
We never charge our athletes, or their families, any participation fees.
We train and certify coaches to train our athletes.
All these qualities have made us the fastest growing amateur, sports organization in the world!
I could go on and on telling you about Special Olympics in Korea and Japan, in the People’s Republic of China, in Kenya, in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, in the Seychelles Island of the Indian Ocean, in Poland, France, Belgium, Portugal, Chile, Panama, yes, even in Cuba...But you’ve heard enough.
Why is it successful?
Because it works!
It works for people with mental retardation and it’s “therapy” for normal people.
I want to read you an excerpt from a letter written by a sophomore at the University of Virginia. The young woman wrote to her mother:
“Saturday, I participated in a Special Olympics competition which was held at an area high school. I had two athletes assigned to me. I made sure they found their various events and cheered them on. What a joy it was to be part of their lives! People whose lives are so simple! It makes you really examine your own life and realize how ridiculous most of our concerns are. Mom, it was one of the most rewarding days of my life. I have never felt so wanted!”
Where else can you get such a feeling? Isn’t that how we’d all like to spend our days -- wanted and respected?
It used to be that persons with retardation were shut away in institutions. Their heartbroken families were often embarrassed, and doctors said there was no hope for “medical breakthroughs” or for any so-called “quality of life”. In the old days, as I said, they called those human beings “idiots”, and “morons”, “imbeciles”.
Today, they are people first, people with mental retardation or neurological handicaps, or learning disabled, or developmentally disabled, or people with special needs.
Yet we now hear experts argue about mainstreaming, cross-categorical classrooms, reclassification, adaptive behavior, IEPs, and integration, and PL 94-142! But: -- please let me share a thought with you. The parents of children with retardation don’t give a whistle about all our jargon, our bureaucracy, and all the labels! They want somebody, somewhere, to help their child take part in life!
You know in every high school, every kid has a chance to be part of something, to take pride in some particular activity in which he or she is involved -- like the football team, the drama club, the school yearbook, or the prom committee. What is there for our students with retardation to take part in? What activities can they join in after school? Where do they belong?
In some schools they find that sense of belonging in “Special Olympics.” It’s like a club they can join. In Grand Prairie, Texas -Superintendent Hobbs Williams has given unqualified backing to Special Olympics within his school system. His school district assumes financial responsibility for all eligible students, and provides Special Olympics coaching.
In Boston, Mayor Flynn has launched, after-school, Special Olympics training for all Boston public schools. They plan to serve all their 12,000 students with mental retardation. In the state of North Carolina, 142 of 1465 school systems are involved in some way with Special Olympics. At Oakton High School in Virginia, the students -- on their own -started what they call a “Partners Club” with Special Olympians! Students work as coaches or “buddies” with Special Olympians in both sports practice, and in mainstream, social events! That Virginia program was so successful we tested it in other schools, and it works, so, now at the Special Olympics International Headquarters we are launching Partners’ Clubs around the world. The same students who started the program at Oakton High School helped our staff write the program plan, the promotional literature, the script for a video program -- and it’s rolling out!
In a growing number of colleges and universities, credit courses are being offered in Special Olympics management and training programs.
In Philadelphia, Special Olympics is an integral part of the education curriculum at both the elementary and secondary school levels. Teachers are given “free time” to attend Special Olympics competition with their athletes. Sports facilities are provided, free-of-charge. And their school buses transport athletes and volunteers to training clinics and games. And the gentleman who directs all of that activity, Mr. Don White, is here with you today.
In a small rural location -- Pasquotank Public Schools, in rural North Carolina, they can’t match the Philadelphia school budget; but they find ways to get the job done. Without their school system, there would be no extra-curricular program at all for the mentally retarded students in that area. With the school system leading the way, Special Olympics is booming.
And finally, in at least 10 high schools across this country, Special Olympians receive “Sport Letter Awards” for participation in Special Olympics. And are they proud to wear those letter jackets.
What happens in schools that don’t have “Special Olympics”?
The teachers often say, “I just don’t know what to do with these kids.” So, the handicapped students frequently end up “standing around a lot” in gym class, or sitting on the bench, or being ball girl or ball boy.
When schools don’t offer Special Olympics, parents sometimes try to pick up the slack, taking our sports book and learning how to teach their children on their own! Sometimes service organizations like Civitan International ask us to train and certify their members as Special Olympics coaches. One major corporation, United Technologies, in Hartford, Connecticut, actually has an employee program for coach certification. That corporation gives paid vacation time to their people who work with Special Olympics programs.
What motivates a company to do something like that? Where is the “Almighty bottom line” in that boardroom decision? I’ll tell you where. United Technologies gets back from those employees who work with Special Olympics -- (on company time, mind you!) -- far more than they contribute!!
They get loyalty, better morale, a sense of unity and participation, better exercise and health for the employees, fewer days off for sick leave and that undefinable feeling when we go beyond ourselves.
So you see, Special Olympics is for everybody. For people with retardation...for people without retardation,..for teachers, coaches... families...corporate moguls, civic groups...communities...neighborhoods and nations.
Think of the possibilities when a partnership is forged between schools and corporations and their communities. The opportunities are limited only by your imagination.
Schools can establish “Partners Clubs” and involve non-handicapped students with Special Olympics...Research shows that when a non-handicapped person and a handicapped person interact on a one-to-one basis lasting relationships develop. These relationships break down misconceptions. They change normal people into caring people. Breaking down attitudinal barriers is crucial to integrating handicapped persons into the mainstream of society. Special Olympics casts its magic spell inside people’s hearts and minds. It changes them, and they change people without coercion, without expense, without opposition from pressure groups. Special Olympics is like a soothing ointment for society’s psychological hang-ups. It’s like a Ben-Gay, or Doan’s, or Aspercream for your spirit, and it works so well that even old people forget their aches and pains when they play with, coach, cheer on, or even just watch the Special Olympians enjoy themselves.
A “Partners Club” in a secondary school will benefit both handicapped and non-handicapped students. And we can help you with technical assistance. We have a club leader’s manual which outlines ways to get a club started and keep it going.
Schools can also use Special Olympics programs to meet the physical conditioning needs of normal students. We have learned that our Sports Skills Guides, all 22 of them, are effective in regular physical education programs. Coaches and physical education teachers tell us these guides are excellent resource materials for a student’s I.E.P., and as lesson plans.
Schools can take advantage of Special Olympics Training Schools and offer these as in-service programs for classroom teachers! Too, several years ago we developed a series of Training Schools designed to help Special Ed teachers learn how to teach specific sports to students with mental retardation. Now several colleges and universities offer either continuing education units or credits for these Training Schools (University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse, University of Southern Maine, Kansas State University, University of Rhode Island, California State at Hayward, Central Michigan.)
Schools can open their facilities for Special Olympics practices. When schools provide use of their gymnasium, or swimming pool, or track for Special Olympics, Special Olympics provides volunteers to come into the school to train the Special Olympians. This fosters positive community relations.
Are you interested in all these possibilities? I hope you are. The worldwide Special Olympics organization is standing by, at your beck and call, to help you in every way possible. So, might I add is the leadership of the 4,000 schools already working with Special Olympics! Some of them are represented here; and on behalf of our athletes and their families, I want to extend my thanks to each and every one of them, and the people who work with them in towns, villages, boroughs, cities, and counties across our nation.
I hope I have answered the question put to me today: -"Special Olympics and Special Education -- The Perfect Partners”. My answer is, they are partners...and, I believe, even more than a partnership...they are or should be a marriage...a lifetime marriage with progeny potentially too numerous to count.
Ten years ago no one would have predicted we would have more than a million Special Olympians practicing and participating day in and day out around the world. Now the People’s Republic of China and India have welcomed “Special Olympics.” Training is underway; Games are being held; and an immense world has opened up before us. More than 200,000,0000 retarded persons await us in those countries alone! They will profit from our experience to date. But opening all our schools officially to Special Olympics, marrying, if you will, these great institutions of education and philanthropy -- then we shall truly light a light whose rays will brighten the world!!!
