Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School

The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School

The front door of the Orthogenic School's former building, with the iconic "yellow door" that has become a trademark of the school.
Address
6245 S. Ingleside Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60637
United States
Coordinates 41°46′51″N 87°36′10″W / 41.780722°N 87.602662°W / 41.780722; -87.602662Coordinates: 41°46′51″N 87°36′10″W / 41.780722°N 87.602662°W / 41.780722; -87.602662
Information
Type Residential treatment center
Motto Providing a safe haven and a path to hope
Founded 1915
Grades 6-12
Age 8 to 18
Enrollment 40-60
Average class size 8-10
Student to teacher ratio 4:1
Hours in school day 6
Newspaper The Yellow Door Chronicles
Information 773-702-1203 ext. 100
Website website

The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, also known simply as the Orthogenic School or informally as the O'School, is a residential treatment center and therapeutic school for children and adolescents typically classified as emotionally disturbed. The Orthogenic School specializes in the treatment of youth who have failed in other treatment settings. The school is located on the campus of and is affiliated with the University of Chicago.[1]

Highlights

The school is able to adequately educate students of above-average intelligence and assist students in pursuing advanced courses on an individual or group basis. Students may also attend local universities or private and public schools on a part-time basis. Currently, the school is able to treat students in an unlocked setting without utilizing seclusion or medical restraint. Dorm counselors, teachers, and teaching assistants typically have a bachelor's degree and experience in working with young people. Typically the staff to student ratio is very high, with an average of two staff members supervising five to eight students at a time, with support of masters-level staff, educational staff, and crisis intervention staff.

While at school the students have contact with a staff of therapists, program managers, special education teachers, art teachers, teaching assistants, and other professionals. Students with appropriate privileges have the opportunity of going out into the community several days a week, with some students able to leave the school on independent outings into the community.

The school has developed a comprehensive transition program for adolescent students leaving for home, college, or independent living. Students in the Transitional Living Center have the support of the school staff, their old dorm staff, and the transitional living staff. They are typically able to go into the community and pursue employment, educational options, and other community activities. Students stay in the transitional program for periods ranging from several months to two years.

The school is affiliated with the University of Chicago and is located on the campus. Because of this, students are able to utilize many campus facilities during the day.

The school also has several extracurricular programs, including a student work program, student government, a local Junior Achievement charter, a literary magazine and a student newspaper. Students can participate in as many extracurricular activities as they like, so long as their behavior and academic performance are within acceptable boundaries.[1]

Parental contact

Students attend periodic family sessions with their program manager or individual therapist. The dorm counselors regularly contact parents and update them on their child's progress, and students are able to call home at least once a week and can write as often as they wish. When students gain the appropriate privileges and have demonstrated safe behaviors they can have home visits, typically starting every other weekend and progressing to every weekend during transition phases.

Students who are not able to go home due to distance or behavior may visit their parents at the school or in the local community. Contact with friends may be restricted, although appropriate letter writing is usually encouraged.[1]

Student life

The dining room of the Orthogenic School

Students live either in communal dorms of up to seven students per room, in transition rooms, or in a transitional living center. During the school week, students attend academic classes during the day and have the option of attending a variety of extra curricular activities in the early evening. Many high school and older middle school students attend departmentalized classes for most of the day. Younger students and students who cannot transition between classes receive individualized and small group instruction in self-contained classrooms.

During their stay at the school, students gradually attain to higher levels of privileges, freedoms, and responsibilities, however a formal level system is not used. Behavioral plans, goals, and treatment modalities are utilized on an individualized basis. Students attend one or two 45-minute individual therapy sessions per week and one 60 minute group therapy session per week. A variety of group therapy modalities are utilized such as social skills, process, anger management, transition planning, and depression and anxiety groups.

A day school program is also available. In this, students can attend the school, in addition to receiving group and individual therapy services, but still live at home. The availability and usefulness of this program are decided on a case-by-case basis.[1]

History during Bettelheim's tenure 1944–1973

Theory

The well-known and controversial psychoanalytic theorist Bruno Bettelheim served as director of the Orthogenic School during the mid-20th century. During the time he spent there the school became relatively well known for treating children with autism, a field in which Bettelheim studied.

Bettelheim's method of treating students was unusual for its time. Unlike most hospitals and asylums that functioned much like a medical facility, Bettelheim believed that treatment for mental illnesses should be fundamentally different from treating physical ailments. Doors at the Orthogenic School were always unlocked, and students could theoretically leave whenever they wanted to. Safety screens on windows were placed on the outside of the window rather than the inside, a bold move for a treatment center at the time. Before arriving at the school a student would have several visits to decide if they wanted to stay. Bettelheim wanted to ensure that a student wanted to attend the school, and would not take children who didn't want to go.

Counselors also resided with the students in bedrooms adjacent to their respective dormitories to give round-the-clock support. The counselors, like the students, also attended regular individual and group therapy sessions to allow them to analyze their own methods and thought to improve. This is a practice which continues to this day.
Bettelheim also believed that the Orthogenic School should feel like a home to the students. Furniture in the dormitories was usually antique and very expensive. Students in the dining rooms dined on imported china with metal silverware and glass cups, which was unusual for a treatment center. During the three renovations to the building which Bettelheim supervised, a number of art pieces were commissioned for the school by Bettelheim, including a mural by Jordi Bonet.[2]

Practice

Sources vary as to whether Bettelheim's degree was in art history or philosophy (aesthetics); it was not in psychology.[3][4][5][6] Ralph Tyler, who first brought Bettelheim to the University of Chicago, stated in 1990 that he assumed Bettelheim had two PhDs, one in art history and the other in psychology, and in some of his writings Bettelheim himself implied that he written a dissertation on the philosophy of education.[7] A 1995 article in the UK's The Independent stated that Bettelheim "despite claims to the contrary, possessed no psychology qualifications of any sort."[8] A 1997 article in the Chicago Tribune stated, "But when the directorship of the Orthogenic School became available, he evidently gambled that because of the war no one would be able to check on his credentials. . . when his transcript was posthumously examined, it showed that he had taken but three introductory courses in the field."[3]

What Bettelheim learned of standard psychoanalytic practice, he seemed to have learned as a client.[3][6][9] Bettelheim's first wife Gina took care of Patsy, a troubled American child, who lived in the Bettelheim home in Vienna for seven years. Bettelheim later claimed he had taken care of Patsy and that she was on the autism spectrum. There is disagreement among sources regarding whether or not Patsy was on the spectrum.[5][9][10][11]

Later directors and some counselors at the Orthogenic School see Bettelheim merely as using corporal punishment even though he stated that such was counterproductive, and many but not all residential students report seeing rage and out-of-control violence on Bettelheim's part.[7][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

Richard Pollak's 1997 biography of Bettelheim states that two separate women reported that Bettelheim fondled their breasts and those of other female students at the school while he was ostensibly apologizing to each for beating her.[11][19]

A longish 1990 Chicago Tribune article reported: "Of the 19 alumni of the Orthogenic School interviewed for this story, some are still bitterly angry at Bettelheim, 20 or 30 years after leaving the institution. Others say their stays did them good, and they express gratitude for having had the opportunity to be at the school. All agree that Bettelheim frequently struck his young and vulnerable patients. What is equally significant is that none of Bettelheim`s sucessors at the Orthogenic School now contradicts these reports."[7]

This same article reported abusive treatment, such as:[7]
• That Bettelman pulled an adolescent girl out of a shower and hit and berated her in front of dormitory mates.
• That he summoned another teenage girl from a toilet stall for a thrashing,
• That he did not allow a male student to take asthma medication, on the theory that asthma was psychologically caused
• Ronald Angres wrote in a Commentary magazine essay, "I lived for years in terror of his beatings, in terror of his footsteps in the dorms-in abject, animal terror."[14]

The Building

A mural at the Orthogenic School, created by Jordi Bonet

The school is approximately 85 years old and had resided at its previous location at 1365 E 60th St since the 1940s. The building in which the school resided was much older and had been restored and renovated several times since its occupation. The building itself consisted of three segments - a school wing, a dormitory wing, and a "transitional wing" which housed various student-used spaces. Parts of the building were also used by the Hyde Park Day School, a school for children with learning disabilities.[20]

In 2014 the school moved to a new building. The new building, like the previous one, is shared with Hyde Park Day School. It is located at 6245 South Ingleside Avenue in Chicago's West Woodlawn neighborhood.[21]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School". Retrieved 21 December 2008.
  2. ↑ Bettelheim, Bruno (1974). A Home for the Heart. Knopf.
  3. 1 2 3 Genius Or Fraud? Bettelheim's Biographers Can't Seem To Decide, Chicago Tribune, Ron Grossman, January 23, 1997.
  4. ↑ Bruno Bettelheim: a cautionary life, Baltimore Sun, Paul R. McHugh, Jan. 19, 1997.
  5. 1 2 Biography As Revenge, Chicago Tribune, Marie Winn (who writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal's Leisure & Arts Page), Feb. 23, 1997.
  6. 1 2 An Icon of Psychology Falls From His Pedestal, New York Times, Books, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review of The Creation of Dr. B by Richard Pollak), Jan. 13, 1997.
  7. 1 2 3 4 The Puzzle That Was Bruno Bettelheim, Chicago Tribune, Ron Grossman, November 11, 1990. See page 2 for different people believing somewhat different versions about his credentials.
  8. ↑ Turbulent dreams of a damaged saint, The Independent [UK], Nicholas Tucker, 8 December 1995.
  9. 1 2 Finn, Molly, June/July 1997, First Things, "In the Case of Bruno Bettelheim" Archived February 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ Boxer, Sarah (January 26, 1997). "The Man He Always Wanted to Be". The New York Times. Retrieved Dec 2, 2016. Bruno Bettelheim's new biographer lays his cards on the table right away: he thinks Bettelheim was a pathological liar.
  11. 1 2 THE BATTLE OVER BETTELHEIM, Weekly Standard, Peter D. Kramer, April 7, 1997.
  12. ↑ Chicago Reader, Letters to the Editor, Brutal Bettelheim, Name Withheld, April 5, 1990. And Chicago Reader, Letters to the Editor, The Monster of the Midway, Alida Jatich, April 4, 1991. The author is a former resident of the 'Orthogenic School' from 1966-1972. In her second letter, she acknowledged authorship of the first.
  13. ↑ The Other Dr. Bettelheim, Washington Post, Charles Pekow, Editorial, Aug. 26, 1990. " . . he created a climate of fear -- we could never tell when he would attack us for any arbitrary reason. . " See 'The Other Dr. Bettelheim', Letters to the Editor, Sept. 6, 1990, which includes a response by David Zwerdling who had been a counselor for one year during 1969-70; and The Bettelheim We Know (Cont'd.), Letters to the Editor, Oct. 6, 1990, for the contrasting views of some counselors.
  14. 1 2 Angres, Ronald, personal essay, "Who, Really, Was Bruno Bettelheim?", Commentary, 90, (4), October 1, 1990: 26–30.
  15. ↑ Bettelheim Led Us Cruelly Down Wrong Road For Children, Editorial, Chicago Tribune, Joan Beck, Oct. 1, 1990. " . . no independent diagnosis or verification is available. It is likely many youngsters he called autistic were not, by usual definitions. . "
  16. ↑ A Personal View Of Bruno Bettelheim, Chicago Tribune, Alida Jatich, Oct. 29, 1990. ' . . Whenever Bettelheim called a young person ``autistic`` or ``psychotic`` or ``homicidal`` or ``suicidal`` or anything else, the staff believed him regardless of all evidence to the contrary. To them, the truth was whatever Bettelheim said it was, and their job was to get me and the other youngsters to accept it. . '
  17. ↑ Bernstein, Richard: "Accusations of Abuse Haunt the Legacy of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim", New York Times, November 4, 1990: "The Week in Review" section. " . . not only of a tyrant but of a hypocrite as well. . "
  18. ↑ Letter to the Editor, New York Times, 'Bettelheim Became the Very Evil He Loathed,' Roberta Redford, Nov. 20, 1990 (written Nov. 9). " . . I would like to believe that at the beginning his motives were pure. By the time I knew him, he was a megalomaniac, twisted and out of control. We were terrified of him, and lived for those days when he was out of town. . "
  19. ↑ The Confidence Man : THE CREATION OF DR. B.: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim. By Richard Pollak. Simon & Schuster: 478 pages, Los Angeles Times, reviewed by Howard Gardner (professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education), Jan. 19, 1997. " . . Pollak's book does not convict only Bettelheim, it indicts those of his time who knew the man but kept their reservations to themselves."
  20. ↑ "Welcome to Hyde Park Day Schools!". Retrieved 21 December 2008.
  21. ↑ Meyer, Karen (3 August 2014). "PRIVATE SPECIALIZED SCHOOLS MOVE TO SHARED SPACE IN WOODLAWN". WLS-TV. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
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