A Research and Demonstration Approach to Special Education in the 70's: An Interview with Dr. Leonard S. Blackman

Abstract

In 1967, the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped sponsored the establishment of a series of Research and Demonstration Centers in special education. These Centers were evidence of the awakening of a national attention during the 1960's to the needs of the special child. The underlying philosophy of the R&D Centers advocates the replacing of diffuse, isolated research with a highly concentrated, systematic attack on major problems. Dr. Leonard Blackman is the director of the first R&D Center, which was founded at Teachers College, Columbia University. His initial immersion in the area of mental retardation was in 1956, when he received a Postdoctoral Ford Fellowship under Dr. Samuel Kirk, at the Institute for Research on Exceptional Children, University of Illinois. After that he served as the Director of Research at the Edward R. Johnstone Training and Research Center, in Bordentown, N. J., and as Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for the Education of the Handicapped, Teachers College, Columbia University. The following interview with Dr. Blackman provides “the now way to know” about current research efforts which attack problems of concern to the classroom teacher.