Eye treatment in schools: methods that have brought success
Once again, I repeat a very important principle: you can not see anything with perfect eyesight, if you have not seen this object before. When the eye does not look at an unfamiliar object, it always more or less strains to see it. In this case, an anomaly of refraction always appears. When a child looks at unfamiliar inscriptions or figures on a board, remote geographic maps, charts or drawings, a retinoscope always shows that they have become myopic, although their vision under other circumstances can be absolutely normal. The same happens with adults when they look at a remote unfamiliar object. When the eye looks at a familiar object, the effect is completely different. It is possible not only to examine it without tension, but in the future the effort applied when looking at unfamiliar objects is also reduced.
These data provide us with a method of overcoming the mental stress that children undergo in the modern education system. It is impossible to see anything ideally at the moment when the brain is energized. If children can relax while looking at familiar objects, they can( sometimes for incredibly short periods of time) keep this relaxation and when looking at unfamiliar objects.
I found this when I examined the eyes of several hundred schoolchildren from Grand Fox, North Dakota. Often, children who failed to read all the letters on the check table at the first check, managed to do this during the second or third check. Sometimes after the end of the examination of the class, the children who failed for the first time were asked to be re-examined and often read on it the whole test table with normal vision. These cases were so frequent that there was no doubt that vision was somehow improved by reading the checklist.
In one class I found a boy who showed himself as strongly myopic, but after some encouragement he read through all the letters on the checklist. The teacher asked my opinion about the boy's vision, because she considered him very short-sighted. When I said that his vision was normal, she was surprised and stated that he could learn the letters by heart or they were suggested to him by another student. The teacher continued to assert that he could neither read the inscriptions or figures on the board, nor see the maps, charts and tables on the walls, nor recognize people on the other side of the street. She asked me to double-check his sight, which I did very carefully and under her supervision, eliminating all the possible sources of errors she spoke about. Again the boy read all the letters on the table. Then the teacher wrote on the chalkboard a few words and figures, which he also read well. Finally, she asked to name the time on the wall clock that hung 25 feet from him. And with this disciple successfully coped.
Three other similar cases were noted in this class. The sight of these children, which was found to be very bad for remote objects, became normal within a few minutes of checking their eyes.
It's no wonder that after the incident the teacher asked to hang up a constant test table in the classroom. Children were asked to read the smallest letters that they can see from their places, at least once a day, with both eyes together and with each eye separately. In this case, the unused eye was covered by the palm of the hand in such a way as to avoid pressure on the eyeball. Those whose eyesight was poor encouraged to read the checklist more often. But the need for encouragement disappeared as soon as they discovered that such practice helps them see the board and relieves headaches and other unpleasant feelings that they had to face before in the course of visual work.
In another class, consisting of forty children aged 6 to 8 years, thirty students achieved normal vision during the test. The rest later also achieved such success under the guidance of teachers, doing exercises to develop a vision in the distance with a test table. For the past fifteen years, this teacher has noticed that every year at the opening of the school in autumn all the children could see inscriptions on their boards from their places, but before closing it in the spring all children complained that they could not see the board from a distance anymore,than 10 feet. After the benefits from the daily lessons on the development of vision at familiar objects, taken as a fixation point, became clear, the teacher hung in her class a checklist and asked the children to read it daily. The result of this was that for 8 years, none of the children who were in her care had acquired a poor view.
A teacher of this class attributed the constant deterioration of sight of her pets during the year to the fact that her classroom was in the basement, which reduced the level of illumination in the classroom. But the teachers who worked in well-lit classrooms had the same problems. After all the rooms, both well-lit and poorly lit, hanging test tables and the children began to read them every day, the deterioration in vision ceased. Moreover, practically all of them have improved. Vision, which was below normal, improved in most cases to a normal level, while children who had normal vision, for which vision was taken at 20/20, improved it to 20 / 15-20 / 10.At the same time, it was possible not only to get rid of myopia, but also to improve eyesight for close objects.
At the request of the manager of the schools of Grand Fox, this system was then introduced in all schools of the city and was applied continuously for 8 years. During this time, as I calculated, it allowed to reduce the level of myopia among children from 6% to less than 1%.
A few years later, the same system was introduced in some schools in New York with a total student population of about ten thousand. However, many teachers denied the need to use checklists, not believing that such a simple method( and it is quite different from the methods used previously) can give the desired results. Others kept the checklists in closed cupboards, pulling them out only for the time of daily training of the eyes, because of fear that the children would learn them by heart. Thus, they not only imposed unnecessary burdens on themselves, but did everything to destroy the purpose of this system, which consists in giving children daily exercises in the distance with familiar objects.
On the other hand, many teachers have persistently and wisely applied this system, which allowed them to report in less than a year that more than a thousand out of three thousand children with poor eyesight were using normal vision. Some of these children, as in the case of the children of Grand Fox, achieved success in a few minutes. Many of the teachers succeeded, some of them very quickly. In a number of cases, the results of the application of the system were simply astonishing. But in the end, the matter ended with the fact that the Ministry of Education and the experts on points did not agree to the application of this system, and gradually the use of test tables to improve vision was discontinued.
In the classroom for mentally retarded children, where the teacher kept records of their vision for several years, it was found that every year it falls steadily. However, as soon as the check tables were introduced, the vision began to improve. Then a doctor came from the local department of the Ministry of Health who checked the eyes of the children and all of them, even those whose eyesight was good enough, wrote glasses. The use of the checklists was then terminated, as the teacher felt that it would be incorrect to intervene in this matter, because the glasses worn by the children were written out by the doctor.
Very soon, however, the children began to lose, smash or simply throw away their glasses. Some said that the glasses cause them headaches, others argued that without them they feel better. For a period of about one month, most of the points that the Ministry of Health provided to children disappeared. The teacher then felt free to resume using the checklists. Immediately, the eyesight and mental reactions of children improved. Soon many of them were transferred to ordinary classes, because it was found out that in school they are in no way inferior to other children.
Another teacher reported the same interesting results. She led the class, the children of which in something did not resemble children from other classes. Many of them lagged behind in studies, others were inveterate idlers, and they all had poor eyesight. In the classroom, a check table was hung so that all children could see it. The teacher strictly followed my instructions. By the end of the sixth month, all children( except for two) had normal vision. These two eyes also improved noticeably. At the same time, the worst of the incorrigible and malicious truant became diligent students.
To remove all doubts arising from the reasons for improving the vision of children, comparative tests were conducted using and without the use of test tables. In one of these cases, 6 students with poor eyesight were examined daily for one week, who were not involved with the checklist. No improvement was noted. Then they re-hung the verification table and this group was instructed how to read it daily. By the end of the week, they all had improved their eyesight, and in five eyes it was completely normal. In another group of children with poor eyesight, the results were similar. During the week when the check table was not applied, no improvement was noted. But after a week of training in developing the vision in the distance with the help of the test table, all eyesight improved noticeably, and by the end of the month it became completely normal.
In order to ensure that there is no doubt about the reliability of the records of teachers, in some cases, the principal of the schools where the system was applied, asked the Ministry of Health to send an inspector to check the eyes of the students. Whenever this was done, records were found to be correct.
Once, while in Rochester, New York, I called the managing director of public schools and told him about my method of preventing myopia. He was very interested and asked me to introduce a method in one of his schools. I did this and by the end of the third month I received a message that the sight of all the children had improved, and a significant number of them had normal vision in both eyes. However, the end of this story here was the same as in New York.
My method has been used in a number of other cities, and the eyesight of children has always improved. Many of them acquired normal sight in a few minutes, days, weeks or months. It is difficult to check the assumptions about the negative consequences, but from the fact that this method improved the sight of all the children who applied it, it follows that no one's sight could be impaired by this method. Consequently, he had to, in addition, prevent the myopia. This can not be said about any other methods of prophylaxis of myopia, used earlier in schools. All other methods are based on the assumption that the cause of myopia is the excessive use of the eyes to work at close distances, and all of them, as is known, failed.
It is also obvious that this method should also prevent other refraction anomalies. That is, we are talking about a problem that was not even seriously considered before, since hypermetropia, and more recently, astigmatism( in most cases) are considered congenital states. However, anyone who knows how to use the retinoscope can see for a few minutes that both these conditions are being acquired. Regardless of which eye to take, astigmatic or hypermetropic, his vision always becomes normal when he looks at some empty clean surface without trying to see anything. But when children learn to read, write, draw, sew, or do anything else that requires close-up viewing of unfamiliar objects, hypermetropia or hypermetropic astigmatism always appear. The same happens with adults.
These facts suggest that children, first of all, need eye training. Before they can make significant progress in their studies, they need to learn to look at unfamiliar letters or objects at close range without tension. In each case, when this method was applied, it was proved that this result is achieved by daily training of the vision in the distance with the help of a check table. When this method improved vision in the distance, the children invariably became able to use their eyes and at close range without tension.
The method is most useful when teachers do not wear glasses. It was noted not only that children imitate the habits of a teacher wearing glasses, but also how nervous tension, which is manifested by poor vision, caused them to have a similar condition. In classes of the same level, with the same lighting, the vision of children whose teachers did not wear glasses was always better than the sight of children whose teachers were wearing glasses. Once I checked the vision of the children, the teacher who wore glasses, and found it very bad. The teacher left the classroom for some cases, and at that time I again checked the eyesight of the children. The results were much better. When she returned, she inquired about the sight of one boy, a very nervous child. As soon as I started checking his vision, she stood in front of him and said: "When the doctor tells you to read the check-table, do it."The boy could not see anything. Then she stood behind him, and it gave the same effect as if she left the room. The boy read the whole table.
Today in the United States schools several million children have poor eyesight. This prevents them from taking full advantage of the education that the state gives, destroying their health and throwing away taxpayers' money. If you look at this case in development, then bad eyesight all your life will be a hindrance to these children and will lead to additional monetary expenses. Often it is a source of constant suffering. Nevertheless, almost all these states can be eliminated, and the development of new ones is prevented, by methods no more complex than the daily reading of the check table.
Why should our children suffer and wear glasses when there is such a simple measure of helping them? It's almost worthless. In many cases, even the need to purchase checklists is no longer needed, since they have long been used to check the eyes of children everywhere. Teachers will easily hang a table on the wall, and improving the vision, health, character and mental attitude of their students, achieved as a result of its application, will greatly facilitate their work. In addition, no one will venture to say that it can do any harm.
Rules for applying a check table in schools to improve the
view The checklist is hung on the wall of the classroom, and every day children read to themselves the smallest letters that they can see from their places, each eye individually. In this case, the other eye is closed by the palm of the hand in such a way as to avoid pressure on the eyeball. It does not take a lot of time and enough to improve the sight of all children in one week or eliminate all refractive errors in a few months, a year or more. Children with visually impaired vision should be encouraged to read the checklist more frequently. It should not be in this case to intervene children wearing glasses, because they must be under the care of a doctor and training, as long as they wear glasses, give them little or no use at all.
Although it is not necessary, a great help would be keeping records reflecting the vision of each student at the time the system is introduced and then through any convenient time intervals - annually or more often. Records can be made by the teacher.
Records should include the name and age of the pupils, the vision of each checked eye from a distance of 20 feet and a date. For example:
John Smith, 10 years, 15 September 19
3. P.( vision of the right eye) 20/40.3. L.( vision of the left eye) 20/40
John Smith, 11 years old, 1 January, 19
3. P. 20/30
Z.L.20/15 It is absolutely necessary to exercise some control. At least once a year, anyone who owns this method should visit each class to answer questions that arise, encouraging teachers to continue using the method and doing something like reports based on the right sources of information. Nevertheless, neither school inspectors, nor teachers, nor children need to get any information about the physiology of the eye.