Part III

In the June issue of WGR I focused on what happened in 1975, when I became a member of the International School Psychology Committee and thereafter in the article mentioned the activities up to the 1977 colloquium in Elsinor and finally gave a survey of what the Steering Committee at its sessions during this colloquium considered most important to have implemented in a nearer future. Right after the colloquium we probably all needed a period to restore to new activities. Cal Catterall admitted this as he introduced a letter to me, dated September 6th,1977 as follows: “I do not know about you, but I am having trouble getting back into the saddle again. I have been home for about two weeks and have only done a few of the things that needed to be done when I got home.” These words were followed by five pages giving evidence that he was very well .back into the saddle. Mentioning what he in fact already had been doing (which was far more than most of us would ever manage in the same time span):

• Made an agreement with Peter Burzinsky to serve as a “production manager” of WGR in cooperation with the advanced printing facilities at Vincennes University in Indiana (which proved to be very positive for WGR and ISPC during its period of functioning).
• Already had forwarded to the British a long organizational letter as a support to their initial planning for the next colloquium.
• Pre-planned the coming summer’s Traveling Seminar But most of the five pages dealt with finances, a continuation of the discussions by the Steering Committee in Elsinor. Cal did not like to discuss money. At the time, he had no regular job, thus no regular income. Support for ISPC came from various US sources such as the California School Psychology Association (CASP), American Psychological Association (APA) and mainly from the National Association of School Psychology (NASP). Very few people paid for the WGR which Cal generously distributed (about 1000 copies worldwide). He used his own funds to publish the volumes of “Psychology in the Schools in International Perspective.” But as the optimist he was by nature, and as he believed so much in the importance of ISPC, he always tried to find ways to raise funds. When he did not succeed, he paid out of his own pocket. We urged him to discuss this because the Steering Committee felt strongly that we could not let him go on doing this. We knew that a solution to this would not be found as long as we were a loosely structured Committee with no formal financial accounting system in place. Finding a solution became even more difficult when the continuity of the work in the Committee was broken when Gaston Gauthier vacated his seat and was replaced by Dr. Blanca M. De Alvarez from Mexico.

New initiatives: The International Year of the Child (1979)

The period between the Elsinor colloquium in 1977 and York in 1979 was, in reality, the Crown of Achievements for Cal. The Liaison network was tremendously expanded by Cal in co-operation with Anna-Lisa Mellden from Sweden but it brought on some operational function problems.

However, the core of this period was the International Year of the Child (IYC). It was roughly touched on in Elsinor but nobody imagined how successful it would be for Cal, personally, and for ISPC. Looking back it is unbelievable how Cal had already started setting up the ISPC.s agenda for the IYC in the October 1977 issue of the WGR. By June 1978 he published a draft of “The International School Psychology Committee's Declaration of the Psychological Rights of the Child”. He named ten tentative ‘Psychological Rights’ along with a well-structured four phase plan indicating how these .rights. could be discussed worldwide.

Cal was an untiring, creative visionary. He succeeded in mobilizing a large number of people worldwide and set the agenda for discussions in wide educational and school psychological groups in many counties. He obtained visible and lasting results, not the least of which were the many successful Traveling Seminars. Not only did he bring the .rights. to the knowledge of colleagues in many countries but also to political and administrative circles as well. After a final polishing of these .rights., they were approved by the participants of the York colloquium in July 1979. Cal was the drive behind all of this! He was the only one who had the insight and imaginative power to formulate these psychological rights using ideas set forth by the UN in the 1959 document “Declaration of the Rights of the Child.” AND, it is worth noting that, as was characteristic of Cal, the 1979 document was published under the name of the ISP Steering Committee, so we all were given the credit that he and he alone really deserved.

I do find it fair to mention one special IYC initiative even though it is from my own country. The Danish Association of School Psychologists made a major contribution to the success of the whole campaign by publishing 20,000 copies of a well designed booklet of the ten psychological rights, each illustrated with a photograph. We added a one page text for each of the ten rights explaining and illustrating the content of each. This booklet was distributed free to most schools, libraries, practitioners in Denmark as well as colleagues in neighboring countries where it was well received and widely quoted. The Swedes and the Germans succeeded in having made reprints in their own languages. Furthermore, the Danish association published a special issue of the journal Skolepsykologi in which Danish cultural and political leaders wrote articles about the ten psychological rights and their importance.

During the York colloquium a Task Force under the direction of Stuart Hart finalized the ISP Psychological Rights of the Child which was presented to a plenary session the last day of the colloquium. In the 1979 October issue of the WGR, Cal reported, As was anticipated, the Declaration of the Psychological Rights of the Child was adopted by the majority of the participants at the closing session of the York colloquium. What had not been anticipated, however, was the rather strong opposition to the idea of making such a declaration at all. Although, like all rights statements, it is admittedly somewhat idealistic and various countries are at different levels of readiness to work on these rights and for most people who had been working on the wording of the declaration we had experienced a ‘who can be against them?’ reaction. After mentioning some of the reservations, he continued by saying that the majority signed in support of the Declaration. And so, although there were different reactions to the process, we have now passed the major milestone of having adopted the first international Declaration of the Psychological Rights of the Child. If this has to be more than an exercise in futility, the task before us is to find a variety of ways and the manpower to help move this process beyond where it is now to where it should be, a guiding force, helping to improve the quality of life for the world's children.

Good documentation and follow up related to the whole process around the IYC can be found in the WGRs from 1977-1979. In my opinion, this was the most successful, effective and memorable task that Cal did for children and for International School Psychology. But the opposition disappointed him immensely. Cal also was let down when some participants raised the question about the loose structure of ISPC and possible consequences. It was meant as a serious concern. Everything would fall apart if something should happen to Cal 'on the way back over the ocean' (as expressed by some). There was skepticism related to the funding of the work done.
"Where are the needed funds coming from and how are they spent?" It was difficult for some to understand how Cal could afford to use so much time, as his level of activity for ISPC indicated, without getting money from somewhere. From whom and why? However, the ISP Steering Committee was still in agreement that the ‘movement’ was not yet mature enough for establishing a formal association which, naturally, would require membership and official treasuring which was what the critics were asking for. It was decided that Cal, who had taken care of everything related to money, would make a formal annual accounting of money received and spent. This would then be published in the WGR.

Unforeseen was that in less than a year thereafter, the Steering Committee was, indeed, confronted with the need to reconsider the structure of the ISPC. But first, a few words about:

The 3rd International Colloquium, University of York, July 7-12, 1979 which had the theme: Psychology for Children - Today and Tomorrow. Ken Cornwall was the competent convener and worked together with a strong group of British School Psychologists along with the backing of two associations representing the British School Psychologists. A total of 300 participants came to York, the largest group being British, many Americans, and 30 countries being represented. In my experience, the British are good conference hosts so most participants felt that social and cultural offers were fine and well arranged and that the professional program was interesting. Personally, I found the setting at the university campus excellent and the city of York was unique as an outer frame to the experience.

The colloquium was seen as valuable for the British and, certainly, for the development of ideas and thinking connected to school psychology in various parts of the world. A major contribution was Volume 3 of Cal's books about “Psychology in the Schools in International Perspective.” His second part of the “History of the Movement” such as 'factors affecting the development' and the' four levels of development' were core questions in several sessions during the colloquium. Not everyone agreed with his deliberations but they stimulated discussions and brought forward ideas for the future.

Finally to be mentioned a sad fact. Many months after the colloquium the British Local Organizing Committee (LOC) informed me that they were unable to refund the loan of $2000 given to them by ISPC to cover the initial basic costs for printing and mailing. The reason for this was never properly explained. We can only speculate that poor financial planning or some internal friction which surfaced after the colloquium might have been the cause. From that we tried to learn for the future, but not always have we been successful.

The 4th Colloquium, Jerusalem, Israel, June 29 to July 3, 1980

At the end of 1979, the planning of the colloquium in Israel was well on its way. Sweden seemed ready for 1981 and other countries were explored for years thereafter. Cal planned a Traveling Seminar bringing a large group from USA to Jerusalem. I tried to arrange a Scandinavian group to go but the interest was not there. I also had to inform Cal that I was unable to attend because of my own financial reasons. I was somewhat surprised that I did not receive the usual quantity of mail from Cal and especially startled that he never commented on the fact that I could not attend the colloquium. I sensed something was not as it should be. Phone calls then, for me, were an expensive luxury and only used when urgent. I felt now was the time to call him and I did so several times. No response. Now I felt somehow I ought to attend the colloquium and, luckily, with the help of the Ministry of Education and the Danish Association, I was able to find the basic $700 needed for travel and registration. I forwarded a note to Cal about this.

It was a fortunate circumstance that I was able to book my travel and register for the colloquium because it was on June 23, 1980 that Cal.s wife called to inform me that Cal was seriously ill with Meningitis. She asked me, on behalf of Cal, to take over his duties and responsibilities at the colloquium. Of course I said yes, not knowing what that implied before I arrived in Jerusalem. Uriel Last, the convener, was helpful by giving me a list of my main duties. Among these were:

• Give the Welcome Address to participants at the opening activity,
• Speak at the concluding session,
• Head a number of sessions during the colloquium, and
• Prepare a 'Thank You' at a reception at the home of a psychologist being The First Lady of Israel, Mrs. Ofira Navon, married to Yitzhak Navon, the country's President from 1978-83.

Those were busy days and evenings, trying to prepare myself to represent ISPC reasonably well. The colloquium was held under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with participation of three more universities and, of course, the Division of Educational and School Psychology of the Israel Psychological Association.

The theme of the colloquium was Psychology and Changing Education and the high quality professional program was very well organized. The social and cultural programs did not give many opportunities to meet colleagues partly because of the 500 participants, 450 were Israeli and were present mostly only during the professional sessions. The remaining 80 (60 from USA and 20 from other countries) were spread out in various hotels all over the city. Traveling to and from the colloquium site, Mount Scopus, was somewhat problematic, especially in the evenings.

Calvin Catterall serious ill. What now?

In Jerusalem I received a letter from Gretchen, Cal's wife, with more details. The meningitis was diagnosed in May but, even before that, family and friends noticed some signs indicating that Cal was not quite himself. Doctors were not optimistic and a full recovery, if ever, would take time. At the colloquium, one of Cal's duties was to head a meeting of the ISP Liaison Network but now it was my responsibility. The following eight people were present at the meeting on June 30th: Avner Ziv (from Israel and on the ISP Steering Committee), Peter Burzinsky (from USA and Co-Editor of the WGR), Ludwig Lowenstein (from England and Editor of the journal School Psychology International, SPI, which will be discussed later in detail), Jean-Claude Guillemard (from France who had already at the York colloquium involved himself in ISP activities and, I might add, has served ISPA on various important and demanding posts to the present day), Bob Germain, (from USA, liaison from Missouri), Michael Schnur (on the colloquium LOC and member of the Israel Psychological Association), Elizabeth Guillion (from USA who had the latest news from Gretchen Catterall). A person from South Africa was there also whom I had not previously met.

The meeting centered around the sad fact of Cal’s illness and our hopes for his recovery all of which led to a discussion of the future of ISP. In fact, we were now in a situation for which we had been criticized - loose structure of ISPC and what if something happened to Cal? Those weaknesses were now clearly manifested, however, the present forum of eight could not make any decisions. It was the duty of the whole Steering Committee. Fortunately, this little dedicated group of ISP people was willing to debate the situation, bring up suggestions for what was necessary to be done and how this could possibly be implemented. The following ideas came up during the meeting:

• Probably necessary to postpone the planned 1981 colloquium in Stockholm to 1982,
• Find ways to continue with 1) the International Network, 2) planning for future colloquia, 3) SPI Journal, and 4) World Go Round.
• Would Peter Burzinsky keep on with the WGR? If so, practical issues should be investigated. Are any articles ready? Is there money for printing and mailing?
• It would be necessary to find a person willing and capable to function, for some period of time, as the head of the Steering Committee.
• I was asked to take the lead in this process and accepted to approach the whole Steering Committee and inform widely within ISP about the present situation and return to this group with a status report by the end of August.
• I was back home from Jerusalem on July 5th and the next day I immediately began writing letters to inform the extensive ISP constituents of the situation.