Dunlop, Florence (c. 1896–1963)

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Dunlop, Florence (c. 1896–1963)

Canadian teacher and pioneer in education for children with special needs. Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, around 1896; died in Ottawa in 1963; graduated from Ottawa Normal School, 1916; attended Queens University; Columbia University, M.A. and Ph.D., New York.

Florence Dunlop, one of Canada's educational pioneers, graduated from the Ottawa Normal School in 1916. She began her teaching career in a rural community in northern Ontario, where she was intrigued with the variations in learning abilities and personality types she encountered in the classroom. Upon returning to Ottawa, Dunlop continued teaching and enrolled in advanced studies at Queens University. She focused on children outside the norm and entered an exchange-teacher program that allowed her to teach and observe in London for a year. There, and in subsequent travels to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, she visited schools, talked to teachers, and studied programs for students with special needs. Returning to Ottawa in 1927, she was appointed supervisor of Special Education.

Dunlop painstakingly worked out a system for the early identification and treatment of both physically and psychologically challenged students within Ottawa's public-school system. "My aim," she said, "is to give every child the best education possible—regardless of his abilities or handicaps." Working with physicians and using her own talents as a psychologist, she developed a system of special education to meet the myriad needs of children in the community. In addition to special classes for children with physical difficulties, including deafness and blindness, she set up vocational schools for those who could not manage an academic program and organized a corps of visiting teachers for children confined by chronic illness. During the summers, she attended Columbia University's summer sessions, eventually earning both her M.S. and her Ph.D. She then stayed on at the university as a member of the summer-school faculty.

Dunlop also traveled widely, both to observe psychology clinics and special classes and to lecture on her own work in Ottawa. She was part of the group of prominent educators who organized the International Council for the Study of Exceptional Children. She also made a number of trips to the United States, where she advised the U.S. Office of Education in Washington and worked as a consultant in Maryland, Ohio, and California. In recognition of her work, President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited her to attend the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth. At the age of 65, hoping to share her knowledge with younger teachers, Dunlop accepted a post as professor of special education at San Francisco State College. Illness, however, forced her return to Ottawa in 1962, where she died a year later.