Wild Child

Genie was a girl who was raised completely isolated, that is why she was called the wild child. She was discovered by Los Angels authorities on November 4, 1970 when she was 13 years old. She was kept in her little room, where has nothing but a table, a potty chair and her little bed (according to Genie’s own word, she slept in the potty chair) by her parents ever since when she was born. Immediately after the discovery of her, her father killed himself.  When Genie was first discovered, she had the bunny walk, unresponsive to certain stimulus, and not vocalized. 
 The next day, she was sent to the children’s hospital in Los Angels, where scientists, psychologist, and doctors were thrilled to see her. Genie project started, the project’s main goal was to do research on the how nurture can effect a person, and how she will different from a person who have received full degreed of nurture, such as in behaviors. During the research, scientist had also tried to educate her, to teach her language, but, it seemed as if she could only master vocabulary but not the grammar.
 To do further research and form some personal relationship, Jean Butler became her first foster parent. She observed her in her daily life. At first, she would allow other team members to visit Genie, and do research or to help Genie gain communications skill (Genie also learned to use sign language). Later, Butler disallowed other team members from visiting Genie any more, whether it’s out of protective intension or personal interest, she did admitted that she think Genie is going to make her famous. Due to her over “protectiveness”, investigators believe the quality of care provided by Butler was not enough. Genie was taken to another foster home (scientist).
 She was passed from one foster home to another, she was given a chance to form a long term attachment. Genie project lost funding and scientist lost interest too.
 Another case of wild child happened centuries ago, this wild child is called Victor. Very similar to Genie, they are both uncivilized, have good ability of learning words but not able to form complete sentences, all had a foster parent who did research on them and believed that they will make them famous, they are also found lack of physical sensation in term of temperature. Story of Victor did not end well.
 The study done on Genie is called case study, in which one person is observed and studied to reveal some principles (nature vs. nurture). In both case of Victor and Genie, they are considered by some scientists to be born retarded, but I disagreed with that, because if born retarded, then there shouldn’t be any sign of progress in learning and intelligence, especially when being raised uncivilized. On the other part, Susan, an educator, whose responsibility in the Genie project is to teach Genie to speak. She found that genie had difficulties learning grammar, I believe that is due to her lack of first language. English is not my first language, so when I try to speak, I will unintentionally connect to my first language and then use it as a gate way to the appropriate English translation. So if my first language it to be taken away, then there will be a difficulty of understanding how the English work or how should the language be used. Although Genie was learning her very first vocal language, but to connect with the world, she might have had an unique mental language or something , that is just not matching up with our language, as one of the scientist had put it “ there is a limit of time to apply it ( the language ability).” Her lack of physical usage might have contributed to her bunny walks, just like the “hands” in Dr. Olive’s book. She also lacked of sensation of temperature might be caused by the lack of physical touch.
 Whether the research is ethical or not, I will say it is not ethical. When we do the research or experiments on animals, we justify it by saying that we are sacrificing animals to help mankind, but with the Genie’s case, can we be saying “we are sacrificing a human for the better of the mankind.”? of course no! That is unethical.