Disability_Issues_and_Inclusive_Strategies_in_Primary_School

INE2204 Disability Issues and Inclusive Strategies in Primary School Student’s names: Abigail Borg I.D. Card nos.: 485989(M) Course of study: Bachelors of Education (Honours) with Primary Education Academic year: Second year Year group: 2008-2012 What makes a school placement for a student effective' Make reference to your own experience and to literature. Choosing the right placement Often it seems that when we plan human services such as schools, we are literally obsessed and taken up by the only eccentric concern, that of grouping people together according to a particular standard amongst children, such as age. We are less likely to consider children who fail to achieve the very accurate aims we have set based solely on intellectual abilities. As a consequence to this, children are sent within another group and kept at arm’s length from other children and the entire community. This educational segregation is worthless as it is common that there will be children who seem not to fit in the allocation we have forced them to be part of, disregarding the fact that we as humans, all require different needs, regardless of who we are. Therefore, we need to make sure all the services’ facilities meet everybody’s needs long before we consider other highly irrelevant criterions. In other words, we should bear in mind that such services should be constructed to be accessible to the community at large. Most preferably the choice of the children’s placement should be decided by putting first the child’s and family’s strengths and weaknesses. An informed decision on such placement is of an extreme importance to parents, teachers, and other service providers such as supportive assistants as it is one of the indicators that will show if the child will succeed or not. Therefore, they are highly responsible for their children by making sure they are given the best early intervention programs. Why not inclusion' Effective inclusion is all about improving the educational system in a way where all the children are placed together in general classrooms despite of any other criteria such as family structure, race, impairments and cultural background. Inclusion is the meaning of the togetherness of various children, their family members and teachers to produce a school based on acceptance, belonging and community. Through the inclusion programs’ guidance, the teacher can provide opportunities, challenges and appropriate services designed for all the children in order to help every individual to achieve his or her best. Studies show that although teachers started accepting inclusion, they accept it as long as minimal accommodations are made. They have a list of concerns about the acceptance of inclusive education’s principles, some of them being; insufficient support, hard to meet the medical needs of the child, and in designing and preparing appropriate accommodations for the child just to mention a few. All of this evinces the major importance of an instant and a better starting point to work and collaborate with others towards a much more effective and inclusive education. What can be done to make schools really inclusive' ‘Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system.’ (UNESCO, 1994, p. viii) taken from Policy and Power in Inclusive Education Values into Practice by Jonathan Rix, Katy Simmons, Melanie Nind and Kieron Sheehy, p. 5 The Government’s and Community’s Involvement To strive to achieve the requirements UNESCO declared, lots of work need to be done. Some may view inclusive education as a luxury. It tends to discourage the governments to even consider giving extra funds to inclusive schools. In fact they believe that the lack of funds schools have, is limiting them from having a better inclusive system, an appropriate class size, and other building facilities that one may require, such as lifts, ramps, and lack of teaching aids and equipment which will help in making an even more accessible and safe environment for the children. This year’s teaching practice placement had almost all the requirements any child would need, from lifts to covered corners and banisters all through the corridors for children to hold on to, and accessible toilets for all. The government should work on providing schools more funds to improve the schools’ condition which is one of the factors that will enable excluded children to attend school and learn. The social services used to pay for the education and services of a boy I had in class who came from a poor family, and also made sure that he, like other children attended school and learnt. The school also made sure that the child was given enough food and healthcare to make learning more possible. Schools also need to make it of an extreme importance that teacher training is given to help them improve and adapt their professional practice to meet every child’s need. ‘Before the training, we didn’t know how to plan the work or how to respond to the individual needs of the child – or even that there was a different methodology. We didn’t understand about different levels of disability. We didn’t know where to start.’ (Teacher in Bayanhongor) http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/making-schools-inclusive.pdf Together with the collaboration of local campaigns, schools should come out with ways of promoting inclusive education by raising awareness of a good quality education for all starting from the little ones to lessen such discriminations which unfortunately I witnessed even amongst six year olds this year. The Parents’ Involvement Parents’ involvement towards a more effective inclusion is highly suggested too. Even though studies show that parents of children with or without disability find inclusion placements generally positive, they are advised to attend school meetings where they can address any concerns or suggestions for a better educational system for all, that of maintaining a more inclusive placement where those children without disabilities learn to be sensitive to children with disabilities whilst being able to see the strengths and potential in every child. Parents are also suggested to attend comprehensive planning meetings where they can communicate, and collaborate with the school’s staff members in helping them implement better teaching programs. Sometimes parents who have a child with disability can address the needs of children with disability much more than any other staff member can, therefore such parents can implement and share their ideas as regards teaching methods, a better use of manipulatives for a more efficient learning and on ongoing student assessment. Parents should also set regular meetings with the teacher and the supportive assistant to discuss the child’s progress and performance in class. Discuss the achieved goals, and others which they might continue working upon, any upcoming tests or tasks or any other learning strategies that the teacher and the supportive assistant are willing to try towards a more successful outcome. Since this particular boy I had in class was daily picked from class, his supportive assistant and I made sure to allocate some time to discuss the daily performance of the child, the mastered concepts and the ones where he will need an extra explanation which helped this child to keep up with the other children in class. Thus, one can easily point out, that the more the parents’ involvement for inclusive education is, the higher the children’s success will be. The Teachers’ Involvement To continue working upon having a really effective inclusion, we as teacher should work more towards the creation of learning environments which accommodate all the students as regards lessons’ differentiated instructions and providing positive learning environments where children learn through exercising socialization. We should also render the access and extra tuition to help them in the acquisition of the general topics in the education’s curriculum. The first thing a teacher has to do is plainly to learn about their children’s interest, social background, and talents to incorporate such skills in the classroom in diverse ways so that each and every child has an opportunity to show off their abilities. Having said so, the starting point to eliminate discrimination amongst children should start from the teachers themselves when describing children. One must do so in a positive manner in terms of their abilities rather than on their weaknesses. The children should also be concerned and allowed to think about the difference of ‘fairness’ and ‘sameness’. The teachers must help the children to comprehend these two different concepts by presenting it through the teaching of language and gestures that it is not fair to treat every child the same since every child has his own needs, therefore every child should be seen as a person with his own strengths and weakness. During this year’s teaching practice I felt the need of making children reflect about it since I had to differentiate my lessons according to a number of different learning abilities I had in class, and I must say that after I explained this issue with them, obviously in a much simpler way, they no longer asked me why some other students had a different task to do, so it did help somehow. One can also show children parts from films which promote inclusion such as Forrest Gump and Children of a Lesser God. One can be surprised how effective a movie can be on children. Teachers should be supported to look at children according to their own needs and make sure that the teacher’s lesson plans and the lesson’s deliver cater for all abilities from an inclusive and equal access’ point of view therefore establishing each and every child’s goal to be able to adapt teaching around the children’s different needs and where later s/he can report the mastered goals and the ones which are still to be improved of every single child. Something I made sure I exercise when in need is constructive feedback and positive reinforcement like ‘You seem to have worked really hard this time!’ or ‘Well done! You’re showing me you did pay attention to the homework’s explanation this time!’ as it will encourage them to do even better next time. Inclusion’s Acts and Programs Teacher should try hard to work collaboratively for their children’s interest and make sure their classroom is one the children fight to be in. There are several teaching programs which help teachers in making all this happen in their classroom. Such programs act as an aid of guidance, encouragement and support to the teachers to strive towards the children’s goals. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), as it clearly states, seeks to include all the children with a disability to provide them with various strategies and learning programs from which they can have access to the curriculum and be able to succeed. It also attempts to mandate schools to show their suitable yearly progress on their children and to make schools even more inclusive and accessible to all through accommodations which support learning and makes it effective. The Individualized Learning Program (IEP) is a program which enforces individualized planning in order to help and give more sense and effective learning to the topics in the curriculum to students with disabilities according to their needs, which can either be academic, social, behavioral, communication, and physical strengths and weaknesses. The IEP helped me a lot to address a particular child’s needs during my teaching practice (refer to Fig.1 found at the end of the assignment). It is a statement where the teacher or supportive assistant fills with the child’s details, the occurrent overall educational performance, and after having identified the boy’s strengths and weakness I had to take note of any other aims I intended to work on with the child. An important component which has to be filled is the Strategies column which states what learning modifications and strategies the teacher intends to do in order to help the child towards his written goal. The IEP provides the supporting service for teachers in order to help them out in achieving satisfactory learning outcomes from the education curriculum. ‘I wanted my child to have the same experiences as other kids and to learn to live in the real world with its joys and frustrations, and the inclusion program has allowed her to do that. She has learned to be more independent, which will be helpful for preparation for later life.’ (a parent’s view on the impact of inclusion programs on her child with disability) taken from Creating Inclusive Classrooms 6th Edition by Spencer J. Salend p. 38 Individualizing the Curriculum Once I set the goals on the IEP, I started working on modifying and individualizing the curriculum according to the boy’s needs. I collaborated with the supporting assistance to make sure all the boys grasp the topics which needed to be covered. Most of the time we needed to accommodate lesson plans and design alternative activities to meet everybody’s needs. With some of the students I needed to go on a slower pace with the instruction thus, I will make sure that the objectives of the lessons are being learnt. Since I had a boy diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder I needed to modify my lessons and include what interest him the most and adding more manipulatives to keep him as focused as possible. As regard this same boy I used to focus on fewer objectives and assign fewer but more effective homework for him. (Refer to Fig.2 and 3). This multilevel teaching accessed all the students’ need keeping the same curricular area but accommodating it to every child’s needs to exercise inclusion even more. Most of the families and peers who have a child with disability believe in inclusive education as they feel their children gained a whole lot. Many are those who admit that this provision of inclusive education provided opportunities from which their children learnt how to live and cope with the real world, experienced new friendships, and managed to obtain greater academic and social achievement. Therefore we should embrace ourselves towards a more inclusive education; an inclusion which talks ’…about understanding other cultures, other faiths, and people who are different from us, with the aim of achieving greater global understanding and tolerance, and obtaining peace for our conflict-plagued world.’ Education for peaceful, just, and equitable world, Editorial, Manila Bulleting Online http://www.everyoneisincluded.us/inclusionquotes09.html References Books: * Jupp, Kenn 1992 Everyone Belongs - Mainstream Education for Children with Severe Learning Difficulties 43 Great Russell Street London WC1B 3PA * Rix, Jonathan, Simmons, Katy, Nind, Melanie, & Sheehy, Kieron 2005 Policy and Power in Inclusive Education Values into Practice 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY * Salend, J., Spencer 2008 Sixth Edition: Creating Inclusive Classrooms – Effective and Reflective Practices Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey Electronic Book: * Pinnock, Helen & Lewis, Ingrid 2008 Making Schools Inclusive – How Change Can Happen – Save the Children’s Experience http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/making-schools-inclusive.pdf Electronic Referencing: * http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/846804F6D67F34F3CA257280007853DE/$File/autredu.pdf Cited on: Thursday, 13th May, 2010 * http://www.everyoneisincluded.us/inclusionquotes09.html Cited on: Wednesday 19th May, 2010