About the Special Education that children need

It's never easy working with special education children but it is wonderful! That's the phrase I got from a teacher I talked with. I have never thought of how the teachers work with the special end program at school, until I went on a mission sending out a list of questionnaire to dive into their lives.

Over the week, I had interviewed two teachers at my school, of whom the first one is a special education teacher in the Bridge program, working with students who have learning disabilities that cannot fit into the mainstream classrooms. One child with seizure disorder, one with global developmental delay, one with serious ASD, one with multiple learning disorder (speech, autistic, physically active), four with IQ level 60-75. 

I enjoyed this interview and could relate so much to it as I currently teach three of these students and love them a lot. First of all, I am so glad to know the mission of this program is to nurture, share love and have compassion for the underprivileged people. Therefore the referral process is not a stringent one that needs to go through testing, doctor's report and interviews. As long as the students are intellectually disabled and are in need of an avenue to go to, our school will accept them. 

I am proud of the program as I find it very balanced in giving the students a holistic experience. It is built within the mainstream school; the students have their own learning classroom, where they work on the basic subjects, as they cannot join the mainstream classes. They will mainstream into specialist classes such as Music, PE, and Art to develop gross and fine motor skills, and also to develop social skills through interacting with the   ordinary students, and sometimes collaborating with them. The academic gap might be huge when these two groups of pupils get together but the social gap is certainly minimized. In addition these special students are not segregated from the community because they mingle in out with the people. On the other hand it is also educating the mainstream students to accept, care and love for their friends who are less privileged.  

It is very crucial to have a special education program running in the community, as under the special program, these students are given hope to live on. They learn repetition and routine, discipline, social skills and basic knowledge that they can grasp. They get trained to carry out task in their own capability and become independent. They are nurtured, loved and cared for; in return, they are able to share love with others in their own ways. We do not know what the future holds for these people, but we know the special education will at least give them the basic survival skills to face the world tomorrow.
 

I see a similar setting in A Day in the Life of special education teacher video, when I watched it for the first time; I was really impressed by how those special kids are being nurtured, and how patient their teachers are when they interact the kids. In a nutshell, the kids feel LOVE. However after I had my interview with the Bridge program at my school, I see that our teachers have also the same passion for our kids. There is also an additional positive criteria in the Bridge; whereby our kids are immerse in and assimilated into the community everyday. I am not sure if those kids in the video are only learning in a segregated building and have no interaction with the community. Do they get to mingle around with ordinary school kids in their school life?

As I finished my conversation with Mrs. Chan, the learning support teacher, I very much like the style she works with the struggling students. She collaborates with the class teacher to ensure that the students meet or achieve the expected learning level in class. She focuses on a personalized learning plan for the students but doesn’t always pull them out of the class for one to one directions ; she also practices “push in” so that these kids get to work with the high achieving kids occasionally. This is to boost the students’ confidence in learning together. She also forms a team to discuss the students progress. I see our school’s program is very much like the Finland’s school program where the needy children are given plentiful resources to improve their weaknesses.

Asked her about how she uses technology to assist the students in her program, she says computer is only one thread in a bow. Many of the students whom she works with are still lacking in self-discipline and organizational skills; at the initial stage in class, the computer can’t really give them the personalized feedback that they need. Sometimes they may read the questions but don’t get the meaning. At this point the computer cannot replace a teacher in giving support as they need a physical person beside them to help them process, stay on task and encourage them. The computer might be useful when they have progressed further with the teacher’s help and are working a little independently. Having said that, she does use computer program such as IXL and Aleks with her more independent students depending on their needs.

The learning support program is certainly in great demand for differentiated instruction and helping the struggling students to regain or develop their motivation in learning. Not only that, the high achievers will benefit from it too as the learning support teacher can work on a enrichment plan to challenge them or search for more advanced materials for their learning capability. But, due to the demand of the students in our school, there are more struggling than high achiever students that need help from the LS teachers. The high achievers can generally discipline and organize themselves to work on computer programs with limited guidance by the class teachers.  I was wondering if there would be more invented programs similar to the School of ONE in tomorrow’s learning world that would be used across the world. The HOT students are sure to benefit from the independent style of learning be in using the computer or forming a small group discussion. Ultimately, they would find it useful for their own learning support.  

No school can survive without a special need program because of the diverse learning experiences of the students. Some students work well with technology, some need personal guidance! The program is to enhance their learning capability to face the educational challenge and not becoming a drop-out from school.