Day 15 of the #28daysofwriting challenge. Over halfway! This challenge has had its moments where writing has been tough but I have loved it and it is hard to believe we are heading down the other side. I think this is habit I will try and keep, maybe not everyday but definitely write more regularly.
Today I would like to write about Inclusive education. I am no expert but I am going to write about my experiences. When I first started teaching the school I was working had a student with very high needs. He was confined to a motorized wheelchair, had full time teacher aide and his learning difficulties meant he was working almost on his own most of the time. In my second year he was in my class and I had no idea what to.
Over the course of that year he taught me more than I ever taught him…
Reflecting back the best thing that I did was decide in my beginner teacher arrogance that I wasn’t going to let him learn on his own. This decision right from the get go made life very different for him, but in some really great ways.
Firstly he was in a reading group, with other students. In those days technology was rare in class and this student had access to a laptop and some other supportive learning aides. By adding him to a group, all of a sudden he became an integral part of the group. They got outside and using the technology and the support of the teacher aide the group would make recreation of story books based on the texts they were reading. Everyday you saw him excited to read and be part of his group.
The next activity that required some thought to make it accessible for him was an art exhibition. My class was studying artest like Ralph Hotere and Dick Frizzel, New Zealand artists who use text in their paintings. This was going to be challenging.. But again I learnt a little bit more about technology (this was back when I was a novice!) and found that he could use some software that had a lot of the paint techniques we were using. So he was able to create his own amazing creation. Then we were able to organise his work to get printed to canvas so it was the same as everyone else in the exhibition. This cost a little bit more but the look on his face when he saw his work up with everyone elses was priceless.
Then for P.E, which was one of the hardest areas to get him involved in, I had a brainwave! After seeing a unused manual wheelchair I decided to make up a game of wheelchair soccer. In this game all of the students were on two teams and they all had to sit on chairs placed across the netball court. They could only stretch out with their legs to get the ball. Then my student in his motorised wheelchair went up against another student in the manual wheelchair. We used a big ball and let the two wheelchairs tear around the court.
These are just a few things that I did to include this student. Honestly it never felt like enough but I tried my best. He taught me that looking at each student from their strengths is so important to their well being. He taught me that sometime the smallest gestures have the greatest impact. And he taught me that teaching is a job where you have to give a little to get a lot.
I hope you enjoyed this post. This was just a few examples and I ran out of time to talk about a lot of the ideas I wanted to cover. Please feel free to share how you have catered for students with special needs.
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