Principals, Teachers & Parents in Inclusive Education Flashcards
Reasons why parental empowerment is important (7)
- Children spend most of time at home with parents.
- Parents known children since birth.
- Important role in holistic development of children.
- Prevents learning barriers that can have a negative effect on learning
- Greatly contributes to development of learners.
- Creates a partnership between parents & teachers in that parents and teachers assist one another in making inclusive education a reality by implementing it.
- Inclusive education is most effective when parents use inclusive approach as soon as child is born.
A parent can be resource to the teacher. Discuss this statement giving examples. (5)
1 What parents notice and say about their children can help educators understand the exact nature of each learners’ barriers.
Can help in this process by:
2 Having formal or informal meetings with educators.
3 Making all records of learner profile available for when needed.
4 Monitor & report progress of learner at home.
5 Make themselves available & useful for all parent teacher meetings & one on one interviews with educators.
The principal is key to creating the inclusive environment at the school. Discuss this statement giving examples.
1 Must create inclusive ethos of school
2 Should have a general knowledge of concept inclusion – education for all
3 Shouldn’t make policies that promote marginalizing & exclusion – shouldn’t refuse admission to learners with barriers.
4 Must have inclusive admission policy
5 Must have his/her educators trained to know how to accommodate a wide range of diverse learners – must know how to teach learners with visual impairment & others.
6 Must have positive attitude towards learners with learning barriers
7 Must provide suitable resources & assistive devices for all learners who need them – braille for blind learners
8 Should be aware diverse learners’ needs – learners have different learning styles & need different devices.
9 Must be able to accommodate a wide range of learners’ needs
You are a teacher at a school where the principal and the staff have a negative attitude towards learners who experience barriers to learning.
How are you going to change their perception and attitudes towards
those learners?
Encourage the principal to get hold of important and relevant department of education documents such as the white paper 6 for him and his staff to read over to make them aware of how inclusive education came about and why it is so important that we implement it and that we can only properly and effectively implement it if we all work together as one supportive team.
Can only properly and effectively implement inclusive education if the principal and staff have a positive attitude towards the students.
They also need to involve all students in all activities regardless of diverse needs.
They should create a climate of acceptance and stand against discrimination.
They should be the role models for respect.
They should avoid labelling.
One of the reasons why the principal and staff might have a negative attitude towards learners with learning barriers could be because of the fact that they do not know how to deal with these barriers and find it daunting to deal with them. So encourage the principle and staff to form an Institutional-level support team where all members of the school can support one another in finding solutions in effectively dealing with these learning barriers.
The more inclusive the principal and staff can be with the students the more they will develop themselves as educators. Encourage the principal to organise for himself and his staff to be trained in how to properly and effectively implement inclusive education by teaching them the necessary knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. This will make dealing with learners with barriers a far less daunting task and change the principal and staffs’ attitude towards these learners to a more positive one.
Encourage school to work with other neighbouring full service schools and special schools in its district to help it develop as an inclusive school that rather than discriminates towards certain individual students because of their learning profile, accommodates all diverse needs of learners.
By getting the principal to involve the parents in the inclusive education process the parents can provide the staff and principal with a more holistic understanding of the children which can help the school to be more effective in finding solutions to the challenges that learning barriers create.
Make principal and staff aware of the fact that learners learning barriers are not only effected by internal factors within the learners but also external factors that the school environment, home environment and other environments create. If school doesn’t change their perception and attitude towards learners with barriers they will only worsen these barriers and new barriers will manifest which will make it increasingly difficult for these learners and other learners to learn as well as for the teachers to teach.
Remind the principal and staff of one of the most important values of the new democratic South Africa which is equality. Meaning in the world of education that as professional educators and citizens of South Africa we should allow equal access to the same education system for all learners regardless of their diverse needs and in doing so therefore allow them the same or similar job opportunities after school.
Encourage the principal and staff to allow teachers to make adaptations to the curriculum to better accommodate the diverse needs of the learners rather than follow an inflexible curriculum that will make it impossible for the educators to help all learners and inevitably cause learners with learning barriers to fall even further behind the rest of the students.
The teacher is key in creating the inclusive environment in the classroom. Discuss this statement giving examples (10)
1 Give learners group tasks & activities every once in a while, – open and closing windows.
2 Give opportunities for all learners to participate in discussions – they could talk about the subject that they are doing.
3 Never discriminate learners – treat everyone in class as equals
4 Nurture & educate all learners – learners regardless of gender, physical, intellectual, social, emotional characteristics among others should be nurtured & educated.
5 Be accommodative regardless of learners’ situation – give opportunities to all learners to participate in various activities.
6 Classroom organization is important in creating inclusive environment – make all learners feel included by giving enough space to learners with wheelchairs etc.
7 Include parents – keep parents up-to-date on children’s progress. Parents are part of child’s learning.
8 Be a confident teacher – be professional, set rules, follow plans & stick to them.
9 Have positive attitude – accept all learners, avoid labelling & acknowledge differences.
10 Give additional support for learners with barriers – all activities in class should give learners with barriers opportunities to meet goals that are set out for them.
Briefly discuss how inadequately and inappropriately trained education managers and educators can be a barrier to the implementation of
Inclusive Education
School management team can be barrier to inclusive education when:
1 Don’t know what inclusion is or how to accommodate all learners.
2 Create school policies that exclude or discriminate against learners with barriers or special needs.
3 Have negative attitude towards learners with barriers & their diverse needs.
4 Insensitive towards learners with barriers * their diverse needs.
5 Unable to respond to wide range of learner needs
6 Unable to support or improve situation of learners who experience language and cultural barriers
7 Don’t follow policies, don’t involve other experts or teams or parents & community & are not innovative.
If you were a teacher with a learner with learning difficulties in your class how would you address the challenge of learning barrier experienced by this learner? Give examples.
Teacher’s attitude towards learners with barriers
1 Success of learner depends largely on my attitude towards them.
2 A negative attitude towards learners with barriers will only distance them more from me and their learning.
3 My relationship with the learners can determine whether they progress or regress.
4 I will have a positive attitude of acceptance towards all learners even learners who have a negative attitude, who are more difficult to manage.
5 I will remain patient towards all learners including ones with learning barriers (behavioural problems, inactive, works slowly, hands in incomplete work).
6 By accepting the learners for who they are I will change learners’ perception and attitude towards education & me to be more positive & motivate the learners to participate & try to reach their full potential
Organisation of classroom & lesson
1 Important for dealing with learners with barriers
2 I will put learners who hold other learners back into separate groups to create a more positive & progressive environment
3 I will put competent learners & learners with barriers into spate groups to prevent labelling from happening causing learners with barriers to form a negative self-image.
4 I will ensure that restless & hyperactive learners do not sit near windows & doors to prevent them from easily getting distracted because of the noise & movement outside.
5 I will ensure that classroom does not have to many students or too much furniture, that walls are not too busy with decorations & that only the essentials are on desks.
6 I will also make myself aware of the timetable to ensure I give the appropriate activities at the appropriate time.
7 I will promote the idea that my students are competing with themselves not each other.
Planning assistance programmes
1 I will start an assistance programme meaning I will make changes to content and instruction methods to accommodate learners with barriers.
1.1 I will do this by getting information about children with barriers.
1.2 I will create expected outcomes
1.3 Select content
1.4 Choose assistance strategies
1.5 Decide on how to implement programme
1.6 Decide who I’m going to involve in programme & how
Discuss with the aid of examples how you would accommodate and support learners who experience low vision.
1 I would get teachers to consult with school-based support team to work out how we are all going to help children with low vision.
2 I would get school to consult relevant education department documents such as White Paper.
3 I would get school to ask for help from district on how to teach children with low vision.
4 I would ensure that teachers & school consult correctly & effectively with district.
5 I would ask for help from special schools.
6 I would make curriculum adaptations to accommodate children with low vision.
7 I would ensure that low vision children have easy access to buildings.
8 I would ensure that teachers are well trained & have relevant study material – course on how to read & understand Braille to help learners.
9 I would ensure that teachers form proper partnerships with other stakeholders such as social workers, nurses, local municipality and so on in order to help children
Curriculum adaptation has many advantages in a classroom. Discuss this concept
1 Learner centred approach
2 Based on pace of learner
3 Allows for flexibility or adjustment to suit learner
4 Accommodates diversity
5 Responsive to learners’ needs
6 Helps educators differentiate & accommodate different abilities of learners
7 In accordance with learners’ abilities
8 Allows for small chunks of work according to learners’ needs
Ways of involving parents (3)
- By getting them to monitor progress of learner at home & report to educators & school.
- By getting them to make themselves available & useful at parent/teacher meetings and one on one meetings with the educators
- By getting them to keep and share important records of children’s developmental history, health, home behaviour, emotional wellbeing & personality with the school.
