Inclusive education (IE) must be covered at all levels
of education in order to provide all children regardless their abilities with
quality knowledge. Many authors (as cited in Anderson & Gumus, 2006; Kaplan &
Owings, 2001) underpin that quality teaching is a key element of
students’ performance, which means that appropriate teacher training is
essential. In order to achieve high results in providing knowledge, teachers
need to obtain high qualified pre-service training. Admitting this idea, it is
necessary to prepare general teachers of pre-, primary and secondary school to
be confident to work with children with special needs on equal basis as with typically
developed students (Cook, 2002).
As foreign studies on pre-service inclusive teacher training (Anderson & Gumus,
2006; Sharma, Forlin & Loreman, 2008) show, these trainings significantly change the
attitudes and sentiments of teachers for the better. Teachers reported that
pre-service training allowed them to understand that diverse class is a
normal situation (Anderson & Gumus, 2006).
Anderson (2006) also noticed that
before pre-service training, overwhelming majority of general teachers (98%)
admitted that they were scared to have in their class CWSN, because they are
not prepared for teaching them. However, training, which helped to increase
educators’ knowledge about differentiating CWSN and finding resources to work
with them, consequently improved their confidence about teaching these children
(Anderson & Gumus, 2006).
One more of the crucial parts of pre-service training for teachers in IE
is supposed to be an immediate contact with CWSN (Forlin, 2003), which is
supported my several studies (Anderson
& Gumus, 2006; Sharma et al 2008; Cook, 2002). Australian participants in Sharma’s (2008)
study, whose programme includes spending a considerable time working with
special needs students, demonstrated the highest score in comfort level of
teaching such children. On the contrary, Canadian pre-service teachers,
deprived from opportunity to interact with CWSN during their training, showed
no significant change in the comfort level (Sharma et al 2008). This idea is
supported by Cook et al (2002), who claimed that the most frequently noted
weaknesses of pre-service general teachers enrolled in IE training are steamed
from lack of teaching experience, which may be weak and inadequate (Cook et al,
2002).
In conclusion, teachers who gained pre-service training in the track of
IE are more confident and competent in working with CWSN, because they know
what kind of situations may happen and are ready to solve them. In order to enhance this process IE curriculum must be infused with
general education course (as cited in Cook, 2002). Ideally, this discipline has
to include not only theoretical knowledge but sufficient practice. If all teachers obtain such experience and consequently
have positive attitudes towards inclusion, there will be more children, who
study in diverse learning environment and socialize with each other, having
fruitful experience of communication and friendship.
References
Anderson, S. L., & Sakalli Gumus,
S. (2006). Preparing pre‐service secondary education majors
for inclusive classrooms in the USA. International
journal of inclusive education, 10(6),
529-546.
Cook, B. G. (2002). Inclusive
attitudes, strengths, and weaknesses of pre-service general educators enrolled
in a curriculum infusion teacher preparation program. Teacher Education and Special
Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for
Exceptional Children, 25(3),
262-277.
Sharma, U., Forlin, C., &
Loreman, T. (2008). Impact of training on pre‐service teachers' attitudes and
concerns about inclusive education and sentiments about persons with
disabilities. Disability &
Society, 23(7),
773-785.
Forlin, C. (2003). Preservice teacher
education: Involvement of students with intellectual disabilities. International Journal of Learning, 10, 317-326.
Kaplan, L. S., & Owings, W. A.
(2001). Teacher quality and student achievement: Recommendations for
principals. NASSP bulletin, 85(628), 64-73.
Dear Kate, you underpinned crucial issue in inclusive education. Thanks a lot. In order to make our society more inclusive and diverse we should start form education, not only by integrating children with special needs to the general classroom, but also teacher training should be considered thouroughly. Especially, pre- service teacher training. It is easier to introduce young teachers with fundamentals of inclusion and inclusive education during their bachelor degree, as a result new generation of teachers will come to the field more or less ready. At list they will have an idea what is inclusion. I think we get a lot if we make aware all teachers and educational stakeholders at list about the definition of inclusive education.
ReplyDeleteKate! I think you raised very interesting topic in the field of inclusive education! My thanks to you. The thing is that the government tries to support in-service teachers who are already working in the inclusive settings. However, that endorsement does not solve the crux of the problem. If by 2020 70% of mainstream schools are to be inclsuive ones, the issue of personnel should be tackled today. For that reason, Ieducating teachers for inclusive schools should be started at the pre-service level where they have to get to know the methods, strategies and other approaches to meet the needs of diverse children.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kate, for such interesting post. I would agree with you that pre-service teacher training is essential and would also help in promotion of inclusive education at least among key stakeholders. It will definitely improve the situation in IE implementation, if there will be well-trained specialists in that sphere. I just have a question to you. Taking into consideration the Soviet legacy and the presence of defectology in our country, is it possible to prepare both desectologists and teachers including to their curriculum IE subjects? Or it will be better to redirect training of defectoloigists into mainstream teaching or even close the defectology programms?
ReplyDelete