Learning Better Together is a long overdue report. Subtitled working towards inclusive education in NZ schools the report is a breath of fresh air in the so called ‘special’ education debate.
Making a strong case for including all children in our schools the report says “Inclusive education stands in contrast to ‘special’ education, where disabled children are educated in separate schools or classes, or treated very differently in the classroom to regular students.”
The report presents evidential research to show that disabled children will do better on many counts if they are included. This is not ‘mainstreaming’ or even ‘maindumping’ as I have heard it called, but it takes the next step.
Some people think that the increasing numbers of disabled students attending mainstream schools after the 1989 Education Act were the first disabled children in their local schools, but of course this isn’t true. Some of us were there more years ago than we care to think about, and we survived. We may not have been included in today’s sense, but I still think we are better off.
Of course some of us are barely literate or numerate but nonethe- less I would have hated to be sent away at five years old as were many of my contemporaries. I was sent away at thirteen, but that’s another story and another kind of institution!
When I worked in EEO a fair number of years ago I checked out all the disabled people I knew in Wellington who worked in the new improved public service. To a man and a woman they had all had the most significant part of their education in mainstream schools. I know it was a totally unscientific survey, but it supports the argument for good quality inclusive education.
I first came across Jude McArthur, who wrote the report, a few years ago when she presented her research with disabled children at an IHC education forum, I was so impressed that I asked her to speak to our Commission meeting. The voices of disabled children talking about their experience at school are telling. They show just how much work there is to do.
But of course true inclusive education is not just a slightly improved ‘special’ education. It is a whole new way of educating our children together in a learning environment which respects and values them all, and which enables them all to achieve.
If you have trouble with the link or want a hard copy or a copy of the accompanying DVD you can write to:
IHC Advocacy
PO box 4155
Wellington 6140
Kimi Ora wasn’t nearly as bad as one would think given all the bad rep about spec ed. It was the lack of science labs and teachers trained in maths & science that provided an overwhelming impetus for me to get out of spec ed. Socially, Kimi Ora provided me with heaps more leadership skills and treated me more as if they expected me be a responsible adult. At the mainstream Auckland college I attended, the staff were exceptional with me and many students, but I believe this was inspite of a couple of heads who still seemed to think they were running a kindy, borstal or something… man, it was wierd. … and so began my introduction into a part of nz i guess i had to understand… alas…
Thinking about it now, my family, therapists and myself fought so damn hard to get me out of Kimi Ora, and then when I came involved for a short while with disability politics, again, special schools were pooh-poohed to bits as terrible draconian places away from the ‘commooooniteeee’. But, now, I just don’t know. I think I became by far a more independent thinker and learner without all the sheep-herding peer pressure that just got up my nose at college. And it was quite hard to deal with a lot of people later that, I think influenced by disability politics in their own way, turn around on me and say, “ah, but you’ve been institutionalised, you don’t know the real world”. I found that really cruel and denigrating.
I have friends who had the opposite at Kimi Ora, and say it really was detrimental to their self-confidence. Others say it was the best years of their life. Funny thing is, I know a lot of this through keeping in touch with staff too.
I’ve the impression that there’s supposed to be solidarity amongst those who advocate for crips and all that, but I’m a bit worried for those who just want to get on with whatever makes sense for their academic success, to have to piss around under the umbrella of having “spec ed needs”, when spec ed is becoming known in the general media for kids with a whole slew of very complex needs, deserving nonetheless. I find it an insult to think I’ve been put anywhere just for social decoration. For others, I know just how vital the social stimulation can be.
I don’t know the brief, but I have teaching friends who believe that it’d be better if special teaching aides could be there to help with the whole class in it’s entirety, if integration really was the goal with kids who needed that much support. Hell. I saw heaps of able-bodied kids at college who could have benefited the techniques I gained through Kimi Ora. So, you know, baby/bathwater – I think I see reasons to ensure we don’t throw all of what’s been connected with the bad past away. I trust this has been said before, but I’ve reiterated.
actually, apologies, coz i now read you above and i think you and that report would full well be in agreement with those who just wanted to ‘get on with it’. I’ve just been scarred by spec educationalists who just had no clue at all that, plainly, i loved my formal education and tuition, and i wasnt at school for just some feelgood end. they would laugh away at how they had no time for science – boy, that gave me some faith, NOT! some were just a bunch of touchyfeely clowns.
PS. DON’T TRY to separate out all the different kinds of categories of people i’ve mentioned here, coz i’m dizzy with tryna sort it out myself!
Cheers, excuse the mess,
k
PPS that is, normal kids could have benefited FROM those techniques.
I’ve kept coming back today coz i just cant believe how shoddy my writing here is, which does not advance anything of what i started out to say…. merely commenting on crip stuff still makes me pretty jittery coz of past experiences.
Anyway, the kids who did mediocre at college, are probably like the spec educationalists who came out to kimi ora from the ministry occasionally…! everytime with some new fangled plan and plethora of buzzwords… so i hope that new report is the one to rattle a few chains in a fundamentally different way.